Today is the last day of 2012, so it is only fitting to end the year looking forward to the future!

While I have been accused of being a historian, I consider myself a bit of a futurist. Since 2006, I have been blogging about the future of technology, including Cloud, Big Data, and the explosion of information. As a consultant for the IBM Executive Briefing Center, I present to clients IBM's future plans, strategies, and product roadmaps.

(Fellow blogger Mark Twomey on his Storagezilla blog has a humorous post titled [Stuff your Predictions], expressing his disdain for articles this time of year that predict what the next 12 months will bring. Don't worry, this is not one of those posts!)

What exactly is a futurist? Biologists study biology. Techologists study technology. But a person can't simply time-travel to the future, read the newspaper, make observations, take notes, and then go back in time to share his findings.

Here seem to be the key differences between Historians vs. Futurists:

Historians	Futurists
There is only one past.	There are many possible futures.
Only six percent of humanity are alive today, so historians must study history through the writings, tools, and remains of those that have passed on.	Futurists study the past and the present, looking for patterns and trends.
Search for insight.	Search for foresight.
Framework to explain what happened and why.	Framework to express what is possible, probable, and perhaps even preferable.

A common framework for both is the concept of the various "Ages" that humanity has been through:

Stone Age

Around 200,000 years ago, in the middle of what archaeologists refer to as the [Paleolithic Era], man walked upright and used tools made of stone to hunt and gather food. Humans were nomadic and travelled in tribes to follow the herds of animals as they migrated season to season. The History Channel had a great eight-hour series called [Mankind: The Story of All of Us] that started here, and worked all the way up to modern times.

Agricultural Age

About 10,000 years ago, humans got tired of chasing after their meals, and settled down, growing their food instead. Grains like wheat, rice, and corn became staples of most diets around the world. Civilization evolved, and people traded what they grew or made in exchange for items they needed or wanted.

Industrial Age

About 300 years ago, humans developed machines to help do things, and even to help build other machines. While farmers harnessed oxen to plow fields, and horses to speed up travel and communication, these were all based on muscle power.

Machines like the steam engine were powered by coal, petroleum, or natural gas. Today, one gallon of gasoline can do the work of 600 man-hours of human muscle power, or [move a ton of freight 400 miles].

Cities grew up with skyscrapers of steel, connected by trains, planes and automobiles. Communications with the telegraph, telephone, radio and television replaced sending message on horseback.

The forces that drove humanity to the Industrial age clashed with the culture and identity established during the Agricultural age. I highly recommend futurist Thomas Friedman's book [The Lexus and the Olive Tree] that covers these conflicts.

One of my favorite TV series was Connections, where historian [James Burke] pieced together a series of events that led to another, connecting things from the past to modern day. His latest book Circles : Fifty Roundtrips Through History, Technology, Science, Culture] looks to be an interesting read.

Information Age

When exactly did the Information age begin? Did it start with Guttenberg's muscle-powered [Printing Press] in the year 1450, or the first punched card in 1725?

Futurist [Alvin Toffler] published his book The Third Wave in 1980. He coined the phrase "Third Wave" to describe the transition from the Industrial age to the Information age.

While IBM mainframes were processing information in the 1950's, many people associate the Information Age with the IBM Personal Computer (1981) or the World Wide Web (1991). Over 100 years ago, IBM started out in the Industrial age, with business machines like meat scales and cheese slicers. IBM led the charge into the Information Age, and continues that leadership today.

In any case, value went from atoms to bits. Computers and mobile devices transfer bits of data, information and ideas, from nearly anyplace on the planet to another, in seconds.

Ideas and content are now king, rather than land, buildings, machines and raw materials of the Industrial age. In 1975, less than 20 percent of a business assets were intangible. By 2005, over 80 percent is.

I recommend two books on this: Chris Anderson's book [The Big Tail], and Clay Shirky's series on the [Cognitive Surplus].

While the Industrial age was dominated by left-brain thinking, the Information Age requires the creativity of right-brain thinking. I highly recommend Daniel Pink's book, [A Whole New Mind] that covers this in detail.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed!" -- William Gibson (1993)

The problem with looking back through history as a series of "Ages" is that they really didn't start and end on specific days. The Agricultural age didn't end on a particular Sunday evening, with the Industrial age starting up the following Monday morning.

• There are still people on the planet today in the Stone age. On my last visit to Kenya, I met a nomadic tribe that still lives this way. Huts were temporarily constructed from sticks and mud, and abandoned when it was time to move on.
  
  A short-sighted charity built a one-room school house for them, hoping to convince the tribe that staying in one place for education was more important than hunting and gathering food in a nomadic lifestyle. Some stayed and starved.
  
  
• There are still people on the planet today in the Agricultural age. Until this century, there were [fewer people living in cities and towns than rural areas].
  
  In the United States, about 2 percent of Americans grow food for the rest of us, with enough left over to make ethanol and give food aid to other countries.
  
  Sadly, the Standard American Diet continues to be foods mostly processed from wheat, rice and corn, even though our human genetic make-up has not yet evolved from a "Paleolithic" mix of [meats, nuts and berries].
  
  
• There are still people on the planet today in the Industrial age. American schools are still geared to teach children for Industrial age jobs, but still take "summer vacation" to work in the fields of the Agricultural age? Seth Godin's book [Stop Stealing Dreams] is a great read on what we should do about this.
  
  Even though we have been in the Information age for several decades now, not everyone is there yet. In my lifetime, the human population has doubled to 7 billion, but [only 2.4 billion are connected to the Internet in 2012].

Every company that wants to stay in business needs to make some predictions about the future. IBM has made bold predictions that led to the [Globally Integrated Enterprise] and building a [smarter planet]. IBM's latest "Five in Five" (five predictions of things that will impact us over the next five years) explains how [Computers will enhance our five senses of touch, taste, sight, hearing and even smell]!

As a member of [Generation X], I have seen the Information age from its early beginnings, and am excited for what lies ahead in the next three decades! Happy New Year, everyone!

technorati tags: IBM, historian, futurist, The Paleo diet, Information age, smarter planet, Globally integrated enterprise, Personal computer, The Long Tail, Cognitive Surplus, James Burke, Alvin Toffler, Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, Daniel Pink, Generation X

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