The Institute for the Future has listed 10 skills needed for the future workplace. Below are 3 that I like best – you can visit the site for more detail.

Longbroading
Seeing a much bigger picture; thinking in terms of higher level systems, bigger networks, longer cycles

Protovation
Fearless innovation in rapid, iterative cycles; the ability to lower the costs and increase the speed of failure

Influency
Knowing how to be persuasive and tell compelling stories in multiple social media spaces (each space requires a different persuasive strategy and technique)

Link: 10 Workplace Skills of the Future; the skills workers should strive to have and the skills workers should seek out and promote | The Institute For The Future

I think that the core threads through all of them are: collaboration, big picture thinking, iteration, fast failure, and communication/ storytelling. Although, the newly created names are a bit distracting, I agree with them  – especially when it comes to jobs that are “new product” and entrepreneurial type jobs.

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I want to introduce Shawn Lane. He is an old friend of mine and will has been creating a lot of posts concerning emerging technologies over the past month or so. You may have noticed a different author on most of the posts lately.

I recently added Shawn based on his background and skills. A few months ago I set out to to add another perspective to Tomorrow’s Trends and now have sucessfully done just that. Shawn brings additional interesting emerging technologies coverage as well as covering some interesting breaking-news around tech. So, welcome to Shawn – it is great having another voice on the blog. As far as his background: Shawn has many years of experience in IT, from networking to systems analysis. When Shawn is not staring at the computer screen, he enjoys reading books and hanging out with his two boys. I look forward to covering “what is new” and “what is next” with Shawn as this blog continues to grow and improve.

Here is an interesting video with a lot of futuristic concepts imbedded. It is very creative and also tells a story. Pretty cool.

Check out Shai Agassi’s talk concerning ideas on infrastructure and technology to enable mass adoption of electric cars…

Link: TED Blog: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars: Shai Agassi on TED.com

Check out this video of Google Voice Search:

Next Big Future took some key notes from McKinsey’s View of China’s Future Urbanization: Chinese Cities in 2025 and 2030.

Below are some interesting key facts concerning the urbanization of this giant country:

China is leading the global urbanization trend of developing countries and in 2025-2030 one in five of the global city dwellers will be in Chinese cities
* Based on current trends, China in 2025 will have 221 cities with more than one million people compared to Europe with 35. 25 of China’s cities will have more than 5 million people
* China’s cities in 2025 will generate about 95% of its GDP (versus 75% today)
* Of the 350 million people added to chinese cities by 2025 (about the population of the USA) 240 millinon will be migrants
* More concentrated higher density cities will have higher per capita GDP and require less infrastructure
* China has relaxed the Hokou system of household registration which restricted movement and migration within China

Link: Next Big Future: McKinsey’s View of China’s Future Urbanization: Chinese Cities in 2025 and 2030

Tesla Motors has unveiled the new Model S. It is a fully electric car and the price tag is $49,000. They’re planning to start production in late 2011. This car is beautiful. Tesla has an eye for awesome design.

The link to the Model S page is here.

You just can’t plan what a new, innovative platform will be used for. If you create a new platform, the power may be in the unplanned uses. With Twitter, Evan allowed users to shape the system. They never planned all the cool apps that would be built on top of Twitter, or how users would use Twitter. And, that is ok. That is actually great. It is organic and the users are more in control. Interestingly enough, the “@” sign, used to let users respond to each other was never planned. People just started doing it, and Twitter built upon that.

Check out the video…

If you are interested in social media you may want to attend Social Camp Memphis. The event will be held on Saturday, March 7 at the Memphis College of Art. (Don’t miss the Friday night, March 6 mixer.)

What is SocialCamp?

SocialCamp Memphis is an un-conference focusing on Social Media and Social Networking. Just imagine a conference where the morning is comprised of designated speakers/topics, and the afternoon is comprised of focused discussions and impromptu presentations that are decided on by the attendees.

So, this conference will be similar to the popular Memphis BarCamp – but with a focus on Social Media & Networking. You may remember me from BarCamp speaking on future trends. I hope to see you at SocialCamp as well. It should be another fun event.

So, mark your calendars for Saturday March the 7th. A special thanks goes out to LaunchMemphis and LunaWeb for their support and coordination of these conferences. They are key to the growing Memphis creative class and entrepreneurial community.

Check out these links:

Social Camp Memphis Blog

Registration

FaceBook Group