2007 Los Angeles Future Salons
LAFS Home

January, 2007
No Meeting

February, 2007
Join us at our Sunday, February 4th Salon:
Theme: "Whole Life Management" on the Web — Are You In?

Update: This month we got three spiffy signboards installed around UCLA. They even have waterproof plastic holders for our monthly meeting flyers (an LAFS innovation in the cutthroat signboard marketplace). This should really help us recruit more future-oriented students to our meetings in 2007. Thanks to Marlon Rojas for the artistic wizardry and to Dave Harris for donating the funds to make it happen.

This salon brings two great presentations on the future of ubiquitous, web-based personal productivity and communications. As always, bring your insights, articles, updates, and your inquisitive mind!

12 noon-4:00pm, LA Future Salon at UCLA, Ackerman 2408
See Directions and Parking to get to Ackerman 2408 (second floor of the Student Union).

Updates and Coolhunting: New Article, Project, and Resource Sharing (Noon-1:15pm)
Discover anything cool since our last meeting? Clip it out and bring it for the group. We'll use our first hour to share and discuss new stuff around the table, including updates on new personal projects and topics of interest. Bring articles, books, magazines, DVD's, art, tools, tips, resources, gadgets, ideas, etc. to intro and share with the group. Want to discuss, review, or demo something? Email in advance and we'll reserve you time during the first hour, or just show up and share as time permits!

Wambo: Group Instant Messaging Hits the Web (1:15-1:50pm)
Scott Timpe will demo Wambo (http://www.wambo.com), a new free group instant messaging program that makes it easy to have private group discussions with circles of friends about interests, events or projects. Conversations happen in real-time, but unlike IM, the dialog doesn’t end as friends go offline. All messages are automatically archived, so conversations can go on as long as needed. Wambo has also developed media sharing tools for accelerated photo and video transfers. Using the “Conversation” window, you can easily switch from one discussion to another - or catch up with group discussions that happened while you were offline. Check out the next step in online communications and bring your questions about the future of this fast-moving space!

The Future of Information: Web-based "Whole Life Management" with qtask (2:00pm-4:00pm)
Reichart Von Wolfsheild, Founder and CTO, Prolific Publishing

Abstract: Web industry veteran Reichart Von Wolfsheild will present and demonstrate qtask (http://www.qtask.com), an online Task Tracking and Project Management platform for “Whole Life Management.” Lying somewhere between project management and social networking, and referred to as "Big Brother" by those who have seen it in action, come take a tour of this amazing new system that blurs the boundaries between business and personal software. Already in use by military and government agencies, qtask demonstrates where the Pervasive, Participatory Web is going and what this will mean to all of us.

The qtask development team made a daring decision to build a technology delivery method on top of a simple rendering language (HTML) and a brutally simple programming language (JavaScript). They are carving out a Web 2.0 system that delivers a user experience more like a standalone application than the brochure-like experience of the typical website.

What happens when the Web becomes the platform, and when our software constantly improves behind the scenes, to meet the user’s personal needs? Come see a glimpse of this future, today. We'll have ample time for Q&A from our inquisitive, future-oriented audience.

Bio: Prolific Founder and CTO Baron RK {“Reichart”) Von Wolfsheild has over 25 years experience in software and hardware design. He has appeared in magazines such as Time, Life, and BusinessWeek. He is frequently quoted in computer magazines, and makes regular appearances on television, lecturing at universities, and speaking on industry panels.

March, 2007
Helping People Help Themselves:
Moving From Failed Methods of Economic Development to Alternative Strategies
A Presentation and Discussion with David Ellerman, UC Riverside

Abstract: Are you interested in global economic development? Technical cooperation? Development assistance? This presentation will spark ideas for how you can get involved and really make a difference.

The age-old problem in development is how to help in a way that furthers rather than undercuts the goal of the doers helping themselves. Autonomy cannot be externally supplied. And if the doers are to become autonomous, then what is the role of the external helpers? This problem of furthering “assisted self-reliance” or assisted autonomy, is the fundamental conundrum of development assistance.

We’ll consider ideas of yesterday's and today's development planners, including the discourse of scholars like the UN Millennium Project's Director, Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty, 2006), who argue that the main problem is marshalling enough money and expertise to finally “solve” the problem and “make poverty history.” Fortunately an alternative to top-down planning, decentralized social learning, is playing an increasingly central role, and being supported by a range of new internet-based technologies. Come hear where our best practices may be headed.

Bio: David Ellerman is a visiting scholar at UC Riverside, and author of the acclaimed book Helping People Help Themselves: From the World Bank to an Alternative Philosophy of Development Assistance, 2006. Among his many experiences, he worked in the World Bank from 1992 to 2003 as an economic advisor to Chief Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern.

4-6pm: Futurist Hangout, Kerckhoff Coffee House
Up for one-on-one discussion? Discover any cool articles, books, magazines, DVD's, art, tools, tips, resources, gadgets, or insights since our last meeting? Join us at Kerckhoff after the Salon for coffee and small group conversation!

April, 2007
Join us at a special Evening Salon on Wednesday, April 25th, 7:30-9:30pm, Borders Westwood, 1360 Westwood Blvd,
2 blocks South of Wilshire, Free Parking with Cafe or Store Purchase

Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of American Oil Addiction, and a Strategy for Change
A Presentation, Discussion, and Booksigning with Terry Tamminen

As Special Advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former head of the California EPA (2003-6), Terry Tamminen has been an architect of some of America’s most progressive energy independence plans. In Lives Per Gallon, 2006, Tamminen brings to the public a creative, practical strategy to end our dependence on oil, based on the successful lawsuits by state governments against tobacco companies. In a similar fashion to Big Tobacco, he alleges Big Oil and Big Auto companies have conspired for decades to hide the harms to human health created by their products.

States spend billions each year to deal with petroleum pollution, global warming impacts, and health care costs for oil related illnesses and deaths. This money that can be recovered in court from oil and auto companies in the same way that states recovered health care costs related to tobacco. The energy industry has never been more profitable, and the power asymmetry never greater. Exxon/Mobil alone posted $10 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2006. By requiring these corporate giants to pay the true cost of their business practices, we can permanently change energy economics in favor of more sustainable, healthier products. For more, visit livespergallon.org.

Bio: Terry Tamminen was Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency from 2003-6. He was promoted to Cabinet Secretary, Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor, in December 2004. In August 2006, Tamminen left the Schwarzenegger administration to focus on Lives Per Gallon, his first book about solutions to America’s oil addiction.

In 1993, Tamminen founded Santa Monica BayKeeper and served as its Executive Director for six years. He co-founded Waterkeeper programs in San Diego, Orange County, Ventura, and Santa Barbara, and served for five years as Executive Director of the Environment Now Foundation in Santa Monica, CA.

Sunday May 6, 2007
Join us Sunday, May 6th, UCLA, Ackerman Student Union, Room 2408, 3pm-6pm
for Two Great Speakers on Technology and Education!
See Directions and Parking to get to Ackerman Union (2nd Floor, above Rubios and Sbarros).
We will start the program at 3pm sharp, and be setting up a half hour earlier. Feel free to come a bit early if you want!

Technology, Choices, and Our Future
Miguel Aznar, President, KnowledgeContext

Humans have transformed our world with myriad technology choices from our first stone tools. Because of accelerating change, this generation’s choices have a greater impact than ever before. Schools can—and a few do—teach how to understand and evaluate technology by showing patterns that transcend specific technologies. Come learn how.

Bio: Miguel F. Aznar directs KnowledgeContext, an educational nonprofit that provides technological literacy curriculum to schools. His first book, Technology Challenged: Understanding Our Creations & Choosing Our Future, 2005, has been adopted as a technology assessment text at several universities. Each summer, he teaches the COSMOS nanotechnology course at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Preparing Students for the Technological World
Ethan Lipton, Assistant VP for Academic Affairs and Dean of ESS, CSULA

Schools should develop in students the basic knowledge and abilities required to successfully function in their environment. Unfortunately, current learning experiences continue to focus on a few historically-anchored subjects. Today’s students must know more if they are to thrive in our highly technological world. The study of technology, innovation, design and engineering (TIDE) is essential so that every graduate will be able to understand the nature of technology, its appropriate uses, and participate in society’s decisions on technological issues.

Bio: Ethan B. Lipton is recognized nationally as a leader in technology education. He has served as the President of the International Technology Education Association and President of the California Industrial and Technology Education Association, and is an active proponent of integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) learning, critical thinking and problem solving. He has edited six books and authored more than thirty articles and papers.

Sunday June 10, 2007
Join us Sunday, June 10th, UCLA, Kerckhoff, 131/133, 1pm-4pm for a great futurist presentation!

The Challenge of Long-Term Policy Analysis
Jim Dewar, RAND Pardee Center for Long Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition
See Directions and Parking to get to Kerckhoff Hall (the building just east/uphill from Ackerman Student Union).

Abstract: Public policy is famously driven by short-term agendas. But many issues high on national and international agendas have enormous potential long-term consequences, and it is indeed because people realize their long-term importance that these issues are so salient. To name a few:

• Policies regarding the environment and the management of renewable and nonrenewable resources.
• Climate change.
• Education.
• International security, including basic strategic decisions about missions and capabilities.
• Large-scale physical infrastructure such as transportation.
• Energy policies.
• Investments in research and development.
• Institutional reforms such as social security and the design of tax systems.

The challenge is to bring longer-term considerations into short-term agendas. The canonical policy analysis paradigm (set the context, generate policy alternatives, project alternatives into the future, value the outcomes, choose the best policy) is ill-suited both for projecting alternative courses of action into the long-term future and for valuing outcomes where they can be reasonably projected. Long-Term Policy Analysis is the name given to an attempt to shore up the weaknesses in the shorter-term policy analysis paradigm in order to bring longer-term considerations into today's decisions. This talk develops a framework for Long-Term Policy Analysis and its tools.

Bio: Prof. Dewar is director of the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition and the Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Long-Term Policy Analysis at the RAND Graduate School. He has been a pioneer in the development of Assumption-Based Planning (ABP), a widely used strategic planning methodology, and the author of Assumption-Based Planning: A Tool For Reducing Avoidable Surprises, 2002. He has helped clients including large corporations, institutions of higher education, and the Department of Defense. Prof. Dewar received his B.S. from Harvey Mudd College and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in mathematics.

LA Future Salons are now over. John Smart has moved to Mountain View, CA, and is now part of the

LA Future Salons are no longer in operation as of July 2007.
Salon founder John Smart moved to Mountain View at that time, and now participates in the Bay Area Future Salon.
No one else has expressed interest in taking over the LA Salon, so we have retired it.
We strongly recommend Doug Campbell and Adam Mefford's Mindshare LA as an inspired successor to the LA Future Salon.
These LAFS archives will stay open to public access, for those interested in exploring future oriented thinkers and speaker in the great city of LA.

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