Archive for the 'trends' Category
Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Edit: I seem to have pretty good at predicting things accurately here. I may end up updating the post. Stay tuned. Here are a few ideas about what the future could look like. I wouldn’t consider these holy writ; more like provocations to think about. A. Bitcoin becomes extremely popular, replaces gold as a stable […]
Posted in trends | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
There is so much happening, so fast, in the world of marketing that I would never have guessed as a “social media guy.” First, the rise of the growth hacker. This is a term familiar to basically all people who work at startups, but few outside of it, as of yet, yet it means that engineers […]
Posted in trends | 38 Comments »
Monday, August 26th, 2013
I’m totally fascinated by this imaginary article from the future on TechCrunch about Uber. It’s moments like these when you realize what cities will become in the future. Seriously. Driverless cars– no drivers will ever be able to compete with the lowering of prices that will occur when you make robots drive cars. The margins skyrocket, the […]
Posted in cities, trends | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Every little while, technology is democratized to a point where everyone is once again put on equal footing. It happened at the printing press. It happened with blogs. It happened with podcasting, and it happened with Twitter. It happens a little bit at a time, and as it does, I’m amazed by the average person’s […]
Posted in trends | 26 Comments »
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Update: Aaron Wall left an epic comment here which adds significantly to the discussion. Click here to see it (it’s #55). Pay attention. This will be on the test. I remember having a conversation with Chris, sitting in Café Méliès in Montreal one time, talking about business. We had an idea for a private forum. […]
Posted in business, community, experiments, social media, trends | 71 Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
A simple metaphor for an important phenomenon. I’ll explain. Cop bots are the enforcers. Google is an organizing algorithm but, more importantly, it’s also an exclusion robot. It says “you’re in,” and “you’re out.” It has to be very good at this, or it makes no money, and the robot gets shut down. Spammers are […]
Posted in culture, trends | 9 Comments »
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
I wonder: Is this the last time I’ll visit a bookstore? It’s about two weeks before the release of the iPad in Canada, and I’m at Indigo reading Do More Great Work (it’s crazy good btw). I saw it on Amazon and wanted it right away, so I picked it up here because I wanted […]
Posted in trends | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
So, as I asked yesterday, what happens if every object has a status message? You never again leave the oven on– it sends you a message when it’s on with nothing on/inside it. You never get up to go to the washroom in a restaurant and see the bathroom is occupied. Is the milk off […]
Posted in trends | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
I was discussing with someone last night about the uselessness of the basic university degree. I compared it to an arms race– when one group has a BA, the other needs the BA to compete with them in the job marketplace, but when both sides have them, they no longer provide any employment advantage whatsoever. […]
Posted in clear thinking, community, culture, trends | 29 Comments »
Monday, November 30th, 2009
In other words: Out of sight, out of mind. Ever wonder why Sally Struthers needs to show us little Ethiopian babies before we’ll give away a bit of dough to them? Easy; it’s because we don’t care– until it’s right in front of us. Would those Ethiopian babies need feeding if their plight was broadcast […]
Posted in trends | 13 Comments »