At the Institute for the Future retreat

I spent this afternoon at the Institute for the Future‘s 30th Ten Year Forecast Retreat at the Claremont in Berkeley, where the theme was grassroots economies, the sharing economy and sustainability. If you don’t know the Institute for the Future, you should. Paul Saffo and crew have been doing a top-notch job for years looking at global trends and their likely impact on society.

I was in the session titled “Innovation Agenda: Experiments from the Edge,” and spoke about Ourmedia.org. Fellow panelist Greg Steltenpohl — founder, former CEO and Chair Emeritus of Odwalla Inc., the leading supplier of fresh juice in the US, and co-founder of the Interra Project — talked about new business approaches.

Enjoyed sitting next to the wonderful Jerry Michalski, and spent a while chatting up Joi Ito and Howard Rheingold, both of whom spoke earlier in the afternoon (Jerry spoke this morning). Also enjoyed meeting the Institute’s crew, including Andrea Saveri and Lyn Jeffery.

Decided not to blog the talks in real time. I’ll post the summaries if I receive them.

Joi, by the way, just got a copy of Seth Godin’s new book, All Marketers Are Liars. I’ll be checking it out.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.