So here’s what I think is going on. Coulson is a sacrificial lamb. The News of the World is being ‘closed’ to ring fence other News titles. It’s likely that the Sun and other non-News tabloids could be implicated. A new title will be launched by News once the dust has settled and most of the News Journalists will be re-employed.
But I’m just a cynical old bastard.
OK, I have a question. Actually it’s not my question, it’s from Sandy in Sydney. He needs to borrow our brains.
“Any shining examples you can think of of companies that are making a successful transition from ‘analogue’ to digital delivery”.
My answer is nope. I can’t think of anything at all. Nothing in music, nothing in publishing, nothing in photography (Getty images?). Not really.
How about the wisdom of crowds on this one?
I had a thought recently. If all fossil fuels are derived from plants, which originally got their energy from light (i.e. oil, coal and gas are stored photosynthesis), why can’t we mimic this process with biological factories converting light into energy? Much more practical than solar you’d imagine. Then I thought, that’s just wood you idiot.
Another idea. I was driving down a motorway recently and noticed the grass by the road being blown by the wind created by the cars. Why can’t we harvest this energy? Why can’t we create wind turbines in the form of tiny blades of ‘grass’ to sit along freeways. 50cm blades of ‘grass’ would be so much nicer to look at than 50m wind turbines.
A third thought. Is there a website out there where I can upload an image of my face and it automatically roams cyberspace looking for me? (www.gofindme.com?). Why would one want to do such a thing? To prevent the unauthorized use of personal photographs.We probably don’t need this now, but once facial recognition is built into every CCTV camera and every mobile phone it could have its uses.
Finns are getting weird. Back on Finnair and this time it’s reindeer salad and cloudberries at 35,000 feet. The highlight of this trip was Gate 37a. There was a woman dressed in white standing in a corner looking at the wall. To start with I thought perhaps she had done something very naughty and had been asked by airport officials to stand in the corner for ten minutes (oh, the memories!). Then I realised she wasn’t moving.
Why would you stand facing the wall? Surely you’d look outwards. I was fascinated. I was also interested by the fact that nobody else seemed to have noticed her or, if they had, they were ignoring her.
Then it dawned on me. This was either a brilliant statue or someone was doing performance art (yawn). It turned out it was neither. She finally moved when a small girl ran up to her and looked at her up close. Turns out she was making a phone call and, I presume, was trying to block out the surrounding distractions. However, my imagination had been stirred and my eyes soon settled on a Japanese woman with perfect white skin. She looked a bit like the female android created by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro and she wasn’t moving either. A real life robot as hand luggage? No, just someone else good at not moving.
Other news to report. First, the Finnair spa has five different types of sauna, not four as previously stated (see June 14 post). Furthermore, there’s a bathing pool filled with mineral water (there might also be one filled with asses’ milk, but I couldn’t find it). Anyway, the interesting thing was that there was a window from the pool (also observable from one of the saunas) that looked directly at a concourse, through which people are passing dragging suitcases and unruly children. But the glass is one way. You can see them but they can’t see you.
Is this a continued part of the future? A privileged few frolicking in a giant bath, while everyone else is stressing out about finding something to drink or somewhere quiet to sit. The one-way glass interests me immensely. Was it there so that the few could gawp at the many and think how lucky they were? Was it there simply to add to the experience (sitting in a pool looking at aircraft taxiing on the tarmac does have a certain appeal)? Or was it there to somehow emphasise schadenfreude? I think that’s it.
It’s same reason that business-class-only flights don’t work. Psychologically, part of the reason business class seating works is that there are other economy seats close by. The cost of a business ticket includes the perverted thrill of seeing people turn right when you turn left or, better still, having people drill past you while you are sipping champagne.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not some kind of status junkie. Far from it. I didn’t buy my ticket and I’m certainty not paying for it. I have some Yorkshire/Scottish/ no money heritage and my greatest thrill is spending the least possible amount of money on anything. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to observe this spectacle and speculate as to whether a similar dynamic might operate across other swathes of society in the future – a polarisation where, if you can afford it, you are silently whisked from one place to another and generally treated like a king, where, if you can’t, you are stuck on hold, forced to talk to machines, made to wait in line, rounded up and treated like cattle and generally fed to the lions, red in tooth and claw, of capitalism, extreme individualism and free-market economics (i.e. my trip on easyjet to Munich last week).
One more thing. The Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain is worth reading, especially the chapter about what we can learn from Wikipedia. It’s especially interesting if you read it in a sauna with fresh herbs hanging from a roof made of roughly sawn pinewood with pine needles on the floor.
In Yemen, 65% of the population is aged under 25 years of age – and the unemployment rate is around 30%. I believe that in Tunisia the revolution was partly caused by the number of educated young men that didn’t have jobs but did have mobile phones – and access to social media. So where else in the world do you have lots of young men with phones and no prospect of work? The US might be one answer, the UK another, but I think we need to factor in some other factors (more on these another time).
Interestingly, while China doesn’t fit the formula now, it might if there was an external event that caused its export orientated economy to slow down and its young men to become unemployed.
In the future traffic forecasts will be as common as weather forecasts. There will also pollution forecasts, disease forecasts and war forecasts. In fact war-forecasting is already a growth industry with a number of players in countries such as the US, Germany and Australia. One of the leading systems used to predict military outcomes is a bit of software called the Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model – TNDM – which is produced by a military think-tank called the Dupuy Institute in Washington DC. TNDC is the mother of all battle simulators, largely because it successfully predicted the outcome (particularly casualty rates and duration) of the first Gulf War and the Bosnian conflict.
The accuracy of TNDM is largely due to the fact that the Dupuy Institute sits on a mountain of historical data from previous wars and has spent time analysing the influence of such factors as rainfall, foliage cover, length of supply lines, tank positions, river widths, muzzle velocities, density of targets and the nature of the regimes participating in the conflict (democratic or authoritarian). The result is a mathematical model that predicts outcomes, which is in turn used to deliver a three-page report on casualty rates, equipment losses, capture rates and terrain gains.
What’s even more astonishing is that this software is for sale at a cost of US $93,000 (including instruction, a year’s technical support and a newsletter). Interestingly though, most people prefer the human touch and opt for the predictions plus human analysis. A future challenge is to predict the outcomes of guerrilla conflicts and the Dupuy Institute is apparently working on this.
One wonders how long it will be before a corporation develops a similar model to predict the outcome of innovations or commercial strategies.
Tempting as it is to suggest that you read a working paper in the Harvard Business Review Working Knowledge newsletter called ‘An Empirical Decomposition of Risk Liquidity in Nominal and Inflation-Indexed Government Bonds’ (seriously – the things some people do to make a living) I think it would be better if I didn’t.
Instead I’d like to suggest that people check out a competition in the New Scientist magazine asking people to submit ideas for projects that would most improve the world. Contenders have included computers with signs of consciousness, remote sensing and presence, medical nano-bots and synthetic biology (the production of polymers, chemicals and bio-fuels to use as bio-sensors – or even computer parts – through to low cost drugs and new fuels). Taking of good stuff, I’m finishing off The Rough Guide to the Future by Jon Turney. Totally recommended.
Thought for the day: Never go to a meeting wearing a light coloured linen jacket, especially if the night before you’ve put the jacket on the back of a chair and your dog has stolen a whole roast chicken and gets diarrhea, covers himself in poo, which is then sprayed across the back of the jacket when he shakes himself dry.
This isn’t necessarily a problem, unless you fail to notice the small brown marks spread across the back of the jacket. Even this isn’t too bad, unless you go to a meeting wearing the jacket and some helpful person points out to you that there’s mud (“or perhaps it’s cappuccino powder”) sprayed across your jacket – and smells it to see which it is.
On the plus side I totally forget about my broken front tooth or the four presentations that I’m supposed to have written by Thursday night.
Statistic for the day: Americans represent 4.5% of the world’s population, but buy 33% of the worlds insurance (Atlantic Monthly).
Why I’m writing this I have no idea because I am supposed to be doing several other urgent things. Anyway, in my book, Future Files, I highlighted 5 trends as being among the major drivers of change for the foreseeable future. In this post I’d like to re-visit these 5 trends to highlight a few ways in which our world is changing. I should stress right away that these forces are relatively well known. It’s the implications that are so often missed, so what I’d like to concentrate on here is the “and so?” bit. BTW, if anyone can think of any better factoids I’m all ears.
Fact 1: Of all the people aged 65+ that have ever lived, 50% are alive right now (1)
Not only is the world becoming more crowded (the global population will hit 7 billion this year), it is also a world where people are living longer, less people are being born, more people are living alone and the nuclear family is becoming the exception not the rule. Population growth (largely created by a healthcare revolution) has significant implications in terms of infrastructure and natural resources. The global population is expected to go into freefall around 2050, but until then, and unless something dramatic happens, demand (and prices) for almost everything is expected to rise.
The most significant demographic change is ageing, which has serious implications for everything from healthcare and pensions provision to the world of work.
Increasing longevity along with declining fertility will be key features of life in the 21st Century and both will have critical implications for everything from innovation (largely driven by young people that are not ‘invested’ in the current system), to societal risk aversion and politics.
Expect to see a global war for talent due to a lack of skilled workers, a power shift from employers to employees (unless the economy tanks), a shift in focus by business towards seniors and a growth in nostalgic products and pursuits.
In terms of the workforce, over the next 20 years the largest population increases will occur in sub-Saharan Africa while China, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will be responsible for almost 50% of the increase. Breaking the data down by age group is especially revealing. The greatest decline in young manpower will occur in China. India is also vulnerable because most population growth will occur in the north, away from the economic centres in the south. Japan and Russia face startling declines whilst Western Europe will tread water. The exception is the US. The US is almost unique amongst OECD nations in that it will experience an increase in the size of its working population between now and 2030. Key consequence? The US economy is more resilient than many people imagine.
Fact 2: China has 21% of the world’s population but only 1.8% of the world’s oil (2)
If population changes are the most certain of the five forces then the environment is, in my view, the least certain. Thanks to climate change and anxiety about resources (e.g. peak oil, but also copper, lithium etc) green and environmental issues are no longer fringe thinking. Much of the debate around the impacts of climate change is speculative, but this hasn’t prevented governments from creating radical new forms of regulation and bureaucracy. Indeed, the only thing I’d say will anything approaching confidence is that where the bar is set currently in terms of environmental regulation is not where it will remain. I’d expect the bar to be raised in the future and companies will need zero impact or offset strategies for everything from products to supply chains. Companies should also make plans for a world where a whole range of low-cost inputs start to evaporate and individuals and institutions in some parts of the world will have to get used to living with less.
Regarding oil, I think that much of the debate surrounding peak oil is misleading.
The amount of oil that’s left depends on the price that people are willing to pay for it.
The more expensive it gets the more there is. Moreover, the history of the energy industry is one of technological innovation. For example, the high cost of wood (for building and heating) in Britain in the 1700s led to the development of deep seam coal mining. I’m sure we will invent practical and cost effective (and scaleable) alternatives to fossil fuels, but not in my view until prices reach a certain point. Meanwhile, expect a global scramble for fossil fuels, food, water and other commodities with China and the head of the queue.
Fact 3: There are now 4.1 billion mobile (cell) phones on the planet, 75% of which reside in developing regions (3)
Thanks to the Internet, individuals and organizations are now much more connected. A generation or so ago half the world had never made a phone call. Now three-quarters of the planet owns a mobile phone and globally smart-phones will outsell PCs by mid-2012. In addition to 4 billion mobiles there are also 2 billion Internet users, ½ billion Facebook accounts and a goggle-zillion texts, tweets, searches, status updates and pokes. What does this all mean?
First we are witnessing a movement of power away from companies and governments towards individuals. There is now a much greater transparency around information and it is becoming very difficult indeed to keep information or actions secret.
The speed at which information circulates also means that response times have declined and that privacy is no longer a default setting. Forgetting, like privacy, is also becoming a rather quaint concept because digital memory is immortal. In theory this should result in more honest organizations and more open government.
A second implication is an erosion of industry barriers. For example, in media there is now less distinction between creators and consumers. Consumers are creating, filtering and distributing content and there is a symbiotic relationship developing between social and professional media. The collapse of barriers can also be seen in the growth of outsourcing and open innovation through to the impact of social media on politics (e.g. Micro-donations for the elect Obama campaign to political developments in Africa & Middle East).
A third implication is attention. The ease with which information can be created and distributed means that we are now receiving too much information and it’s becoming much harder to distinguish between what is important and what is not. Mobile devices in particular mean that we are creating too many opportunities for distraction and our subsequent lack of sustained concentration is impacting learning and decision-making. Too much choice and complexity is also leading to the demand for simplicity and edited consumption in markets as diverse as retail and consumer electronics.
Expect a rise in co-created products and services, a rise in personalization, an increase in online activism, more real-time data, a boom in location-based services and the continued growth of online, including mobile payments.
Fact 4. China consumes 40% of the world’s steel production, 30% of the world’s coal and 25% of the world’s aluminum and copper. The country also accounts for 40% of the increase in demand for oil since 2001 (4)
A fourth force shaping the foreseeable future is the shift of money, power, influence and ideas Eastwards. We all know about the economic rise of the BRICs (Brazil Russia India China), but to my mind it’s not the number of people or how much money they’ve got relative to the West that’s most interesting, but the political views of this new middle class. Most people in the West have always assumed that ‘they’ will eventually become like ‘us’ – that people in developing nations will adopt broadly Western attitudes and behaviours. Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East would appear to support this view. But what if this is wrong? What if China, for example, doesn’t favour liberalisation, free speech and democracy?
Early indications are that the new middle classes in China favour protectionism alongside globalisation and support authoritarian government and restrictions on free speech just so long as the economy (and personal wealth) keeps growing. There is also the thought that perhaps things will shift in the opposite direction – that the West will move towards a Chinese-style system in which individual rights are traded for greater long-term stability or prosperity.
For me the really big question is whether or not China can shift its economy towards internal consumption and whether it can move from a ‘Made in China’ label to an ‘Invented in China’ tag in the sense of moving from low-cost manufacturing to upstream innovation.
In the meantime, expect emerging markets to fuel growth in most consumer and industrial markets, expect more low-cost local competition (at least until wage inflation shifts such activity to other areas), more BRIC investment in Western markets, more BRIC mergers and acquisitions and further increases in BRIC patents and R&D expenditure.
Fact 5: In 2008 an average PC was 32,000 times more powerful and 12 times less expensive than an average PC in 1981 (5)
If you want an idea of what the world might look like in 10 or 15 years time try a simple thought experiment. Pretend that you fell asleep in the year 2000 and woke up this morning, eleven years later. What would be different? My list would include 9/11, the global recession, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Web 2.0, cloud computing, iBooks and the price of oil, cooper and gold.
But that’s just the obvious stuff. Technological advances over the past couple of decades mean that we’ve developed automated spell check, speech recognition, biometric identity, home DNA testing kits, brain-to-machine computer interfaces, augmented relativity, gesture based computing and robots in early years education and aged care (in Japan – where else). In short, we are on the cusp of a new era where human and machine intelligence will combine to reshape the world.
Some examples? Holographic Telepresence, Claytronics, Sticky Air, Conversational Computing, Plant-Eating Robots, Hybrid-Electric Planes, Smart Dust, Lab-Grown Meat, Invisibility Cloaks, Space-Solar Power, Robotic Surgery, Face Recognition Doors, Precision Agriculture, Fish Ranching, Broadcast Electricity, Wireless Recharging, Exoskeletons, Personalised-Interactive Books, Smart Road-Pricing, Cars that are afraid of crashing and Clothing that calls for help if you fall over and hurt yourself…the list is endless, but there’s a pattern slowly emerging, which is that things that were once static and stupid are breaking free of physical constraints and becoming more mobile and intelligent.
Interestingly, there are currently 5 billion devices are connected to the internet, but by 2013 this figure is expected to hit 1 trillion (6). This is expected to create a worldwide sensor network, but it will also start to blur the distinction between real and virtual.
Implications? Life will continue to accelerate and we will continue to wonder why we never have enough time to do anything despite our use of time saving technologies.
Critically, we will need to shift from teaching people to know things to teaching people how to invent things, solve problems and relate to other human beings. Critically, we need to end our obsession with educating only one half of the brain (the logical left side) when it is precisely this side that technology is getting so got at.
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Sources: (1) New Scientist magazine, UK (2) Eurasia Group, US (3) Economist magazine, UK (4) The Guardian, UK (5) A Brief History of the Future by Jacques Attali (6) IMS Research & Cisco Systems, US.
It is estimated that 30% of a typical day is spent processing irrelevant data.
Source: Xerox.