Who?

Just got this…can’t work out if its spam or not (apologies if it’s not).
“The form I am just filling in says ‘Name (required)’. Apparently it’s one law for the rich and one for the poor, then, since nowhere on your site do you tell us who *you* are!  After a bit of digging in Google, I find that you are called Richard Macmanus, and that you are a famous blogger.  But you are not famous to me, and I always tell my students to take no notice of anything they find on the web that is anonymous.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a brief section on your homepage telling us who you are and what you do, apart from running a blog?”

Well there is a page called ‘Who is..?’ on the main site that’s linked to this blog (www.nowandnext.com). I am Richard Watson, an author (Future Files), speaker and sometime scenarios consultant. I produce the What’s Next trends report and also the snack-sized monthly brainmail newsleter. And no I am not Richard Macmanus or famous.

Quote of the Week

“There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind:the whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual. And what is also of very great importance in this uncertain world where destruction becomes continually more frequent and unpredictable, is this, that:it need not be concentrated in any single one place.”

H.G. Wells, 1937 (talking about micro-film)

Best Books about the Future (non-fiction)

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As you can see from above image I’m still largely looking at the ceiling. Here’s my promised list of best books about the future – not ranked.
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman

Footprints of the Future by Richard Neville

Faster by James Gleick

Tomorrow’s People by Susan Greenfield

The 500 Year Delta by Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker

The Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand

Futurewise by Patrick Dixon

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

When Things Start to Think by Neil Gershenfeld

Envisioning the Next 50 Years Bruce Sterling

The Catalog of Tomorrow by Andrew Zoli

More than Human by Ramez Nan

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Future Perfect by Robyn Williams

Future Hype by Bob Seidensticker

What Am I Doing Right Now?

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At last. The new book is done. That’s the good news. I can now get issue 23 of What’s Next out (next week, maybe the week after that) and catch-up with some issues of brainmail. I think I’m about 4 months behind with brainmail. Crikey.The bad news is that I’ve done something really bad to my back. Probably caused by me sitting too close to computer screen for 12-months, banging my head on my desk, shouting #FϷ´®¥â„¢£¢5w6***** (it was the book!).

So, today, I have mostly been… lying on my back, on the floor, trying to read various newspaper and magazines articles held above my head. I now have arm muscles like Godzilla. Pick of the day?  An article in the Harvard Business Review called Why Teams Don’t Work (by Diane Coutu). Basically, teams under perform due to problems surrounding motivation and co-ordination. Teams usually have the wrong people in them, they get changed too often and they are far too large. The ideal size is less then 10 people. In my experience it’s actually 8 because that’s the maximum you can comfortably get around a dinner table.

Second, some research by Queensland University of Technology about risks of open-plan offices, published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management (hint: open-plan offices are bad for productivity, bad for privacy, increase workplace conflict and raise blood pressure. Otherwise they’re a really good idea!!!).

Third, an article in The Futurist magazine (US) about ten forces driving business futures. US centric but a good read nevertheless. Fourth, something from Wired magazine about the plot to kill Google and finally, an article from Time magazine about twitter. Totally under whelming — both the article and Twitter.

PS — Don’t eat lunch upside down. It doesn’t work.

Best Books on the Future (fiction)

Following yesterday’s list of my favourite films about the future he’s my list of best books about the future. Tomorrow I’ll do a list of non-fiction titles (probably a much better list because that’s largely what I read). Again, this list isn’t ranked.

  1. 1984
  2. Brave New World
  3. The Road
  4. War of the Worlds
  5. The Time Machine
  6. Fahrenheit 451
  7. Neuromancer
  8. Snow Crash
  9. The Shockwave Rider
  10. The Illustrated Man

Best Films about the Future

I’d have another day of deep thinking, so I needed some light relief. Here’s my list of the best* 25 films about the future — not ranked. What have I missed?

  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  2. Brazil
  3. Metropolis
  4. Modern Times
  5. The Matrix
  6. Gattaca
  7. Minority Report
  8. The Matrix
  9. Clockwork Orange
  10. Blade Runner
  11. Minority Report
  12. iRobot
  13. Soylent Green
  14. Children of Men
  15. Fahrenheit 451
  16. Silent Running
  17. Logan’s Run
  18. Escape from New York
  19. 1984
  20. Artificial Intelligence: AI
  21. On the Beach
  22. Mad Max
  23. Sleeper
  24. Truman Show
  25. Back to the Future

* Best? I know, in what sense? I just liked them:.

Best Brief in the World

Busy week. Trying to finish off the new book, which has been painful.

Got an email from a large Swiss pharmaceuticals company a few days ago asking whether I’d like to go to Prague to talk to them about Macro-trends. I said yes, but then they moved the cheese. I’ll probably end up in Melbourne now instead. Then I got asked about Arizona. Ummm..?

Meanwhile, the best brief I’ve ever received landed on my desk by way of a letter (remember those?). Would I like to go away somewhere really remote to think about the future of water and not come back until I’ve got an answer? I said I’d think about it.

The Economy

As you may know, when it comes to the economy, especially in Asia, I’m on the side of the economic optimists. I’m at the “they think it’s all over —it is now” end of the spectrum on the recession, especially in places like Australia. But not everyone that I speak with agrees with me and what some people are saying is quite compelling.

Autumn – or fall — in the northern hemisphere is traditionally the time when stock markets fall – like lead weights. Since 1929, September has always been the worst month for US stocks and let’s not forget what happened in September 2007. October isn’t much better historically either. Why the seasonal gloom? One reason is probably that it’s the month that companies start to admit that their full year profit forecasts aren’t looking too good.

Another reason is probably that as the days get shorter and the nights get bleaker investor sentiments turn to doomsday scenarios. Chatting with a few bankers it appears that recent improvements in earnings have largely been a result of cost cutting and de-leveraging rather than any genuine improvement in sales. This is one reason to be cautious.

Another reason is that large companies are still finding it difficult to get funding and without secure funding there is the possibility that they will fall over. And, of course, consumers and governments around the world are still debt laden, interest rates look like they will rise and unemployment isn’t looking too pretty in some regions either.

On balance I’m still optimistic that Asia is out of the recession and that the rest of the world will follow suit in due course. But then again:

On Futurists

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It seems to me that there are broadly two types of futurist (or futurologist) around at the moment. One is the doomsday or Apocalyptic futurist. Climate change, population growth, global pandemics, peak water, rogue asteroids, artificial intelligence, Generation Y — they are all out to get us. Pick your favourite doomsday scenario, pull up a comfy chair, pour yourself a nice glass of wine and wait patiently for the end of the world. And, of course, these merchants of gloom have their talismans (and women). Here, for instance, is a quote from James Lovelock.

“A billion could live off the earth; 6 billion living as we do is far too many, and you run out of planet in no time.”

The second type of futurist is what I’d call the e-vangelical futurist. These are usually people aged under-thirty that fawn and gush at the sight of any new electronic device. They are, more often than not, Twits. Twits as in people that are totally addicted to Twitter. And they have their Talismans too. Here’s one from Richard Thieme, a technology expert.

“I’m not a futurist. I only describe the present to the 98% of people who are not there yet.”