The new office is taking shape. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to park my old car right behind my new office desk. BTW, my ‘sensible’ office remains onboard HMS President on the River Thames.
Shedquarters takes shape
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How people spend money in America
It’s been a while since we’ve had a bit of data visualization so here’s a nice info-graphic showing how the poor in America spend their money versus the middle class. Source is originally NPR/Planet Money, although I stumbled across it on Fast Co. The ‘saving for retirement’ is particularly interesting.
BTW, I’ve just started a new map to go with one of my new books. It’s a history timeline from 1960-2040 showing four alternative paths from 2012 – 2040. It’s going to be great.
The Future for Kids
My son’s website idea, the future for kids, is finally up and seems to be working.
Not much content on the site yet, but it’s only been live for about an hour. If you have or know any kids, ideally aged 8-13, please ask them to submit some ideas.
The idea, if you remember, was to create a site where kids could share their ideas about what the future – the world they’ll one day live in – will be like.
Submissions can be words, drawings, photographs, videos or almost anything. We’ll add tags soon so people will be able to look at ideas by category – i.e. kids (and adults too) will be able to search future cars, future fashion, future sports and so on.
That link again….
Sport and technology
A nice download here from Atos about the use of technology in sport (thanks Francisco). On a slightly related note, the latest argument over the school holidays is whether we should have 2 TVs in 2 different rooms so that each kid can watch their own programme. I said no.
One of the key problems with communal devices becoming individualized is that people get what they want. Nothing wrong with that you might think, especially if you don’t have kids, but my worry is creating a generation that cannot share or accommodate the views of others. Tough love baby.
Coming breakthroughs in science
Earlier in the year Science Focus asked 12 scientists to make a few brave predictions. Among the highlights were: use of remote sensing technology in archaeology, developments in quantum biology, finding out what colours the dinosaurs were, developments with Graphene (a one-atom thick sheet of carbon), the use of quasi-crystals to create hard-wearing materials and computer and device interfaces where individual human thoughts can be linked with individual machine actions.
A medieval future?
I’m becoming increasingly interested in the idea of neo-feudalism. This came up in a recent MOD workshop and was also the subject of a comment made by Krista in relation to my recent post concerning the world in 2045.
What is neo-feudalism? I’m still trying to figure this out, but it seems to be the idea that modern society is reverting to a feudal structure as typified by life in the middle and late medieval period.
Classically, such a world would display a high level of polarization between the incomes and opportunities at the very top of society and everyone else. This characteristic also came up a few days ago on Radio 4, although unfortunately I was driving and couldn’t write down what was actually said. Anyone else got any thoughts on this?
For a fuller definition see hear.
Almost back to normal
So I’ve just moved house and lost just about everything including my mind. My office is currently paperless due to a lack of printer cable and I’ve had 2 days with no easy email access or internet. Oh, and did I mention that the kids are on school holidays and the dog keeps running off?
Last night we all went to the Olympics, which was interesting in that almost nobody in the crowd seemed to be taking pictures or video. They were actually watching what was going on direct. It was a live event and people appeared to instinctively feel that they wanted to experience it and everyone around directly. Sponsorship was also surprisingly low key (almost non-existent) inside the stadium and outside it was quite tasteful too.
What else is going on? My book ’50 Things’ is done and Future Vision (previously Four Seeable Futures) is getting close. I’ve also been working on an idea my eleven-year-old son had, which is a web 2.0 website for kids called…the future for kids. More on that soon.
Other than that I’m working at about 20% for a change due to the move plus the fact it’s August. Oh, and my new shed-quarters is coming along nicely to, but more on that soon too. You want more? Check out this then – the world in 2100 courtesy of the World Future Society.
Bandwidth
I got an email from the Guardian newspaper yesterday asking if I could write 600 words on bandwidth – by the end of the day. My answer was no – I was moving house in 24-hours (why I’m blogging right now I have no idea!). Anyway, I passed the request over to Ross Dawson, with whom I’ve worked, who is far more articulate on this subject than I am. It ‘s turned into a nice piece.
Future-proofing and future visioning consultancy
Here’s a bit of news. I’m setting up a UK and European office for Futures House, which is an Australian consultancy specialising in scenario planning. We’re still in the planning stage, but we’re aiming to launch in London in September. Key services will include scenario planning consultancy (running large turnkey projects, but also contributing process and people to much smaller in-house projects), research and report writing looking at the future of specific industries and professions and finally workshops aimed at facilitating client consensus on likely futures and the strategic implications thereof.
Our initial focus will be on just three industries, but we’ll consider anything interesting with an appropriate budget.
Andrew Crosthwaite, formerly Head of planning at Euro RSCG, has already signed up to work alongside me and I’m talking to an ex-McKinsey partner, an ex-government strategist and someone that used to work for KPMG. German, French and Italian partners are in the wings, although our initial focus will be the UK.
In terms of my other work there’s no significant change. The only thing that I am thinking of doing is moving my quarterly What’s Next report from every 3 months to every six months and to and reinstate the annual hard copy publication. The main reason for doing this would be time, but quality has become an issue too. I don’t know whether it’s just a temporary blip, but recently I’ve found it more difficult to source high quality content to comment upon.
This could be linked to current economic conditions (few new ideas or long-term thinking due to a focus on immediate survival) or it could be that long copy analysis is in decline due to shifts in how media is created and consumed.
The World in 2045 (you talking to me?)
So what will the world’s main language be in 2045? Most people would say it would still be English, although some argue that the use of English as a global language is peaking. Other contenders would probably include Mandarin with Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil remember!) and Hindi in the top 5 rankings.
Why is this important? Because language shapes ideas and institutions and a world where Mandarin Chinese is the major language would probably be somewhat different to one where it’s English.