David Houle's "The Shift Age"

LifeTwo contributor David Houle has just released his debut book, "The Shift Age"--his term for the period we are just entering as we leave the "information age." In the book, Houle explains the forces and dynamics that are reshaping our world. Houle believes that the fast pace of change that we have experienced with the onset of digital technologies will continue unabated. In fact we may one day soon look back at today and think of this as a relative simple time when mobile media players and GPS technologies were still considered somewhat new and novel. To put the acceleration in perspective, Houle notes:

"Modern man has spent 2,800 lifetimes in caves, 200 lifetimes tilling the land, 5 lifetimes with machiens, and only a single lifetime living in the Information Age."

His estimate for the next age (the "Shift Age") is less than 1/2 a lifetime. Looked at it another way, Houle observes that his grandparents grew up in "a world of steam engines, candlelight, and horse and buggy." Compare that to the world that we grew up and then that to the world in which our kids are growing up. The point of these examples is that like it or not (or more precisely whether we are prepared or not) we need to buckle up as things are going to be very different in our lifetime. "The Shift Age" is written for those curious what exactly these changes might be.

Houle further notes that as tools defined the Agricultural Age and machines and technology defined the Industrial Age and Information Age respectively, consciousness will define the Shift Age. The three biggest forces that will drive this new age are: 1) accelerating electronic connectedness; 2) the flow to global; and 3) the flow to the individual. The first two (the 7/24 lifestyle and globalization) are pretty easy to grasp. The third, flow to the individual, is the observation that gatekeepers are increasingly being moved out of our daily lives (i.e., "disintermediated"). The Internet is increasingly allowing individuals to book their own travel (even select their own seats) without travel agents and to pick what shows they want to watch and when they want to watch them (regardless of what the network schedulers think). These are just two examples of the empowerment of the individual and putting them increasingly in control of the how, what and when of their lives.

To get a taste of Houle's writing, you can access all of his LifeTwo articles here. "The Shift Age" is available from Amazon (linked below) and other retailers.

Amazon link: The Shift Age