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October 26 · Issue #38 · View online
The best links and must-reads aggregated by Gerd Leonhard, Futurist & Humanist, Keynote Speaker, Author of 'Technology vs Humanity', Film-Maker, and CEO of The Futures Agency in ZĂźrich / Switzerland.
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Hi everyone, itâs been a while that you received my last update; I certainly hope you werenât bored without my firehose flooding your inboxđ! Wherever you are in the world let me first encourage you to hang in there, and to focus on survival, adaptation, collaboration and solidarity. Despite the current troubles I really believe that  the future is better than we think (and certainly a lot better than Hollywood or Netflix keep telling us). Finally, I am very excited to formally announce the public launch of my new, virtual Future-Ready Executive Program. After lots of testing and iteration, itâs already taking off with a growing number of my forward-thinking corporate clients looking to give their organisationâs leadership a competitive, sustainable advantage with timely industry insights and dynamic future-training to set their companies up for future success. And the feedback weâve been getting is great. So, if preparing your executives and top folks to succeed amidst a this utterly uncertain future is something your organisation would be interested in, Iâd love to chat more and see if it would be a good fit. More details here. âď¸ Below is my latest collection of must-reads; enjoy and please ping me anytime if you need something (but please be sure to change the reply-header when responding). Virtual hugs from Zurich, Switzerland Gerd Leonhard
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Get off the Corona Coaster as often as you can, and help others to do the same!
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Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking. Hereâs how we escape (Robert Fisher, MIT Technology Review)
Every so often, I ask my daughter about the future. When she was three, she had only a basic concept of time, with little awareness of clocks or calendars. She could understand The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a classic childrenâs book about a creature gorging on food over a week, but when she would tell theâŚ
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If we want more companies like Patagonia, we need laws to enforce it
If we want to get past âwoke capitalism,â this is what itâll take to get companies to an equitable relationship with both workers and society. Voluntary initiatives in the private sectorâthatâs been the nature of socially responsible business and investing for 30 years,â says Marjorie Kelly, executive vice president of the Democracy Collaborative, a nonprofit research institute focused on building a fairer economy. âWe are now at a pivot point where it needs to move into policy.â
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Capitalism After the Pandemic | Foreign Affairs
The COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to force bailed-out companies to act in the public interestâŚA better alternative (to a basic income concept) is a citizenâs dividend. Under this policy, the government takes a percentage of the wealth created with government investments, puts that money in a fund, and then shares the proceeds with the people. The idea is to directly reward citizens with a share of the wealth they have created⌠(by Mariana Mazzucato - be sure to read her recent NYT piece on the free corona vaccine, as well) |
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The biggest barrier to humane, ethical AI: Capitalism itself
For Timnit Gebru, the technical co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google, one challenge is that she has to work against the incentive structures inherent to capitalism. For publicly traded companies such as Google, constantly increasing profit is the highest good. âYou canât set up a system where the only incentive is to make more money and then just assume that people are going to magically be ethical,â she said.
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Silicon Valley Is Using Our Own Intelligence to Make Us Obsolete | Douglas Rushkoff | Team Human | via Medium
In the future envisioned by Wall Street and Silicon Valley alike, humans are just another externality. There are too many of us, asking for salaries and health care and meaningful work. Each victoryâŚ
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This Has Never Happened Before. By fellow Futurist David Houle | Medium
Something happened this year that has never happened before in history. Due to COVID-19, more than three billion people did the same thing at the same time. For the collective common good. That has never happened before. Yet, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan: âMost of the people drive down the freeway of life looking in the rearview mirror.â Also read âUtopia or Oblivionâ by David. |
My latest Forbes.com contribution: Learnings From The Corona-Crisis - And Some Key Foresights
The very word ânormalâ has become kind of useless, and the idea of âbusiness as usualâ is becoming laughable, as well. Instead, attempting to âpivotâ (switching horses in midstream) has become our new routine. Just ask AirBnB, Uber or Carnival Cruises, or any airline CEO, event organiser, restaurant owner or⌠a futurist!
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Ten lessons for a post-pandemic world: must-read new book by CNNâs Fareed Zakaria (my shared morsels)
âAmerica will always disappoint its most ardent detractorsâand admirers. Itâs a big, complicated place, and you can always find in it what you want. But the pandemic laid bare fissures that have been persistently wideningâŚ.These ills of government are an American, not a democratic, disease. Many other democracies handled this pandemic effectively, better than any dictatorship. That list includes countries run by political parties of all stripesâ
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Future of Humans: What does the future of happiness look like? | UBS Global
In the happiness chapter of our Future of Humans report, we explore the pursuit of happiness and its likely path in the decade aheadâŚ. A study from the University of Pennsylvania found that spending less time on social mediaâwhich about 88% of 18- to 29-year-olds use some form of, according to Pew Research Centerâcould decrease feelings of loneliness and depression.
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âMistakes are great, the more I make the smarter I getâ âYou never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â
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Here is my recent TedX Modena talk: Heaven or Hell â the future is our choice not our destiny!
Weâre at a fork in the history of humanity. The next ten years will make or break humanityâs future. It could be heaven or it could be hell. Where are we headed and what are the electric 3rd rails we need to avoidâŚ?
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New: Gerd.Live #3: thoughtful conversation with Jennifer Morgan, CEO of Greenpeace: climate change and with/post-covid futures
Iâm having a riveting conversation with Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, on topics such as the with/postcorona future, the end of oil and fossil fuels, the rise of women as global leaders, the shift towards sustainable capitalism and climate change action. More on Greenpeace: https://www.instagram.com/greenpeace/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/greeâŚ
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The Future of Futurists and Futurism: a really engaging conversation with fellow futurists Glen Hiemstra and Anton Musgrave
What happens when 3 senior (aged?) futurists get together and talk about their combined 75 years of experience, discuss how Covid-19 is changing their lives and their roles, and ponder what they see coming towards us in the next 5-10 years? Find out more in this new episode of Gerd.Live
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Best Of Gerd's Films (Highlight Reel). NEW
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NEW: Watch all my latest keynotes, uncut, full length
Via this brand-new site; email registration required
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Book a Virtual Advisory Session with me
I used to fly some 750.000 miles per year doing 100+ real-life keynotes and speaking engagements â and now I am delivering 99% of my talks virtually. For years, many of my clients have been asking me for one-on-one, virtual advisory sessions via video or phone, but Iâve never really had the technical setup â or indeed the time â to make it work. Now I am delighted to offer this new option on case-by-case basis, and given that pretty much everyone is getting used to âremote everythingâ it seems that finally my clients are also ready-to-go with their webcams, Zoom backgrounds and streaming studios, as well:) |
Debuting our new Future-Ready Executive Program
WANT TO FUTURIZE YOUR EXECUTIVE TEAM? While there is no such thing as âknowing the futureâ nothing is more important to the future success of your organisation than the future-readiness and foresight of your upper management, C-Level executives, and board members. Every captain needs a compass, especially in these uncertain timesâŚ
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Here is what my new virtual keynote / streaming studio looks like: a short video. Using: RodeHS2 headset, 2 Blackmagic Video Cameras, GoPro Hero 7Black, 2 Rode NT1 mics, 2 ATEM Mini/Pro Mixers, 2 iPads, 2 mac-books, 4 studio lights, manfrotto green screen, airpods, 1GB ethernet:) https://t.co/OEK5FXk4Xs
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Happiness in the digital age: Free PDF with the complete 9th chapter of my book âTechnology vs Humanityâ! https://t.co/0PQtJ6GPmH
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Here is a 5-minute excerpt from my recent
at Modena: 2030 could be heaven or hell - the Future is our choice. Covering topics such as sustainable (people planet purpose and prosperity) andâŚhttps://t.co/Yi7swL3yH2
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SMART HOUSE and the IoT - hilarious and so true
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ZĂźrich Switzerland www.futuristgerd.com
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