The Washington Post has a great piece today from Joel Garreau about how new brain scanners may replace the polygraph in showing when you are lying. Evidently, the 10 ton “functional magnetic resonance imaging” machine goes well beyond the flawed polygraph stress test to actually map our brains when we are lying.

A few years ago, there was a book by James Halperin entitled The Truth Machine. Absolutely top-shelf futurist fiction, this novel explores human society once a fool-proof, 100% accurate truth machine can fit into eye glasses, giving you a real time indicator of whether people are lying. Obviously, everything from romances to used-car sales changes dramatically. Based on Halperin’s detailed exploration of possible scenarios, this kind of technology could throw society for a loop.

Halperin is such a mensch, he’s got the book’s manuscript for FREE download.

In fact, while you’re at it, download a copy of his other masterpiece, The First Immortal. That book explores in exquisite detail the ramifications of law extension. For example, what happens to the banking system when people live forever?

We’re quite a few years from this kind of technology, but likely on the way to such abilities, we’ll have many, many challenges to encounter.

-Garland

Labels: Information technology, society

The Competitive Futures Book Tour Bus will be warming up in November before thoroughly marauding on both coasts.

Next up will be a workshop for my friends at the Association for Strategic Planning, a relatively new group of enthusiatic people all over America looking to advance the art of strategic discussions in boardrooms and communities all over.

My interactive presentation Thursday evening, November 9th in Washington DC will be entitled: Make Your Strategic Planning Ready for the Future.

Dinner is include in the price of admission on this one, so bring a healthy appetite and get ready to think about the future. I’ll be facilitating discussions will all the participants about tools they can use to think about the future.

Labels: Competitive Futures

Just an update on my appearances and whereabouts: I will be speaking at the Washington DC chapter of the Association of Career Professionals International on November 2, 2006 at 8:00 am.

My presentation will be called “The Careers of the Future: Uncertainty, Entrepreneurial Thinking, and New Forms of Work.”

With this esteemed group of career professionals, we’re going to cover:

• Aging populations – How the Baby Boom Retirement will cause a shortage of talent
• Credentialism — The graduate degree explosion, the depreciation of the Bachelor’s Degree and the “Free Agent Employee”
• Future trends in industry — The top trends that are creating the industries of tomorrow

If you happen to be hanging around the Suntrust Bank Building at 1445 New York Ave NW ,Washington DC early on Thursday November 2 — well, then stop by!

Labels: Competitive Futures

The Detroit News has a great piece on how Ford is using futurists to help with some of their recent business woes and plan for the markets of the future. They quote me about how this kind of thinking has a long, illustrious history, especially at Ford.

What was really fascinating about this article was talking with its author, Bryce Hoffman, about how Michigan will actually be a manufacturing center of the highest level of automotive technology for years to come — but unfortunately, this may leave some of the traditional factory workers out of the loop. Instead of employing hundreds of thousands, most of the world’s auto companies will do R&D out of Michigan, drawing on the state’s world-class knowledge base. Then, once the bugs are worked out of new technologies, the lower-value-added manufacturing will be farmed overseas, and Michigan will start again on the next cutting edge.

(Bryce, you’ve got all the makings of a great futurist yourself!)

As in South Dakota, this transition to a knowledge economy promises to be both fascinating and difficult.

-Garland

Labels: economic development, Futurists, Manufacturing

Dear futuristas, I have certainly been delinquent recently. As we prepare for the launch of Future Inc., there sure has been a lot of travel in recent months and massive, near-toxic volumes of coffee consumed. But that’s not an excuse not to keep everyone up to date!

I have been having fun in my crusade to bring the techniques of professional futurists to everyone. One of my favorite recent stops has been to the great state of South Dakota for their recent Innovation Expo. The event was produced by a group called the South Dakota Enterprise Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding the state’s economy one idea, one entrepreneur at a time. I knew it was going to be interesting, but I really didn’t realize how much fun it was going to be.

First off, consider the mission of the people at the Enterprise Institute. They are looking at the future of their state, and realize that their greatest export isn’t ethanol or beef or sugar beets — it’s bright, entrepreneurial young minds. They are shipping those young minds to Minneapolis and Chicago, New York City and St. Louis. Nothing wrong with those places, but somebody has to step up and lead the economies in the middle of the country.

What’s so refreshing about South Dakota’s approach is that they eschew the idea that the way to save the state is to import giant corporations, give them massive tax cuts, and hope that the trickle-down improves people’s fortunes. Instead, they see the people of South Dakota as the greatest resource — one small business at a time.

Now, here’s the surprising part: the small businesses they are growing aren’t just dry cleaners and gift shops — no way. How about artificial cornea for macular degeneration patients. Electronic medical records for urgent medical care. Software to assist eldercare facilities. Not to mention the state’s pioneering work in ethanol and wind energy. They want to be the “Saudi Arabia of Wind Power.” So the people in South Dakota aren’t just planning a bake sale to scrape up funds for the 21st Century.

This is a fascinating mission. As one of the state’s legislators said to me, “We’re not in the same fix as Michigan. They’ve got to tear down their industrial economy. We’re going straight from an agrarian economy to the knowledge economy.”

Overall, what’s so great about the progress in South Dakota is the positive energy of the place. You know, the place is flat, it’s cold, and it’s quite removed from the economic concentration of the coasts. But when you combine their optimism, industriousness, and interest in 21st Century management techniques, the future is quite bright in the Dakotas.

That, and the steak there is UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. I’m going back!

-Garland

Labels: economic development