http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog Eric Garland's blog of future trends, strategic intelligence, and leadership Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:01:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en With a hat tip to Where's My Jetpack, it seems that social media really would have sounded bizarre as a scenario: http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2009/01/05/the-dangers-of-overly-social-media/ The theme of 2009 and beyond is "Doing New Things." After all, it's not enough to describe which institutions (banking, media, governance, etc.) are breaking down - we've actually got to build new insitutions in their place. This is exciting - this is scary, too. While you're thinking about doing new ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2009/01/04/how-to-do-new-things-effectively-in-2009/ For those of you who were redirected here from www.competitivefutures.com, sit a spell, have a look around, and read to your heart's content. We're in the midst of creating a new website. Be back soon! http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2009/01/03/new-website-in-production/ Again, stop whatever elese you were doing, like reading things I wrote about 2009, and read Jim Kunstler's forecasts about 2009. The author of The Long Emergency is experiencing the unenviable task of seeing dire structural change ahead, change that won't be mollified by new gadgets, and being right about ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/31/2009-the-status-quo-versus-the-long-emergency/ Stop everything you are doing, click here, and read this fantastically thought-out article from Paul Graham on why the future of economies will no longer depend on giant, hulking organizations, but small, nimble startups - and why this is socially disruptive. Large organizations will start to do worse now, though, because ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/31/the-high-resolution-society-the-future-is-in-small-companies/ Last night, California said it was going out of business. I don't know if this means it's going to be sold back to the Aztecs or what. I suspect it will mean that the health care industry will be transformed since the states will not be able to foot the ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/23/the-top-ten-most-overvalued-real-estate-markets-most-of-them-in-california/ The most important part of thinking about the future is systems thinking. In our Future Intelligence method, the first part of every project or exercise is to map out the system of any business, activity, or market. Thinking about the beer market? Don't just stop at consumer tastes, think about ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/22/commercial-developers-headed-for-bankruptcy-naturally-asking-for-a-bailout/ I tend to avoid short-term predictions, but these days, six months really IS the mid-term future. So after the response to yesterday's pithy analysis of the coming year, here are our OFFICIAL PREDICTIONS FOR 2009. The future is now. No, seriously. Take it from a guy who talks about the future all ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/18/competitive-futures-official-predictions-for-2009/ Folks, we're in the forecasting business, so we get to have a bit of an early say on what will go down next year. Let's check back in June and see what really happened. What's Out 2008 / What's In 2009 Out: Authority / In: Community Out: $4 gasoline / In: $4 houses Out: ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/17/whats-out-2008-whats-in-2009/ Amazing news that General Electric will no longer provide quarterly earnings guidance. This is not just a decision by a public company to change its relationship to Wall Street, but a sign of a much bigger change in industry itself. It's not just that people are going to take the longer ... http://www.competitivefutures.com/blog/2008/12/17/earthquake-general-electric-quarterly-earnings/