About

Hi there! My name’s Eric, and I’m a writer, speaker, trend analyst, occasional TV talking head, bassist, linguist and freelance intellectual combatant who deals with the megatrends that affect society, economics and national security, with a special focus on what everyday people must do in a rapidly changing world. Basically, I write about the crazy changes facing individuals and institutions, hopefully with a lot of humor, insight and global perspective, though your mileage may vary.

My point of view is informed by my fifteen-year career consulting to executives at corporations and government agencies on what what to do about future trends. My clients were a variety of major organizations, ranging from Siemens, Energizer, Coca-Cola, and Cardinal Health, to the governments of France, South Dakota, Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Principality of Monaco, though I must have worked for more than a hundred over time. It is also informed by growing up in Vermont at my Dad’s farm store, trying not to freeze to death.

I write a lot. I am the author of two books that deal with future trends and how leaders understand them to make the decisions that affect the whole world. My two books (and counting) are Future Inc: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What’s NEXT (AMACOM, 2007), published in English, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian and Persian, and also How to Predict the Future…and WIN!!! (Wallingford Press, 2011) which used sarcastic humor to critique the relationship between futurists and corporate executives.

These days I am a freelance writer and speaker, contributing to a variety of online and print publications, and providing commentary on world events to broadcast networks such as Al Jazeera English, Russia Today, The History Channel, the BBC, and publications such as The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Quartz and others.

One of my great passions is in foreign languages and linguistics, with a particular obsession with minority and ancient languages. I speak English (OK I guess) French (good enough to be mistaken for Quebecois or French at the border) Spanish (good enough to sing backup in salsa bands, but with atrocious grammar otherwise) Italian (mostly cooking and cursing), Portuguese (I can sing Desafinado and that’s about it), Japanese (which I studied for ten years, and which comes back after the ninth beer) and increasing amounts of Dutch, which I just find cool.

My longest running career is as a professional musician with over 20 years experience playing music live and on record with artists ranging from salsa to celtic to jazz funk.

Want to work together? Feel free to contact me for speaking opportunities, to play bass in your band, or just to say hello.

In this blog I discuss:

  • Future trends
  • What to do about those future trends
  • Really interesting competitive situations between companies
  • 50,000-foot grand strategy
  • Geopolitics
  • The news cycle of the major media
  • Economic development
  • Intelligence methodologies
  • Culture
  • History
  • French Canadians (not too often)
  • Music (a bit more often)

WHAT I WILL NOT DO IN THIS BLOG:

  • Take things too seriously
  • Pretend there is only one answer
  • Pretend that I know that answer
  • Present the same old numbers as an indicator of what’s really happening
  • Discuss the Singularity
  • Update you on sports news