The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next

Writing with freelancer Means, Taylor and Wacker aim to predict the near and long-term future of business in an era of cataclysmic change. They note that massive societal shifts occur at 500-year intervals (e.g., the collapse of feudalism). Accordingly, the end of this particular millennium signals another such period. The world is switching from a society based on reason to one based on chaos, where political and social institutions are splintering, and product-based consumer markets are collapsing. These three great streams of change are converging to form the delta of the title. The text courses along with allusions, inter alia, to subatomic physics, homophyly, macronomia and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, while niggling errors turn up: ""Being sent to Coventry"" is not a Victorian expression. And how do we know 45% of the U.S. population is divided into seven media communes, especially when we are later cautioned ""to forget cute consumer typologies""? Intelligence and discernment are prized, but the authors do not say how these skills will be taught. Yet the book cheerfully addresses today's uprootedness and holds out hope for the future ""Age of Possibilities."" Both authors worked for the Yankelovich Monitor, and Wacker is now the futurist at Stanford Research Institute, while Taylor, after many years in PR, currently specializes in marketing. $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Apr.)