I like this. It’s a list of 10 tensions that will evolve during the course of the next decade. It’s not mine though. It’s from Ross Dawson used with permission.

1. Optimism – Fear

Many companies and workers are now daring to be optimistic as they put 2009 behind them, look forward to opportunities, and worry about getting left behind if things improve rapidly. Yet with the shock of the onset of the financial crisis still fresh, any optimism is subject to being shattered, resulting in wild swings in confidence.

2. Institutional work — Independent work

While many lost their jobs in 2009, sparking a rise in home-based work such as direct selling, many others gave up self-employment to return to the workforce. Over the long term more people are making the shift to work independently, by desire or necessity. However the temptations of self-employment can be replaced by desire for a steady pay packet, pulling people both ways.

3. Hyperconnected — Disconnected

The mobile Internet will explode with Google Phone and Android adding to iPhone’s success. For many work and play will happen wherever they happen to be. Others will reject the always-connected world, while some are being left behind due to the cost. The gulf between the hyperconnected and disconnected will increase.

4. Openness – Privacy

Young and old are getting used to sharing thoughts, photos, videos and more with the world at large — there is an inevitable and powerful trend to more openness and sharing. Yet the backlash is strong, with some choosing to pull out of social networks, pushing for greater privacy legislation, and crying out against pervasive government surveillance.

5. Youth — Experience

In the workplace there will be a premium placed on switched-on young people, who have high expectations of reward for their contribution. Yet many organizations are trying to work out how they will survive the loss through retirement of the massive contingent who have decades of experience. Many companies will not manage the generational tensions well.

6. Death of Media — Birth of Media

Literally hundreds of newspapers around the world have shut their doors in 2009. Broadcast TV is struggling. Advertising has slumped. Yet as traditional media staggers, a new world of mobile media, social media, video everywhere, and new business models are opening a new era in which media is at the center of the economy.

7. Immigration — Borders

Virtually every developed country is facing a natural population decrease with dire implications for fiscal policy and the economy. The tension between immigration, backed by the business community who want to drive growth, and borders, by those fearing social fragmentation and ecological impact, is becoming a key issue in almost every wealthy country.

8. Climate Activists — Climate Doubters

The gulf is widening between those who believe everything we can do to avert disastrous climate change may not be enough, and those who don’t believe or don’t care. The chasm will yawn wider between countries, between companies, and between individuals.

9. Innovation — Copying

In a global economy in which almost everything is a commodity, the only source of real value is innovation. However every innovation is copied almost instantaneously, all content flows outside commercial channels, and it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the original and the copy. The faster the pace of copying, the greater the drive to innovation.

10. Me – Everyone

In 2010 people who were born after the creation of the World Wide Web will first join the workforce. The nub of generational change today is about the tension between personal opportunity and expectations, and acting with the greater good in mind. How well can people focus both on their own well-being and that of society and the planet?
Anything I’d add? Sure. I’d add: Global-Local , East-West, Young-Old, Physical-Virtual, Fast-Slow?
Link to the original post on Ross’s blog is in comments…

Trend #1 – Globalization unraveling

This is a very tricky one. It is likely that the global financial crisis is now over in most parts of the world (OK, maybe not in the UK and a few other fragile economies like Greece) and that growth will return to previous levels. Surging demand will result in higher oil prices and resources shortages, while government debt will push up inflation* and interest rates. In short, globalization will accelerate once again, albeit with a few billion rather disgruntled and jittery people at its core. Only perhaps it won’t. Maybe what will happen is that developing nations will embrace globalization whilst developed nations will resist it. Hence, a ‘new normal’ where globalization occurs within a context of localism and protectionism.

Could globalization ever stop? It’s not probable but it is possible.  It happened once before, starting with the outbreak of WW1 and consolidated by the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The most likely scenario, in my view, is that despite getting the global economy back on track, nationalist sentiments will take over and certain things will collapse back into national boundaries.

This is partly because people will be worried about the level of connectivity and complexity (hence risk) that is still built into the global financial system and partly because a few people have got an eye on what a booming global population, together with shifting consumption habits, means for raw materials.

Resource nationalism is hardly a new idea. It refers to governments shifting control of key resources away from foreign and private interests but it could also mean governments refusing to sell certain resources (e.g. farm land, rare earth minerals and gas perhaps?) to other nations, regardless of price, citing national security reasons.

Implications? Expect borders to become less permeable. Also expect anti-Chinese sentiments to increase and expect G20 relations with China to deteriorate once China becomes the World’s #1 economy (somewhere between 2020 and 2025).** Expect a shift in free trade too.  Free trade is an excellent way for a dominant power to fortify its position, but once power is lost things can reverse quite quickly.

Also expect rage to increase. In the US, 1 in 8 mortgages are in delinquency or foreclosure. Add rising unemployment (one person every 7.5 seconds in the US), declining real wages, runaway executive compensation, simmering discontent with President Obama – and a few million guns in the US – and things could turn very nasty indeed. In particular, watch for companies stressing local heritage and connections and also for the extreme right manipulating popular rage for political advantage.

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* The jury seems to be still out on this. What is significant currently is a lack of inflation, so perhaps some countries (UK, US?) will slide into a deflationary spiral instead?

** Unless complications within the Chinese system lead to a systemic collapse

Ten or twenty years ago companies outsourced various activities to developing economies because of cost. Now the opposite is occurring. Companies (critically their customers, but increasingly their employees) are starting to question the high cost of low prices — specifically what are the social, ethical and environmental policies behind what they buy.

Having looked into these issues, many people don’t like what’s happening and they are starting to insist that things are made closer to home (in most cases at home) where they have more control. Hence the emergence of terms such as re-sourcing or industrial repatriation.

Examples? Steif, the German toy company, recently moved its production facilities away from China back to Germany because, in the words of Steif’s CEO, “Money isn’t everything.”

Prediction: Expect to see more companies (starting with companies operating in the luxury market or high-end segments) moving call centres, R&D facilities, design centres and then factories back home.

Links: Localism,provenance,authenticity,CSR, nationalism,de-globalisation.

Trend #3. Flight to the Physical

Digitalisation has recently reshaped entire industries, including music, photography and publishing. It is also creating a ‘new normal’ in society generally. Thanks to digitalisation we are now constantly connected and expect to get whatever we want whenever we want it, which is usually now. And we expect to personalise everything too. But there are some significant downsides emerging. One issue is that of overall experience. No virtual experience can possibly match its physical equivalent and people are slowly starting to realise this. For example, it was widely predicted that DVD stores would eventually go out of business — replaced by instant downloads or next day delivery in the mail. Similarly, people forecast that going to the cinema would soon die out because it would be cheaper and more convenient to rent a film for the night. Perhaps you could even have a film delivered by motorcycle and have your dinner picked up at the same time.

But all this rather misses the point. Browsing thousands of movie titles online is all very well but spending half an hour in a well-run video store is somehow more satisfying. Accidental encounters with other customers, or serendipitous conversations with passionate staff, are both richer experiences than sitting in front of a PC or fiddling with a mobile phone. The same is true with public libraries. The prediction that libraries will one day disappear due to a combination of Google + e-books misses one rather vital point. Physical libraries contain books but that’s not the only reason people visit. Libraries are an experience that is the sum of the physical space (usually quiet and safe) + books + information + people + trust + events.

Another example of the flight to the physical is the survival of vinyl. In Australia, vinyl records — and record shops — are making a comeback. In Japan sales of fountain pens are doing well. So too are sales of ‘wet film’ for 35mm photography. Part of all this is undoubtedly to do with nostalgia — or being seen to be ‘different’ – but there is something much deeper going on here too. Humans are inherently social. We crave interaction with other people and we desire sensation, especially interaction with aesthetically pleasing physical objects. Perhaps this is why we are starting to see a reaction against the soullessness of digital products and services.

Implications? The more that everyday life becomes digital and virtual the more you can expect some people (tactilists perhaps?) to crave the opposite. Moreover, if people continue to be anxious about the future there will be a continued interest in holding physical assets that can be touched. Think of real estate and physical gold as two examples.