The greatness of the past will not prevail.
By Yoram Yahav.

To live the future and be afraid of its consequences is not necessarily a contradicting reality. One obviously can not predict tomorrow’s realities based on the past, but one can definitely predict upcoming emotional fears based on yesterday’s panic. Not a day passes without managers and leaders admitting to us their concerns and fears about the future. I am always amazed by how much energy we invest in being afraid of what may or may not happen tomorrow.

The executives of Pan Am and TWA lived like this in the 80’s, Rulers such as Pinochet of Chile, Juan Peron of Argentina and Saddam of Iraq were this way, my parent’s lived that way in Eastern Europe before the Nazis invaded their countries, and last but not least, the High Tech industry is living through this phase these days like never before. More>

Meet Tsai Ming-kai, Mediatek innovator:
How to Innovate Business Designs
By Shlomo Maital

Tsai Ming-kai, Mediatek Innovator

The Financial Times this month had an excellent profile of Tsai Ming-kai, reclusive head of the Taiwanese chipmaker Mediatek.  Mediatek is the biggest supplier of mobile phone chips to China.   Innovators can learn much from him, even though he is rarely interviewed (the FT interview is the first in three years).

Tsai is an electrical engineer who never studied business – except for a one-week course at Stanford, where he learned about Harvard Business School Professor Clayten Christensen’s theory of “disruptive technology”.  Tsai first joined United Micro-electronics, a large Taiwanese chipmaker. 

When it spun off Mediatek, Tsai became its head.  Christensen teaches that vertically-integrated industries tend to mature and then split into horizontal segments, with each segment specializing in a key part of the value chain.  This creates huge opportunities for innovators who get there first.  More>

Israel, 2020 and the demographic demon.
By Debbie Meltzer

Bill Clinton previously touted “It’s the economy stupid!”
Here in Israel, we beg to differ: It’s the demographics!

Don’t underestimate the power of demographics – It’s one of the most potent tools in the futurist’s skill-set. It’s the science of crowds with eerily accurate prediction rates. So much of history is dictated by demographic imbalances, yet what is vastly affecting our lives often seems too tedious to deal with.In Israel demographics is a two headed monster.

Four futures for Israel

Internally and externally it is steadfastly affecting our very existence; leaving the economy, national security or even the nascent housing bubble trailing behind. Here’s a quick drill down into some of the forecasts and trends igniting the national agenda and why parents of young kids like I are fed up and lashing out at national taboos. In Israel, by the end of this year almost 21% of the population will be Arab, 9% – ultra-religious orthodox Jews (Haredim), 65% – secular to mildly religious Jews and approximately 5% will feature other. More>