2. Alvin Eugene Toffler (October 4,
1928 – June 27, 2016)
The Alvin Toffler was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known
for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital
revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their
effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's
outstanding futurists.
3. Heidi Toffler (1929-2019)
who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on
to examining the reaction to changes in society with another
best-selling book, The Third Wave, in 1980. In it, he foresaw
such technological advances as cloning, personal
computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile
communication. His later focus, via their other best-
seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of
21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new
technologies.
4. Career of Alvin Toffler
• Alvin Toffler began his career as a welder in 1950 in Cleveland to study
assembly lines and mass production. He later became a reporter for the trade
newspaper, Labor’s Daily, and then worked for Fortune magazine as a labor
columnist. He was later asked to write on the topics of business and
management. Toffler left ‘Fortune’ and joined IBM, where he was asked to
write an essay on how computers have changed society and organizations.
5. Future Shock 1960 -1970
In the mid-1960s, the Tofflers began five years of research on what would
become Future Shock, published in 1970.[It has sold over 6 million copies
worldwide, according to the New York Times, or over 15 million copies
according to the Tofflers' Web site. Toffler coined the term "future shock" to
refer to what happens to a society when change happens too fast, which
results in social confusion and normal decision-making processes breaking
down. The book has never been out of print and has been translated into
dozens of languages.
6. The third wave -1980
Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—
each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside. He describes the
"First Wave" as the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the
first hunter-gatherer cultures. The "Second Wave," he labels society during
the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century).
That period saw the increase of urban industrial populations which had
undermined the traditional nuclear family, and initiated a factory-like education
system, and the growth of the corporation. Toffler said:
7. • In 1996, with American business consultant Tom Johnson, they co-
founded Toffler Associates, an advisory firm designed to implement
many of the ideas the Tofflers had written on. The firm worked with
businesses, NGOs, and governments in the United States, South
Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries.
During this period in his career, Toffler lectured worldwide, taught at
several schools and met world leaders, such as Mikhail Gorbachev,
along with key executives and military officials.[
