June 16, 2016
Pioneer Social Forecaster to Present Opening Keynote Address At Fall Public Policy Forum, Michigan Chamber Foundation Reports
PRNewswire
LANSING, Mich.
The changes and innovations of the past five years have only been an "overture" ... a prelude to a grand opera of truly dramatic change in how, where, and with whom we will all live and work and play ... and how we will be educated, cured and governed, says David Pearce Snyder, Lifestyles Editor of Futurist magazine and a pioneer social forecaster, who will present the opening keynote address at the 3rd Annual Michigan Legislative & Business Leaders Public Policy Forum. The forum, which is being sponsored by the Michigan Chamber Foundation and a coalition of local and regional chambers of commerce, will be held September 13-14, 2001 at the Grand Traverse Resort in Acme.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000320/DEM039 )
In his address, Snyder will offer his predictions for the "near-term" future, or what he refers to as the trans-millennium (1995-2010), and how America will be transformed by 2010. By 2010, Snyder predicts:
* More than 70% of U.S. jobs will be earning middle/upper level incomes (up from 45% in 1995, and 65% in 1970).
* The average big business or large government agency will have roughly half as many permanent employees as it had in 1980, but there will be twice as many employers as there were in 1980.
* Over 15% of all workers will be self-employed (up from 9% in 1990), most of whom will work out of their homes, as will 20% of all salaried white collar workers; the return of commercial production to the domestic sector will greatly strengthen the family as an institution.
* To facilitate flexible, efficient production operations -- and to accommodate employees' non-work obligations -- roughly 1/4 of all U.S. jobs will be part-time, temporary or intermittent positions, most of which will offer pro-rata pay and benefits commensurate to equivalent full-time employees.
* As the labor requirements of most production operations shrink, selected employers will continue to migrate out of big cities and suburbs into small towns and rural areas in search of lower operating costs and higher quality physical environment.
* Most U.S. urban centers will make remarkable economic comebacks following their 35-year economic decline (1995 - to present).
* Through the Internet, homes, schools, businesses and public agencies will all be linked to thousands of information utilities, and decision- critical data will flow into our daily lives the way electricity or water do now.
* Information products and services -- including hardware and software, communications, info-mation systems, education, art, music and entertainment, publishing, research, design and development, etc. -- will have become America's principal commercial output and dominant export, generating over 50% of our GNP.
* The most important new piece of information technology will be the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a hand-held device combining the features of a cell-phone, an interactive pager, a fax-machine and a palm-top computer, with wireless access to the Internet, and capable of interfacing with on-line databases, expert systems, simulations and main-frame computing power. By 2010, PDAs will outnumber PCs in the workplace; they will be carried by the vast majority of Americans, and by most managerial, professional and technical workers around the world.
* The most important new feature of information technology will be "conversational computing." By 2010, most routine uses of computers for assistance in problem solving, planning and decision-making will be in the form of verbal exchanges with microprocessors equipped with genial personalities and a colloquial command of the user's language. On the job and in our homes, we will be "chatting" with our computers, our automobiles and our appliances by 2010.
* With renewed prosperity, America will -- as it has in the past -- assimilate the most recent surge of immigration; most large coastal cities will have over 50% minority populations who will have substantially revitalized those urban economies.
For more information on David Pearce Snyder, visit his website at http://www.davidpearcesnyder.com/ .
The 3rd Annual Michigan Legislative & Business Leaders Public Policy Forum is open to the public. Registration for the two-day conference is $279 per person. For a complete agenda, or for more information, call 800-748-0344 or visit the Michigan Chamber's web site at http://www.michamber.com/ .
NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000320/DEM039PRN Photo Desk, +1-888-776-6555 or +1-212-782-2840
SOURCE: Michigan Chamber Foundation
Contact: Betty McNerney, Director of Communications of Michigan Chamber
of Commerce, +1-517-371-7663
Website: http://www.davidpearcesnyder.com/
Website: http://www.michamber.com/