The Blog of Daniel A Burrus

We’re starting to see that any company’s competitive advantage is increasingly determined by the quality of the data they have and how they’re using that data to make real-time decisions. This applies to not only humans making the decisions, but also to how they’re allowing the machines they have in their enterprise to make decisions. In other words, they’re deciding what decisions they want the...  Read More

In every organization worldwide, there is an unspoken war between the young and the old. The younger workers look at the older ones and think, “They just don’t get it!” And the older workers look at the younger ones and think, “They just don’t get it!” Interestingly, they’re both right. In reality, the young and the old are the perfect complementary match. When what each group brings to the...  Read More

As technology continues to impact our lives, workers in today’s ever-changing labor market need to be prepared with skills to adapt and succeed in the workplace. The problem is, we live in an uncertain world, and because of the high levels of uncertainty we all face, people of all ages and career levels are finding it difficult to know what new skills to learn, what courses to take, and what...  Read More

Technology takes away jobs. But it also creates jobs. For example, Southern California Edison recently finished installing all their electronic meters. As a result, nearly all of the 972 electric meter readers they used to employ were either transferred or are now out of work due to advances in technology. Keep in mind that a senior meter reader can make $68,000 a year, so this is definitely an...  Read More

According to the Associated Press, 50% of the 7.5 million jobs that were lost in the United States during the recent great recession were mid-pay, middle class jobs—that is, jobs paying $37,000 to $68,000 a year. Of the 3.4 million jobs that have been generated since the great recession, only 2% are mid-pay, middle class jobs. Most are low pay. In other words, the middle class jobs did not come...  Read More

Want an easy way to reach your target buyers? Joining or forming an electronic community of interest may be just what you need. What is an electronic community of interest? It’s a hobby-type of environment where people share information, knowledge and insights about a single subject they are very interested in and often-passionate about.. For example, you may find an electronic community of...  Read More

Two types of online communities exist: communities of interest and communities of practice. A community of interest may be people who love dogs, sailboats, or even motorcycles. It’s often a hobby-type of environment where people share similar interests or passions. You can even get granular when it comes to communities of interest. For example, you can find hundreds of communities for...  Read More

Did you know that time travel was possible? It really is. For example, you can visit remote parts of the Amazon River and meet people who are living just as they did a thousand years ago. They still use blow guns and spears as their tools. If you ask them if they’ve heard about “the net,” they’ll show you their fishing net. If a thousand years is too far back, you can go to China or Amish towns...  Read More

Whenever there is a major change in platform, the leaders of the old platform are seldom the leaders of the new platform. For example, at one time, the only way you could use a computer was to use a mainframe. Then, as processing power, storage, and bandwidth increased, our primary computer became a desktop … and then a laptop … and now a smart phone and tablet. Of course, this does not mean the...  Read More

Social media is different than static media, in that social media is a two-way, dynamic communication that builds relationship and engagement. The key word here is “relationship.” All relationships that are positive are built on trust. So for all companies doing anything with social media (especially those that specialize in it, such as Facebook and Instagram, as well as many others whose bread...  Read More

It’s easy to predict that with the explosive growth of people buying smart phones and tablets, we’re going to see mobility have an increasing and profound impact on retail. Currently, the largest retail chains are starting to embrace the ecommerce/mobile shopping revolution and install their own in-store kiosks and allow customers to download their own shopping mobile apps. The problem is that...  Read More

When Apple launched their first iPhone in 2007, one of the comments from the CEO of Research in Motion (the company that created the Blackberry) was, “Why would anyone want to watch a video on a phone?” Obviously, he did not see the future. Failing to see the future, failing to understand the difference between hard trends (trends that will happen) and soft trends (trends that might happen), is...  Read More

Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Black Friday, was originally put together by e-commerce companies (think Amazon.com) in an attempt to give people an online buying day similar to Black Friday. It’s been successful each year since its inception. According to online retailers, it’s estimated that online holiday sales will top $43.4 billion this year. What’s interesting about Cyber Monday...  Read More

We recently learned that Sharp Electronics is projecting a $5.6 billion full-year loss. They warned that the company had material troubles and didn’t even know if it could survive. Panasonic, another classic name that we’ve all bought products from in the past, has a forecast of a $9.6 billion annual loss. This includes losses from products including solar panels, batteries and primarily their...  Read More

A number of articles have been published recently talking about Apple and their 25 percent decline in stock value. That’s certainly a significant drop, causing many people to predict this could mean the end of Apple’s high stock prices. According to many of the articles, Apple has seen their day, will no longer be a leader, is past their prime, and has stopped innovating. I say they’re all...  Read More

There is an amazing window of opportunity that has opened up that will help speed the development of the gamification of education and training. If you are not familiar with the term, gamification refers to using advanced simulations and skill-based learning systems that are self-diagnostic, interactive, game-like, and competitive, all focused on giving the user an immersive experience, thanks to...  Read More

Have you noticed that a lot of education—whether in a classroom setting or a corporate training environment—is quite boring? While the professors and trainers are smart and competent, they’re also often dull—especially when you have to listen to them talk for multiple hours a week. Fortunately, thanks to the Hard Trend of gamification, we now have an amazing way to entertain, engage, and cause...  Read More

3D printers, or additive manufacturing as it is also called, have gone beyond printing prototypes to printing final products ready for use such as jewelry, chairs, human jaw bones, and parts for jet engines to name just a few. 3D printers work by using lasers to deposit and fuse a thin layer upon layer of materials such as plastic or metals to create a solid object. Recently, Professor Lee...  Read More

What if you could deliver your product to your customer the moment it was manufactured? What if your customers could manufacture a replacement part whenever they need one? What if doctors could manufacture a body part, personalized for the individual patient, in the hospital at a moment’s notice? Thanks to 3D Printing, you can! I have been covering 3D Printing (also called Additive...  Read More

Demographics provide an excellent source of hard trends that can give us a powerful window into the future of any nation. If you look at Asia in general, it has an aging population that is unprecedented in human history. What might surprise you is that China is the centerpiece of this hard trend due to its sheer size. Currently, China has 8.5 million elderly and 180 million people over age 60....  Read More

Now that we have over a billion people on Facebook and millions of tweets being tweeted every day, it’s time to think about how you could add a social element to your existing products and/or services to engage with a much larger audience. For example, how about social books where you make the book both social and interactive? As the author is writing the book, he or she could post it on their...  Read More

A lot of companies have mobile strategies, but they’re often focused around smart phones and smart tablets. As such, they spend much time and money developing apps they can use within their enterprise. Realize, though, that mobility is far more than apps, and it’s far more than tablets and smart phones. Actually, mobility involves many technologies that are coming together, giving us anytime,...  Read More

The pace of technological change is accelerating rapidly. In the case of social media, it is rapidly becoming social multi media, meaning we have the addition of photos, graphics, animation, music, video, and more. Why is this happening? Because social media really isn’t about the word “media”; it’s about the word “social.” It’s about sharing. And as you know, we have lots of different ways...  Read More

Apple is known for keeping future versions of its products (especially the iPhone) a close secret. Is it possible to predict what the iPhone 6, 7, and 8 might be like? The fact is, using the science of Hard Trends, we know a lot about those future iPhone versions yet to be created and released. Think about it. Will the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 7 have a faster processor than the iPhone 5, 4, 3, 2,...  Read More

The retail drug store Walgreen’s has been working with a company called aisle411 to develop an in-store navigation system customers can use on their smart phones. Their mobile retail navigation app is currently being rolled out for smart phones in all 7,907 Walgreen’s Drugstores nationwide. By providing an in-store mapping platform, the app, which will work on all smart phones, will provide a...  Read More

Apple’s victory in the Samsung patent case sends a hidden but clear message to the business world: Innovating is far better than imitating. Many of the patents that were under question in the Apple case are familiar to consumers. For example, the pinch-to-zoom gesture, where you pinch the screen to make something smaller and move your fingers apart to make the image larger, is just one of many...  Read More

What if every chemical, as well as every chemical reaction, was put into software that could reveal new and unexpected pathways to process chemicals far faster and with less hazardous results? That’s exactly what was created by a team led by Bartosz Grzybowski. The software package they created is called Chematica, and it puts over 250 years worth of chemical knowledge into a software package...  Read More

Recently, Apple has agreed to spend $356 million to purchase a fingerprint-reading company called AuthenTec. Why would they do this? As we all know, our wallets are switching from being leather to being digital. And, they’re going to be more phone-based, meaning that in the future, your wallet is your phone. Does that mean that paper money will go away and we will be completely cashless? The...  Read More

In the past, business success was all about size: The large eat the small. Today, business success is all about speed: The fast eat the slow. But when change occurs, what do most organizations tend to do? They hunker down and protect the status quo. After all, it’s human nature to protect and defend. We don’t like change because change is disruptive to our way of doing things and it usually...  Read More

We’ve recently had two amazing technology birthdays. The iPhone is now five years old. Prior to its initial release, we did have the Blackberry, which many people thought was a smart phone. However, as soon as the iPhone was launched, we realized, “Wow, the Blackberry really isn’t a smart phone; it’s a dumb phone!” Of course, we now know that to be a smart phone you need a lot of things: You...  Read More