The Global Business Network is an international think-tank and consulting firm based in San Francisco. The $4.5-million agency gathers dozens of companies and more than 100 professionals into a "collaborative learning network".
GBN's members include such "digerati" as artists Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson, nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler, Brian Arthur (the leading economist from Belfast, now based at the Sante Fe Institute), sci-fi authors William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, sociologist Sherry Turkle and Wired magazine's editor Kevin Kelly.
GBN was founded in the 1980s by Peter Schwartz and Napier Collyns, two former members of the Dutch oil giant Shell's Planning Group, who used to spend their time working through bizarre futuristic scenarios such as: "What would happen if Arab countries suddenly quadrupled the price of oil?" Shell ended up as the only company in the world to predict the 1973 oil crisis.