Glen Hiemstra

Biography

Glen Hiemstra, Futurist, was telling audiences about global warming and climate change...in 1987. He was writing about the age wave and the end of classic retirement...in 1995. Glen was previewing nanotechnology...in 1989. He was describing genomic science and biotechnology even earlier. Glen was studying how the Internet would change human and organizational communication in 1981, before the Internet was even a public network. In the mid-1980`s he was telling people about the coming economic growth of the Pacific Rim countries. By 2001 Glen was describing peak oil and the coming energy transformation as the greatest economic opportunity of the next half-century. As early as 2006 Glen was telling people why the debt bubble would burst, as it did more than a year later. To deal with breakthrough trends like these Glen was helping large and small companies, educational institutions, government agencies and communities re-think their future vision. Oh yes, and Glen Hiemstra was the one professional futurist with the foresight to register Futurist.com and become Founder and CEO of the website visited by people from 120 nations each month.

This is why audience members for Glen`s keynote speeches and clients for his long-range planning say things like, "Once you hear Glen Hiemstra speak, the future will never look the same."

Glen Hiemstra is dedicated to disseminating information about the future to assist individuals, organizations, and industries in effective strategic planning. An internationally respected expert on future trends, long-range planning and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for two decades and has served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. A writer and blogger as well as a speaker and consultant, Glen is the author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future (Wiley & Sons 2006). Previously he co-authored Strategic Leadership: Achieving Your Preferred Future.

Glen has worked with many leading companies, government agencies and organizations across a wide variety of domains. These include Microsoft, The Home Depot, Boeing, Adobe, Ernst & Young, PaineWebber, ShareBuilder, Ambrosetti (Italy), Club of Amsterdam, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Savannah District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Pacific Ocean Division, Northern Telecom, REI, Weyerhaeuser, Hewlett Packard, Novo Nordisk, U.S./Mexico JWC, APAX Partners, Costa Rica Hotel Association, Atlanta 2060, Tulsa 2025, Idaho Transportation 2030, Michigan DOT 2030, Federal Highway Administration Advanced Research, Eddie Bauer, Procter & Gamble, ACE Hardware, IHOP, John Deere, Weitz Construction, Lexis Nexus, Land O Lakes, GHD Engineering (Australia), SONAE (Portugal), and others.

As a recognized expert in preferred future planning, Glen is a popular keynote speaker who can zero in on emerging trends in economics, demographics, energy, the environment, Internet and communications, science, technology, housing, and transportation. Glen goes beyond simple trend analysis to discuss the opportunities that we all have to shape the preferred future. In his consulting, Glen utilizes tools such as environmental scanning, scenario development, whole systems perspectives, paradigm shifts, and analysis of organizational culture for managing change to assist enterprises to achieve high performance.

A skilled communicator, Glen also offers a variety of informational resources for those interested in exploring the future. Each day visitors come to Futurist.com and Glen`s blog for provocative snapshots of emerging ideas, trends, and technologies. Futurist.com produces short videos for the web on a variety of future topics.

As a media technical advisor Glen worked with Steven Bochco Productions (creator of "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue"), among others. He is often cited in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, US News & World Report, The Futurist, USA Today, Business Week, the Economist, and the Los Angeles Times.

In a first career, Glen was an award-winning educator; more recently he served as a Visiting Scholar at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington, which worked on virtual and augmented reality technology.

Glen was educated at Whitworth College, the University of Oregon, and the University of Washington. He lives in Kirkland, Washington with his wife Tracie. They have three adult children.

Publications

Turning the Future Into Revenue:
What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures

In business, it always helps to know what's coming. How can you take advantage of the business opportunities of tomorrow if you aren't planning for that tomorrow today?

In Turning the Future into Revenue, noted futurist and business consultant Glen Hiemstra explores the global changes that will revolutionize business and reveals the ways individuals and organizations can profit from those coming developments. Surprising demographic shifts, energy shortages, new technologies, environmental changes, and issues of race and religion will change the way we live. They will also lead to new and exciting business opportunities. Only those who foresee those opportunities will be in position to take advantage of them.

Titles

Beyond 2020: The Shape of Things to Come
Glen`s 2011-2012 keynote offers a sweeping and entertaining overview of the key trend areas shaping the next decade and beyond: demographics, technology, the knowledge-based economy, and the next energy revolution. The predictable but often surprising nature of the future is explored. Listeners are challenged both to wake up to the future and to take the creation of a preferred future into their own hands. Specific developments that are noted, depending on customization to the audience, may include telepresence, nanotechnology, 3D communication and entertainment, consumer and brand trends, the real situation with oil and energy, aging and youth demographic trends, confronting the great divides in society, environmental challenges and green business opportunities, and biotech advances that offer the hope of longer and healthier lives. This speech inspires listeners to develop successful strategic leadership and to create the future. Full of surprises, this customizable keynote offers a balanced view of the future, and a hopeful vision for the rest of the 21st Century.

Lessons from the Future: Navigating the New Economic Era
This is a keynote focused on moving beyond the 2011 economic realities. In 2006 and 2007 Glen was one of the early voices to warn of an impending economic collapse, more than a year before it happened. Now is is time to look forward and the possibilities are far greater than most people imagine. Glen reviews the key trends shaping the next several decades, as we deal with a global economic re-set. He suggests that a new vision for a preferred future will emerge based on revised values, innovation, the network effects of advanced communication, and new technology. No field of enterprise, no nation, no community is unaffected by the changes which are happening, and all can create new opportunities. By acting wisely now you can lead your enterprise to a future that is more sustainable, of higher quality, and happier than what has come before. Glen believes that we have a rare opportunity to create a world that works, but we have to get really smart and really courageous in the coming decade. The world has gone through a very unusual and severe recession, but the future can be a new renaissance, if we are willing to think in the future tense.

Creating the Preferred Future
This keynote presentation or seminar explores drivers of future change, including technological, societal, economic, demographic and global forces. A process for thinking about the future and creating the future we prefer is outlined, and in a seminar is practiced. This presentation has an equal emphasis on future trends, and processes, skills, and models for thinking about and creating the future.

The Future of Media and Communication in a Data Flow Culture
A program based on the online TV series "Future Talks," produced by the Conversations network featuring Glen Hiemstra and EU futurist Gerd Leonhard, and available on iTunes. The future of media when music flows like water, consumers are producers, Web 2.0 becomes Web 3.0, bandwidth is nearly free, copyright is challenged, advertising is in flux, and the old world passes.

21st Century Healthcare
Healthcare tomorrow will not, and must not resemble health care today. Demographic and financial challenges suggest that change is needed. The big three technologies - bio, nano, information - are coming together to revolutionize many medical treatments. Super longevity is on the horizon - but billions may be left out without systems change. What is coming, what must be done?

The Future of Transportation
A program based on extensive work with transportation policy and research organizations, setting the national agenda for the next several decades. A look at the future of energy, of automobiles and trains and planes, and of society in an age of peak oil and climate crisis.

Demographic Tidal Shifts and What they Mean for Your Enterprise

Create a Custom Program
Glen learns about your industry and applies his futures research in a way that specifically addresses the special interests of your audience.