The insurance industry exists as a tool for mitigating the costs and damage associated with a single incident occurring for an individual or organization. But the concept of risk is changing. Driverless cars are reducing risk while flying drones are increasing it. Peer-to-peer models, automated sales channels, telematics, home automation, the sharing economy, big data, pay-as-you-go policies, shifting consumer preferences, and identity theft are all in the process of creating a far different landscape for the insurance industry of tomorrow.

There are approximately 2.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to traditional banks, yet nearly half of them have a mobile phone. The future of banking will be mobile, happening on devices we carry in our pockets, built into jewelry, and on our wrists, not in fancy office buildings. Brach banking will all but disappear. In less than five years, smartphones, watches, and other devices will replace credit/debit cards, wallets, lenders, stockbrokers, and insurance agents. And we’re just getting started.

Tom’s understanding of the world around us clearly shines when he goes off-script and gets interactive with small groups and executive teams. Both his depth of knowledge on specific industries, coupled with a broader perspective on system, technology, and lifestyle trends makes each session a riveting experience. Gone are the vagaries and generalized outlooks that accompany most predictions. Instead, he has a way of opening the hood to reveal the inner workings of the real drivers powering the engines of change.

With the Internet being a multidimensional communications network, Thomas Frey likes to think of it from the perspective of being inside a bag with people pushing on all of the outer walls simultaneously. The future of the Internet is not any one thing, it’s many. For this talk, Frey has broken the transformative nature of the Internet into eight causal dimensions that he uses to expand our understanding of this super complex communication system.

Unlike the study of macro or megatrends, situational futuring is a micro-futuring process that begins with a single invention, tiny idea, or what-if condition and expands from there. The process begins with an initial scenario and asking some of the standard who-what-when-where-how-and-why questions. Probing deeper, questions formulated around things like timing, monetary implications, disruptive effects, symbiotic partners, who-wins-who-loses, wild cards, policy changes, and strange bedfellows will help expand your thinking even further. This works particularly well in a brainstorming environment where thoughts and ideas can be quickly sketched out, described, or clarified so more can be added.

While many people think of the metaverse as some version of the dystopian movie, Ready Player One, the bulk of the metaverse will have far more utilitarian value, and it will be entering our future, with or without our permission. We’ve taken far too many steps in this direction to stop it. In addition to sports and entertainment, there will be few if any aspects of society – including government, business, churches, entertainment, dating, politics, and even war – that will remain unchanged with the evolving Metaverse. It will have an especially profound effect on the way we educate ourselves and our children in the years ahead.