Are You Ready for A Future of Crises? NYU Report Says No

A provocative new report from NYU argues that the vast bulk of US government agencies, non-governmental organizations and businesses are not ready to respond to a growing array and frequency of crises. The study, titled Predicting Organizational Response to Crisis: Perspectives and Practices toward a Pathway to Preparedness (holy alliteration Batman!), reports on a telephone survey of 468 organizational leaders conducted for NYU by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

Re-engineering the Internet

During a workshop at IFTF this week,  I offered a forecast  that there is at least a 50% probability of a fundamental re-engineering of the internet. Here's a bit of detail on this forecast and why I think this last week has been a critical turning point.

An Arab Proverb About Forecasting

Working my way through Kishore Mahbubani's recent book, "The New Asian Hemisphere", and came upon this great Arab proverb on the topic of forecasting:

He who speaks about the future lies, even when he tells the truth.

At IFTF, there is a broad understanding based on experience, that no one can predict the future. But we rarely say that no one should... perhaps we need to be as aggressive about that as these ancient sages.

McKinsey's Pitch for a More Compact Urban China

The McKinsey Global Institute has just published a major report outlining four potential scenarios for urbanization in China.

Green Acres, Now Including Penthouse View

Vertical farms finally make the move from cybergreen fantasy to the pages of the New York Times. The logic is seductive: urban towers, filled not with more offices and apartments, but with food crops.

3D Print-On-Demand

Whenever the topic of low-cost 3D fabrication comes up, one inevitable question (after "how expensive is a printer?") is "does anyone do print-on-demand fabbing?" 3D print-on-demand services have been around for awhile, but they're largely aimed at design pros with healthy bank accounts.

Melting Icecaps and Global Oceans

If the Greenland icecap sees an even-more-significant melt, how soon do you need to pack your bags and head for the high country?

New report on the U.S. innovation system

The Institute does quite a bit of work these days on the future of innovation and innovation systems. So I was interested to see a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Forum (ITIF) on the U.S. innovation system. (It also caught my eye because long ago I took a sociology of work class with one of the report's authors.) From the press release:

Exinction Risks Underestimated -- NATURE

A new article in Nature argues that current models for estimating extinction risks underestimate the impact of forces beyond birth-death ratio and environment. As a result, biologists may be missing potentially significant extinction threats.

From the Nature summary:

Courageous or Cheating? Prosthetics in Sports

The Boston Globe has a profile of MIT's Hugh Herr, a specialist in the development of prosthetic limbs. As is typical for current articles about prosthetics, sprint Oskar Pistorius makes an appearance. Herr makes an astute observation about the cultural tension regarding prosthetics and the potential for super-enabled disabled: