The Metamorphoses of Cultures

I've moved on to another book called "the future ain't what it used to be - the 40 cultural trends transforming your job, your life, your world" by three folks who founded iconoculture: Vickie Abrahamson, Mary Meehan and Larry Samuel. Best amazon.com deal on a book that I've found in a long time - $1.00!  I will be looking at which of the 40 trends identified back in 1998 are still relevant today & writing about them. If you're interested, obviously, this would be a good one to check out of the library vs. buying it.

Vickie Abrahamson & Mary Meehan have since left iconoculture & co-founded a new custom consulting firm called Panoramix Global. Larry Samuel, Ph.D., moved on as well, founded Culture Planning (www.cultureplanning.com) and continues to write books related to cultural trends.

Within the 1st trend "Mind", I've already found things that are just as important to us now as they predicted 12 years ago:

1. "Need to acquire more and more intellectual capital"

2. "Shift toward self-education"

3. "Traditional forms of education and learning are being challenged..." This has been realized in more charter schools, homeschooling & flexible on-line learning options, not to mention ideas like the Personal MBA, creativeLive.com, free on-line access to MIT OpenCourseWare as well as the likes of Kindles, Nooks and iPads replacing college/university textbooks.

4. "Greater recognition of community service performed by students, which lays the seeds for a whole generation of civic-minded adults."

I'm already looking forward to reflecting on some of the other 39 cultural trends to see if their early track record improves or worsens. 21st century life is such a manifestation of the metamorphoses of different cultures. Who would have thought this time last year that I would now be so immersed in Twitter - following almost 400 people, with 300+ followers.  There are huge communities of people out in the twitter universe self-educating. These communities are searching for "more intellectual capital", as well as sharing their gifts of insight & knowledge with their followers. 

I am so grateful to have had the pleasure of connecting with so many great minds that I otherwise would never have crossed paths with. Can't wait to see what new opportunities for learning that life presents in the coming year.