This is a summary of Marshall McLuhan's work applied to understanding the past, present and future. It covers - the medium is the message, the medium as content, hot and cool media, our change from a pre-literate to literate to post literate society, characteristics of the post literate society, and the four laws of media. It will close with a discussion of the wave of the future. The benefits of understanding this approach are that you: • Will understand why our present environment is the way that it is • Gain a greater understanding of the interrelationships of past, present and future. • Will understand the influence of media on our perception, thinking and actions • Will gain insight on the long term future. Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has 19 years of experience in consulting as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (http://centexwfs.ning.com). And he is the founder of the Insights – Intelligence - Innovation Collaborative (http://incollaboration.ning.com) . He is on the advisory boards of the Marketing Research Association and the Austin Center for Nonprofit and community Based Organizations. More information about Paul can be found on his web site (http://www.glocalvantage.com).

1. The Wave of the Future Understanding Marshall McLuhan Paul Schumann

4. Marshall McLuhan 10/20/09 Paul Schumann 1911 - 1980

7. The Wave 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Hokusai … the wave of the future…the wave of the future…the wave of the future…the wave of the future… Attributed to Howard Hughes in “The Aviator”

8. McLuhan’s Wake 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

17. Technology 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

19. Senses 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Hearing Sight Smell Taste Touch Human

20. Homunculus 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Source: www.visualsunlimited.com Homunculus model showing what the human body might look if proportioned to the extent of sensory areas of the brain.

22. Cycle of Change 10/20/09 Paul Schumann We invent a new media technology The new media technology alters our sense ratios The altered sense ratio alters our perception The altered perception changes the way we think With a new way of thinking we create new models of reality New models of reality give rise to new inventions We shape our tools and tools shape us. McLuhan

24. Five Epochs of Communication 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Primitive Tribal Literate Proto Literate Post Literate 160,000 bce 4,000 bce 2,000 bce 1850 ce

27. Perspective Space 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

31. Standing Waves 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

32. Spontaneous Standing Wave Patterns 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

34. 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Enhancement Obsolescence Retrieval Reversal Tetrad

35. Tetrad: Reversal 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

36. 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Enhancement Obsolescence Retrieval Reversal Tetrad

37. Web 2.0 as a Medium 10/20/09 Paul Schumann

40. The Wave 10/20/09 Paul Schumann Hokusai … the wave of the future…the wave of the future…the wave of the future…the wave of the future… Attributed to Howard Hughes in “The Aviator”

42. 10/20/09 Paul Schumann "The goal of science and the arts and of education for the next generation must be to decipher not the genetic but the perceptual code. In a global information environment, the old pattern of education in answer-finding is of no avail: one is surrounded by answers, millions of them moving and mutating at electric speed. Survival and control will depend upon the ability to probe and to question in the proper way and place. As the information that constitutes the environment is perpetually in flux, so the need is not for fixed concepts but rather for the ancient skill for reading that book, for navigating through an ever uncharted and unchartable milieu. Else we will have no more control of this technology and environment than we have of the wind and the tides.“ Marshall McLuhan, The Four Laws of Media

44. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Attribution to Paul Schumann, Glocal Vantage, Inc., www.glocalvantage.com. 10/20/09 Paul Schumann