What is new is the concept of touchable holograms: not just projected into the air, and not just superimposed onto an actual object, but "haptic holograms" that you can not only touch, but interact with and move.

Museums taking a humorous, some would say juvenile, approach to their own art to woo a younger audience is still virgin territory

Bringing the museum concept to a community through their library. Not a new idea, but a good writeup.

Look at all the categories (or maybe subcategories) of third spaces that have grown up in Boston and become civic spaces and viable(?) business opportunities.

Trying to reach a millennial audience with retail concept promotes a brand while giving visitors an engaging experience.

NEMO_four_values_2015.pdf

Everything from gamification to the growing wealth gap and rising divorce rates influences travel, believe it or not.

Note use of card game "The Thing From the Future" -- deck is available from Situation Lab at http://situationlab.org/projects/the-thing-from-the-future/

If libraries were to disappear, cities and towns would lose essential "third places" that are open to the public.

"Whether AI does or does not become the nightmare of some science fiction, we are certain it will have fundamental impacts on the nature of work, worldwide. And the world needs to think seriously about this now, because it may take a generation or more to make serious changes necessary to improve our work-technology future prospects," says Jerome Glenn, CEO of The Millennium Project.

Pratt Institute's Architecture School this fall plans to start a master's program in "Urban Placemaking and Management"...to be focused on creating successful public spaces based on community planning

...over the last few months, conflicting claims have emerged about how malls fit within Twin Cities society. ("#Itsmymall!" "No, #itsmymall!") The seemingly audacious protest by the #blacklivesmatter movement and subsequent reaction by the Mall of America and the Bloomington prosecutor illuminate the complex relationship that shopping malls have as public and private spaces. Like it or not, they are simultaneously massive private companies and rough, if degraded, facsimiles of Gruen's public sphere.

Once an up-and-coming trend, ride sharing a la Uber and Lyft may be put out to pasture by driverless cars. The world is moving very rapidly.

Here's a game-changer. according to Stanford researchers it would typically take a year to get 10,000 people enrolled in a medical study. With Apple's new app called MyHeart Counts, 11,000 iPhone users signed up for one study in one day!

New trend: a meta service that helps you manage your Airbnb (short-term rental) business. No more of that old-fashioned dealing with the house/apartment owner directly!

Note the way the frame their 6 tips...just as we frame it in our workshop

Graphical summary of a detailed article that appeared in The Economist. A couple of interesting charts on demographics of museums-goers are included.

From Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea, the world is experiencing a spike in geopolitical crises. Yet the business community is, it seems, still largely confident that today's geopolitical crises will remain relatively marginal and mostly isolated. Is this view correct or could investors be missing the unfolding of a de-globalised world?,

From Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea, the world is experiencing a spike in geopolitical crises. Yet the business community is, it seems, still largely confident that today's geopolitical crises will remain relatively marginal and mostly isolated. Is this view correct or could investors be missing the unfolding of a de-globalised world?,