I cannot wait to re-read this little lot and work out what they got right, what they got wrong and possibly why. The World in 2020 (top) was written in 1994, Horizons 2020 (Siemans) in 2004 , Future Agenda 2020 (Vodafone) in 2010 and Futrecast 2020 in 2008.
Here’s a nice information graphic on households and household types in the US in 2020. Link to page here.
BTW, tonight is the dinner looking ahead to the year 2045, so I’ll report back on that shortly.
Further to my post yesterday showing my table of trends and technologies for the world in 2020, here are some links to some further material on 2020 trends and scenarios if anyone is interested.
Bain Consulting – growth trends to 2020
Economist Intelligence Unit/Cisco report on 2020
World Changing Blog (summary of CIA 2020 Scenarios from 2005)
BTW, the report is hard to find but I have a PDF if anyone wants one.
Frost & Sullivan (research report)
The Guardian – World in 2020 (series of short essays)
The Independent – World in 2020 (article)
Centre for European Reform – The World in 2020 (article)
Telefonica (5 minute video)
Corning (5 minute video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIighTR1zPo
World Tourism Organization (facts & forecasts)
Bloomberg/Business Week (forecasts and predictions out to 2020)
Here’s something to start a few arguments, which is the whole point of the exercise, of course. Briefly, it’s a table of key trends and technologies that are likely to shape the world out to 2020. I’ve used the periodic table, not because the trends are weighted in any way, but by following the basic structure of the table (i.e. the number of categories and boxes) this has forced me to edit what would otherwise be an almost endless list.
The categories themselves broadly follow S.T.E.E.P, which is widely used in scenario planning, but I’ve extended and added to this with the result that we have S.T.E.E.E.P.P.I (Society, Technology, Energy, Environment, Economy, Employment, Population, Politics and Identity). There are also two lines devoted to global risks, both high and low probability.
And, as usual, there are a few jokes so that people don’t take this too seriously. Lol, Omg. The link here is to a high resolution PDF suitable for printing. World .in 2020_
Getting closer…
Here are the headline results of what the world might look like in 2020 based upon a conversation with 130 people in a workshop in Dubai yesterday. Some information has been left out due to confidentiality, but what remains is still interesting I think. You’ll no doubt see that it’s a bit negative on one level, but I suspect that’s because people tend to project things forward from the present. Note that this was done in a couple of hours and was very much a top line of what the group thought.
More extreme political environment
Cyber-war a serious issue
Internet regulation in place or being rolled out
Further device convergence
Continuing shift to digital environments
Virtual teachers in use
Personalised learning programs
More women in leadership roles
Bring your own device the workplace/school
Role of teacher becoming that of mentor/life coach
More virtual workplaces
Increase in wealth disparity (rich getting richer, poor poorer)
Greater trade protectionism
Longer working week
Multiple careers standard
24/7 Workplaces
Increase in obesity/poor health
Much more everyday stress
Environmental change worse than expected
More global catastrophes (greater impacts and frequency)
Increase use of biofuels & alternative energy
Increase in distance/virtual learning
Further privatisation of schools
e-books have largely replaced text books