Part of my digital diet.

What am I doing? I’m so glad you asked. I’m helping to write some thought starters for a workshop for the Australian Book Industry Strategy Group. I’m also having lunch with a few folks at Shell and preparing a prospectus for a project looking at scenarios for the future of sport in 2020 (or 2030, we can’t decide). Apart from that finishing the best article I’ve ever read on demographics. See Foreign Affairs, issue Nov/Dec 2010 ‘The Demographic Future’ by Nicholas Eberstadt (foreignaffairs.com).

What do I have for you today? Nothing really, apart from saying that issue 27 of my What’s Next trend report is now up and available (free) at www.nowandnext.com

Happy new year. I’ve just been in Canada and I’ve discovered a few things.

1. I’ve noticed that there are people that drink Coca-Cola for breakfast.

2. I’ve found that hotels will serve teens chocolate chip cookies in hot tubs.

3. I’ve discovered that if you like jeans, but you also like pjamas, you can have the best of both worlds with a pair of Pajama Jeans (Slogan: Pjamas you live in, jeans you sleep in). This could well be the worst product of the year, but is at least on trend with my recent observation about pjamas being big in 2011 because they offer physical and emotional warmth in cold and complex times.

What else have I been thinking? My thought for the day is that I’ve decided not to buy a Kindle. Why? Because the Kindle is to reading what the log-effect gas fire is to heating. Fast and convenient, but somehow lacking in authenticity and warmth.

I’m still sifting stuff for What’s Next, so here’s another little something that I think is interesting but didn’t quite make the final cut.

Cement is responsible for around 5% of carbon dioxide emissions globally. So why not create a cement that actually soaks up CO2 as it hardens. Bingo – carbon neutral cement. This is exactly what a start-up firm called Novacem is doing.

I’m working on the next issue of my What’s Next report (nowandnext.com), so I don’t have time to post anything long. Here, then, is something that I read the Nikkei Weekly (Japan) this morning. NEC Corp in Japan is working on ways in which screens can wirelessly detach from the main parent device. For example, a display could be created that wraps around a user’s wrist to function as a watch. It could then be removed and unrolled to create a flat screen that becomes a phone, an iPad-type device or an in-car navigation system. Meanwhile, a laboratory in Japan has developed software to run as an app on Apples’s iPhone that can give real-time oral translation in six different languages. The technology also allows text translation in a further 15 languages. Douglas Adams, if only you were here to see this.*

* The Babel fish was a small creature in the book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which, when placed in your ear, would translate any language.

“Ghost of the Future”, he exclaimed, “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?”
– A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

According to Mintel, a research company, 75% of UK homes sent a Christmas card in 2009, compared with 84% in 2006. A study by YouGov for Oxfam reveals a similar trend. Christmas card sales in Oxfam’s UK charity shops slipped by 14% last year.

Why is this happening? Obvious really. Cards are expensive, time consuming and arguably damage the environment. There’s also the issue of the reliability of the postal services and shifts in terms of belief.

So are physical cards dead? Not by a long shot. Firstly, remember e-greeting cards? These seemed to die out almost completely a few years ago, replaced by simple texts and emails. So things change.

Secondly, 75% of homes is still a large figure. I’m sure this figure will decline in the future but I’d also expect to see a boom in personalized cards because they show that you’ve made a bit of an effort and value the other person. So the trend is against physical cards but this should create a counter-trend the more that cards die out.

A simple text message or Christmas e-mail greeting is a cold piece of communication. Christmas is supposed to be about thinking about others so people should stop thinking about how convenient it is for them to do something and start thinking about now people will feel if they make a bit of an effort.

In Japan the average women gives birth to 1.3 children – a figure well below the replacement rate. However, some populations in Japan are booming. According to Japan’s Pet food Manufacturers Association, there were 24.5 million cats and dogs in Japan in 2006 and this figure represented a rise of 37% in a decade. And expenditure on these furry friends is increasing.

Why is this happening? One reason is that pets, and small dogs in particular, have become fashionable. A more credible explanation is demographic. Our furry friends (or ‘fur kids’) represent a practical substitute to real children or marital partners. They are also ideal companions for seniors that live alone, of which there are many in Japan and elsewhere.

This pet boom is leading to a furry flurry of innovation, which includes pet hotels at Narita airport (170 ‘rooms’ from US$33-$170 per night) to pet funerals (including a ‘with pet’ option that allows owners to be buried alongside their pets). There are also remote-controlled feeding machines operated by PC or mobile phone that allow owners to ‘visit’ their loved one via video link, and pet spas featuring pet massages and mud packs.

Crazy? You bet, but even blue chip Japanese manufacturers are sitting up and paying attention with the likes of Honda designing automobiles for dog owners that feature things like stain resistant seating and odour eliminating fabrics as standard features.

Over in the US the pet industry seems to doing equally well. Total pet spend in 2009 was forecast to be $45 billion. As entrepreneur magazine points out, that’s more than the GDP of all but 64 countries.

Two questions for me from attendees at an insurance industry event in the City of London yesterday.

Q 1. When did you first realise that you were mad?
Q 2. Do you write as well as you speak?

Oh well, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. On the subject of mad a funny thing happened to me this morning. I was driving along a country lane thinking about nothing in particular when the thought that two people I know died recently came into my mind. At that exact instant a large bird smashed into the windscreen. Weird.