heathervescent

2013: A Year in Review

It seems like not long ago I was writing my 2012 review in a hotel room in Southern Utah.

When I reflect on where I was a year ago, it's like a different world. I was in Portland. I had just packed up my mom's house and condo. We had held her funeral and I gave an Eulogy. I had just got into her car and drove to Montana. I had no idea where my life was going. It seemed like everything had or was breaking down. You only live once, so I surrendered to my unfolding life. 

2013 was a year a shifts and changes. 

The elephant in the room was grieving for my mother, the closure of her estate and the reintegration of myself after her death, which included a priority shift from my career uber alles into healthy consciously created relationships. There was also the case of my broken heart. 2013 was the birth of my most ambitious project to date: The Future of Money TV Series.

• On my birthday in January, I bought a Geodesic Dome in the Mojave Desert.

 

• It was also the month I voiced my idea to make a future related TV series to the person who would become my distributor partner.
• In Feb, I finally ended my longest LTR, and began this grieving/healing process. Ugh.
• I changed my diet and began my love of reformer based pilates.
• I launched the 3rd year of my Future of Transactions Survey.
• In March, I spoke at TedxZwolle and visited amazing Amsterdam.

 

• Spring was spent working on the dome, rebuilding friendships, reformatting my body/brain and developing the series.
• Summer was lots of conference travel, great friends, love. I went to Orlando, Chicago, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Portland and Seattle.
• I organized the Association of Professional Futurist's Professional Development Day, where we looked at Casual Layered Analysis and created a mapping of the history of futurist roles. It was very successful.

• I spoke twice at the World Future Society's conference. A Possibility Tour. The Human Problem. Both well received talks.
• My paper, The Human Problem, won 1st place.
• I kicked off a new research project, The Future of Intimacy, with colleagues from OCAD. We'll be presenting this work at SXSW 2014. 
• The Fall was the unveiling of the Future of Money TV Series, successfully raising $37k on Kickstarter and garnering lots of press in the process.
• And I finally got the dome ready for unforgettable experiences in the Mojave.
• I launched my 3rd Bitcoin survey.
• And I'm heads down on production and preparation for Q1 2014.
• With plans to write a book. Whew!

Not too shabby of a year, especially considering the circumstances.

I'm leaving 2013 a healthier person, physically and emotionally. I have amazing friends I love, who love me. Great collaborators. And great projects that I believe will culturally change the world and make it a better place. I've successfully recovered/reintegrated the shocks from 2012 and 2013. I'm a different person, but I'm also still the same heathervescent!

I'm exiting 2013 in the best shape of my life - personally, professionally, physically.

So 2014... the newly evolved heathervescent is finally ready to start my life's work...

Beyond the Bitcoin Surge

I've got a new article up on Medium about Bitcoin. Please check it out and hit their Recommend button! Thanks!

---------

A Financial Futurist’s Perspective

The past couple weeks has seen a media saturation on Bitcoin reminiscent of a similar hype peaking in June 2011. Change a few numbers in this MIT Tech Review article reporting about the 2011 bubble and it’s déjà vu. Here’s what causing the boom in Bitcoin from the perspective of a financial futurist.

Bridging Paradigms

Paradigm shifts take time. Often we don’t realize one is happening when we’re in the middle of it. This is because the full shift can only be seen clearly in hindsight. It takes system thinking, which trained futurists deploy to connect seemingly unconnected subjects, to call out a paradigm shift in real time. Topics and trends are mostly explored and understood in their own context — but for futurists, they become exponentially more powerful when seen through a broader lens.

Bitcoin bridges two paradigms: the traditional financial paradigm, focused on clearly defined 1:1 financial transactions, and a new paradigm, in which non-financial data is layered on top of financial transactions. Bitcoin transactions include shared social values layered on top of the financial transaction mechanism. The social values encoded in the DNA of Bitcoin are DIY, peer-to-peer, distrust in government and central banking systems, technology elitism, and anonymity. Buying something with Bitcoin can be construed as an act of financial activism —not just a purchase.

Rewarding the Early Adopters

Bitcoin early adopters are rewarded today for holding the currency long term. You might call some people lucky because they bought Bitcoin and then forgot about it. But they bought it for a reason, and based on my Bitcoin research survey in 2011, most early Bitcoin purchasers were believers in the social values the currency represents.

Momentum Versus Speculation

The use of Bitcoin for speculation and market manipulation is an unfortunate side effect of its capabilities for real-time beta testing. Because Bitcoin is a smaller system, those with the resources to purchase large amounts can manipulate it. This has attracted speculators looking for short-term gain, which resulted in the 2011 Bitcoin bubble and crash. Consider this part of Bitcoin’s growing pains.

Economic Growth Outside the Mainstream

Despite the rising bar in the stock market; inequality between the rich and the poor has never been greater in the history of human civilization. This is why people are willing to experiment making money in new ways. Retailers can now accept Bitcoin because the transactions are easier to process than in the history of the currency, more people are using it, and its gained mainstream credibility, especially through the positive reception at the Senate Congressional hearings. In addition to increased sales, Bitcoin-friendly retailers garner media attention as well as community goodwill as reported by Kasmir Hill in this Forbes article.

“[T]he real worth of taking [Bitcoin] may be the publicity Cups and Cakes has gotten as one of the first stores to accept the currency. Her little shop has been featured in international news: on the BBC, in the Financial Times, on NPR Marketplace, and beyond.”

From a financial futurist’s perspective it appears as if Bitcoin is going to keep increasing in value, so there’s little downside if you have steady regular currency sales. The Bitcoin sales are gravy.

Currency Cornucopia

The future looks like this: a diversification of currencies. I don’t believe we will see our traditional economic system disappear. Most people will need dollars for daily needs. But you’ll be able to use other currencies for certain things. You might need dollars to pay your rent or car payment or internet bill, For your local farmer’s market or coffee shop, you might use a community currency like Bernal Bucks or Brixton Pounds. And you might use Bitcoins to transact online or when traveling to regions like Berlin with robust Bitcoin economies.

Is It Too Late?

You might ask, is it too late to get in on Bitcoin? It depends on your reasons. If you wanted to get in at the beginning, well, you’re four years late. However, if you believe in DIY and peer-to-peer sharing, distrust government and central banking systems, consider yourself a technology elitist and prefer anonymity, what other currency options align with those values? Are you willing to put your money where your values are? No one can predict whether you will make money, but with each Bitcoin transaction, you are actively creating the future. For many, this ability to influence the future is a worthwhile investment.