I have moved my blog to FuturistGerd.com - please take note!

Greetings MediaFuturist.com visitors, RSS subscribers and other friends and followers.

As you have probably noticed I have been expanding my activities into many other topics (i.e. apart from media and content) in the past couple of years. It now makes sense for me to de-emphasize my traditional MediaFuturist brand and broaden my presentation quite a bit, as well. Therefore, I am delighted to present my new site at  FuturistGerd.com. This site uses responsive webdesign and should look great on pretty much any mobile site, as well. My mobile app will continue to be available, as well, for now (both for iOS as well as for Android)

I will probably not be posting a lot more content at MediaFuturist.com, going forward, so please be sure to follow me at FuturistGerd.com, subscribe to my new RSS feed there, or sign-up for my blog's daily email updates.

FuturistGerd.com also has some new and pretty cool download pages; using Dropbox (even without sign-up) you can now download pretty much all of my free books, slideshows and essays. 

Give it a whirl and please let me know what you are thinking.

See you over there!

Please help me decide if my Futurist iOS / Android App should stay or not, take this quick poll

Dear Readers, I kindly request your help to make a decision on an unsolved issue. I launched my first app just about 2 years ago, using Mobile Roadie, here. Since then, I have gathered some 5653 users and almost a million page views (and widely varying reviews) but despite the somewhat basic stats that MobileRoadie offers I can't help wondering if there is someone on the other end, really:) - if this app is just something that sits on people's old iPhones and Android boxes and does not add much value I don't think I want to keep offering it.

And now that this new site is actually mobile-optimized, as well (and we are just about to give it another major mobile upgrade in the next few days, too), I really need to know if YOU i.e. my users, fans, followers, friends, visitors and business partners, actually want this app to stay alive. Therefore, this poll below. If you already have my app, please vote below; if not please download it, take a look, and then vote asap. THANKS very much.

LINK TO POLL

     

Quick notice: check out my new site at Futuristgerd.com

Futuristgerd.com is where I will be posting most of my updates, essays and stories in the future. Please be sure to subscribe to this RSS feed, as well. See you there!

Video: a conversation with fellow futurist Dr. James Canton, on Sustainability

Recorded last week, in Mill Valley, CA, this is Part 3 of a conversation between me and Futurist Dr. James Canton. This video is part of the new MeetingsOfTheMind.tv series (launching soon). Topics discussed include general sustainability trends and predictions, 'green future' opportunities, the future of capitalism and 'growth & profit economics', accountability and social innovation, renewable energy, Jeremy Rifkin's Intergrid, and much more.

Apologies for the low audio output, btw; if it's not good enough for you please try this audio-only version via Dropbox, or just listen to this one, below: 

Canton Leonhard Sustainability.mp3

 

Related videos:

• Trends for the next 5 years
• What does a Futurist actually do?

 

Data is the new Oil: 3 illustrations

Data is the new Oil: 3 illustrations - which one do you think is best? The theme was coined by Clive Humby at AMA 2006, but I use it a lot in my talks and presentations, see the links here

The b/w piece was done by Sedat Oezgen, the green & cloud piece is by Gerry Alpern, and the people/cloud background was licensed from sevensheaven.

The Future of Marketing: Total Reset (slideshow via Flickr)

Excerpts from a recent talk at SEMPL 14 in Portoroz. Enjoy!  Visit my slideshare page for more stuff.

 

New video: Digital Media Strategist Carlo Donzella and Futurist Gerd Leonhard talk about Smart Cities

 

This is the 3rd pilot for my new web-tv show called Meetings of the Mind (MotM), soon to be available at www.meetingsofthemind.tv). In this episode I talk to Carlo Donzella, in Rome / Italy see http://twitter.com/nerissimo 

As an advisor to the Lazio Region of Rome, Carlo has recently been involved in the Futouring.it project which has created 6 world-class digital media experiences for 6 world-heritage sites within the Lazio region. Carlo also teaches the "Brave New Media World" course at the Master in Development, Innovation and Change (MiDIC) of the University of Bologna (Italy) and at the PopAkademie of the University of Mannheim (Germany).

A reviewer for dozens of international projects, he has covered various executive and consulting roles with many public agencies and private enterprises.

We discuss Carlo's work in digital, smart cities, and ponder what the future may hold for cities that use social local mobile video and cloud applications to engage with their visitors, citizens and fans.  This is a wide-ranging discussion that covers a ton of stuff - hope you like it.  Audio track will go up on www.futuretalks.com soon, as well!

Audio-only (podcast)

 

MotM3 Carlo Donzella Gerd Leonhard Smart Cities

 

Wisdom of the day: "nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without a curse" (Sophocles)

Think about that in context with the total digitization of content:)

Some of my key themes for 2013 (picture gallery): Internet rights, digital content issues, privacy / publicy, data is the new oil, ecosystems and 'ego to eco', sustainable capitalism, pay-will vs paywall, freemium futures, human-machine scenarios...

What may happen in the next hundred years (John Elfreth Watkins amusing predictions from 100 years ago)

In 1900, an American civil engineer called John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000.... read more via the BBC. I just ran across this image of Watkins' predictions from 1900, and thought they would make a very good 2013 kick-off / happy new year post.

Some of my favs:

• Hot and cold air from spigots
• Ready-cooked meals will be bought
• Automobiles will be cheaper than horses
• Areal war-ships

Found via buzzfeed   How res download

New video: What makes us successful: Gerd Leonhard at TEDxCollegeBeauSoleil

Published on Dec 6, 2012, thanks to TedXBeausoleil:  "Gerd is a Futurist and the CEO of The Futures Agency, author of 5 books, former musician and a globe-trotting keynote speaker on the creative industries, media and communications, social technologies, as well as on energy, the environment and green business. Gerd is currently focussing on sustainable future scenarios and what has been called 'sustainable economics', including the idea of adapting Internet and networked-society principles to the world's urgent climate and environment issues. He is based in Basel / Switzerland; his new book 'From Ego to Eco' will be published in 2013"  

Download the slides here

 

New video: the future of the Internet, Data, Privacy and Information (Online Information Conference 2012 Keynote by Futurist Gerd Leonhard)

Just got this new video - it was a good talk, imho,  even if the camera angle is kind of odd... so check it out.  Thanks to Incisive Media for making this available; more details on the conference are available here 

My topic: "Everybody is talking about 'data is the new oil' aka big-data. SoLoMo (social local mobile) is the battle cry of the day. Human-machine interfaces are rapidly evolving and may quickly become commonplace (think Google Glasses, MSFT Kinect), artificial intelligence is the geek-phrase-of-the-day, and Kurzweil says the singularity is near/here. So how will our world really change in the next 5 years, i.e. the way we communicate, get information, create, buy and sell, travel, live and learn? What are the biggest threats and the hottest opportunities - not just in financial terms, but also in societal and human terms...?"    Here is the PDF with my slides.

A conversation with fellow Futurist Anton Musgrave (audio)

Anton Musgrave is a fellow futurist from South Africa and co-founder of Future World, and a great chap to talk to. This conversation is about what futurists do and what we don't do:)  Check it out.  

 

Anton Musgrave and Gerd Leonhard Futurists