Towards the end of 2012 I was involved in a project at The Marketing Store that attempted to make some predictions about the future of retail. As part of that I created a “Timeline of the Future” containing trends and events that I frankly made up, leading up to 2039. The dev team created a nifty interactive version of it but I can’t find it anywhere.

Some of this stuff will definitely happen. Some of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I thought it might be worth preserving here just in case any of it comes true. If it does, I’m quite happy to do breakfast TV interviews as long as I don’t have to get up too early and I can wear my own cloak.

Feel free to suggest additions/amendments in the comments.

2010 to 2019
Huge space storm wreaks havoc

(06/2013 – 09/2013) Scientists believe … Read More »

[This article first appeared on the Guardian Media Network - March 2013]

We live inside networks

Human beings live inside networks. We always have and we always will. At a fundamental level these are genetic networks – we are physically connected to our parents and influenced by the biology we inherited. We lived inside extended social networks before we invented fire. At a broader scale, we live inside ecological networks or ecosystems – biological communities of interacting organisms and their physical environment: complex webs passing energy between decomposing matter, soil, plants, herbivores, primary and secondary predators and back again.

Humans are ecosystems in their own right. The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human is estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1.

Now we also live inside digital networks too. Networks of networks, even. The internet. Some of these … Read More »

You may have heard of “The Quantified Self“, also known as self-tracking, body data, life-hacking and a range of other phrases. It’s a movement focused on the acquisition of data about your daily life in order that, by reviewing or visualising that data, you observe patterns and correlations in your behaviour. These patterns theoretically yield insights about the way you live, permitting you to modify your behaviour accordingly.

I’ve been enjoying Ben Hammersley‘s book “64 things you need to know now for then: how to face the digital future without fear”. You can find it on Amazon here.

It nicely demystifies the sometimes complex ingredients of the emerging future and shows their connections. It’s all done in a very accessible style so you don’t need a degree in political science, economics or computer science (or anything for that matter) to start to appreciate how the future is being influenced by these memes.