Two good things about Twitter today. First some great data visualization (see above) from www.informationisbeautiful.net.
Second a remark from a VC overheard in cafe in Palo Alto yesterday – as reported by the Silicon Alley Insider (www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-twitters-future-foretold-2009-8).
“Twitter had better sell out before it’s too late.
Young people don’t like Twitter.
My kids think Twitter’s b******T.”
1 Address the fragmented nature of the public library network and broker common ICT and content agreements.
2 Promote the role of libraries to key government departments and bodies as a way of tackling social and educational objectives and
cross promote public libraries with other cultural institutions (art galleries, museums etc).
3 Forge links and alliances with key media players and use web 2.0 to deliver local news content (incl. local classified ads).
4 Target lapsed-library users and non users via partnerships with other recipients of local government funding e.g. schools, hospitals and
leisure services.
5 Set up a network of homework-help clubs (both physical and online).
6 Establish a network of computer kiosks within shopping centres and post offices (especially in rural areas) to offer library services.
7 Offer Bill Pay and Government form filling services for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
8 Hold more events that bring together authors publishers and readers (eg a library prize for best new book).
9 Hold job fairs, healthy eating talks and crime reduction in libraries.
10 Link public libraries to public (government) schools to help populate their curricula (especially local history).
“Anything can happen once” – Philip Morrison (taken from Darwin among the Machines by George Dyson).
Surely this can’t be true…
Less than 1% of Google searches proceed beyond the first page.
Source: The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein
I was asked by a TV show to make 5 predictions for the future. They gave me 10 minutes, which presumably says something about the acceleration of something or other.
1 Coins will die out, then notes, eventually there will be a single global (digital) currency. Maybe around 2050. People won’t like this but they will eventually get used to it.
2 We will eventually wear computers. Computers will also be embedded in the majority of everyday objects. We will also have the ability to turn any wall or flat surface into a computer screen using various mobile devices (phones, watches, wearable protectors).
3 The next world war will happen in space.
4 All newborn babies will eventually be ‘tagged’ with some kind of transmitter so that parents can track them and so that vital medical records etc can be held within their bodies for fast access. This will start off as a ‘premium’ NHS service but will soon spread. This will also enable the construction of geo-fences and the development of various location-based services.
5 There will eventually be a second Luddite rebellion. People will seek to constrain the influence of machines. There will be areas where only humans are allowed and areas reversed for machines only.
A new scenario matrix (slightly tweaked with revised book titles). Getting very close to the end of the project…
All material should be available to all within 4-6 weeks.
I had an epiphany about the public libraries project this morning. In a school library as it happens. It suddenly dawned on me that it’s not about the books.
What I mean by this is that I have been too focused on books and the question of how digital books will influence physical libraries in the future. In short, will physical books disappear and take physical libraries along with them? But libraries are not just collections of books. They are collections of people.
It is the physical interaction of people, information and ideas – in all forms – that create a library and the physical space is hugely important. Libraries are community hubs. They are places where people go to borrow things and find answers, but they are also public spaces where people go to do things. Libraries are not just defined by what’s inside them but who’s inside them and what’s going on or available there.
It’s a bit like newspapers. The newspaper industry has got hung up with the issue of the internet when the real issue is content. Newspapers have become obsessed with online competition. This is a battle they have already lost and they should therefore focus more on the type of information that suits paper rather than pixels.
This has direct relevance to libraries. Digital books are here whether you like it or not and virtual libraries won’t be far behind. But neither of these developments will kill physical books or physical libraries because the two experiences are quite different.
When people read something on a screen they are usually in a hurry. They are looking for something quite specific and speed and convenience are critical. With physical newspapers, magazines and books people generally have a totally different mindset.
Mobile or screen-based media suits news, fast facts and snack-sized bursts of distraction. Fibre-media suits longer analysis and commentary. One is about speed whereas the other is more about relaxation and reflection.
What I suspect this will mean is that information splits into two. News and ‘vocational information’ will live largely online, whereas ‘leisure reading’ will continue to exist on paper. There will clearly be a crossover as one bleeds into the other, but generally I think this is what will happen.
So what are the implications of this for public libraries?
First, the demand for fast information will increase. “I need to know this now!” This will mostly be delivered online. Libraries can compete with this — and so they should, up to a point, because not everyone has access to a laptop or an iPhone. However, to focus too much on this would, in my opinion, be a big mistake.
Libraries are slow thinking spaces and they should stay that way. The majority of library users are not in a rush. They do not have a “search and destroy” mindset (William Powers). They have a “settle down mindset.”
In the future, the majority of library users will enter a library to slow down and escape from the fast-paced digital world outside. Libraries should therefore stay focused on slow reading and other reflective leisure-based activities ranging from music and film to art and history. This might sound boring but it needn’t be. Depending on the building and the people inside it public libraries can be vibrant places featuring cafes, shops, gyms, crèches, theatres, galleries and various cultural activities and events.
But the most important thing of all has nothing to do with media or ‘content’. The most important thing a library does is to connect people. This could be two individuals or an entire community. It doesn’t matter. People, like ideas, are inherently social and both need physical spaces to come into contact with each other.
Great bit of data visualization by the New York Times.
Original at http://www.nytimes.com//interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html?hp
An updated edition of my book, Future Files, is coming out in Aus/NZ in October. Here’s the new preface.
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought into sight than it is swept away by another and takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” — Marcus Aurelius.
As far as inevitable shocks go the global financial crisis that started in late 2007 and got serious towards the end of 2008 was a real beauty. Not surprisingly it caught many people off guard. But to me the only shocking thing was that it hadn’t happened earlier. The first edition of Future Files was written in late 2006 and early 2007 and I mentioned that I thought that the global economy would eventually collapse due to a combination of high levels of debt and the newly networked nature of risk.
This proved to be absolutely correct although I’m not claiming any particular insight here. The ‘what’ is often quite easy if you stand still long enough to look at things properly. It’s the ‘when?’ that’s extraordinarily difficult and I didn’t even attempt to put a date against when I thought this event would occur.
As to what will happen next to the economy this is impossible to say, largely because we haven’t been in this position before. If the financial crisis were short, which I believe it will be, especially in Asia, then I would expect that we would be back to our wicked ways without so much as a backward glance. Greed and stupidity will return alongside margin loans, materialism and the rather ridiculous idea that happiness can be acquired much like a consumer product. Hence the return of words such as fear, austerity, thrift, restraint and utility will be temporary. There will be some changes. Interest rates and inflation will both go up again and the environment will move centre stage once more (cue oil at US$150 a barrel and rising). As a result we will embrace science and technology to solve many of our problems but beyond this I believe that life will carry on much as before.
There is, of course, a second scenario. If I am wrong and the recession is decade deep then I believe that people will start to question things in a profound way. We will challenge growth as being the most important measure of the economy and we will learn to live with less. We will enjoy it too. Life will become less about what you want and more about what you can live without. We will seek to simplify things and live more locally. Politics and business will become more values-driven and transparent. We will rediscover family and community and we will seek fairness. Greater happiness will result by default. This probably sounds like a remake of the 1960s, and perhaps it is, but I don’t believe that we are ready to live like this quite yet. It will, unfortunately, take a crisis much bigger than anything we have recently seen to create such a shift.
So what else has been going on since the first edition? To be honest it’s a bit odd to be asked to write an updated version of this book because it’s supposed to be about the next 50 years. Hence being asked to update things so soon seems a little premature. Nevertheless, I think an update is a good idea.
A lot can happen in a few weeks, let alone a few years. Even the climate change issue (something that is substantially set in the future) seems to have shifted noticeably of late. There has also been a rash of new books about the next 50 and 100 years. Did any futurist writers see these books coming I wonder?
The aim of this new edition is much the same as the first. It is intended to open peoples’ eyes to what is going on – right now – and to discuss where some of these things might lead in the future. Its purpose is to imagine alternative futures.
The aim of this second edition is also to update any facts and figures and to comment briefly on any developments that I believe are significant. However, I have chosen not to change what is, in a sense, an historical record of where I thought things would go over the next 50 years from the perspective of late 2006/early 2007.
I have therefore left the main text of each chapter totally alone and simply added any updates, comments or thoughts after each chapter. I have also created a new set of Postcards from the Future because these seemed to capture people’s imagination the first time around, possibly because they contained some concrete examples of what life might be like in the future.
I always used to say that I don’t make predictions. But I was clearly deluding myself. If you are writing about the future the one thing that people seem to want beyond all else is a prediction about new things that will be invented and familiar things that will fade away. And the more outlandish these predictions the better. This is a game that I have now become used to playing. I even enjoy it, not because I seriously think that some of these predictions will be proven correct, but because predictions are a useful way to have a conversation about the future. Predictions drag people out of their preconceptions and one can have very specific debates about future possibilities. My aim is therefore not to predict per se but to use predictions to open up a discussion about future risks and opportunities.
The only other thing that I have changed is the quotations at the start of each chapter. This is not because there was anything wrong with the old quotations but because I have stumbled upon, or been sent, further quotations and it seemed a shame not to use them in some way. Finally, the book now has its own website. If you get a chance visit futuretrendsbook.com. Here you’ll find hundreds of sources and references
as hyper-links and lots of other useful information about future trends.
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