Innovation in textiles apparently. Link.
Another map (not mine)
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Monthly Archives: May 2017
The on-demand economy
Two interesting conversations last week. The first concerned generational attitudes to privacy. A friend was considering putting their home on Airbnb. His daughter (22) thought it was a great idea. His wife (40 something) was horrified. It exposed differing attitudes to not only privacy but possessions. Ownership Vs. access too. I thought it was interesting.
The second conversation was with a retailer. I had long thought that the new ‘on demand’ economy had a small glitch, which was its business model and economics. Essentially, retailers aren’t making any money on instant (same day) delivery. Customers won’t pay much more than a few pounds to have something delivered on the same day, but it costs more than this to do it. Not sustainable, unless someone can unlock value somewhere or possibly bundle the delivery cost into something else or support it with something else (ads?).
Create Your Own Future
I have a ex banker friend who can’t get her head around why I give these things away, but I subscribe to something called Karma (not an online magazine, although not that far off). Contact me for a high resolution version (free). Printed versions are available too.
Quote of the Week
“Sooner or later you’ll have a computer attached to your face.” David J. Hill.
The Last Days of Cash
I was flying back from Germany yesterday and opened the BA snack menu only to find that they no longer accepted cash (is that even legal to do that?). Then this morning I was at Bill Granger’s cafe in Notting Hill and when I got out a £20 note to pay the reaction was “Oh…cash”. I guess my inclusion of cash as a partial ruin on my latest map isn’t that far off the truth after all.
Map blank
Could this work as a workshop tool? We’ll see…
Dying alone
The number of paupers’ funerals in London almost doubled between 2013-2016 according to the latest figures. A pauper’s funeral is one in which people die alone or without known relatives and the cost of the funeral is met by the local authority. The reason given for the increase is longer human lifespans, squeezed incomes, the rising cost of traditional funerals and the increase in the number of people living alone.
In the past you needed life insurance in case you died. In the future you’ll need it in case you don’t.
Trust me?
Lovely graphic from Edelman and the Economist World in 2017.
Now that’s a map!
I have no idea who did this or why I have a photo of it. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?
Future Predictions for 2050 (or before, but who can say?)
Here’s a list of some of the entries I removed from my final Mega trends & Technologies map for a variety of reasons.
Gyroscopic inertial thrust engines (reactionless drive)
Electrification of Africa
Rise of Christianity in East Asia
Cascades of rage
Search for novelty
Crisis of meaning
Growth of transgender agenda
Fake news
Peak soil
Growth of women in work & education
Identity chips implanted at birth
A company less than a year old with a billion users
Energy bills bundled with other services
Apple launches the iCar
Use of Marmite to soothe Middle Eastern conflict (de Bono)
Shopping ‘bots that negotiate price with retailers.
Five dimensional memory glass for data storage
Lighter than air solids
Companies fined for having fat workers
Body hacking for sensory augmentation
Internet-connected toothbrushes
Internet connected animals
Neuromorphic computing
Cloud seeding using lasers
Emphasis on self-reliance
Tech-free work spaces
Neurologically driven vehicles
Routine manipulation of embryos in vitro
Markets not fully factoring in debt
Home-based healthcare
Glacier farming
Lab grown meat in supermarkets
Longevity resorts/hotels
EU disintegration (trust me, when not if)
Rise of the vegetarians
Polarisation between snacking and social eating
Longevity foods
Price point polarisation
Real-time car insurance (by the minute/mile)
Floating data dashboards
Backdating of vehicles (to make them look old)
Most vehicles electric in some form
Growth of new transport corridors
Sunscreen pills
Preemptive interventions based on genome
Memory pills
Male birth control pills
Search for intrinsic value
Growth of criminal economy
Low growth era
Real-time tax payments (no annual tax returns)
Micro-scale energy harvesting
Increasing self-absorption
Everyone has an online reputation score
Growth of urban mega-regions
Open banking
Digital only banks
Popularity of colour pink (denial)
Popularity of colour silver (protection)
Fragmentation of national identities
Renaissance of craft
Declining urban air quality
Rise of the 4th Reich (I know! This belongs to a friend of mine).
Financial globalisation
Crop pollination robots
Fully autonomous battlefield robots
Warfare merges with gaming
Rise of non-Western art
Clean slate digital identities
Full immersion VR suits
Artificial kidneys
Apple becomes first trillion-dollar company
Dream imaging and recording via fMRI
US energy independence
Ability to locate anything anywhere anytime
Libraries of human emotions
Mass sentimentalism
Pollution absorbing paint
Rising importance of food and water security
Disenfranchisement of men
Children growing up too fast
Adults behaving like children
People regularly living to 100-years-of-age
Growth of air filtering & quality monitoring
Fully autonomous farms
Virtual drugs
People as pets (employees kept on for legal reasons only)
Voting via mobile devices
White smells
Glucose-measuring contact lenses
Printable batteries
Re-emergence of European fascism
Fully biodegradable mobile phones/electronic devices
App chemistry
Digital (downloadable) smells
Epidermal electronics
Glasses that interpret human emotions
Tension between privacy & personalisation
The human race splits between the organic and the enhanced