Future of Money – Futurists’ Twitter Chat Thursday 4:00-5:00 EST #apf #futrchat #futureofmoney

Posted on November 17, 2010 Written by 11,168 Comments

The Association of Professional Futurists (APF) is hosting its second twitter chat on Thursday, November 18, 2010 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EST. Use these hashtags: #apf #futrchat. 

Venessa Miemis  will join us as an invited guest  to share thoughts from  her recentSIBOS  keynote presentation and FOM research.

   

The Future of Money 

Beyond the currency arguments between nations, another more fundamental debate brews. You could say that it’s the difference between people who trust the traditional banking system and those that believe there’s a better way based on transparency, open data, and social bonds.   

Venessa Miemis ,Gabriel Shalom , and Jay Cousins developed a short film,“The Future of Money,”  for the recentSIBOS conference  in Amsterdam. In a series of interviews, Gen Y’s say why they feel distrust or a disconnection with the current system and what they see emerging in the social currency space.  

Updates 

On twitter, you can find tweets by searching for #futureofmoney. Here’s some recent posts pertaining to SIBOS.

  • Venessa believes that traditional financiers and Gen Y’s areliving in different worlds.   Her proposals and concerns: 
    1. Intelligent investing opportunities likeGroupon  local deals but for investing.
    2. Real-time data visualizations for money management likemint.com .
    3. Social network analysis for co-production opportunities that helps visualize network connections
    4. Local currency projects such asMetacurrency .com
  • Gabriel Shalom  comments on responses to the film andthe future of the FOM .
  • Chris Skinner , a financial expert and co-founder of Shaping Tomorrow website, attended Sibos and executive produced the video. He wroteblog responses  to Venessa’s ideas and added a number of other points.

And here’s a few developments since SIBOS.

Grapefruit_valueofadollar

What do you think?

I’m watching to see what people believe about money. We all use it and by necessity, we each manage it for ourselves and/or for businesses. Is there anything more emotional than the power of currency? And how do you define currency? Economic, social, environmental, political, cultural?

What is money? What does it do and what does it mean? Are you worried about the future of money? Or is it all roses ahead? What drivers could plague money, and cause drastic change? Are we at or nearing a turning point? Is there a significant, fundamental gap between financial experts and us, the regular people? If so, is the gap in communications, worldviews or something else? Is the distinction or gap useful or an “us against them” battle? Will it be useful in the future?

I wonder if we will see a range of ideas, conflicts of opinions, or will we agree quite readily on the future of money. What, do you believe, are the big issues for money by 2020? Or by 2030? Is it social/community, trust, transparency, or are other lumps or gems on the horizon?

Please Join Us – an open tweet chat

You are welcome to join the APF #futrchat and say what you believe will be the future of money. At our premier chat last month on the future of education, an intensive hour flew by and the results gave a snapshot of many varied perspectives and experiences, like a speed scan or survey.

As we did last month, Jennifer Jarratt will pitch provocative questions and I will cajole, contribute, coax, and retweet the saltiest items. You can do the same, add links (if they pertain and are not promotional ads), and teach, inform, persuade, thrill, or terrify us about the future of money.

What do you think will be the future of money?

Image: Organic Grapefruit onThe Value of a Dollar Project by Jonathan Blaustein

Filed Under: #futrchat Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Can Rest of the World Learn From Africa?

Posted on September 23, 2009 Written by 5,431 Comments

via greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com

Is there a future where harvesting energy is an integral component of activity and nature?

Ask yourself: why do we build massive grids, pipelines, power plants, and refineries? Why do we mine coal and drill for oil thousands of miles away when sun supplies energy right to our roof – or to a PV-surfaced backpack for that matter?

Can the first energy option be local and the second option be massive, centralized systems, instead of the other way around?

Granted, practical technology for storing solar or any renewable energies is just coming available. We can build better buildings and cities, learn new ways of living and working to manage energy use. It’s not only about solar, batteries, and diffused energy supplies. It’s a mindset.

Can we learn from Africa? Africa is burdened by poverty and low technology. Yet is lack of high technology and heavy ancient infrastructures actually making them smarter, more resourceful, and ultimately could they show us something new?

In 10, 20, 30 years, could they be growing food, making clothes, building cities regionally, and supplying products, services to other parts of the world? Based on simply changing their energy supply – actually an improvement over no electricity at all – could Africans build stable, sustainable nations?

Even in some small way, is there something that developed countries can learn about living sustainably from people who are freshly adding electricity to their daily habits? If we were just adding power to our lives and cities, what form would it take?

I admit, I am taken by the use of cell phones to buy well water. http://bit.ly/qBbKx. And now the possibilities of energy at the exact spot that you need it. It’s Just-In-Time resources, instead of Always-Running resources. That’s a far more sustainable model. While we can’t emulate it, our commitments to industry are far too great today, can we learn from it, at least at the residential, personal level (breakdown: http://bit.ly/2ky3tK)?

Could Africa pave the way towards a balanced planet?

It’s possible.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged: , , , , ,