Goodness me. First the good news. The book is selling really well and was the #2 best seller in the bookshop that I dropped into yesterday. It also seems to be everywhere. Not bad given that it’s only been out just over a week. The publisher has also managed to sell the rights to China and the reviews are pretty good too.

And the bad news? First of all the fact that the book is about the future seems to have brought out some rather ‘interesting’ people out of the woodwork. My email in box is certainly more colourful than it was a few weeks ago. So apparently the answer to life, the universe and everything is in the Star Trek movies if you watch closely enough. Ummm. The other issue is that the book seems to be quite controversial, especially amongst people that clearly haven’t read it. The result is mis-quotes, quotes out of context and, most bizarrely of all, people quoting me about things I’ve never actually said. For example, apparently I’ve said that a “Theory of Everything, uniting quantum theory and relativity, would in some way ‘debunk’ Einstein’s work”. Really? I don’t recall saying anything of the sort. I think what I actually wrote (Robert) was:

“One of the most fascinating questions about the future is whether religion will be a victim or a beneficiary of change. Some people predict that faith will decline because the spread of information will undermine the mindset necessary to support belief. Physics will produce a unified theory of everything and this will destroy old-fashioned superstitions like religion. In other words science will become our new religion. I’m not so sure. If science, technology and complexity become key ingredients of the future this will drive change and uncertainty. And the more this happens the more people will seek out safety, comfort and guidance from religion. This could just lead to an increase in individual spirituality, but I suspect that globalisation, mixed with a general feeling of powerlessness and anxiety, will drive group actions and beliefs. Hence we will witness an increase in tribalism, nationalism and xenophobia.”

Anyway, glad I cleared that up. If you’d like to read this passage in context it appears in Chapter One, which can be downloaded for free at www.futuretrendsbook.com. Back soon with some of the reviews and then it’s back to the normal top trends.