Nine Shift

2016 All-New Prediction #3: More New Model Schools Built Around 2020

Here's the first of our three all-new predictions: around 2020 more new model schools will be built.

Right now, all but a handful of school and college buildings are based on the factory-model school.  We have a new model pioneered by Don Collins in Melbourne, Australia, where the open rooms have tables for students and teachers to network and share.  
One of the forces for the building of the new open-room model schools will be the increased population of Gen Yers in dense neighborhoods, especially in dense neighborhoods in big cities where schools have not been kept up.  So new school buildings will be needed, and they will more likely be the open-room model than the old factory-model school that Gen Y hates.

Top Stories of the Year

The past 12 months have been an exciting "rush" as the Knowledge Society of the 21st Century now rapidly replaces the Industrial Age of the last century.  

Here's the Top Stories of the past year. Dates are those of our NineShift blog entries covering each story.

 1.Forty-eight hours when the 21^st Century won (September 1; September 2; September 3; September 4, 2015)

 2.The FCC voted to make the Internet a utility, changing the rules for this fundamental essential service for the 21st century.  (March 8, 2015)

 3.Americans clueless about Knowledge Society and knowledge jobs. (January 20, 2015)

 4.New 15 year era of “Education Transformation” begins (January 5, 2015)

 5.College educated Gen Y key to economic prosperity (January 2, 2015)

 6.High speed train race is on!  (January 29, 2015)

 7.The Coming Building Boom has already started (March 3; August 10, 2015)

 8.For-profit trains enter the passenger train arena. (September 28, 2015)

 9.Tea Party and GOP race against the 2020 clock when 1)America will be more urban, and suburban power will be over. 2) Gen Y will be the biggest voting block; and
3)America will be majority minority.  And minority majority.  (July 21, 2015)

10. The leading Economic indicators are for the Industrial Age of the last century and are  all wrong for this century. (August 27, 2015)

I meet a deer on the trail in the woods over the holidays.  

2016 Prediction #4: Dems Win White House This Year; GOP in 2020

To find out who will win the Presidency this year, just look back 100 years. 

We predicted this several years ago.  The reason Democrats will win the White House this year is economic, and demographic. Gen Y wants the 21st century, and the GOP is clinging to the last century.  Gen Y put Pres. Obama in the White House in the last two elections, and Gen Y will put a Democrat in the White House again.  Just like in 1916. 

In 2020, like 1920, Gen Y will want a "return to normalcy."  As a society we will be exhausted from all the changes of the past 20 years, and need time to build the new 21st Century society.  The changes will remain, permanently in the century, but enough of the new.  Let's just build on the "new" we have just created (dense neighborhoods, trains, new schools, new laws, etc.)

The road to our cabin last week, before the snow plow came along.