A 40,000 foot view of some key global trends and topics.

1. The Global Basics

2. Global Trends via 2 Triangles
Information Exchange Rate
Knowledge Production Rate

3. Global Internet Rates
http://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

4. Global Population Projections

5. Economic Growth Slowing

6. U.S. Personal/Household Income

7. Tuition v. Income Gap Grows

8. Law School & (Un)Employment

9. Grad Students & Food Stamps

10. U.S. Workers &
Benefits

11. Poverty Level
Unrealistic

12. Lack of Job Security
In Wes Moss Starting from
Scratch "If you are putting up
with a boring job in exchange
for security, you are not as
secure as you think. That
security which is the main
reason most people go to
work for a large organization
is largely an illusion based on
the way things were done 50
years ago."

13. U.S. Media Corporations

14. Hyper-connected
"Thanks to cloud computing, robotics, 3G wireless connectivity, Skype,
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, the iPad, and cheap Internet-enabled
smartphones, the world has gone from connected to hyper-connected. This is
the single most important trend in the world today and why to get into the
middle class now, you have to study harder, work smarter and adapt quicker
than ever before.“ Thomas Friedman (August 13, 2011 New York Times)

15. Amount of Information
"Every two days we
create as much
information as we did
from the dawn of
civilization up until
2003 which amounts to
an estimated five
exabytes of data.“
former Google CEO Eric
Schmidt

16. The Democratization of Content
The Lexus and the Olive Branch, Thomas Friedman recalls an interview
where a TV executive sums up the "democratization of technology by
saying the printing made people readers, photocopying made people
publishers, television made people viewers, and digitization has now
made people broadcasters." The democratization of technology refers
to the affordability and ease by which almost anyone with an Internet
connection can now record music, publish a book or make a video.

17. The Rise of Self-Publishing
According to a May 2011 report traditional U.S. print title output
in 2010 increased 5% despite the growing interest in e-books.
Output of new titles/editions increased from 302,410 in 2009 to a
projected 316,480 in 2010. The non-traditional sector increased
169% from 1,033,065 in 2009 to an amazing 2,776,260 in 2010.

18. The Need for Connectivity
The Need for Connectivity - As Don
Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
noted in Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything:
"Technology is ushering us towards a
world where knowledge, power and
productive capability will be more
dispersed than ever before – a world
where value creation will be fast,
fluid, and persistently disruptive. A
world where only the connected will
survive. A power shift is underway
and a tough new rule is emerging:
harness the new collaboration or
perish."

19. Skills Gap
The Skills Gap - In his 2012 publication The Start-Up of You LinkedIn co-founder
and chairman, Reid Hoffman writes: "The gap is growing between those who
know the new career rules and have the new skills of a global economy, and
those who clutch to old ways of thinking and rely on commoditized skills. The
question is: which are you? Do you know how to develop a competitive
advantage to win the best jobs and opportunities? Can you adapt your career
plans as you change or as the people around you change? What are you doing
to maintain a diverse mix of professional relationships?"

20. The Anywhere Population
The 2012 Horizon
Report concluded that
technological
developments now
allow "information to
be anywhere and as a
result people expect to
be able to work, learn,
and study whenever
and wherever they
want to."

21. Being Average Is Over
As Thomas Friedman
wrote in a January 25,
2012 New York Times
editorial: "Being average
just won't earn you what
it used to. Everyone
needs to find their
unique value
contribution that makes
them stand out in
whatever is their field of
employment. Average is
over."

22. The Need to Develop Your
Abilities
Geoff Colvin echoed such
sentiment in Talent is
Overrated "Individuals are
under unprecedented
pressure to develop their
own abilities more highly
than ever before, apart
from anything their
employers may or may not
do to develop them."

23. The Need to Think Differently
In Revolutionary Wealth: How It Will
Be Created And How It Will Change
Our Lives authors Alvin and Heidi
Toffler coined the term "obsoledge" to
describe how today's "knowledge has
a limited shelf life...and...changes so
rapidly that more and more new
knowledge has to be learned both on
and off the job." The Tofflers also
noted that "whether they are aware of
it or not, companies, governments and
individuals today base more of their
daily decisions on obsoledge...than
ever before...To deal with today,
therefore, we need not only new
knowledge but new ways to think
about it."

24. Everyone Is A Professional
In its 2010 review of professionalism, researchers at the Center for
Professional Excellence (CPE) at York College of Pennsylvania continue to find
that students aren't making the grade as professionals in the workplace: a)In
2009, 37.3% of respondents felt that less than half of new graduates
exhibited professionalism in the workplace; b)In 2010 that number remained
unchanged at 38.2%; c)Nearly 25% of respondents said that professionalism
in young workers had decreased, while more than 15% of believed it had
increased.

25. The Need for Creativity
Lorin Anderson, who was a student of Benjamin Bloom, updated Bloom's
Taxonomy in 2000 and placed Creating at the top of the learning objectives
hierarchy as the most important skill for students to learn. Creative is defined
as "Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole;
reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating,
planning, or producing."

26. The Importance of Stories
Daniel Pink. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

27. No Such Thing As Overnight
Success
As Jason Fried and David Heinemeier
Hansson wrote on Rework "You know
those overnight success stories you've
heard about? It's not the whole story.
Dig deeper and you'll usually find
people who have busted their asses for
years to get into a position where
things could take off. Trade the dream
of overnight success for slow,
measured growth. It's hard, but you
have to be patient. You have to grind
it out. You have to do it for a long time
before the right people notice."

28. The Value of Failing
Tim Harford's Adapt: Why Success
Always Starts with Failure "The three
essential steps that make up the
recipe for successfully adapting are
a)try new things, in the expectation
that some will fail; b)to make failure
survivable, because it will be common
and c)to make sure that you know
when you've failed. To produce new
ideas we must overcome our tendency
to fall in step with those around us and
overcome those with a vested
interested in the status quo."

29. Get Uncomfortable

30. Big Picture Thinking /Perspective

31. The Need to Understand Our
Habits
In The Power of Habit: Why We Do
What We Do in Life and Business,
Charles Duhigg writes that "Habits
are powerful, but delicate. They can
emerge outside our consciousness, or
can be deliberately designed. They
shape our lives far more than we
realize." He goes on to state that
Duke University researchers
concluded that habits make up
approximately 40% of the actions in a
given day. In other words only 60% of
any given day is filled with decisions.

32. The Focusing Illusion
In his 2011 book Thinking, Fast
and Slow Daniel Kahneman of
"nothing in life is as important
as you think it is while you are
thinking about it." "Education
is an important determinant of
income — one of the most
important — but it is less
important than most people
think. When you focus on
education you neglect the
myriad of other factors that
determine income.”

33. Your View of Success