The Future of Education
Education is in flux. There is pressure to keep up with the accelerating changes in the wo...
Education is in flux. There is pressure to keep up with the accelerating changes in the wo...
For those of us who are Washington Nationals fans, 2019 was an extraordinary season. It ev...
“The public school system is designed to produce a workforce for an economy that will not ...
Sport entertainment environments, players, fans, and participation mechanisms are changing...
“The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those...
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot cha...
“What I hope to achieve with this protest is attention in the media, so that the media wil...
“The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to sh...
Anticipatory Democracy: The public’s active, conscious engagement in collectively shaping ...
Based on current data, we know our lives will be different in 2040. To prepare for the opp...
In May, Toffler Associates hosted an event called Pinot and Ponder, which brought together...
Nobody knows the future with certainty. We can, however, identify ongoing patterns of chan...
“One thing, however, is certain: the world needs your leadership. As divisions continue to...
Future Shock is the individual’s and organization’s struggle to adapt to and manage the ma...
“Out of this massive restructuring of power relationships, like the shifting and grinding ...
As we gear up for the July 4th holiday, celebrating 243 years of American independence and...
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that ...
Last month I had several heated conversations with my significant other over the abortion ...
Next year marks the 50th year anniversary of Future Shock. The upcoming milestone presente...
Our modern entertainment and pop culture have taken a distinctly, alarmingly dystopian spi...
Last summer, social media channels brought us stunning firsthand views of the violence, de...
A few years ago, I wrote a piece articulating what lessons consultants could take from bar...
Earlier this week, an article from Packaging Digest came across my news feed and immediate...
One of the Toffler Associates core values is to be a “curious life-long learner.” We live ...
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, o...
In this conversation Deb Westphal, Chairman of the Board for Toffler Associates, talks wit...
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the ...
The United States has long maintained a causal relationship between industrial capability ...
At the turn of the 21st century, businesses faced the frightening unknown of Y2K. The poss...
One day before #schoolstrike, the biggest day of global action focused on climate change, ...
Its that time of year again. Across thousands of (success-minded, forward-thinking) busine...
In 2014, Frank Kendall, then Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, T...
Nike’s Dream Crazier ad is sweeping its way across social media. Debuted during this week’...
Risks to operations. Market share. Profitability. Business leaders are surrounded by ris...
For more than four decades, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting has been a beacon for ...
I recently watched the new Netflix show, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. It features Marie an...
People close to me know that travel is my passion. It has been a priority for most of my l...
We hear a lot about “disruptive technology,” but what does that really mean? It is one thi...
“Time feels like it is accelerating.” In a December post in Rapport, Deb Westphal opted ...
Building off the momentum of our Disruption 2030 report where we explored the driving chan...
Do you get more reflective at year’s end? Even though time is fundamentally the continua...
On October 15-16, 2018 Toffler Associates hosted its 2018 Future Shock ForumSM in the beau...
“What's the problem we're trying to solve? What is the question that we're trying to ans...
The security and resilience of our critical infrastructure is a long-standing national and...
This week, we're introducing the first Toffler Associates video blog. Team members Masseh ...
I am so energized and full of hope! I’ve just returned from the beautiful city of Chicago ...
During the past few years, investors, business executives, and the public have become enam...
In a crowded conference hall of human resource professionals, the first address of the Nor...
“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the s...
The 2016 elections delivered a number of bombshells. The one top of mind for most American...
Revitalizing workforce agility is urgent; it is a priority that must be satisfied if bus...
“Be where the world is going.” – Beth Comstock I love this quote. Be where the world is ...
Before the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Industrial Revolution, the Constitutional ...
We are regularly asked about the biggest risks to critical infrastructure. Recent news h...
Smart city technologies include the internet of Things (IoT), hyper-connected citizens, an...
In an environment where physical and cyber risks are increasing, it is critical that secur...
If you’re like me, you marveled at Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch and safe return of the Falcon...
Once again, the Pentagon has reorganized.[1] Motivated by a concern about how emerging tec...
Throughout history, territorial and commercial tensions have been cause for battles. Looki...
The following recommendations were designed to provide DHS S&T with clear steps to increas...
Change is hard. We all know this. Leading through change is even harder. Read Simon Sinek,...
Being a bit of a technology geek, I always look forward to Mary Meeker’s annual update on ...
In his best-selling study of post-Cold War international relations, The Clash of Civilizat...
To ensure a successful transformation to a Market Intelligence 3.0 capability, it is imp...
A complex and vulnerable infrastructure ecosystem can be constrained by regulatory, fi...
On a wall in the Brighton Ski Lodge located outside of Salt Lake City, there is a tiny pl...
Purpose as the reason for action or existence has remained consistent over centuries. ...
I have been doing a lot of thinking about risk lately. As I engage with leaders at vario...
The operating environment continues to grow more volatile, ambiguous, complex, and uncer...
This year’s Boston Marathon left a lasting imprint on my heart. Maybe it’s because I’m c...
Strategy is overcomplicated. Government and commercial executives get so wrapped up in wor...
As the world becomes more connected and data-driven, notions of trust and privacy are ev...
The late 1960’s was a pivotal era of social activism. In 1966, Time Magazine named the “...
Earlier this month, my son and I met in Paris, France for a quick vacation. We had been ...
Hyperconnectivity has erased the limitations posed by geographic distance. The modern worl...
Over the past three years, the trust of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) has declined....
Current approaches to cybersecurity are not delivering strong results. Many organizations ...
Welcome to Rapport. As the name implies, this blog is a conversation. Once every month, we...
Take this short quiz. When you finish, consider this – if you knew the answers, when was t...
Toffler Associates recently conducted a study that surveyed global executives and found si...
As a whole, modern society is more multifaceted, divisive, connected, and vocal than ever ...
Welcome to Rapport a special blog series within Vanishing Point. As the name implies, this...
Our financial system is under tremendous pressure, putting global economies at the kind of...
The organizational structure that characterizes most modern government agencies and many c...
How often do we hear about an organization that is going through, coming out of, or planni...
Toffler Associates keeps an ever-present eye toward the future. An important step in the p...
Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, mixed reality (augmented and virtual reality), b...
Every day we wake up with headlines that describe the immense difficulties we face as a so...
Over the past couple of years, the focus of my work has been helping organizations wrestle...
“We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.” - Dr. Maya Angelou In gene...
Since the 2016 election, the news cycle offers up surprises on almost a daily basis. In si...
A slew of recent events has raised the question about the best ways for organizations to p...
Go back with me for a moment to the 15th Century. It’s the Age of Enlightenment, a time ma...
The Future of Work is a buzz phrase. If you want proof, Google search it – you’ll get appr...
May you live in interesting times. There’s a legendary saying of (questionable) decent. ...
If we take the news at face value, Big Data is our great modern panacea. But as we’ve lear...
Desynchronization is caused by variances in the pace of change. It creates friction betwee...
Technology will transform how we connect, learn, share and innovate in the future, having ...
More people and vulnerable infrastructure exposed to more frequent and intense hazards equ...
In his 1954 publication, The Functions of the Executive, retired telephone executive Chest...
“You’re only as secure as your weakest link.” Caitlin Durkovich, Infrastructure Security E...
As the global risk environment becomes more unpredictable, the hospitality industry faces ...
Organizations can no longer rest on segmentation in an era of widely accessible individu...
Conventional wisdom called Millennials a kind of Peter Pan generation that would be unchan...
Ask most endurance athletes about their food fuel of choice, and you're sure to get a vari...
As industries become increasingly disintermediated, social media chatter shapes trends and...
Over the course of the past few months, we’ve given blog space to an increasingly pervasiv...
Organizations must not only understand and decide how to best address their workforce he...
In 1950, Alan Turing published an article in MIND entitled Computing Machinery and Intelli...
Toffler Associates interviewed hundreds of subject matter experts to develop a perspective...
With increasing volume and velocity, smart city technologies and autonomous vehicles are r...
Global demographics are shifting, and the global population is aging. Longer life spans wi...
Innovation and business transformation have reached radical speed. Market forces, financia...
Future business success will rely on the ability to use personal data to customize the exp...
Every day, powerful new technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, automation,...
The nature of work is changing, and this is more than just virtualization. Who we are, how...
“Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.” ~ Alvin Toffler Technology has crea...
There is a dramatic shift in the global robotics marketplace. The commonplace use of indus...
As Alvin Toffler predicted, the rate of change has continually increased in the Third Wave...
I recently took advantage of an opportunity to participate in a two-week bartending class....
A brief history of the iconic toy manufacturer LEGO offers a clear argument that the tradi...
Let me paint a scenario of contradictions. Most of us know that the leading cause of death...
Telephones came into existence in the late 19th Century. Along with the innovation came th...
Like organizations and the innovations they produce, the workforce has undergone significa...
“If you don’t understand people, you don’t understand business.” - Simon Sinek _________...
Big Teaming is “intense collaboration between professions and industries, which requires l...
America is at a security nexus. Critical infrastructure is deteriorating, private informat...
There is no one “right” way to innovate. There are different reasons to do it, different w...
In almost every industry and sector, AI is opening up new possibilities and forcing us to ...
At the intersection between the state lines for Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, the Tri-Sta...
Leaders continue to experience conflict between preparing for future opportunities and mee...
Consider Wikipedia, Kickstarter, 99 Designs. All are crowdsourcing platforms. All create v...
January is a time for resolutions. For many people (and businesses) the first weeks of any...
In 1995, Alvin Toffler wrote about creating a new civilization.[1] In his aptly titled boo...
In Plato’s Meno, the character Socrates raises the question of why knowledge is more valua...
America moved from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age in the mid-19th Century. At that...
I’ve just returned from Future Shock Forum 2016. I’m exhausted but completely energized an...
During Toffler Associates training courses, we (like many other organizations) use a simpl...
GoPro has been called “a victim of its own brilliance.” [1] In 2002, the company entered t...
I work with an organization whose executives struggle daily to advance a mission, achieve ...
“Blockchain Technology is a disruptive platform designed to facilitate the exchange of val...
In March 2016, my wife and I welcomed our first child. Needless to say, it was a big chang...
The global field continues to grow more fluid and overloaded with information. Despite hav...
The future is exciting. For any organization to grasp its potential and their role in ma...
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. – Ludwig van Beethoven ____...
Standardized educational models in the United States have always reflected our current soc...
Terms like globalized, interconnected, and hyper-empowered are so trumpeted across the inf...
Are humans the next critical infrastructure sector? Currently, humanity is being augment...
We are all doing business together in the Knowledge Age. We have the ability and the drive...
The 1973 story “Flash Crowd” describes an event in a future world in which an argument in ...
Hyperconnectivity, the broadening and strengthening network that is rapidly encompassing e...
Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication. ~ Leonardo da Vinci While it may seem c...
The Third Wave, which ushered in an era of realities like global hyper-connectivity, disin...
Most discussions of strong leaders read like a Who’s Who of our time – Franklin Delano Roo...
The biosphere is the sum of all the ecosystems. It is alternatively fragile and incredibly...
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve n...
Pretty much everywhere you read, look, or listen, stories of advancement are met with reas...
The scale of innovation has thrust us into an era when ‘change or die’ is more than a plat...
Alvin Toffler, the namesake and founder of Toffler Associates passed away on June 27, 2016...
In the first installment of this two-part series on the evolution and benefits of horizon...
Markets and people are more interconnected, global competition is more intense, demographi...
We’ve been in a state of rapid change for decades. Much of what had been innovative is now...
The world is rapidly changing, and the threats to business and government are changing wit...
For centuries, military leaders have used wargaming as a way to anticipate adversary actio...
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but th...
“Knowledge, in short, is now the central resource of destructivity, just as it is the cen...
A set of three ‘Deep Fundamentals’ is creating new and deepening convergences across the g...
Within their walls, most organizations house the talent, offerings, and resources capable ...
Today, the pace at which organizations can gather, process, protect, and disseminate data ...
On April 5, 2016, Steve Case introduced his book, The Third Wave. The title is a nod to ou...
There is little doubt that we will continue to see a future that employs automated machine...
We live in an unprecedented time. Around the world, the Internet of Things (IoT) is growin...
Innovation as a Path to Disruption Proverb, five centuries old: “Necessity is the mother o...
The recent news that the 2013 compromise of the Bowman Avenue Dam is being blamed on the I...
Conversations around infrastructure protection remain largely contained to the historicall...
Innovation is what the New York Times would call a Double Duty word – it’s a noun and a ve...
Collaboration fosters innovation. Innovation drives a Future Proof® organization that can ...
Communities, governments, business leaders and educators across the globe have turned atte...
We live in a hyper-connected, data rich, knowledge ecosystem in which technology is as lik...
The ever-increasing interdependence between technology, people, and rapid globalization me...
On August 9, 1965, Singapore became an independent and sovereign democratic nation. Since ...
The turn of the year has us all doing a performance analysis. As a leader, how and where d...
Vital businesses are in a state of continual reinvention and flux. In fact, remaining Futu...
At the nexus between an old and a new year, it makes sense to take stock of which approach...
It’s simply human nature to presume that the change in our midst is more significant and r...
More than ever before, 2015 was a year when online, mobile, and offline channels merged an...
Embracing a knowledge economy has ignited a transformation of the organizational model. So...
The words a company uses to describe itself are critical elements of its culture. Terms li...
China has the world’s largest population (1.37 billion) and in 2014, the country surpassed...
The Third Wave has been characterized by the shape, presence and role of technology. It is...
In 2014, global M&A deal volume experienced a massive rebound. The total number of reporte...
In 2014, US venture capitalists invested $48.3 billion in 4,356 deals – a 61% increase in ...
It seems we’ve conquered the barriers of time and space. We have just about perfected th...
Every day in the U.S., approximately 10,000 Baby Boomers leave the workforce. While there’...
Design thinking is everywhere. Academia, industry, and the public sector are all heralding...
A demographic and psychographic shift has occurred, and it’s bigger than categorization or...
Desynchronization [n] The relation that exists when things occur at unrelated times. As ...
I recently spoke with the CEO of a large, multi-layered global organization. After six dec...
Over a remarkably short period of time, we have evolved from understanding how to manage t...
On March 22, 1946, the first American-built rocket was launched out of the Earth’s atmosph...
We live with risk every day, and we work very hard to stay safe. We lock our doors, shred ...
Lately, we’ve been working to understand the implications of two seemingly disparate advan...
Google is at it again. Earlier this month, CEO Larry Page announced that Google is reorg...
We are all consumers. We buy stuff, and lots of it. Think about the last time you made a l...
If you’ve attended a seminar on leadership lately, it’s likely that you’ve run into quotes...
Innovate or die. Disrupt or be disrupted. It’s that simple. Neither innovation nor disru...
Let’s do a quick exercise – when did your industry last experience major disruption? How a...
A vanishing point is defined as “the point where your eye should view an image for the cor...
