Future Books

When my father (Norman Macrae who deputy edited The Economist for most of last half century) and I wrote this book in 1984 , we wanted to say Goodbye to Orwell - and his Big Brother fears for the human race. We did this by visioning an internetting age which my father dubbed the 3rd - and greatest - transport revolution created by human beings. Our time scenarios have been out by a years or so as in any good future narrative, but the megatrend of the global internetting age is just about on track to enter the 3rd millennium. When we wrote the book in 1984, critics slammed us as the most optimistic futurists ever to go to print. If we were revising the book today, we'd have to raise the optimistic gear more than ever. The next decade will be make or break for seeding the promise of e-business and e-society. We believe this is the most imaginative time for being alive that human beings have had the luck - and indeed the responsibility to make happen. sincerely, chris macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk chief infomediary , brandknowledge.com

Norman Macrae worked at The Economist, spanning 5 decades as its most prolific editorial writer, during a period which saw the paper grow from 4th ranked British weekly to one-of-kind world leadership viewspaper.

In the late 1960s Macrae started writing annual surveys such as Discover Japan (for which 30 years later he received one of Japan's greatest honours - The Order of the Rising Sun).

The Annual Surveys increasingly blended future trends and human vision with economics in an unique way. Telecommuting was one of the words Macrae coined; like Drucker - a contemporary and intellectual frined - entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs , knowledge workers, multi-cultural fusions of competitive and collaborative innovation were early and regular heroes of Macrae's work. When Norman realised that computers would soon power the world's people to start internetworking, he wrote a book - published in 1984 in the UK (to celebrate bye bye to Orwell's Big Brother world) and in 1985 in USA - visioning the first 40 years of this "3rd great revolution" transporting human productivity and every kind of interpersonal connections.

Connectivity he opined would bring great progress economically and socialy, globally and particularly locally, as long as the world didn't let madmen blow it up. This would be quite a careless outcome but one which governments (both national and corporate) would be quite competent at managing (a word whose origin is to do with how people rule over horses) if they decided to cling to the last vestages of power and lack of transparency that the previously disconnected and mass mediated age had let them profit from.

Today, technology is posing that final examination of mankind (as Buckimister Fuller described it). Let's hope we transparently emerge from the other side, since I'd like my five year-old to enjoy the true benefits of what an internetworking century could achieve if we could all respect every human relationship we enter through real and virtual modes - recognising that those who are poorest need the most help and not to be taken advantage of by the most powerful and rich.

...

PS Other references for bookworms to the futurist school of global networking of the early eighties include Toffler and Naisbitt. Mathematically, Macrae completed his odyssey of researching the origins of the computer age - and the visions the founders hoped for it - when he wrote the biography of Johnny von Neumann as one of his first duties of retiring from The Economist.

Very well-written book, especially for it's genre: too many futurist books are written by scientists who get bogged down in technical details to worry about how the book will "flow" for the reader. O'Neill avoids this by breaking up the chapters into halves; the first half of each is devoted to a first-hand narrative given by a fictional visitor from an distant space colony to 2081's Earth. This helps to introduce the reader to the innovations predicted by presenting them through the eyes of someone experiencing the future Earth for the first time. The second half of each chapter O'Neill uses to explain how the changes shown in the first half are a logical extension of our present-day world. There is also an excellent introductory chapter which reviews the history of predictions of the future, and how well others have done. The tone of the book is consistently optimistic without getting dreamy-eyed, which makes it all the more remarkable for having being published during a period where futurism was largely dominated by Malthusian doomsayers. Indeed, "2081" could be seen as a testimony of faith in the future of mankind, and is a fine legacy for the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Top recommendation.

Dave Earley
Barbour, 2008
ISBN: 9781602602175
[...]
5 Stars
Scriptural truths concerning heaven...
Most people have some vision in their mind of what heaven is like. However, is that vision based on storybooks, myth, or scripture? If you want to know, what scripture says about heaven Dave Earley's new book, The 21 Most Amazing Truths about Heaven is the book for you. Dave Earley begins his book by proving through scripture that heaven really does exist. The chapter on family caught my interest. We will have the biggest family reunion ever. This brings me great comfort. I want to think that I will be reunited with those I love. I have a dear friend whose body is twisted with arthritis and cancer. How exciting to know that soon she will have a new body. She will walk without pain. I praise God for His promise of a new body. The 21 Most Amazing Truths about Heaven is beautifully written and offers much hope and good news. Dave Earley's style is conversational, simple, and easy to understand. I have only one criticism of this book. The print is too small. The size of this book is easy to carry but the size also makes it difficult to read. The 21 Most Amazing Truths about Heaven would make a great gift for someone you love.

As the author of futures book "Futures For Small Speculators" and a licensed trader it is important for me to stay abreast of all of the legalese that goes with my profession.

What is even more important is that I'm constantly knowledgeable about the rules and regulation surrounding this business so that I can deal with my clients in the highest ethical fashion.

This CDRom book does all that plus much more. I was impressed by it. The easy to use search directory makes it simple for any brokerage company or large investor to stay on top of it.

7 Strategies for generating ideas.: An article from: The Futurist
~ Robert B. Tucker

How do leading-edge organizations come up with new ideas? And how do they use those ideas to create new products, services, businesses, and solutions?

Well, according to researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, they apply one or more of the following deliberate idea generation methods:

- Invite everyone in the quest for new ideas;
- Involve customers in the process of generating ideas;
- Involve customers in new ways;
- Focus on the needs that customers don't express;
- Seek ideas from new customer groups;
- Involve suppliers in product innovation;
- Benchmark idea-creation methods;

The methods are outlined in this article, written by Robert Tucker, who wrote the classic 'Winning the Innovation Game', among other titles.

You can read this interesting article on his corporate website, InnovationResource.

Great book, with solid research and examples. Anybody remotely interested in Derivitaves should own a copy of this book.

Dr. Jenson nails it in this book. His "MAXIMIZER" principles, if applied to one's life will significantly improve it as well as the lives of those around them. In our men's group at church we have done a study of this fine book and have all benefited from it. It is a wonderful tool to use to improve your life and to give your life impact beyond just what you earn or achieve in your profession... Applying Ron's MAXIMIZER principles will help all to break through not just in their careers but also in their relationships and in their life. I highly recommend this book. Mike Wilson

If you had a hypothesis that the quality, usefulness, and, most importantly, ability to contribute to profitable trading, of trading-related books are inversely related to their price, this book would be strong evidence in your favour. At the risk of over-selling this book, it is simply outstanding. By all means spend a lot of money on some of the better known (better marketed?) trading-related books out there, but this book provides value far beyond its price tag.

Most books that purport to give instruction on trading techniques (trend assessment, entry and exit points, and so forth) usually include a section at the end on "money management", "risk management", or some such topic. This book turns that practice on its head; the first 51 pages, headed "Philosophy" are devoted to understanding how to become profitable, by finding the common ground among profitable traders, then explaining expectancy and how to use it to create a profitable trading approach. This section of the book alone is incredible and will change how you think about your trading.

Part two of the book (the next 100 pages) gives practical advice on applying the philosophy, with sections on defining the trend, price-patterns trading, using confluence to lower risk and increase the probability of a profitable trade, using micro-patterns, and so on.

Part three of the book applies the information in Parts 1 and 2 to real examples.

One thing I do not understand is why the author titled the book "...for Australian Stocks". The philosophy and the practical applications of the analysis are all relevant to any exchange-traded financial instrument. All of the examples are Australian stocks, so maybe thats why. On another note, I don't use all of his analytical techniques, there is enough in this book to pick and choose the techniques that suit. I believe that the philosophy as discussed in part 1 of the book, though, is non-negotiable and should be used by all traders.

The articles in this volume give a clear picture as to where the profession of social work is heading. From global social work to the issues facing social work higher education it lays out where we have been and where we might be headed. A great read and good resource for those in the field or studying to become a social worker. Kudos! :o)