Jerry Michalski

Jerry Michalski is a futurist and expert on trust, with a career spanning more than three decades at the intersection of technology, society, and human collaboration. From 1987 to 1998, Michalski worked as a technology analyst, first at the market-research firm New Science Associates, then as managing editor of Esther Dyson's monthly technology newsletter "Release 1.0," as well as co-host of her annual conference, PC Forum. During the dot-com era, Michalski contributed to the development of software and online services, influencing the evolution of online community, blogging, wikis, and social media. Newsweek referred to him as a software seer, highlighting his ability to anticipate technological and cultural shifts.

Since 1998, Michalski has operated independently, advising organizations of various sizes. He served as a technology advisor to eGroups (now YahooGroups) and Pyra (now Blogger, part of Google) and has consulted for companies such as Best Buy, Havas Media, Environmental Defense Fund, and Institute for the Future. His consulting practice, Sociate, encompasses a range of thought leadership initiatives that examine business, innovation, and human collaboration.

Central to Michalski's work is the concept of trust. In the mid-1990s, he identified the word "consumer" as key to understanding contemporary challenges, which led him to focus on trust and the ways consumer capitalism can erode it. He also observed global efforts to rebuild trust and developed "Design from Trust," a process applicable across industries where mistrust is a constraint and trust is the solution. Michalski has explored the importance of trust for decades, delivering TEDx Talks and keynotes on trust as a foundational element in relationships, business, and governance.

Michalski is the founder of Open Global Mind, a project aimed at improving collective decision-making. He also established REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition, a think-and-do tank that brings together change agents to explore trust-related ideas. He has lectured on the economy of relationships at organizations such as Institute for the Future, arguing that future economies will be built on relationships. Interested in collective knowledge networking, Michalski began digitally mapping knowledge more than 27 years ago using TheBrain mind-mapping software; his collection of over 615,000 nodes is publicly accessible and serves as a living example of his approach.

Michalski holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA in economics from UC Irvine. He is also a senior industry fellow at RMIT University. Whether advising Fortune 500 companies, speaking at global conferences, or hosting the "Rethink the Future" podcast, Michalski combines technical expertise with a humanistic perspective, encouraging audiences to reconsider the role of trust in technology, business, and society.