Future

I recently talked about the oncoming internet developments that follow the internet of things, from the internet on demand (3D and 4D printing) to the internet of robots.  A colleague came up afterwards, and said I was daft to talk about robots.  It’s science fiction he claimed.  I disagreed as science fiction is rapidly becoming…

Having covered four ages of moneykind: Barter Coins Paper Chips What could possibly be the fifth? When we are just at the start of the Internet of Things (IoT), and are building an Internet of Value (ValueWeb), how can we imagine something beyond this next ten year cycle? Well we can and we must, as…

The Fourth Age of Man: the Network Age Part of the reason for talking about the history of money in depth this week is as a backdrop to what is happening today.  Money originated as a control mechanism for governments of Ancient Sumer to control farmers, based upon shared beliefs.  It was then structured during…

The Third Age: The Industrial Revolution The use of money as a means of value exchange, alongside barter, lasted for hundreds of years or, to be more exact, about 4,700 years.  During this time, beads, tokens, silver, gold and other commodities were used as money, as well as melted iron and other materials. Perhaps the…

The Second Age of Man: The Invention of Money I’ve blogged about money being invented for sex many times before but hey, it’s a good story, so I’m going to again. So man became civilized and dominant by being able to work in groups of hundreds.  This was unique to homo sapiens form of communication, as…

As you all know now, this week sees the release of my new book ValueWeb.  Yes, you can buy it from today on Amazon or any of the other services you use.  It’s released in UK from March 15, and USA from April 7 (this is due to publisher getting hard copies to distributors before it…

As David Cameron negotiates a new EU contract in Brussels today, the UK referendum on a Brexit takes place during the summer, with some saying as early as June 23rd.  There’s a YES campaign to stay in the Union and a NO campaign to get out., with the question being: ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a…

Few of us can forget the terrible attack on Paris in November.  When the Paris attacks took place at the end of last year, I was lucky enough to visit Paris a couple of days later for the annual CARTES conference event. Some firms had pulled out last minute for fear of further attacks, but…

So I just got back from Hong Kong having keynoted at the NextBank FF16 Fintech Finals conference which ran Monday and Tuesday, in partnership with StartmeupHK. A highlight of the week was a fireside chat with Elon Musk, who appeared before a sold out invitation-only audience which I felt lucky to be invited along to,…

I’ve been wondering how this year would start and so far the answer seems badly.  What with David Bowie’s death on the same day as I catch man-flu, could it get any worse?  Well yes.  I wake up to the headline: Sell everything ahead of stock market crash, say RBS economists.  NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!! Royal Bank of…