Around the world our cities are in desperate need of rejuvenation and transformation. Elected officials are scrambling to equip their cities for the 21st century, talking about creating "open," "networked," and "smart" cities.

The problems are legion. Mexico City is now one of the most dangerous cities in the world....

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; one, two and three can be found here,...

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; one and two can be found here and...

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five; read the first one here). We need to...

What will happen in 2012? In the spirit of the aphorism "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved," let me suggest 20 transformations (which The Huffington Post will publish in four groups of five). We need to make progress on these issues now to...

One thing pundits rarely do is review their own prognostications. A year ago I published "10 Big Themes for 2011" -- related to how the digital revolution changes business and society. It's helpful to review what actually occurred. Below are my projections and some 20-20 hindsight editorializing.

1....

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, we need to rethink and redesign many organizations and institutions that have previously served us well but are now beginning to falter. Fortunately, the Internet lets us do this. It slashes collaboration costs and makes possible completely new models of combining...

Protesters set up the "Occupy Wall Street" base camp in New York a month ago because the location epitomizes the economic forces that control the U.S. and global economies. As one sign read: "This is not a recession. It's a robbery." To many it feels like just that. The financial...

I'm enjoying participating in this week's meeting of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Councils.

The Network of Global Agenda Councils constitutes the intellectual brains trust of the World Economic Forum. This year more than 750 Global Agenda Council Members from all walks of life and from more than 80...

I recently attended the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is an annual gathering of the American intelligentsia and powerful to discuss global issues. I watched a session where Chrystia Freeland, a Canadian, was interviewing Bob Rubin, former Secretary of the US Treasury and now chairman of the Council on Foreign Affairs....

In our 2006 book Wikinomics, Anthony D. Williams and I looked at dozens of companies that have used the Internet to transform their business models and achieve tremendous success.

However, in the five years since the book's publication, we've noticed something striking: the rate of business model innovation has not...

With the youth unemployment rate in this country higher than 20 percent, we can be thankful that angry young Americans are not marching in the streets like their peers in many countries in Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. Perhaps the biggest reason that we haven't yet seen protests...

The irony couldn't be more obvious. After staging a piece of political theater called the E-G8, which French President Nicolas Sarkozy used as a platform to champion the notion of much tougher government control over the Internet, the president today will welcome to the analog G8 meeting in Deauville, representatives...

In the Arab world this winter, social media proved that it can facilitate rebellion and even topple regimes. Now it faces a much harder challenge. Can social media help to build new governments?

The wiki revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt happened so fast that the positive forces of change have...

The good news about Schumpeter's creative destruction is that, thanks to the Internet and digital tools, it has never been easier to start a company. One study found that the availability of open source software, cloud computing, and the rise of virtual office infrastructure has driven the cost of launching...

A common thread to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and protests elsewhere in the Middle East and north Africa is the soul-crushing high rate of youth unemployment. Twenty-four percent of young people in the region cannot find jobs. To be sure, protesters were also agitating for democracy, wanting the...

Just like the Internet lowers transaction costs in the economy leading to networked models of innovation and wealth creation, one effect of the digital revolution on society is to lower the transaction costs of dissent and insurrection.

Over the last year, many have questioned just how important social media are...

It is my custom after attending Davos to formulate my top 10 reflections. These are not necessarily the top issues discussed at Davos but rather some observations about the state of the world.

1. The Age of Wiki Revolutions

Not surprisingly, the historic events in Tunisia and Egypt captured the...

Earlier today I had the pleasure of meeting Shawn Ahmed, the 29-year-old video blogger who was invited last week to attend the World Economic Forum meeting because of powerful videos he has made of impoverished Bangladeshis. He submitted a video to the 2011 Davos Debates and was chosen the winner...

Davos, Switzerland -- The World Economic Forum is quickly morphing from a once-a-year talkathon into a year-round network of leaders and leading thinkers tackling global problems. Nature hates a vacuum, and the Forum is expanding to fill a void in our systems for global cooperation. It gets people acting constructively,...