Monthly Archives: February 2010

The Future of War

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Interesting report on the future character of conflict out to the year 2029 just published by the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), which is part of the Ministry of Defence in the UK. The top line is that the future will be more unstable than the past and there is an increased probability of conflict. The reasons cited for this include state failures, growing resource competition (something I’m increasingly concerned by), the rise of extremist groups and the changing balance of global power. The growth of communications and weak border controls also mean that it is increasingly likely that terrorist groups will attack the UK in the future.

To quote the report: ” The merging of state proxies, extremist ideologies and criminal interests into a toxic cocktail, along with the effects of globalisation, such as more porous borders, will make some non-state actors harder to counteract. They could employ a wide spectrum of military capabilities, albeit some at a limited scale, but they will nevertheless be capable of innovative tactics thatexploit inherent UK vulnerabilities.” Yikes.

You can download the whole report from the link in comments.

Rise of Singles

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Single women bought 25% of the homes sold in the US during 2008. Single men bought another 9%. So 1/3 of all homes in the US in 2008 were bought by singles. Meanwhile, in Europe, Euromonitor estimates that one third of people now live alone (that’s about 200 million households).

Ref: Financial Times 13/14 February 2010 ‘ Collective Singular’.

Water water everywhere (but less and less to drink)

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In 2001 a number of agricultural research scientists were briefed to investigate future world food production. At the same time a group of UN scientists embarked on an assessment of the likely economic and social impacts of water shortages in developing nations, while a third group, representing major water, oil and chemical companies, looked at the influence of water scarcity on company and national economic performance.

When the three reports were published they painted a picture of future supply disruption and economic crises unless the way the world uses water changes dramatically. Demand for clean water is expected to increase by 100 per cent between 2007 and 2040, largely because of urbanisation and industrialisation. In other words, we are at the very edge of sustainability, even before the effects of climate change are factored in.

However, the good news is that solutions are neither costly nor difficult. Growing drought-resistant varieties of crops and shifting consumer demand away from ‘thirsty’ foods, for instance, would save an enormous amount of water and would be a far better investment than expensive dams and pipe networks. Farming using irrigation, for example, uses over 60 per cent of all water taken from rivers and aquifers globally, and while the world grows twice as much food as it did a generation ago we use three times as much water to do it.

To produce a single kilogram of rice, for instance, requires between 2,000 and 3,000 litres of water. A kilogram jar of instant coffee takes 20,00 litres, a litre of milk 4,000 litres, a single hamburger 11,000 litres and a cotton T-shirt 7,000 litres of water. Other low-tech solutions include the increased use of grey water recycling and desalination (21 plants are already proposed in California alone). So in the future expect to see ordinary people becoming involved in the ‘ethics’ of water.

There will be new water taxes and consumer boycotts of companies that are profligate in their use of water or use cloud seeding unfairly. Finally it’s worth mentioning that water is potentially China’s Achilles heel. Four hundred out of China’s six hundred biggest cities are already short of water and the country has well below-average water resources per capita, which could potentially put a spanner in the works of China’s development model.

Quote of the Week

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“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.” – Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple.

Localism

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Remember ‘Globalisation Unravelling’ – one of my top ten trends for 2010? Here’s a nice example. According to the Times newspaper, McDonald’s in Britain is “listening more to local consumers:.something McDonald’s has sought increasingly to do around the world.” Moreover, “there are now signs that other multinationals are trying to boost their fortunes globally by emulating McDonald’s in stressing and accentuating their localism.”

Other cited examples include Starbucks that has been experimenting with locally designed stores and Tesco who are adopting a more local approach to overseas expansion. It’s not just food companies and retailers though. I was recently in a meeting with someone who worked with Toyota and he used the phrase “Multi-local’ in reference to their strategy. Or how about a feature in the current issue of Strategy + Business magazine (US) on Back shoring (similar to my own re-sourcing trend).

Looks like the future might be local.

Article links: See comments below.
Thanks for Penny for this btw.

What’s Hot on Twitter

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I don’t really care what’s popular on Twitter but if you do here are some lists. I especially like God and the Bible (ranked under ‘things’) alongside Starbucks and Wal-Mart (‘business’). Source: Sysomos.com (full link in comments).

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Mobile phone etiquette

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A man walks into a public toilet and goes into the nearest clean cubicle. As he sits down he hears someone entering and locking the door of the cubicle immediately next to him.

Second man: “Hello mate, how’s it going?”.
The first man keeps quiet but the guy next door keeps talking.
Second man: “Speak up mate, I can’t hear you.”
At this point the first man thinks it rude not to join in the conversation.
First man: “Do I know you?”
Second man: “So what are you up to you old bugger?”
At this point the first man thinks the conversation is getting a little bit personal but replies all the same: “Same as you I’d imagine.”
Then the second voice says: “Hang on a minute mate, there’s a weird bloke in the cubicle next to me that keeps trying to talk to me.”

Moral: It takes time for human behaviour to adapt to any new technology.
Source: A bloke in a pub who overheard some other another bloke in a pub.

Li Edelkoort

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I’m not a big fan of the rag trade but Dutch-born Li Edelkoort (one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential people in fashion) can be a bit of an oracle at times. Here are a handful of her insights from last year that seem to resonate way beyond the glitzy and somewhat vapid word of fashion.

1. Togetherness
We increasingly live apart but we want to be together. We want to re-connect, be it through farmers markets, theatre, live music or knitting cafes.

2. Back to basics
Usually when there is a financial crisis we go through a period of utility or back-to-basics. This time around this reaction appears to be rather short lived. Perhaps this is because we feel that it is others than have sinned and need to atone for past excesses.

3. Grey.
We are at a period of indecision so what better way to say nothing than to use a colour sandwiched in between the certainty of black and white. Actually, “Colour of the Year” for 2010 is Pantone 14-0848 Mimosa but I still like the idea of grey.

By the way, I really like what Li had to say about her process; once: “People think I am some mystic or gypsy. But what I really do is pay attention. Then I have the nerve to say what I believe.”

Source: thewrendesign.com