Synopses & Reviews
andlt;Bandgt;A renowned futurist offers a vision of a reinvented world.andlt;/Bandgt; andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Large corporations, big governments, and other centralized organizations have long determined and dominated the way we work, access healthcare, get an education, feed ourselves, and generally go about our lives. The economist Ronald Coase, in his famous 1937 paper and#8220;The Nature of the Firm,and#8221; provided an economic explanation for this: Organizations lowered transaction costs, making the provision of goods and services cheap, efficient, and reliable. Today, this organizational advantage is rapidly disappearing. The Internet is lowering transaction costsand#8212;costs of connection, coordination, and tradeand#8212;and pointing to a future that increasingly favors distributed sources and social solutions to some of our most immediate needs and our most intractable problems. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;As Silicon Valley thought-leader Marina Gorbis, head of the Institute for the Future, portrays, a thriving new relationship-driven or socialstructed economy is emerging in which individuals are harnessing the powers of new technologies to join together and provide an array of products and services. Examples of this changing economy range from BioCurious, a members-run and free-to-use bio lab, to the peer-to-peer lending platform Lending Club, to the remarkable Khan Academy, a free online-teaching service. These engaged and innovative pioneers are filling gaps and doing the seemingly impossible by reinventing business, education, medicine, banking, government, and even scientific research. Based on extensive research into current trends, she travels to a socialstructed future and depicts an exciting vision of tomorrow.
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"There's no better futurist to learn from today than Marina Gorbis, who taps her vast social network of innovators and researchers for the biggest, most disruptive ideas that are changing how we work, solve problems and create value today.
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and#8220;Challengingand#8230; well worth reading and considering.and#8221;
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"Marina Gorbis is the only futurist I know capable of explaining and connecting phenomena such as alternative currency, deliberative democracy, bio-citizenry, and socialstructs - all in a language that even a CEO can understand. This is the context that companies and organizations of all kinds need to thrive in the emerging social landscape."
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"Marina Gorbis's book andlt;iandgt;The Nature of the Futureandlt;/iandgt; reminds me of one of my favorite Einstein quotes. "You can't solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew." This book outlines the new ways to rethink the social structures of the world. Every participant in this global reality needs to read this book."
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"This is a thought-provoking, excellent book for a wide range of library patrons." < b=""> Mary Whaley <>
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"We can now begin to see that the most important long term effect of computers and the Internet are the ways these tools enable people to do things together in entirely new ways. Large and small groups all over the world are using collaborative, digitally mediated methods of "socialstructing" to amplify and reinvent money, scientific discovery, governance, education. Marina Gorbis' experience as Executive Director of Institute for the Future positions her perfectly to foresee and forecast the emerging social economies that are already changing the way people get things done together. You'll learn a lot from this book. More importantly, you'll gain a powerful new lens for seeing what is really going on around us."
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"Marina has just published a compelling, provocative, and grounded book about how technology is enabling individuals to connect with one another to follow their passions and get stuff done, outside of large corporations, governments, and the other institutions that typically rule our lives. Marina calls it "socialstructing." I call it making the future better than the present."
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andlt;divandgt;"There's no better futurist to learn from today than Marina Gorbis, who taps her vast social network of innovators and researchers for the biggest, most disruptive ideas that are changing how we work, solve problems and create value today.
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andlt;divandgt;"Challenging... well worth reading and considering."andlt;/divandgt;
Review
"There's no better futurist to learn from today than Marina Gorbis, who taps her vast social network of innovators and researchers for the biggest, most disruptive ideas that are changing how we work, solve problems and create value today. This book is a thrilling and insight-packed guide to harnessing the power of the new social economy. It's full of compelling stories and practical lessons from on-the-ground visionaries who are inventing the future as we speak. This book will help you see the next century clearly -- and maybe even turn you into one of the amazing SocialStructers who are changing what's possible for the rest of us."
Synopsis
A leading futurist offers an inspiring portrayal of how new technologies are giving individuals so much power to connect and share resources that we are entering a new era in which networks of individuals, not big organizations, will solve a host of problems by reinventing business, education, medicine, banking, government, and scientific research.The massive, hierarchical organizations that we count on today for our food, healthcare, education, cars, gadgets, and almost everything else have only dominated human life for the last hundred years, before which social networks and small companies ruled. Now the tide is turning again. As Marina Gorbis portrays, based on extensive research into current trends, the confluence of new technologies has now offered so many capabilities to individuals that we are inventing radical new types of organizations and services. She calls this “socialstructing”—banding together to offer alternative solutions all across life, from new types of schools and professional tutoring, to citizen-created money, to drug development and testing, criminal investigation, and small-scale manufacturing. Offering a wealth of specific examples, such as that of BioCurious, a members run and free to use biotech lab and the remarkable Khan Academy, a free online teaching service, she shows how innovative individuals are taking over so many of the jobs done by big businesses and organizations, and how we can all take advantage of these marvelous new opportunities.
About the Author
andlt;bandgt;Marina Gorbisandlt;/bandgt; is Executive Director of Institute for the Future, a nonprofit research and consulting organization based in Silicon Valley. She has consulted to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government, and philanthropy. She has been a repeated guest blogger on BoingBoing.net and is a frequent speaker on future organizational, technology, and social issues. She holds a masters degree from the Graduate School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.