“Grasp Your Goal Before Your Feet

Hit the Ground!”

Blandin

Foundation

&

Connect

Minnesota

by:

Jim Bensen

Cragun’s Resort

Brainerd, MN

11-19-14

Boarder-to-Boarder

BROADBAND“No Community Left Behind!”

UNRIVALED

BROADBAND

SPEED

AND THE

FREEDOM

TO CHOOSE

GIGAZONE – GIGABIT FIBER NETWORKPaul Bunyan Communications is bringing you one of the largest

Gigabit networks in the United States. Capable of download

and upload speeds of 1000 Mbps. GigaZone is the future of

broadband Internet.

“The dogmas of the quiet

past, are inadequate to the

storms of the present….

So we must think anew,

and act anew.”

Abraham Lincoln

“In the end, it is not the years in your life that count.

It is the life in your years.”

“You cannot evade the

responsibilities of

tomorrow by ignoring

them today.”

You look up and here comes trouble!

Need

another

plan!

Crank Up the “Speedy” Computer!

It is time up upgrade the system!

We are all good at reacting and responding, putting

out fires and crisis management. In addition

organizations large & small have learned to be lean

& agile, and how to execute at a high level.

However, despite these skills, General Motors still

declared bankruptcy, Blockbuster closed its last

store, & Blackberry quickly went from leading to

bleeding.

And, lets not forget Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Dell

and a host of other companies who have failed to

thrive despite its leaders & workers being

responsive, agile, and executing well.

To thrive in this new age of hyper-change &

growing uncertainty, it is now imperative to learn a

new competency – how to anticipate the future.

That may seem impossible,

but it is not. Much of the

future is there for you to see

when you know where &

when to look for it.

And when you and your

employees master this skill,

you will be able to create

what I call an Anticipatory

Organization. Dan Burrus

Being Anticipatory –

The Missing Competency!

You never change things

by fighting the existing

reality.

To change something,

build a new model

that makes the existing

model obsolete!

R. Buckminster Fuller

Tip “Status Quo” on its Head!

WOW!

What holds us back from creating and

designing a new & exciting future?

“The inertia of normalcy…”

Take away the

stump?????

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly

find out how far it is possible to go!”T. S. Elliot

A Human Perspective!

“The stupid are

cocksure, while

the intelligent

are full of doubt!”

Bertrand Russell

“In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth,

while the learned will be well prepared to live

in a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer

Learning,

learning,

always

learning!

Learn to paddle,

learn to dive.

Then learn to fly

to stay alive!

Jim Bensen

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist,

inventor, mechanic, objective economist, and

evolutionary strategist.”R. Buckminster Fuller

We are not going to be able to

operate our Spaceship Earth

successfully, nor for much

longer, unless we see it as a

whole spaceship and our fate as

common. It has to be everybody

or nobody.

Bucky Fuller!

21st

20th

19th

18th Age of Natural Power

Age of Machines

Age of Electricity

Age of Abstraction

Focus of “Know-How”Century

THE STRAIGHT DOPE

Fighting Ignorance Since 1973

(It’s taking longer than we thought)

Cecil Adams“World’s smartest human”

Dear Cecil:Since light has a particle nature, &

since photons have mass, & since

our sun has been shining for 15

billion years, why aren’t we knee

deep in photons? GGlateful

Cecil replies:Foolish creature. Photons don’t have mass. Since Vatican II even Catholics don’t

have mass. Still, we and the entire universe are knee-deep in photons in the form of

background radiation & elevates even the frozen depths of space to 3 degrees

Kelvin. You say you’re tired of the constant drone of existence & you just want to get

away from it all? Sorry, Bub, you can’t.

Cecil Adams

I try to buy stock in companies that are so wonderful

that an idiot can run them. Because, sooner or later,

one will. Warren Buffett

Strangled

by Lack of

Vision!

FROM!

To…

Toward

Futures Planning!

In 1995 technological breakthroughs in North America arrived once every

17 minutes ….with 10 associated services with each breakthrough!

Jeff Davidson, Managing with Confidence in a World of Change

Today, we witness 17 major breakthroughs every minute, with 200

associated services following on their heels!

In the Hot Seat

With a Hot Idea!

25,000 a

Day!

Peter Lyman & Hal Varian, University of California, quantified the world’s information

again in 2002, finding that we had doubled the amount in 2000.

This time they had to employ a new term of measurement: the exabyte, or a million

terabytes. (a terabyte is a million megabytes)

In 2002 people generated 5 exabytes of information, the equivalent of a half a million

new libraries the size of the Library of Congress.

With the world’s population of 6.3 billion, that’s about 800 megabytes of recorded

information produced per person, which would take 30 feet of books to store on paper!

1,800 Exabytes in 2011!

Quantified Knowledge!2 Miles

+/-

5 Exabytes

30 ft. of books

When we talk about making machines “smart” we are talking about sensors. They

measure, evaluate, in short, gather data. Cloud-based applications are the key to

leveraged data as it interprets and translates the flow. The cloud permits the apps

to work for you anytime, anywhere!

Everything around us, from bridges, to cars, to homes, to work, to play, to cities

and countries, become “smart”!

Dan Burrus,

Burrus Research

When we truly consider the ramifications of connecting a vast array of data-

gathering sensors, devices and machines together, what’s important is to realize

is that information will be translated into action at a rate that we have never

seen before. We are closing in on a world with infinitesimal reaction times,

immediate responses to changing conditions, and unparalleled control in

managing assets and resources. Dan Burrus

Internet

of

Things!

The Envelope of Change!

It is no longer good enough to be on the leading edge!

Heat!

Pressure!

Ambiguity!

Risk!

Uncertainty!

Unknowns!

Failure!

Moore’s Law …and more!

The number of transistors on integrated circuits double every 18 months.

--DOUBLING TIMES-- *Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants

TECHNOLOGY METRICS MONTHS

Fiber-optic throughput Wavelengths per fiber 9

Optical network Dollars per bit 9

Wireless Bits per second 10

Communications Bits per dollar 12

Magnetic areal storage Gigabits per square inch 12

Digital cameras Pixels per dollar 12

Microprocessor Dollars per cycle 13

Supercomputer power FLOPS 14

RAM Megabytes per dollar 16

Transistor Dollars per transistor 18

PCU power consumption Watts per square centimeter 18

Pixels Per array 18

Hard-drive storage Gigabytes per dollar 20

Chip MIPS 21

DNA sequencing Dollars per base pair 22

Trunk-line data speed Bits per second 22

Microprocessor Transistors per chip 24

Chip processor Megahertz per dollar 27

Bandwidth Kilobits per second per dollar

30

Microprocessor Hertz 36

Exponential

growth for

half a

century!!!

Viewing Personal Time!

Years!Lifetimes!Generations!

Days!Weeks!Months

Seconds!Minutes!Hours!

1,000th Sec100th Sec10th Sec.

1,000,000th Sec

How Fast ……..is Really, Really, Really Fast?

Faster!

Faster!

Faster!

+ Nano Second (billion)

+ Pica Second (trillion)

+ Femto Second (quadrillion)

…the length of time it takes light to

travel across a single cell!

+Atta Second (quintillion)

…the length of time it takes light to

travel across a single atom!

Wavecrest Corp-

Eden Prairie, MN

Ratio: 1p/sec. = 1 sec/32,000 yrs.

SPEED…..!The speed of light is 186,000 feet per second or……..

700,000,000 feet per hour!

OK… so how fast is the speed of …..DARK?

Steven Wright

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your

headlights work? Steven Wright

Keep Track of….

…”fly by night ideas”!

How to

upgrade

democracy in

the Internet

era!Pia Mancini, Argentina

October, 2014

TED Talk

SINGULARITY!

The point in time when

current trends may go wildly

off the charts – known as

the “Singularity” – is now

getting serious attention.

What it suggests is that

technological change will

soon become so rapid that

we cannot possibly envision

its results.

POW!

Swiss Solar Plane!A Swiss-made solar plane made a 2 ½ hour flight in Western Switzerland

successfully in preparation for an around the world flight. Bertrand Picard &

Andre Borschberg, founders, say it can theoretically stay airborne indefinitely!

The Solar Impulse 2 is a

bigger & better version of a

single seat prototype that

first took flight 5 years ago.

The plane soaks up energy

from the sun through

17,200 solar cells on its

massive wings which span

235 feet.

Associated Press 6-2-14

Thoughts about space….

There are approximately

up to 400 billion stars in the

Galaxy of the Milky Way!

There are projections of 500 billion

GALAXIES in the universe!

There are more atoms in

“a” DNA molecule than

stars in the Milky Way!

Make an atom nucleus a

basketball & electrons

rotate at 8,000 miles!

Physicists at Berkley labs have constructed what may be the

world’s smallest motor. The synthetic rotational nanomotor is

about 300 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair,&

future versions may be up to five times smaller.

The tiny motor was constructed by attaching a gold paddle-

shaped rotor (between 100 & 3000 nanometers long) to a carbon

nanotube shaft that is less than 10 nanometers in diameter. The

carbon bonds that connect the components are virtually

frictionless, so the parts never wear out.

It can hold up under the most extreme environments & is

unaffected by radiation. Although the developers have measured

its speed at 33,000 cycles per second, they believe it is capable

of reaching up to a billion cycles per second.

Blood pressure monitors, environmental sensors, tire sensors,

and PDA are only a few of the potential application for the tiny

motors. (TECHNOTrends, 7-04)

This is NOT a HEMI!Motor, on single

molecule, car

Dodge RAM!

Narrative

Science!

Your tweets are why the

next Walter Cronkite

will be a robot!

Of all the technology companies disrupting the field of journalism, none hits home quite

like Narrative Science. The Chicago based company which is up for a Moxie Award,

has developed an algorithm that can mimic human writing that few experts can tell

which was written by the robot.

“We can pull information from Twitter

conversations and source data and

generate stories.”

Stuart Frankel, CEO

“Good journalism isn’t about writing like

a human. It is about trust. And as trust

in conventional authoritative sources

continues to erode , robots may be

lying in the wait to pick up the slack.”

Jet Edge Machining!“slicing steel with water”

High pressure water, (70,000 psi), with a

corundum crystal orifice, & induced

abrasives, allows the precision machining

of metal, stone, glass & other materials.

Ability to cut material without interfering

with its inherent structure as there is not

“heat-affected” zone.

Rough cutting, such as concrete road beds,

on to ultra high precision manufacturing are

made possible by 5 axis high performance

control systems.

Contour Sculpture

5-Axis

By programming cells as if they were computers, synthetic biologists are finding

ways to fabricate medications & dispose of radioactive waste. Ron Weiss,

Princeton University, relates that this emerging field could include “tissue

engineering, molecular fabrication of biomaterials & nanostructures , synthesis

of pharmaceutical products and bio-sensing….

What distinguishes synthetic biology from its post-genomic laboratory cousins –

genetic modification , grounded in conventional biology & biochemistry, or

nanotechnology, grounded in carbon chemistry – is that synthetic biology looks

more like computer systems engineering. Its focus is the genetic circuitry that

governs particular cellular and intercellular behaviors, explains Weiss…

Cells also exchange signals among themselves: They communicate

back & forth to coordinate responses to inputs from their environment.

So synthetic biologists are simultaneously designing genetic regulatory

& information-processing networks that exploit the power of multicellular

reactions….” (David Ollier Weber, Health Forum Publications Archives).

Synthetic Biology!

A Hand-Held DNA Sequencer

for less than $900!

Oxford Nanopore

Technologies, is entering

the genetic sequencing

race with a new portable

device that will allow

people to analyze DNA

on the go!

“The USB stick is an absolute game changer”,

Gordon Sanghera, CEO announced,

“it’s plug-and-play, on-the-go DNA sequencing!”

Nano-

Stethoscope!Our individual cells give off an acoustical

sound as they function within our bodies. The

nano-stethoscope can pick up and record the

individual acoustics to establish a base-line of

healthy cells.

Listen Carefully!

A cancerous cell has a different

acoustical pattern than a healthy

one..

A secondary cancerous cell has a

different pattern than a primary one!

The Robard Institute in

Canada will have a

library of all cancer

acoustics in 6 months!

Self-Sculpting Sand!

No longer suppressed…. …it can form itself!

A programmable matter system is capable of forming shapes and creating objects

through self-disassembly. Each of the disassembly phases is dependent upon a

distributed, localized message passing algorithms executing each module.

Given a bag of Smart Sand, the user conveys

the desired object to the modules and then

begins shaking the bag. As the particles in the

bag come in contact & exchange information,

they decide when to bond to their neighbors.

After this selective bonding process, the user

opens the bag, grabs the object, brushes off

the extra material, and uses the object for the

task at hand.

After the user is done with the object, it is

tossed back in the bag where it disintegrates

so that the modules can be used indefinitely!

Smart Sand! MIT

Nanotubes!

A nanotube “wire” one sixth the thickness of

a human hair could suspend a fully loaded

semi-trailer!

Fullerene technology, created by

expanding the capabilities of the

“Bucky Ball”

Multi-Wall Nanotubes

Programmable Tattoo!

Is Origami

the Secret of Tech?

Professors Demaine & Rus, MIT, & Professor Wood, Harvard, work collaboratively on

folding technology utilizing biologically inspired engineering. Flowers, leaves, wings,

proteins, eyelids, ears, DNA, -- all are created by folding.

Developers are looking at how materials and

molecules wrinkle, drape, flex, and crease, using

folding to design everything from robots to cancer

drugs, from airbags to mirrors on satellite

telescopes.

Origami folding is used to create a fabric of

densely layered nanotubes that can generate

power from body heat!

It takes a week to assemble a

RoboBee by hand – a fraction

of a second by

pop-up folding

fabrication!

RoboBee Drone!

Aerogels++ Solid Smoke++

Aerogels are the world’s lightest

solid materials, composed of up to

99.98% air!

Transparent superinsulating silica

aerogels exhibit the lowest thermal

conductivity of any solid known.

Ultrahigh surface area carbon

aerogels power today’s fastest

charging supercapacitors.

Ultrastrong, bendable x-aerogels

are the lowest-density structural

materials ever developed.

Microelectromechanical Systems: MEMS

Tiny machines so small

that they can’t be seen

with the naked eye.

Parts measure 1 to 100

microns, about the

thickness of a human

hair.

They usually consist of a central unit that

processes data (the microprocessor) and

several components that interact with the

surroundings such as microsensors.

They merge at the nano-scale into

nanoelectromechanical systems. (NEMS)

IBM is spending $1.8 billion a year to secure

their market share.

HP believes a $10 billion investment will

establish dominance in the field.

MEMS Technology!

A $11.1 billion industry,

estimated to grow 63,000%

by 2017.

There are at least 50 MEMS in most

new cars.

The average cell phone has 11

MEMS in it, but that will jump to 25

very soon!

Lockheed Martin Announces Breakthrough

on Fusion Energy!

Lockheed Martin reported that they have

made a technological breakthrough in

developing a power source based on

nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small

enough to fit on the back of a truck could be

ready for use within the decade.

Initial work demonstrates the feasibility of

building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring

seven feet by ten feet.

The effort seeks to harness energy released

during nuclear fusion, when atoms combine

into more stable forms.

10-20-14

BOOM!

Researchers Flock

to Twitter’s Data!ill

More than 1,000 applicants are seeking access to its tweet “fire

hose”. About 500,000,000 Tweets are made a day. Called, “back

testing”, researchers back-test their hypotheses.

Beyond social monitoring, researchers are studying health care,

food borne illnesses, branding, etc. “The digital epidemiology field

is really coming into its own over the last couple years.”

Mohana Ravindranath

Graphene! Strongest, thinnest, material known to exist!

Conducts heat and electricity better than anything else!

Hardest material in the world….also one of the most pliable!

It is only one atom thick and is a wonder material!

One ounce of Graphene could cover 28 football fields!

Make electronics thinner, faster, & cheaper than anything

based on silicon, with the option of making them clear and

flexible. Long lasting batteries can be submerged in water.

Cell phones would be thin as paper. Gas sensors, light

sensors & biosensors will be far smaller. Electronics will be

flexible and wearable. Can be submerged in liquids without

oxidizing, unlike other electronics. Implants read nervous

system & talk to your cells….. and, more….

Graphene

is the

future!

Oculus Rift

Palmer Luckey dreamed of playing video games in simulated 3-D

worlds and designed his first working prototype in his garage at the

age of 16.

Today, the 21-year-old is the founder of Oculus VR, a company that is

on the verge of releasing the Rift, an affordable virtual-reality headset

for playing ultra-immersive-video games.

Facebook bought the company for $2 billion this

spring!

What an essential role enthusiasm plays in our lives!

It is the key ingredient that frees us from the

cramping, dark, overheated confinement of a task.

When the odds are against us, the hours are long,

and the end is not yet in view, enthusiasm rescues

us from the temptation to quit – or run away – or

complain. It takes the grit and grind out of boredom.

It calls for fresh troops when the battle gets long and

the body gets weary.

Athletes feed on it. Salesmen are motivated by it.

Teachers count on it. Students fail without it.

Few characteristics are more contagious, more

magnetic. I am convinced that one of the reasons

that God gives us so many personal promises in his

Word is to stir up our enthusiasm – to build a bonfire

in the “steam-room” of our souls.

Chuck Swindoll

ENTHUSIASM!Nothing

great was

ever

achieved

without

enthusiasm!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let your horses run!

I must hurry, for there they go…

and, I am their leader!

“When you are discouraged,

and, feeling a little blue,

take a look at the mighty oak,

and see what a nut can do!”Adrian Rogers

Those who build the future are those who know that greater things are yet

to come, and that they themselves will help bring them about. Their minds

are illuminated by the blazing sun of hope. They never stop to doubt.

They haven’t time.”++Melvin J. Evans++

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seem all up hill,

When the funds are low, and the debt are high,

When you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer, with its twists and turns,

As everyone of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won, if he stuck it out;

Don’t give up, though the pace is slow,

You may succeed with one more blow.

Success is failure turned inside out,

The silver tint of clouds of doubt,

And you can never tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far;

So stick to the fight, when the hardest hit,

Its when things seem worse, that you must not quit!

Author Unknown

Don’t Quit!

Thank

You!

Stay Focused!