We are in an era of accelerating change, moving toward a future that will be profoundly different from the past we grew up in. But what will the nature of that change be? What will the future look like? For the last 7 days I have been in an executive program designed by Singularity University (www.singularityu.org) to give some insight into that complex question. We looked at a number of technological fields, lectured by experts assembled to give us some idea as to where current research is and to where it is going. We visited some of the cutting-edge companies here in Silicon Valley.

Just as interesting, I got to visit with 44 of my fellow information seekers from 15 countries and extremely diverse backgrounds, along with a dozen college students, as well as the faculty. The group ranged from very successful entrepreneurs to academics to relatively high-level government workers to starry-eyed young people just starting out. There were a lot more applicants than could be accommodated, and the staff did a good job of choosing a group of people who all "brought something to the table" besides their entry fee of $15,000. The days were typically 14-15 hours, and there was a lot of discussion amongst us on the topics of the day.

This week we depart from my usual letter on finance and economics so I can report on a few of the ideas I came across. Some truly grabbed my interest, some confirmed my thinking, and others quite frankly either disappointed or alarmed me. This will not be my normal narrative, but rather short observations cribbed from my notes and thoughts. As I am on (yet again) a plane to San Antonio for a speech tomorrow morning, there will not be the usual links; and in some cases I must confess I made notes without writing down the name of the speaker. Mea culpa. So, sit back and let me share what has been a great week. (And I suspect that a few of you will be happy that we are ignoring Greece for at least one week!)

Quick note. My Strategic Investment Conference is almost sold out. Details at the end of the letter.

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none... The cause-creating drive is thus conditioned and excited by the feeling of fear ..." Friedrich Nietzsche

This weekend I turn 60 and have been a little more introspective than usual. I am often told that the letter I wrote well over three years ago on ubiquity and complexity theory and the future of the economy was the best letter I have ever done. I went back to read it, and it has aged well. I basically outlined how a financial crisis would unfold, and now it has.

On reflection, I think that there are perhaps other, even larger, events in our future than the recent credit crisis and recession; yet, just as in 2006, there is a great deal of complacency. But as we will see, there are fingers of instability building up that have the potential to create large disruptions, both positive and negative, in our future. And for the political junkies in the room, I offer a brief insight into what may be one of the more intriguing behind-the-scenes developments in recent years. Now, to the letter.

"What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.

"First, it is an outlier , as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable."

- Nicholas Nassim Taleb

In Taleb's world, Black Swans are not just events like 9/11 or the crash of '87. They can be positive events like the introduction of a new technology which changes everything. It is now easy to see the affect of the Internet, but not many saw it in 1987, and those who did were few and considered kind of strange. The steam engine changed a world, slowly at first, but it was a major Black Swan.

This week we look at what I think will be another Black Swan with the potential to be one of the most disruptive introductions of technology in the last 20 years. In one sense, it is entirely predictable. On the other hand, it will fundamentally alter the economic equations of the telecommunications world, as well as spawn whole new enterprises and enable radical new ancillary technologies.

Yesterday the Philadelphia Fed Business Economic Survey came in at the lowest level since the recession in 2001. Some argue that it is just one month's worth of data, and "...besides, it is Philadelphia. Those numbers are always quirky." And why pay attention to the Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators? The bond market has its own opinions, and they are different than that of the stock market. With all of this as backdrop, we will then think about why we should be optimistic. Things are going to get better. All it takes is a little innovation.

The data seems to be pointing to an economic slowdown of some kind. It is getting increasingly difficult to suggest that we are in for a Goldilocks scenario where growth runs at 3%, inflation drops below 2% and housing starts to recover.

The debate is between those who say we are in for a soft landing or a hard landing. A hard landing is one in which the economy enters a recession. A soft landing is normally defined as one where the economy slows but stops somewhere north of an actual recession.

Last week we looked at how technology has the potential to slow and possibly reverse aging within the next two decades. Marvelous cures for the main reasons of death like cancer, heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer's, not to mention the potential to manage weight, are in our future. Amazing innovations in communications are rapidly coming at us, as is an increased ability to process information. Hunger and malnutrition are in our sites, as we increase the ability to find harvests which yield more, as well as biotech and nanotech processes to manufacture food.

Further down the road, the ability to manipulate molecules at the quantum level will mean we can produce the materials we need at much lower costs. As we map and reverse engineer the software which runs our brains, powerful new software can be developed on machines which can aid in the development of whole new technologies, as well as allow us to directly access information and communicate with each other. It will mean I can get rid of this annoying keyboard, which is bouncing around as the plane I am on is in a little turbulence.