The Future of Food

I was in Milan yesterday speaking (and eating) at the 4th international forum on food and nutrition. If you are interested in what I had to say about eating in 2030 there is a short video here (20 minutes). Click on the second page of videos and you should find me. Highlight for me was lunch (with wine!) and a conversation with Ruth Oniang’o, a food scientist and ex-member of parliament in Kenya.

Before me was Lester Brown from the Earthwatch Institute (doom and gloom but he is right about a number of things in my view). Afterwards was an interesting panel discussion hosted by Alex Thomson (Channel 4 News) featuring Guido Barilla, President Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, Franck Riboud, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Danone; Guy Wollaert, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Coca-Cola; Claude Fischler, Research Director CNRS; Director Centre Edgar Morin; Antonia Trichopoulou, Director, World Health Organization Center for Nutrition at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Athens University.

BTW, there’s a very good report on Eating in 2030: Trends and Perspectives available for free on the website. If you can’t find it just contact me and I’ll flick you a copy.

Finally, I must just comment on what a total pleasure it was to attend this event. It was well organised and the speakers were terrific. However, the stand out part had nothing really to do with the event. It was Italy. It was the people. They were so well mannered, slow polite, so well dressed. They like thinking. And they still eat lunch!!!

European Politics and Premature Senility

What a day. I’ve left my keys and phone in Copenhagen and my main computer has fatally crashed for the second time in ten days – so no email or access to any files until I get things up and running again (I know, I should have seen that one coming).

On this occasion the crash followed an argument with Eurostar’s website which insisted that I add a landline telephone number to a booking form (I, like many others nowadays, don’t have one). When are the designers of online forms going to understand that many people don’t have fixed lines?

Anyway, I eventually found a way around the problem only to crash everything fatally when the form wanted me to download an update of Adobe to print the tickets. Bye bye direct email and internet access and a bunch of stuff that hasn’t been backed-up. Not a big problem, but certainly a pain in the butt.

Oh, and the greenhouse off my new home office is now wetter inside than out due to leaks, we ran out of heating oil (no hot water or central heating) and one of my teeth broke (I mentioned the dead hamster and the sulky dog earlier right?).

On the plus side, I’ve been reading two really interesting pieces in the FT and Economist. The Economist article is about what the boom in Nordic crime writing tells us about globalisation. A key point is that physical location matters more than ever in a globalised and virtualised world. The FT article is about the rising extremism of politics in Europe and the dangers of German isolation. Key points include the fact that in France 1/3 of voters recently voted for extreme far right or left candidate, in the Netherlands (usually a place of liberalism and tolerance) far right and extreme left parties are running 1st and 2nd in opinion polls, while in Austria the far right is supported by around 30% of the population. Add mass unemployment, rising inflation, concerns over a currency (the Euro rather than the gold standard) and it’s feeling like the 1930s all over again. In Germany things remain fairly centrist for the time being, but all the conditions do appear to exist for an extremist revival.

Other news? I’ve started to think that I have been farting around with speaking engagements and consulting work too much and should get back to lowly paid writing.  When I get the home office functioning properly – or get my butt up to London – I will.

 

Stuff

OK, I’m biased, but I think my new home office – the shedquarters – is coming along rather nicely. The log burner is working and the greenhouse through which you enter the office is now built. If I could just get the darned email to work. Pictures to follow soon.

Up to my eyes at the moment reading material for the next issue of What’s Next and sorting out the website for Futures House. Also a final few trips coming up – Copenhagen, Milan and Paris – then it’s get What’s Next and Brainmail up.

So what have I got for you today? How about a quote, a statistic, a research finding and an observation?

The quote: “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.” (Gloria Stein).

The stat: Drivers in the UK spent almost £8,000,000,000 on parking in 2011 (The Scotsman).

The Study: Researchers at Bristol University (UK) have found that beer drinkers drink faster when given a curved glass rather than a straight one. The reason? Possibly that it’s harder to tell how much you’ve drunk with a curved glass. (The Week).

The observation: Why am I starting to see so many people taping over their cameras on their iPads and laptops?

Timeline of Future Events (From Speculative Fiction)

 

This is truly lovely. Gordon Gray has just sent me a link to a blog called Brain Pickings, which is, in their words: “a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.”

Anyway, an Italian designer called Giorgia Lupi recently created a visual timeline of future events, as predicted by famous novels, for an Italian newspaper called Corriere Della Sera. Brain pickings then asked her to do an English language version which she duly did. Click here for the link to the  whole timeline. I’ve attached some close-ups to show what bits of it look like and also an eraly rough drawing on the idea.

How it started…

Who (and Where) is Happy?

 

Going through a load of newspapers, magazines and websites today filtering material for the next issue of What’s Next and found this rather lovely graphic in New Scientist (16 June issue!). It shows measurement of economic success using GDP against something called the Happy Planet Index (HPI), which uses life satisfaction combined with life expectancy and ecological footprint. Personally, I’d add a few other measures such as general health, infant mortality, literacy rates, access to clean water, levels of corruption, unemployment, inflation and so on, but you have to start somewhere I suppose.

Scenario Planning: How To Do It (Part 1)

Having just co-authored a book on how to do scenario planning (FutureVision by Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman) I thought it might be worth passing on a few tricks. Here is part one of my top 20 tips for creating practical scenarios, but first a very brief outline of the process. Please note that this process has been shortened and simplified for this article. If you would like the expanded process get in touch (richard@deletethisbitnowandnext.com)

Stage 1: Develop the framing question(s)
Stage 2: Examine past and present drivers of change
Stage 3: Brainstorm future drivers of change
Stage 4: Identify the critical drivers
Stage 5: Build a scenario matrix
Stage 6: Develop scenario logic
Stage 7: Build the scenario narratives
Stage 8: Create timelines linking future to present
Stage 9: Map the strategic implications
Stage 10: Develop proactive and reactive strategies
(Conduct ongoing scanning and monitoring)

Now, some tips…

Tip # 1: Get enough buy-in from the get-go
Ensure that you have enough support for the project from the start. Ideally find a senior supporter who has been involved with scenarios before or supports the theory of doing the project. Also make sure that support is as wide as possible and not limited to any one department or business unit. If the prevalent attitude within the organization is that the project is a waste of time and money this will almost certainly turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tip # 2: What do you want to know?
Start with a tightly focussed question about what it is that you want to know. Simply asking ‘what does the future look like?’ is next to useless. The subject is too broad.
For example, if you are a retailer you might be interested in exploring the extent to which retail moves to mobile devices or virtual stores. Feel free to revise or change the question at any time throughout the process though.

Tip # 3: Give it enough time
A rigorous scenario-thinking project will take a minimum of 2-3 months. If you only have a few days you are totally wasting your time. A key component of scenario thinking is conversation and sometimes the conversation won’t flow no matter what you do. It also requires periods of reflection, which by definition cannot always be scheduled in the diary or with meeting reminders. If you rush things you will just come up with the obvious stuff. Finding out what’s not being said or seen is a key part of the process and this takes time.

Tip # 4: Embrace diversity
Groups of experts are useless for scenario thinking. They will either all agree with each other (group think) or will say nothing at all due to peer pressure. However, by themselves experts can provide good insight. Mixed with other people with different skills and experience things can get very interesting indeed. Diversity is critical with scenario thinking so resist silos and homogenous groups at all costs. The trick is to mix things up in terms of age, gender, skills, experience, functions and so on.
A good size scenario building team is generally 3-6 people, although this is merely the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to the initial research, workshops and key meetings this can be expanded significantly.

Tip # 5: Quantity is quality when it comes to drivers
After you have spoken with people – both internally and externally – the next stage is generally to unearth a series of driving forces that are influencing or changing the external environment. This can be a messy stage, because it’s not clear at the start what’s important and what isn’t. Moreover, when it comes to drivers (call them trends if you really must) quantity really is quality. You need to generate dozens of them and have people running around to check them and to find more.

A good way of creating drivers is to use STEEP (Society, Technology, Economy, Environment, Politics), You might prefer STEEPEN (Society, Technology, Economy, Energy, Politics, Environment, Nature) or STEEEPA (Social, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Educational, Political and Aesthetic).

Tip # 6: Is that really the answer?
When you get to your first shortlist of drivers, ensure that the drivers you select really are drivers and not a consequence of other, far deeper, drivers. For example, a shift to social media might be a consequence of something far deeper.

Tip # 7: Naming the scenarios
The naming of scenarios is really important. If you have to explain to people what the scenarios mean you have failed. They should be self-explanatory. For example, a scenario called “Lord of the Flies’ needs little further explanation.

Tip #8: Build a narrative
Ensure that the scenarios are properly fleshed out and that you produce a time line that links each future back to the present. The narratives need to be compelling and should be written in the future tense so as to transport people into this world. A good trick is to write each of the scenarios from the perspective of a different person that is in someway connected to the organization. For example, if the scenarios are for government then write one scenario from the perspective of someone running the government (a senior minister perhaps), one from the perspective of someone working for the government at a more junior level, one from the perspective of a user of government services (a voter) and perhaps one from the perspective of someone supplying services to the government.

Tip # 9: Don’t keep it all to yourself
A scenario project that is totally outsourced is missing out on the knowledge and freshness of those outside the organization can provide. On the other hand, a scenario project that is wholly outsourced is missing out on the experience and wisdom of those that work inside the client organization. Mix things up a bit and create a team that’s a mixture of both.

Tip # 10: Don’t pitch the timeframe too close
If it’s 2012 there’s a tendency to pitch the thinking in 2020 because that’s a nice round number and links with phrases like ‘2020 Vision’ and all that. Resist.
2020 is only 7 years away and your thinking won’t necessarily extend much beyond the present. What you may find is that all you end up with is what’s happing right now and then labelling it ‘the future’. Go further out. Ten years is really the minimum and your thinking will be challenged far better if you go out 15 or even 20 years. There is the argument that 20 years is just too far away to be practical, but remember that in the final stages you always link the scenarios back to the present day.

To follow next week…tips 11-20.

1970-2040 Timeline

Yes, that’s right, a timeline for a period of history that hasn’t happened yet. This visualization is now done and I should have a URL for a high-resolution file version in a day or two (I’ll blog with the link as soon as it’s available).

The timeline is based in some of the thinking contained in my new book, FutureVision, and the point, I guess, is that the future forks. We think we are heading in one direction when suddenly reality changes direction. The events of 9 September 2001 might be a good example.

When available the high-resolution timeline will be best printed A3 colour.

Future Vision – Interviews & Reviews

There’s been a flurry of activity on the review front over the past week in Australia. So far we’ve had reviews in The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times and the Australian Financial Review. Looks like I’m doing a radio interview with Geraldine Doogue on ABC Radio on the 23rd November too.

Here’s a snippet: “What will the world look like in 2040? Watson and Freeman (in what often reads like a particularly slick business lecture, but which also draws on such diverse sources as E. M. Forster and Blaise Pascal), acknowledge that any single prediction about the future will, more than likely, be wrong. Probability and chance make a volatile mix.”

Not sure about the slick thing. I thought we were just being ourselves! Attached (with a bit of luck) is an audio file with Oliver doing an interview with John Stokes for ABC Coast FM (Queensland). OLIVER FREEMAN to air (14-minutes long).

BTW, tomorrow I’m going to blog some tricks and tricks for building scenarios.