By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The world is changing ever-faster, and a futurist says it’s part of an epic transition that is at once global and personal.

Most of humanity has embraced the Agricultural Age, somewhat fewer the Industrial Age. Many of us are bewildered by the Information Age, but a new one is coming, says futurist David Houle, author of Entering the Shift Age.

“Shift Age” is his term for a time of global connectedness with greater individual choice through electronics.  He says we’ve grown from a “content is king” paradigm to “context is king”.

“Earth century, retrofitting the 21st Century, concept of place changing forever, the merging of biology and technology and the new evolutionary shift in consciousness are the five big contexts in which we’ll be looking at the future over the next 10 to 15 years.”

Houle says the global and individual trends are not in conflict, because if you don’t want to go global you don’t have to.