Filed under: Futures, Futurists, Geek stuff, Innovative stimulus | Tags: Accelerated Studies Foundation, augmented reality, future of the metaverse, futurist, Gerontology Research Group, jazz diet pepsi, lifelogging, midwest airlines, mirror worlds, scent marketing, sensory marketing, supercentenarians, The Singularity, thomson holidays, virtual worlds
I’m just flicking through the latest issue of The Futurist Magazine which arrived this morning and I thought I’d share with you the highlights of this latest treasure:
* Scent of Success
Apparently Jazz Diet Pepsi was promoted via black cherry scent strips in magazines, Thomson Holidays put smell strips of suntan lotion on their windows to remind people they could escape the cold weather and Midwest Airlines put cookies in the oven after take off to calm nervous passengers so that the smell of cookies wafts through the cabin as the plan reaches altitude. Did you know that unlike other senses, scent travels directly to the brain’s emotional centres and produces automatic feelings in the receiver? Whereas perceptions registered by other senses travel first through interpretive brains centres before they reach the emotional centres. So the quickest way to reach emotions is through smell . . . So what would a successful agency smell like? Or a good doctor? Will the next widget on the market be customisable Glade plug ins? I wonder…
* Supercentenarians – The secret to a long life
There’s just been a study done on predicting which of us will make it to triple figures and why . . The good news is that women make it to the top of the list, women are much more likely to outlive men when it comes to supercentenarians and can I just include this quote from robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group who says “Women are statistically more likely to survive . . women are designed for endurance whereas men are designed for peak strength . . “. Anyway the big news is that you’re more likely to live longer if you…
1. Social Support - . . have social interaction, chat on the phone and keep in touch
2. Anthropometrics - . . have a lower body to fat ratio and higher waist to hip ratio
3. Cognition – . . keep your mind active & keep working on your cognitive abilities
4. Eating Habits – . . eat breakfast regularly & consume substantial amounts of vitamin A & carotenoids
So there you go, you can throw out your overpriced Goiji berries, get back on the treadmill and make the crossword part of your daily routine. Having said that, Jeanne Calment (122 in the Guiness Book of Records) smoked until her 120th birthday so go figure…
Credit for this image to Vermin Inc@ Flickr
* The Singularity
Many scientists , researchers, culture watchers and futurists believe that in the next 4 decades we will enter a phase of rapid & unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the use of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence. The Acceleration Studies Foundation refers to this future period as The Singularity. It will be exciting and absolutely unlike anything humanity has experienced before.
Ok admittedly this sounds a little Matrix-like but it’s a fascinating overview of the future scenarios which may play out in the metaverse space. It basically explores 4 possible scenarios [not dissimilar to the traditional 4 box method of scenario planning - forcing yourself to think through four distinct scenarios based around key themes of impact].
The article explores:
1. Virtual worlds -where humanity spends more time in virtual settings because digital worlds are supremely compelling & seductive or because the real world has suffered widespread collapse.
2. Mirror Worlds – readily accessible data about places and objects creates an ever more sophisticated digital world that mirrors our own.
3. Augmented reality – The tools & technologies of the Mirror World become more personal. Up-to-minute data about people, places and objects enhances our perceptions and deepens our understanding about what’s going on around us.
4. Lifelogging – Digital surveillance, info technology and sensing technology combine to record almost every moment of our lives in a variety of ways. This info is either helpful or hurtful depending on who controls it.
Check out the Accelerated Studies Foundation for more geek treats
Filed under: Futures | Tags: Future, Future of Healthcare, Microsoft, trends, Vision, youtube
Microsoft produces a series of future clips which explore how technologies will change the way we live our lives. Although they can be a little far out, they’re definitely worth a look and would provide some great stimulus for innovation workshops to really push the boundaries of your category & consumer understanding. Worth a look.
Here’s one I found on the future of healthcare. Many more are to be found & enjoyed on YouTube. The People’s Channel.
Filed under: Borrow this, Digital culture, Emergent media, Future of Media, Future of Work, Futures, Google, Innovation, Innovative stimulus, Looking for insights, Macro trends, Social media, Thinking, Trends stuff, creativity, open source | Tags: Advertising, Clay shirky, Google, Here comes everybody, insights manager, Lynette web, Russell Davies, the future of media, THe power of organising without organisations, typepad, UK
Another good piece of innovation stimulus from the lovely Lynette Webb, Insights Manager at Google who created a Flickr site called “Interesting Snippets”. I’ve profiled her before and this is the latest image to her collection. It comes to us with a great quote from Russell Davies’ blog entry about Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody.
For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Clay’s book is about what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures. When the traditional obstacles are broken down and we can all connect, engage and speak freely. What does this mean for the way we interact? For the way media publishers direct content? What happens when our unrestricted right to access, to connect and to speak is not only realised, but assumed?
It’s worth checking out Russell’s post on the book here
And if you haven’t read Clay’s blog you should definitely wet your whistle with a little of this
Filed under: Future of Work, Futures, Gen Research, Gen Y, Macro trends, Oz research, Oz stats, Uncategorized | Tags: bernard salt, demographic trends, generation y, Global Skills Convergence report, global skills shortage, kpmg, skilled and unskilled labour, social trends, trends
For those of you data nerds who love a good bit of research, Bernard Salt and the smarties at KPMG have just released another ripping report titled ‘The Global Skills Convergence’.
‘In the report KPMG presents the thought-provoking notion that growth in the supply of skilled and unskilled labor in the developed world may slow in the next decade as Baby Boomers exit the workforce. More people exiting then entering the workforce leads to what author Bernard Salt describes as a ‘demographic faultline’.
Interestingly, one of the common themes emerging from the interviews in this study was the challenge of recruiting and retaining 20-somethings otherwise known as Generation Y.. here is a generation that requires – perhaps even demands– transparency of leadership and the development of individually tailored career plans.’
You can download the report from KPMG here
Filed under: Borrow this, Digital culture, Emergent media, Future of Media, Futures, Geek stuff, Gen M, Gen Y, Innovative stimulus, Lifestyle trends, Macro trends, Social, Social media, Trends stuff, Work Futures, content communities, creativity | Tags: business week, experience the message, online consumer trends, online stats, online trends, US online internet usage
I tend to take in information best with my peepers, I’m not great at listening [although I try very hard] and I really like to see things mapped out rather than a huge truckload of words. Which is why I love a good model, a good graph, schematic display – anything which represents information in a stimulating visual way. So here’s another one. This one comes courtesy of Business Week, spotted by one of Max’s colleagues & posted on his blog Experience The Message in the middle of last year. It’s a stormer for presentations & workshop stimulus so eat up friend.
You can check out Max’s original post here
The original Business Week article can be found here
Filed under: Digital culture, Emergent media, Future of Media, Futures, Geek stuff, Gen M, Gen Y, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Lifestyle trends, Macro trends, Telco research, Thinking, Trends stuff, USA
Few would deny that media play a central role in the livs of today’s children and adolescents. Their homes, indeed their bedrooms, are saturated with media. Many young people carry miniaturized, portable media with them wherever they go. They comprise the primary audience for popular music;
they form important niche audiences for TV, movies, video games, and print media (each of these industries produces extensive content targeted primarily at kids); they typically are among the early adopters of personal computers (indeed, of most new media) and are a primary target of much of the content of the
World Wide Web. that connect to the Internet and do most of what any digital screen will do.
Here’s a great report on Generation M: media habits in the lives of 8 – 18 year olds
Filed under: Digital culture, Future of Work, Futures, Innovation, Lifestyle trends, Trends stuff, Work Futures, unbusiness
Going Bedouin
By Greg Olsen
Anyone who works in the Silicon Valley knows the fable of the company that achieves spectacular success, then moves into new luxurious headquarters, and then immediately starts its decline. In this fable, the “new headquarters” event equates to “jumping the shark “. Certainly, there is no scientific basis for “demise by new headquarters,” but every time I drive by the still empty excite@home monument or the former SGI headquarters (the new Google headquarters, btw) with its contemplation fountain set amid lush manicured gardens, I wonder.
For many rapidly growing technology companies, “new opulent headquarters” seem to mark the point where a once innovative and agile company has become big, slow, and distracted. The relevant question for me is whether or not a company’s attitude toward operational infrastructure such as facilities, HR, and internal information systems is an indicator of its ability to resist decay into a bloated, slothful, has been.
A technology startup begins in a state of simplicity and focus – some ideas, a few people and little else to get in the way. As the business grows, however, sources of complexity and distraction seem to appear from every direction.
The source I found most surprising, (when I last helped start a software business back in ‘96), was the operational overhead that came with setting up an office, which continued to grow as we got larger. Before we knew it we were dealing with real estate leases, leased-lines, routers, VPNs, servers, workstations, firewalls, DMZs, UPSs, telephone systems, voicemail systems, email systems, web servers & website management software, accounting software, sales & marketing software, software development software, groupware, IT support staff, attorneys, and many other things – none of which were directly related to our core business. The VP of Marketing “had to” spend numerous hours looking at color swatches to select the “right” furniture. While still a small company, an office move (within the same building) required weeks of planning, dedicated staff, and days to complete.
I remember longing wistfully for the days when the company’s infrastructure fit into my backpack.
As I again venture down the startup path, it is clear that much has changed – including new tools, technologies and approaches to support operational needs. Almost everything costs less than it did in ‘96 (except possibly the attorneys), and there is an ever expanding set of service-based alternatives to building operational infrastructure. Most companies seem to be employing these new capabilities incrementally.
I’m interested in something more radical. By focusing almost exclusively on service-based infrastructure options, a business could operate as a sort of neo-Bedouin clan – with workers as a roaming nomadic tribe carrying laptops & cell phones and able to set up shop wherever there is an Internet connection, chairs, tables, and sources of caffeine. “Going Bedouin” is an interesting concept, but key questions naturally arise:
- “How do you do it?”
- “Why do it? What are the benefits?”
- “What are the challenges?”
Given peoples’ experience with telecommuting and distributed team projects from the open source community, a neo-Bedouin approach is not as hard to envision as it once may have been. The requirements for a neo-Bedouin business, however, go further and must include support for all business functions (such as sales, marketing, finance, engineering and customer support). A neo-Bedouin approach can be executed through a wide variety of specific choices. Here is a sample recipe:
For me, “because you can” is almost enough reason to “go Bedouin”, but there are much better reasons. Any reduction of distraction or complexity that is due to operational infrastructure is a good thing. The goal of “going Bedouin” is to create a low inertia business that takes less capital to get started and that can react with greater agility to changing conditions. Key areas of agility include:
- Team agility: Reducing the time/effort it takes to make new team members productive. Providing greater levels of flexibility in addressing team needs through short-term contracting or outsourcing.
- Information systems agility: Reducing the effort spent on systems selection, setup, and switching. Providing greater flexibility to change or extend information systems as business conditions change.
- Physical environment agility: Reducing the adverse impact of office moves, power outages, break-ins, fires, floods, earthquakes, hardware failures, stolen laptops, etc.
Reducing operational overhead through a neo-Bedouin approach can definitely produce a “less is more” result. There are, however, challenges and concerns that come with this type of approach.
One of the first concerns is security, particularly security surrounding the hosting of the company’s source control repository. The security of this service as well as any of the others used by the company is a valid concern, but it must be examined from a relative risk perspective. Internet security technologies combined with service provider features can produce a risk level that is comparable to risks present in in-house approaches. Care must be taken in choosing service providers as all do not offer the same levels of security. Because credential sharing across multiple service providers is not well supported today, team members must be cautious in terms of password management and must deal with the nuisance of multiple logins.
Another challenge with implementing a neo-Bedouin approach is in getting people to overcome behavioral inertia. Many people get very used to and comfortable with traditional approaches -to large support staffs, to phones on their desks, to control over all infrastructure details, to large central facilities, etc. Things often get done a certain way because “this is how we always did it” or “this is how everybody else does it”. Some people simply can’t make the transition to a more minimalist approach, and for those who can change, leadership is required.
Not every type of software business can easily “go Bedouin” and neo-Bedouinism need not be absolute. Companies that sell “enterprise application software”, for example, seem to require significant infrastructure solely for the purpose of suitably impressing customer representatives – e.g. giant campuses with requisite sculptures, water features, demo centers, grand entrances, executive assistants to arrange gourmet dinners and golf outings. The specifics of some businesses make outsourcing of infrastructure intensive functions difficult or impossible.
In any business, infrastructure needs will arise that are best served by “in-house” approaches. What makes a neo-Bedouin approach different than traditional approaches is the commitment to seeking service-based alternatives to building or acquiring infrastructure that must be managed, moved or otherwise dealt with. Companies that make such a commitment can focus more of their energy and their resources on building products, supporting customers, or other core business needs.
The primary reason software businesses don’t “go Bedouin” is because they think they don’t have to. Fatness is easy. Executives like to construct monuments. Managers like to build empires. Engineers and IT professionals like to buy and play with technology. People like to settle in and nest. As swifter, more nimble competitors enter the software technology marketplace in greater numbers; however, companies will pay an increased penalty for their fatness. Like many resource rich kingdoms that faced the Mongols, recognition of the threat may come too late.
This article was lifted in its entirety from Charter St
Filed under: Futures, Innovation, Lifestyle trends, Macro trends, Trends stuff, steal or borrow info
UNESCO (United Nationals Educational Science & Cultural Organisation) fosters exchange of ideas & knowledge between top creative cities around the world. It recognises that cities are increasingly playing a vital role in harnessing creativity for economic and social development.
- Cities harbor the entire range of cultural actors throughout the creative industry chain, from the creative act to production and distribution.
- As breeding grounds for creative clusters, cities have great potential to harness creativity, and connecting cities can mobilize this potential for global impact.
- Cities are small enough to affect local cultural industries but also large enough to serve as gateways to international markets.
Creative cities have managed to nurture a remarkably dynamic relationship between cultural actors and creativity, generating conditions where a city’s ‘creative buzz’ attracts more cultural actors, which in turn adds to a city’s creative buzz. This virtuous cycle of clustering and creativity that is shaping the foundation of creative cities is also perpetuating the evolution of the ‘new economy’.
The new economy is making it possible for creative clusters that are equipped with local content to interact on a global level, evoking a competitive environment that further generates creativity. Harnessing this creative energy of cities in a way that allows local cultural actors to benefit from global interaction embodies great potential for the development of local cultural industries.
Berlin is one of the top 3 creative cities according to UNESCO. The program in Berlin is called CREATE BERLIN and is an initiative by and for the Berlin creative community.
CREATE BERLIN unites creative minds and design producing talent from agencies, companies and institutions in Fashion Design, Product / Interior Design and New Media / Graphic Design as a network spanning all design disciplines. As ambassador of Berlin Design, CREATE BERLIN presents the creative variety of the Berlin design scene. With national and international commitment it promotes the economic potential of Berlin’s design industry; it strengthens Berlin’s reputation as a unique and aspiring design metropolis and as the UNESCO “City of Design”.
CREATE BERLIN lives through the commitment of the people of Berlin’s creative industry – their energies invested in the city have a trend-setting effect on Berlin and accelerate the heartbeat of the city.
If you remember back to Richard Flordia’s Book ‘The Creative Class’ you’ll see how a ‘creative city’ can not only be selected and evaluated, but also what kinds of activity and ‘buzz’ are self generating and self propogating to shift a city’s energy forward.
Although I live in Sydney there’s no doubt that if down under ever got on top, it would be the Mexicans south of the border who would take the cake. Melbourne is the more creative city.
If you’re interested to read up any further on UNESCO’s creative cities check it out here or Richard Florida’s book
Tomorrow’s consumers will be increasingly hard to reach over the next ten years so agencies will need to re-invent themselves to adapt. This is according to a new IPA report that has just been published (2nd January 2007) �The future of advertising and agencies: A 10-year perspective�, which has looked at the future shape of the advertising industry. The IPA has worked with the Future Foundation, a global strategic consultancy and think tank to outline the future challenges for the industry.
This is the first time that a fully comprehensive overview of the total commercial advertising marketplace has taken place. The IPA, along with the Future Foundation economics and modelling team, was able to cross-correlate Advertising Association Data with published information from the Bellwether Report, the Direct Marketing Association, the Institute of Sales Promotion and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
The report prescribes that as non-traditional areas of marketing communications activity grow it is incumbent upon agencies to either invade this space or face a shrinking business future. The majority of the IPA�s members are optimistic about their ability to grapple with the future. However the overriding message of the report is that of a wake-up call to agencies who need to get to grips with emerging trends or else see commercial advertising begin to decline.
Says Andrew Walmsley, Founder and Chairman of I-Level: �In the last few years we�ve seen quite staggering amounts of change, change in the way that consumers can see the media, can see the product, and changes in the way that the economics of markets operate. These are really quite fundamental shifts, and they�re not going to go backwards. If anything they are accelerating.�
Re-classifying the industry
To create a more meaningful picture of the industry going forward the IPA and the Future Foundation have attempted to re-classify all marketing communications to better reflect the present and future dimensions of advertising. The report proposes a move away from historic definitions such as : above the line and direct to newer, broader definitions. These include :: named ::(or personalised media, for example DM) versus :: not-named :: (for example TV), :: screen :: (for example TV, mobile) versus :: non-screen:: , (press, radio etc) :: two-way :: (interactive) versus :: one-way :: (passive).
The new world order
In the future agencies must recognize that traditional advertiser/agency/consumer relationships will be challenged with new models of engagement coming to the fore. As traditional advertising continues to decline, by 2016, the hypothesis is that media owners of all kinds, including online search, all networks, gaming environments and interactive digital TV, will be integrating brands directly into content and editorial. Moreover, savvy consumers will be taking increasing control of content and the directional flow of interactions. Agencies will not just be competing with other agencies. Allies may become competitors, consumers may become channels, advertisers may become suppliers and agencies may become media owners. Already, consumers are creating their own forms of advertising, free of commercial imperative in the form of social networking sites. Already, media owners are already bypassing agencies to develop advertiser funded content through their own creative departments.
The advertising model of the future
Thus the report has proposed three scenarios for the advertising model of the future, which were the result of a number of workshops with senior agency management that took place earlier this year. Who will be in the driving seat? Agencies, media owners or consumers? Whoever it is will have a tremendous impact on the growth or decline of commercial advertising. By 2016 if agencies continue to be in charge then commercial advertising will grow by an average 4.6% per annum, if its media owners it will only grow by 2.3%. The worst scenario for agencies will be if advertising becomes consumer led whereby commercial advertising will only grow by 1.2% per annum. This last scenario suggests agencies have no room to be complacent and must start to capitalise on emergent new opportunities.
New roles for agencies
This report indicates that by 2016 traditional advertising will shrink at the expense of consumer-influenced content and brand�influenced editorial so agencies will need to both innovate and evolve into new territory. New freedoms in the delivery of content, data and channels will provide new business opportunities whilst still maintaining the overriding focus on brand creation and development. Agencies will need to take on multiple roles such as:
-agency as media brand owner
-agency as joint venture partner
-agency as content collaborator
-agency as programme producer
-agency as network creator
-agency as data provider
-agency as data aggregator
If agencies don�t take these opportunities there will be tremendous implications in terms of their relationships with clients, their remuneration packages and their very existence.
Check out the report :: IPA
