New Trends Map for 2010

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The map is slowly coming together – and yes I know you can’t read it yet! When it’s almost done I’ll stick a readable version up on beta for comment.

Society

Zone 1
We not me
Expecting less
Health & safety hysteria
Nostalgia
Search for meaning (Mondays to Fridays only)
Aspirationfor control
Growth of virtual communities
Culture of immediacy
Men behaving like women
Women behaving like men
e-erosion of empathy
Flight to the physical
Hunger for shared experiences
Unsupervised adults
Slow cities
Green cities
Rising rage
Constant partial stupidity
Societal feminisation

Quote of the Week

Fantastic comment. I have an office next to a church and every so often people ask me for directions. One guy came up to me today as asked “do you know where the Rev Howard is?” I said “No…but have you looked in the church?”. “Yes” he said, “But there’s not a soul in there.” You can’t make stuff like this up.

Beloit College Mindset List

I quite like this. It’s the annual Beloit College (US) Mindset List. A list of cultural touchstones that have shaped the minds of the latest batch of students in the US and a gentle reminder that frames of reference change.
Could be done better though I suspect. Here’s my selection from their selection…

They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
Rap music has always been main stream.
The KGB has never officially existed.
Text has always been hyper.
They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.
American students have always lived anxiously with high-stakes educational testing.
The European Union has always existed.
McDonald’s has always been serving Happy Meals in China.
There has always been a Cartoon Network.
The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
Women have always outnumbered men in college.
We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.
Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
Most communities have always had a mega-church.
CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging.
NATO has always been looking for a role.
Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down.
Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Full list at beloit.edu/mindset/2013.php (they have never used www.)

What’s Next Issue 23 is Up (Finally!)

Better late than never. The latest issue of my free What’s Next trends report is now up at www.nowandnext.com (just click on the orange box on the top left on the home page).

If you’re the busy type here are just 3 of the 75 stories…

1. The Future of Journalism

It is widely assumed, especially online, that physical newspapers are facing imminent extinction. In Britain approximately 70 local newspapers have closed since the start of 2008 and newspapers are facing a continued decline in advertising revenues (especially job, car and home classifieds). There are the issues of declining circulations and ageing demographics too. This is worrying because newspapers are not just another consumer product. Newspapers, at their best, are part of a system that seeks to make individuals, and especially institutions, responsible for their actions. Autocracies function perfectly well without quality newspapers. Democracies do not. The death of local newspapers is problematic on another level too. Despite what you read online, many people don’t own PCs or iPhones (especially the poor, the old and the immobile) so local papers are an essential part of local community life.

So is it all doom and gloom? I think not. First, on a local level, low-tech media will enjoy resurgence until online access becomes truly universal. Hence, physical leaflets and local newsletters will both thrive as will noticeboards in coffee shops and newsagents. Second, there will be a shift towards payment for high-end, original analysis online. Rupert Murdoch recently revealed that he intended to charge readers for access to premium content online within the next 12 months. If this works, others will follow. This is a brave move, especially as most people think that digital content should be free. But this could change.

At the moment news aggregators essentially rip-off news creators but this could cease if publishers start to take legal action for copyright or ‘fair use’ infringement. In other words, newspaper publishers might start moving in a similar direction to music publishers, proving that aggregators (even individual bloggers) are systematically reproducing content without adding editorial value. The music analogy works on another level too. If the media is becoming fractured and fragmented, then trusted sources will become key. News brands could be extended into other areas with additional revenue streams.

What’s most likely, in my view, is that news and information will polarise, thereby satisfying both creators and the consumers. ‘News’ — that is the immediate reporting of events — will exist primarily online and access to this will be free. In contrast, serious analysis and commentary, for which I’d expect an increasing thirst, will hide behind micro-payments or, more likely, will continue to exist on paper as part of paid-for weekly, monthly or even quarterly digests and reviews. As for ageing demographics this could be a blessing in disguise.

The blogosphere was buzzing recently when Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, issued a report by a 15-year-old web-savvy intern called ‘How Teens Consumer Media’ — shock horror, teens ‘can’t be bothered’ to read newspapers. Call that news? Teens have generally never read newspapers. But teens grow up and develop a desire to make sense of the world. Furthermore, when teens get much older (65+) they have a lot of time and money on their hands. This is a perfect demographic for newspapers. In short, the crisis facing journalism is largely spiritual rather than financial and it is the issue of content, not the Internet, which is key.

At the moment a great deal of media content is PR driven. Moreover, there is widespread distrust of the mainstream media caused, in part, by recent events such as the distorted reporting surrounding the Iraqi invasion. Solve these problems and, hey presto, there will be a future for journalism.

2. Delayed gratification in retail

You might think it quite normal that somebody puts off cleaning their room. But would they put off having a free massage? It seems they do, if the deadline for taking it is too far ahead. According to behavioural economists, people think they are more likely to enjoy a free gift if they have plenty of time to take advantage of it, but in fact, they are less likely to do it at all. People actually exercise too much self-control or “self-command”.

The disciplined self wants to put off pleasures, while the hedonistic self wants to have them now. So when someone receives a gift card for a massage that can be taken any time this year, the disciplined self takes over and commits to having the pleasure later. But tomorrow never comes, at least, according to a couple of experiments with undergraduates where ten of 32 people redeemed their three-week cake coupons but only two of 32 used their two-month pass. Similar behaviour is seen among residents in a tourist area, who are far less likely to go and see tourist attractions than visitors who have limited time. The reason is because people focus on future gains and don’t see future costs but, because they already see current costs, they put things off now.

Researchers use the word “hyperopia”, which describes the way people use excessive far-sightedness and keep on delaying pleasures while overweighing necessity and virtue in the present. In other words, they think the future will be great, so they don’t enjoy themselves today. However, they may regret hoarding their time or money later.

The message for retailers is to use promotions where there is a clear justification and the time to use them is limited. This ensures that people have a good reason to overcome their hyperopia and their inertia. Examples are a free pass on your birthday, charity benefits, and quickly expiring gift cards for accessories when someone has just bought some clothing. The advantage of gift cards is that people tend to buy something they wouldn’t normally buy and often add their own money to them. So it just goes to show, we’re not as greedy as we think.

3. Under-performing teams

Over the past 30-40 years the idea of using teams has become so ingrained in our culture as to be almost invisible. Nobody in their right mind, it seems, would dare to challenge the thought that working as an individual could ever as productive or efficient as working as part of a team. But is this really the case? According to J. Richard Hackman, a Professor of organisational psychology at Harvard University, the answer is that it depends.

The first reason that teams can under perform is that they are typically too large and suffer from what Hackman calls “ambiguous boundaries”. For example, in one study less than 10% of team members were able to agree upon who was actually on their team. Excessive size causes problems with co-ordination and also with motivation. Why do some teams get so big? One reason is that the desire to be inclusive often means that people are put on teams purely to avoid confrontation. The ideal size for a team, according to Hackman, is “in single figures” but teams of 20-30 plus are commonplace. As for networks and online teamwork the same rules generally apply. Virtual teams can be difficult to co-ordinate and suffer from what Jo Freeman calls “the tyranny of structurelessness”. A lack of physical contact, especially at the all important first meeting, can also cause major problems.

A second reason why teams often under-perform is that they are changed too frequently. Great teams can be decades in the making. But how do you stop long-lasting teams from becoming flaccid or complacent? One answer might be to very slowly rotate individual members, but a much better way is to introduce deviant thinkers from time to time. This notion is similar to the idea of having a “thinker in residence”, someone who is willing to say or do things that other people are not. A third and final issue is resources. There is a widespread belief that large teams will have access to greater resources, but the reverse is often the case. Large teams soak up time as well as money and it is precisely the lack of such resources that can create the sense of urgency and focus that are so critical to success.

More at www.nowandnext.com

Who?

Just got this…can’t work out if its spam or not (apologies if it’s not).
“The form I am just filling in says ‘Name (required)’. Apparently it’s one law for the rich and one for the poor, then, since nowhere on your site do you tell us who *you* are!  After a bit of digging in Google, I find that you are called Richard Macmanus, and that you are a famous blogger.  But you are not famous to me, and I always tell my students to take no notice of anything they find on the web that is anonymous.  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a brief section on your homepage telling us who you are and what you do, apart from running a blog?”

Well there is a page called ‘Who is..?’ on the main site that’s linked to this blog (www.nowandnext.com). I am Richard Watson, an author (Future Files), speaker and sometime scenarios consultant. I produce the What’s Next trends report and also the snack-sized monthly brainmail newsleter. And no I am not Richard Macmanus or famous.

Extinction Timeline – 2009 Update

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A year or two ago (I can’t remember) I did an extinction timeline looking at familiar things that were set to disappear in the future. The word extinction referred to general rarity rather than total disappearance. Anyway, here’s a 2009 update. Items marked * are expected to come back fairly soon. Note that the original map was created in conjunction with Ross and Jess over a long Christmas lunch.

The list as it currently stands is as follows:

Not being worried
Flaunting it
Low interest rates
Easy credit
Low inflation
Paper fortunes
Minimalism
Hedge funds*
Visionary CEOs (replaced by CFOs)
Printing photographs
Extravagance
Largesse
Budget surpluses
Excess
Privacy
Confidence
Jump suits
Joe Strummer (the Clash — RIP)
$150 oil*
Neocons
Business trips*
Global growth*
Throwing things away*
Kazza
Masstigue
Email newsletters
Dubai*
Silly job titles
Normal weather
Globalisation
Woolworth’s (UK retailer)
Paper bills
Typists
Organic food
Luxury goods*
Guy Ritchie (ex Mr Madonna)
Fred Goodwin (ex CEO of RBS)
The planet Pluto (no longer classified as a planet)
Iceland* (the country)
Ice
Lehman’s
Arthur C. Clarke (RIP)
Fannie May
George W
Profits*
Landline telephones
CDs
Free play (for kids)
Ugg boots
Freddie Mac
Outliers
Purple
Buying things* (we now prefer to rent)
Jets (private)
Free stuff
No-fault accidents
Grazed knees
Crocs
Robotic pets

The link to the map is…also clickable in comments:
http://nowandnext.com/downloads/extinction-timeline-2009-update.jpg

2010 Trend Map

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What am I up to? Today I’m doing a keynote on the future of work at a human resources national convention and then it’s back to work on some scenarios for the future of public libraries. In between I’m doing an update to my book, Future Files, and I’ve just started work on yet another map.

A few people have been asking how I do these maps so I thought I’d start to answer this question. The first stage is a brain dump. I write a list of every significant trend that I can think of. I then dump the trends into categories (lines) on a sheet of very large paper.

The image above is the result of this. The next stage is to look at this information for a month or two and work out what’s wrong with it. What have I missed? What shouldn’t be there? Most of all, how do these lines connect?

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The death of the internet is exaggerated

Did you know that the volume of data traffic on Youtube in 2006 was equal to the volume of traffic on the entire internet six years earlier? Moreover, according to a US think tank (the Discovery institute) the volume of data on the internet is growing at a rate of 60% per year. As a result of this data deluge people are starting to talk about exafloods and zetafloods whereby the internet jams up or becomes almost unusable due to ever increasing volumes of traffic.

Of course the idea of an impending internet meltdown is nothing new. Back in 1995 Bob Metcalfe, a founder of 3Com, predicted that the internet would grind to a halt towards the end of 1996. A more recent prediction, this time from Nemertes (a research firm), is that internet demand will outpace internet supply by next year (2010).

So is a major failure really imminent? I think not. First the rate of traffic growth is actually much slower than some people imagine. Second the problem can be solved — like most problems — with enough time and money. Third it is clearly in the interest of certain companies to talk up this threat (i.e. people selling pipes and cables want to sell bigger and better pipes and cables to as many people as possible).

Furthermore, it is not entirely inconceivable that demand will actually slacken. People may simply get fed up with what’s on offer on Youtube or walk away from faster connectivity and digital friends. We could all suddenly decade to unplug, unsubscribe and slow things down. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.