FUTURE MAPPING

Peter Leyden isn't backing off an inch from the postulates of his 1999 book, “The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity.” The new economy is still here, he insists, and telecom's current funk is just a bump in the road. His next book, “What's Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business,” (due in September) examines the possible business impacts of everything from terrorism to global warming.

On corporate curveballs: Keeping an eye on new technologies is still essential for businesses, but it's not sufficient. Global businesses will have to tune into other spheres like science and geopolitics. The time between scientific insight and market impact is radically collapsing. Ten years ago, the human genome project would have been very academic. Now companies help crack it and immediately patent genes and turn them into drugs. Events in geopolitics can radically disrupt business environments, too. The interstate highway system was driven by the need to get troops and missiles around in the wake of World War II. After another strike from terrorists, it wouldn't be inconceivable to see the civil defense need increase for high-bandwidth mobile communication.

On videoconferencing: People have pooh-poohed video phones for the last 30 years because the context of the world was such that it was just as well to jump on a plane. I've got a wife and a 10-year-old kid. After 9/11, there was extreme pressure on me not to travel. If that became more common, the pressure to try videoconferencing would override the current dissatisfaction with it. There are technological fixes in motion to address the flaws, like the lack of eye contact.

On decentralization: We make computer chips in Taiwan, tennis shoes in Malaysia, and then ship them to consumers. That paradigm might change in the next 10 to 20 years as we use nanotechnology to build things at the molecular level. More localized production would depend on extreme information transfer. The energy industry is moving toward decentralization for security and efficiency. Instead of one guy in a central power plant, you could have 5000 energy sources around the country using telecom to coordinate those points of production.

On the good news: Looking forward, it's hard to see how telecom loses out. You can spin out terrifying scenarios of an insecure world and positive scenarios of a good life. They all tend to have telecom pretty central.

DOSSIER PETER LEYDEN

Occupation: “Knowledge developer” for Global Business Network, a new economy think-tank

Location: Berkeley, Calif.

Current reading: “Earth from Above” by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (“guaranteed to blow your mind”) and “A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change” by William H. Calvin

Hobby: Mountain biking

Favorite Web site (besides his own, www.gbn.com): www.longbets.com

Next project: Promoting the new book with a multimedia show and tour, and “making people think about the future.”