As the digital revolution kills jobs, social unrest will rise. News October 7, 2013 05:26 PM ET Computerworld - ORLANDO - Gartner is forecasting some major changes in technology, especially in areas like 3D printing, machine learning and voice recognition. They are all powerful trends that will reduce the need for workers, and, as a consequence, bring social unrest, the analyst firm said. In the industrial revolution -- and revolutions since -- there was an invigoration of jobs. For instance, assembly lines for cars led to a vast infrastructure that could support mass production giving rise to everything from car dealers to road building and utility expansion into new suburban areas. But the digital revolution is not following the same path, said Daryl Plummer, a Gartner analyst at the research firm's Symposium ITxpo here.
"What we're seeing is a decline in the overall number of people required to do a job," he said. Plummer points to a company like Kodak, which once employed 130,000, versus Instagram's 13. @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . Imagine a Future Where Africa Leapfrogs Developed Economies - Ed Bernstein , and Ted Farrington. By Ed Bernstein and Ted Farrington | 11:00 AM November 25, 2013 Dreaming about the future creates dissonance.
On one hand, we like to imagine a future utopia: the world is at peace, the moon is colonized, cats and dogs get along, and we all travel to work via hover cars or teleportation. On the other hand, we are disheartened by more realistic thoughts in which the world of the future is pretty much as it is now, just with cooler gadgets and a faster Internet. But what if there were changes taking place, visible changes today that we all see and comment on, which, together, carry enough momentum to utterly change the way we do business 25 years from now? In 2012, the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) commissioned a foresight study into the future of R&D management called IRI2038. After gathering “signals” about a variety of future and emerging trends, the project leadership generated several plausible scenarios about the future of R&D worth exploring further. We've Entered The Volatile Postnormal Stage Of History.
Mark Twain once wisecracked, "History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. " In retrospect, we can occasionally hear an echo of some past juncture while listening to the news, or see the silhouette of earlier events superimposed on what is happening before our eyes. Perhaps that metaphorical understanding of the self-similarity of human events is part of the work--or tools--that futurists find useful. There are some things happening in our present that "rhyme" with major disruptions of the past, several of which are widely under appreciated in the U.S., and which have led some people, like myself, to believe we have slipped inexorably out of the late industrial, postmodern era that started soon after the end of World War II.
I refer to this period as the postnormal. I did so partly to avoid the unwieldy "post-postmodern," but also to indicate the nature of the break: the old rules don’t apply any more, but there may still be some rhymes we can use to pierce the postnormal fog. The Future Doesn’t Hurt.... Yet. Ven. Matthieu Ricard Interdependence is a central Buddhist idea that leads to a profound understanding of the true nature of reality. Nothing in the universe exists in a purely autonomous way. Phenomena can only appear through mutual causation and relationship. The understanding of the laws of interdependence naturally leads to an awareness of universal responsibility, as often pointed out by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since all beings are interrelated and all, without exception, want to avoid suffering and achieve happiness, this understanding becomes the basis for altruism and compassion. Unchecked consumerism operates on the premise that others are only instruments to be used and that the environment is a commodity.
The vast majority of Tibetans have never heard of global warming, although it is a well-known fact that the ice is not forming as thickly as before and the winter temperatures are getting warmer. Ecumenopolis. Living in the Futures. In 1965 Royal Dutch Shell put into service what it called the Unified Planning Machinery (UPM), a computer-driven system meant to bring more discipline to the company’s cash flow planning. This kind of rational, model-based financial forecasting was very much in vogue in the 1960s. But before long, Shell’s top executives realized that many of the commitments they had to make extended well beyond UPM’s six-year time horizon—and that even within that horizon, UPM tended to get a lot wrong.
In the early 1970s they shut it down. Things have gone much better for another Shell initiative that was begun in 1965, albeit with far less fanfare. Under the leadership of Newland and Davidson, who became Shell’s first overall head of planning in 1967, the “futures” operation began to take shape. The practice is also enjoying a renaissance outside Shell, with growing evidence of its effectiveness. Make It Plausible, Not Probable But, of course, you can never identify all the forces at play. Innovation Starts With Sensing Future Possibilities. In 2007, a team of MIT professors decided to bet on an impossibility. These were the days when “mobile” still meant “I’m speaking to you but my phone isn’t anchored to a cable,” when the vision for mobile advertising still looked like walking past a Starbucks and having a coffee coupon flash up on your screen (“geosensing,” they called it).
These professors decided to chart a different path. They began building a database to track little clues your mobile phone spits out whenever you use it--your device code, time of day, location info--so that they could make sense of the information. They figured their quest would be valuable to someone, so someone would pay for it. The database was practically useless at the time. Mobile phones were not pervasive, there was no central repository to which these clues were sent, and advertisers were not paying for this kind of information. I recently spoke to Sense Network’s CEO David Petersen about the journey. [Image: Flickr user Live4Soccer] Looking beyond the horizon. What will happen to the UK economy if the eurozone collapses? How will climate change affect our daily lives? Where might future wars be fought, and what are the weapons that might be deployed?
Worries about the future affect us all, but they are particularly large and daunting for people at the heart of government. To help anticipate potential threats and opportunities, the civil service employs a mysterious group of people called ‘horizon scanners’: they model potential futures, providing the basis for strategic and long-term planning. Recent projects include examinations of the risk of natural disasters in the UK; the potential of mind-controlled weaponry; and the likelihood of Korean reunification. Horizon scanning has long been a part of the furniture of government, particularly – though not exclusively – in the intelligence agencies; but now cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood wants to renovate Whitehall’s horizon scanning capabilities.
You do what?! Top 10 quotes by Richard Branson :: TEN. Leadership Article 10 actions for working as part of a younger team 14 April 2014 Today, there are many baby boomers in today's work force who face the issue of working with younger people. For the first time in history, there are four different generations working side-by-side in the workplace. Each one has its own attitudes,... read more Leadership Tip How to motivate the disgruntled No one likes to manage unhappy employees. How to keep your to-do-list fresh 6 April 2014 A to-do list is only useful if you cross things off as often as you add tasks on.
How to delegate 31 March 2014 Most managers complain of having too much to do, but very few of them effectively delegate work. 10 ways to motivate your team 28 March 2014 There are many different ways to motivate your employees without throwing money at them. How to generate new ideas 24 March 2014 Brainstorming - or "thought-shower" as some prefer to call it - has gotten a bad rap for leading to uncreative and even unhealthy consensus. 20 March 2014. ReConstitutional Convention » Reimagine Governance. Thinking Futures — Agility and being futures ready. The Agility Factor, an article on the strategy+business website is a good one, and worth reading. Why? It puts into business langauge the concepts that strategic foresight pracitioners like me have been saying with different words for some years now.
I’ve written about the need for agility before, where I said that it’s easy to write about, and really hard to do. This article articulates very clearly how you do it. The authors – Thomas Williams, Christopher G. Worley, and Eduward E. This relates to what I call futures ready strategy: flexible strategy that positions your organisation to respond quickly and effectively to the challenges and uncertainties of the future. The authors identify four routines that underpin agility: strategizing dynamically – shared purpose, change-friendly intentity and a robust strategic intent, implementing change – internal change management capacity – management and organizational autonomy, embedded change capability and performance management. Remote Control Japanese Style Toilet. Foresight, Strategy Development and Change Design. Through the Prism. Glenn Hough April 16, 2013 Future Studies and Science Fiction revolve around each other as if they are gravitationally attracted.
Both are about ideas. Both ask questions concerning Possible, Probable, Preventable, and Preferred futures. Often, the speculations of one turn into the reality with which the other must concern itself. When they intermix, the future can prove less of a surprise. If we think of Human existence as white light and the Prism as technology, then what might shine out from that Prism when we shine our brilliance though it? This is heady territory, misty, murky and unclear. From these 28 markers, I believe three distinct pathways emerge: The Path of the Genes, the Path of the Machine, and the Path of the Merging. The Path of the Genes: It's likely Humans and Human Clones will reside alongside one another in the future. Probability dictates that Human Clones might have their place in society since the technology already exists and is slowly being perfected. 10.
3 Reasons Why Your Predictions Of The Future Will Go Wrong. Futurism is a richly metaphorical body of thought. It has to be; much of what we talk about is on the verge of unimaginable, so we have to resort to metaphors for it to make any kind of sense. Not all of the metaphors we use are complex: It struck me recently that there are several common futurist metaphors that take a relatively simple animal shape: the Dragon; the Black Swan; and the Mule. The Dragon The Dragon is the one that most people will find familiar. There’s a popular myth that the phrase “Here Be Dragons” can be found on medieval or ancient maps as an indication of uncharted regions. That this myth is untrue is somewhat beside the point. That said, it’s been my experience that most of the times a futurist uses “here be dragons,” it’s to indicate a topic area in a forecast that is uncertain and dangerous to even think about, at least for the client.
The Black Swan The problem with the Black Swan concept is that it’s highly subjective. The Mule. NTRARY BRIN: Questions I am frequently asked about… (Part IV) Prediction and the Future. Continuing this compilation of questions that I’m frequently asked by interviewers. This time about… --Your writing touches on the impact of technology upon humanity, and its power to change our daily lives.
Can you expand upon that? Let me ask you (and the reader) this: have you ever flown through the sky? Or walked into a dark room and made light happen, with the flick of your fingertip? Once upon a time, these were exactly the powers of gods! Because we gave these powers to everyone, that’s why. Take the palantir from Lord of the Rings, a crystal window on Gandalf’s desk through which he can explore ideas, gather information, view far-away events and communicate instantly across great distances…there are only three differences between the palantir and your laptop: (1) The wizards and elfs kept such wonderful things for themselves, (2) the result was calamity, horrible war and near-loss of everything, (3) it sure helped make a romantic story, captivating millions.
As for the future? From Ray Kurzweil to Kanye West, everyone’s a futurist now. In 1963, in the depths of the Cold War, all of the futurists in the world could probably assemble in a largish conference room and still have space for an overhead projector. Half a century later, it would take a small stadium to hold all of the people who use the title in some form. The world of futures is a broad church today populated by everyone from author and inventor Ray Kurzweil and his obsessive focus on the singularity to Kanye West with his future-esque fashion fetishes. While it’s been a relatively quiet profession for a long time, suddenly it seems like futurists are all around, feeding a growing appetite for all things strange, metallic, and digital. Why, and why now? Full disclosure: I do this for a living, having been given the title of futurist by an employer a decade ago. There are different flavors of futurists.
Superdensity is now Short of world wars and oil embargoes, we haven’t until recently sensed every shake or shudder in another part of the world. Never enough. There's never enough time to be as patient as we need to be. Not enough slack to focus on the long-term, too much urgency in the now to take the time and to plan ahead. That urgent sign post just ahead demands all of our intention (and attention), and we decide to invest in, "down the road," down the road.
It's not only more urgent, but it's easier to run to the urgent meeting than it is to sit down with a colleague and figure out the truth of what matters and the why of what's before us. And there's never enough money to easily make the investments that matter. Not enough surplus in the budget to take care of those that need our help, too much on our plate to be generous right now.
The short term bills make it easy to ignore the long-term opportunities. We're going to spend our entire future living in tomorrow—investing now, when it's difficult, is the single best moment. The Futures Agency. A Singularity in All Four Quadrants. The Singularity: Rupture or Rapture? There is an old analogy about an ancient emperor of China and the inventor of chess that is often used to help understand the speed of technological growth.
According to the story, once the emperor became aware of the game of chess, he sent a message throughout the kingdom seeking to reward its inventor, offering anything within his power to give for such an exceptional game. Upon meeting him, the inventor, who was a poor peasant farmer, thanked the emperor for his generosity, and proceeded to place a single grain of rice in the first square of a chessboard. He then placed two grains in the second square, four in the third, eight in the fourth, etc., doubling the number of grains for each of the chessboard's 64 squares. At first the emperor was fairly amused by the farmer's request—after all, these were mere grains of rice, how much could he possibly lose? According to Moore's Law, computational power is doubling every 18 months. Conclusion. The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights.
Looking Back on the Limits of Growth. The Origins of Futurism. Complexity map castellani map of complexity science. The Hidden Danger of Being Risk-Averse - Heidi Grant Halvorson. The Future Doesn’t Hurt.... Yet. The end of the world isn't as likely as humans fighting back. The Corporation is at Odds with the Future - Grant McCracken. Living in the Futures. Innovation foresight. Mankind Has Already Passed The Singularity. The future is a foreign country; they do things differently there | Foresight Culture.
Suspense & Surprise: Poetics of the Future. Blog | neil houghton | ~ reaching beyond the known to bring the future into the present ~ Joi Ito's Near-Perfect Explanation of the Next 100 Years. Are you hunting the future? 5 Unexpected Factors That Change How We Forecast The Future.