Judy Nagel, Envision Board and Upward Mobility Signals Team
When you think of a drone, how high do you imagine it going, and how long do you imagine it staying in the air? Did you realize that the new “pseudo-satellite” drones can soar to heights of more than 60,000 feet and stay up there for months? That’s the report from Alistair MacDonald in The Wall Street Journal, which labeled such drones the “innovation of the week” recently.
(more…)By Noel Halvorsen, Envision Board Member and Housing & Safety Signals Team
Park Hotels and Resorts, the owner of two of San Francisco’s largest (Hilton operated) hotels, has stopped making mortgage payments in the “best interest’ of shareholders. Slow recovery from the pandemic, a weak convention calendar, lagging return to office numbers, and concerns over “street conditions” (the neighborhood has seen some high-end retailers pull out due to concerns about homelessness, street crime, and drugs).
While one might be tempted to point to the street conditions as a primary driver, it looks to this foresight analyst that the damage is more related to high market costs, and a slow return to normal in terms of room bookings. Choosing to default on a $725 million loan at two of the three largest hotels in a major city can’t be an easy decision. This could be a signal of central city real estate problems across the country as offices sit vacant, conventions continue to sputter in hybrid formats, and homeless numbers swell in the face of inflation and unreachable housing expenses. Read about it here.
By Beth Kowalski, Envision Board member and Arts, Culture & Entertainment Signals Team
Elizabeth Merritt is the American Alliance of Museums’ Vice President for Strategic Foresight and Founding Director of the Center for the Future of Museums – a think-tank and research and development lab for the museum sector. Here you’ll discover how she navigates this next iteration of text AI, and what it might mean for museums. It’s fun to watch her dialogue with ChatGPT develop, but it might also provide some fascinating ideas about how you might use AI in your own field of work. Read the article here.