Alvin Toffler

Alvin Toffler (born October 3, 1928) is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his early work focused on technology and its impact (through effects like information overload). Then he moved to examining the reaction of and changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing power of 21st century military hardware, weapons and technology proliferation, and capitalism. He is married to Heidi Toffler, also a writer and futurist. They live in Los Angeles. They wrote the books credited to "Alvin Toffler" together. Image File history File links This work is copyrighted. ... Image File history File links This work is copyrighted. ... October 3 is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Futures studies reflects on how today’s changes (or the lack thereof) become tomorrow’s reality. ... The Digital Revolution describes the effects of rapid drop in cost and ongoing improvement of digital devices such as computers replacing or emulating analog devices, enabling former unthinkable innovations like the World Wide Web (WWW). ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... Fortune magazine is Americas longest-running business magazine. ... Information overload refers to the state of having too much information to make a decision or remain informed about a topic. ... It has been suggested that Social development be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... Heidi Toffler is an American writer and futurist (wife of Alvin Toffler). ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ...

Accenture, the management consultancy, has dubbed him the third most influential voice among business leaders, after Bill Gates and Peter Drucker. He has also been described in the Financial Times as the "world's most famous futurologist". Accenture (NYSE: ACN) is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. ... For other persons named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation). ... Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909–November 11, 2005) was an Austrian author of management-related literature. ... The Financial Times (FT) is an international business newspaper printed on distinctive salmon pink broadsheet paper. ... Futurology or futures studies (called futurism in the United States) is the study of the medium to long-term future, by extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or by attempting to predict future trends. ...

His ideas

Toffler explains, "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest. Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skill that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone."

In his book The Third Wave Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of 'waves' - each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside.

• First Wave is the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures.
• The main components of the Second Wave society are nuclear family, factory-type education system and the corporation. Toffler writes: "The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy."
• Third Wave is the post-industrial society. Toffler would also add that since late 1950s most countries are moving away from a Second Wave Society into what he would call a Third Wave Society. He coined lots of words to describe it and mentions names invented by other people, like the Information Age, which predicted demassification, diversity, knowledge-based production, and the acceleration of change (one of Toffler’s key maxims is "change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways").

In this post-industrial society, there is a lot of diversity in lifestyles ("subcults"). Adhocracies (fluid organizations) adapt quickly to changes. Information can substitute most of the material resources (see ersatz) and becomes the main material for workers (cognitarians instead of proletarians), who are loosely affiliated. Mass customization offers the possibility of cheap, personalized, production catering to small niches (see Just In Time production). The gap between producer and consumer is bridged by technology using a so called configuration system. "Prosumers" can fill their own needs (see open source, assembly kit, freelance work). This was the notion that new technologies are enabling the radical fusion of the producer and consumer into the prosumer. In some cases prosuming entails a “third job” where the corporation “outsources” its labor not to other countries, but to the unpaid consumer, such as when we do our own banking through an ATM instead of a teller that the bank must employ, or trace our own postal packages on the internet instead of relying on a paid clerk. The Chinese Civil War was a conflict in China between the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party; KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). ... In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ... The term nuclear family was developed in the western world to distinguish the family group consisting of parents and their children, usually a father, mother, and children, from what is known as an extended family. ... A corporation is a legal person which, while being composed of natural persons, exists completely separately from them. ... Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardised products on production lines. ... Mass distribution is a term used in physics, geosciences and mechanics and describes the spatial distribution of mass within a solid body. ... Mass education refers to a state-run educational system, usually free and compulsory, that aims to ensure that all children in society have at least a basic education. ... Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a term used to describe a munition with the capacity to indiscriminately kill large numbers of living beings. ... Standardization, in the context related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. ... Centralization (or centralisation) is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group. ... An organization or organisation (read more about -ize vs -ise) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Bureaucracy is a concept in sociology and political science referring to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules are socially organized. ... A post-industrial society is a proposed name for an economy that has undergone a specific series of changes in structure after a process of industrialization. ... It has been suggested that Digital Age be merged into this article or section. ... A post-industrial society is a proposed name for an economy that has undergone a specific series of changes in structure after a process of industrialization. ... Adhocracy is a type of organization being an opposite of bureaucracy. ... Look up Change in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it. ... Ersatz is a German name (literal meaning: substitute) for products, especially chemical compounds and provisions developed in wartimes when shortage of certain goods was imminent. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is called a proletarian. ... Mass customization, in marketing, manufacturing, and management, is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output. ... See also Just-in-time for the compiler system in computing. ... Configuration systems which are also known as configurators assist users in designing a producible custom product for themselves that precisely meets their needs. ... Prosumer refers to one of two possible portmanteaus formed by contracting either the word producer or professional with the word consumer. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... A freelancer or (freelance worker) is a self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. ... An NCR interior, multi-function ATM in the USA Smaller indoor ATMs dispense money inside convenience stores and other busy areas, such as this off-premise Wincor Nixdorf mono-function ATM in Sweden An on-premise NCR interior, multi-function through-the-wall ATM at a CIBC branch in Canada...

Ageing societies will be using new (medical) technologies from self-diagnosis to instant toilet urinalysis to self-administered therapies delivered by nanotechnology to do for themselves what doctors used to do. This will change the way the whole health industry works. Molecular gears from a NASA computer simulation. ...

Since the 1970s, people have been trying to make sense out of the impact of new technologies and social change. Toffler's writings have been influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic and public policy discussions. Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in Future Shock as inspiring him to use the word "techno" to describe the musical style he helped to create. Techno is a form of electronic dance music that became prominent in Detroit, Michigan during the mid-1980s with influences from electro, New Wave, Funk and futuristic fiction themes that were prevalent and relative to modern culture during the end of the Cold War in industrial America at that time. ... Juan Atkins (born December 9, 1962 in Detroit) is an American musician. ... Musical genres are categories which contain music which share a certain style or which have certain elements in common. ...

Toffler's works and ideas have been subject to various criticism, usually with the same argumentation used against futurology, that is that foreseeing the future is nigh impossible. In the 1990s, his ideas were publicly lauded by Newt Gingrich. Futures studies researches the medium-term to long-term future of societies and of the physical world, mechanisms of change, and the driving forces of change. ... Newton Leroy Gingrich (born 17 June 1943) served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. ...

In 1996 Alvin and Heidi Toffler founded Toffler Associates, an executive advisory firm committed to helping commercial firms and government agencies adjust to the changes described in the Tofflers' works.

The development Toffler believes may go down as this era’s greatest turning point is the creation of wealth in outer space. Wealth today, he argues, is created everywhere (globalisation), nowhere (cyberspace), and out there (outer space). Global positioning satellites are key to synchronising precision time and data streams for everything from cellphone calls to ATM withdrawals. They allow just-in-time productivity because of precise tracking. GPS is also becoming central to air-traffic control. And satellites increase agricultural productivity through tracking weather, enabling more accurate forecasts. Layers of Atmosphere - not to scale (NOAA) Outer space, also simply called space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. ... Globalization is a term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that are the result of dramatically increased trade and cultural exchange. ... It has been suggested that Virtual world be merged into this article or section. ... Layers of Atmosphere - not to scale (NOAA) Outer space, also simply called space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. ... project This article is about the US NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS). ... Cellular redirects here. ... An NCR interior, multi-function ATM in the USA Smaller indoor ATMs dispense money inside convenience stores and other busy areas, such as this off-premise Wincor Nixdorf mono-function ATM in Sweden An on-premise NCR interior, multi-function through-the-wall ATM at a CIBC branch in Canada... Just In Time (JIT) is an inventory strategy implemented to improve the return on investment of a business by reducing in-process inventory and its associated costs. ... Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCTs) at Schiphol Airport Air Traffic Control (ATC) is a service provided by ground based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air to ensure safe, orderly and expeditious traffic flow. ... Weather is a term that encompasses phenomena in the atmosphere of a planet. ... Prediction of future events is an ancient human wish. ...

For Toffler, the diversifying wealth system will be mirrored in our personal lives. “We won’t see the death of the family, but the diversification of family formats. We are on the verge of accepting gay civil unions. There are single mothers, unmarried couples, married couples with no kids, fathers and mothers in serial marriages. Monogamy won’t go away, but polygamy may gain wider acceptance.”

Two major predictions of Toffler's - the paperless office and human cloning - have yet to be realized, not due to technological barriers but to sociological and politico-religious conditions. Office types Class A office space Back office Front office Mobile office Paperless office Serviced office Small office/home office Virtual office The paperless office was a visionary or publicists slogan, supposed to apply to the office of the future. ... Human Cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing, or previously existing, human being or growing clone tissue from that individual. ...

Books

Alvin Toffler co-wrote his books with his wife Heidi. A few of their well-known works are:

• Future Shock (1970) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-27737-5
• The Eco-Spasm Report (1975) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-14474-X
• The Third Wave (1980) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-24698-4
• Previews & Premises (1983)
• Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990) Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-29215-3
• War and Anti-War (1995) Warner Books ISBN 0-446-60259-0
• Revolutionary Wealth (2006) Knopf ISBN 0-375-40174-1

Future Shock is a controversial book written by the sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970. ... The Third Wave is a book published in 1980 by Alvin Toffler. ... The 21st century is the present century of the Gregorian calendar. ... Alvin and Heidi Tofflers latest book is Revolutionary Wealth and is the subject for discussion between Mr. ...

List of political leaders tutored by Alvin and Heidi Toffler

• Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 as he was formulating perestroika
• Zhao Ziyang, the reformist Chinese premier in 1988
• Most of the Japanese leaders from Hirofumi Nakasone to Junichiro Koizumi - he is highly respected in Japan by politicians and business leaders alike
• Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad
• India’s Abdul Kalam
• South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung
• Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez read Toffler's work during his period in jail. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov ( , IPA: , commonly written as Mikhail Gorbachev; born March 2, 1931) was the last leader of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. ... This is a Chinese name; the family name is Zhao Zhao Ziyang (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhào Zǐyáng; Wade-Giles: Chao Tzu-yang) (October 17, 1919–January 17, 2005) was a politician in the Peoples Republic of China. ... Hirofumi Nakasone (中曽根 弘文 Nakasone Hirohumi, b. ... Junichiro Koizumi , born January 8, 1942) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. ... Mahathir bin Mohamad (born December 20, 1925 in Alor Star, Kedah) was the Prime Minister of Malaysia from July 16, 1981 to 2003. ... Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (Tamil: , Hindi: ; born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam ^) is the current President of India. ... Kim Dae-jung (born January 6, 1926) is a former South Korean president and the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the first winner of a Nobel to hail from Korea [1]. A Roman Catholic since 1957, he has been called the Nelson Mandela of Asia [2] and was a symbol... Newton Leroy Gingrich (born 17 June 1943) served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. ... President Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (born July 28, 1954) has been the President of Venezuela since 1999. ...

See also

• Daniel Bell
• Norman Swan

Daniel Bell Daniel Bell (born 10 May 1919) is a sociologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. ...

External links

• Alvin & Heidi Toffler website
• Toffler Associates website
• Interview by Newt Gingrich