Welcome to 02.19.2010- Items of Interest and Resources for the Global Futurist (and for all Futurists)

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Welcome to 02.19.2010 - Items of Interest and Resources for The Global Futurist (and for all Futurists)

 

Dear Friends and Fellow Futurists:

 

I have some news, trends and ideology (I am told that I get preachy at times) to share with you. In lieu of my usual "rant and ramble" approach to writing, I have decided to provide you with more of a listing of items and related links. This is a wonderful thing for both (all) of us...I just had some surgery on my left arm so I have very limited abilities at the moment, and you get spared my decidedly old-school, academic Honor Society essay! Not one to use cliches, I would call this a "win-win situation." [Sadly, the surgeon informed me that the operation was a qualified success, in that he had fixed the neurological problem, but that the sarcasm was so widespread throughout my system that he could not get it all out -- that part was inoperable.].

 

1. Senator Evan Bayh walks away from a promising future in the Senate because he believes that the political machinery of the United States government is so badly broken, that nothing meaningful can be accomplished unless it is totalled scrapped and replaced. He might be leading a small but frightening trend amongst those few politicians who are seriously concerned with the betterment of society (and the quality of life for every Human Being) than for the opportunity to make a lot of money by playing a compromised and corrupt game. Read Walking Away, at http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/walking-away.html.

 

2. The DaVinci Institute (http://www.davinciinstitute.org)  produces a prognostication publication that I receive which covers some interesting trends and hypotheses regarding the future. I am adding them to our GLOBAL FUTURIST list of resource links, although I do not necessarily endorse or agree with their findings. Nonetheless, their trendspotting, publications and events might prove a worthwhile resource for every Futurist. More data from more sources gives every aspiring Futurist a broader and better perspective. Some links to recent information include these, and they are certainly worth looking at:

Entrepreneurs Using 401(k) Savings to Start Businesses
Don Poffenroth paged through a magazine on a flight several years ago when an article grabbed his attention: Entrepreneurs could use 401(k) savings to start a business without getting hit by taxes and early- withdrawal penalties.
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More Computers Hacked in China Than Any Other Country
More private computers were commandeered by hackers for malicious purposes in China in the last quarter of 2009 than in any other country, including the United States, according to a new study by an Internet security company.
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The Future of Social Media
In the few short years that social media has been a marketing vehicle, it has already had an enormous effect on the way companies do business. In the coming years there will be even more changes, as social media marketing extends from the marketing department to nearly every aspect of a companys business.
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Worlds Fastest Train Opens In China
The worlds fastest train opens in China just in time to whisk people away for the Chinese New Year celebrations. Wow, it is faster than a helicopter, exclaimed Luo Rongguang as the G1049 Harmony Express eased its way out of Wuhan train station and instantly began to gain speed.
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8 Key Trends in Food Marketing
Todays consumers have a taste for everything that is local, organic and healthy. Our very own time-honored and distinct local foods will soon receive their well- deserved attention as a recent study revealed that regional and community brands are the ones being welcomed and sought after by most Filipino consumers.
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Number of Marriages in Britain Has Fallen to Lowest Level Since 1862
For the first time ever fewer than 2 in 100 women, over the age of 16, got married in a single year. In 2008 the marriage rate for women fell from 2 per cent to 1.96 per cent, less than half the rate 25 years ago.
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Biofortification Will Become a Trend in the Future
A Yarrawonga farmer believes biofortification of grain with trace elements will become a trend in the future.
Evan Ryan said trace element biofortification of grains supercharging them with elements such as zinc, boron, selenium or other micronutrients was a novel way of solving human health and nutrition problems.
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Nielsen: Teens Text an Average of 10 Times per Hour
American teenagers send an average of 10 text messages per hour they are not in school or sleeping, according to research by The Nielsen Company. By analyzing more than 40,000 monthly U.S. mobile bills, Nielsen determined American teens sent an average of 3,146 texts a month each during Q3 2009. Their tween counterparts (ages 9-12) sent an average of 1,146 monthly texts each, or four per hour not spent asleep or in school. In comparison, the average number of monthly texts sent by all mobile users combined was a little more than 500, writes Marketing Charts.
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5 Skills That Make a Successful Trendspotter
Who should be deciphering the future and helping shape how a business understands and prepares for it? The first inclination might be to think about a specific part of an organization for the function. Its important though to identify the individuals well-suited to this challenging role. From that perspective, five capabilities are vital to successfully champion this effort:
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Electric Bikes Struggle To Take Ground In U.S.
In Xiamen, China, Zhou Debao weaves his electric bike through the busy city streets to pick up dried noodles and candy to sell at his familys convenience store. His wife sometimes borrows it to run errands, and his son, to go to work.
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3. There are some major developments in medicine regarding oral drugs which may well have the potential to delay the progression or greatly reduce the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis in its earliest stages as well when the condition has advanced. I think that we will see major advances in the prevention and treatment of MS, other demyelinating diseases, and various autoimmune disorders. Read The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has some promising info on Ampyra. http://bit.ly/UpdateMS.

 

4. Anti-Aging and the Longevity movements, as well as their associated research, products and protocols are becoming increasing well-known (under the labels of alternative medicine, nutritional supplements, cognitive-enhancement drugs, mind-enhancement drugs, and cosmetology), and the use of nootropic drugs for the slowing down of the aging process (as well as for their potential effects on focus, concentration, retention, creativity and the like) is increasing. The growing markets are curiously stratified: 1) university students and 2) Baby Boomers. Look for an increase in consumer investment in these products in both markets. While some of these items (topically-applied and non-prescription skin treatments, herbal "supplements" and biologicals) are manufactured and sold in the United States, most of them are made elsewhere in the World, and have to be imported in limited supplies. Here's a sample article, excerpted from an IAS Newsletter which I just received (International Anti-Aging Sytems, at http://www.antiaging-systems.com ):

 

Nootropics - A Smarter Way

"Recent press attention in national newspapers and magazines such as Wired, on both sides of the Atlantic has focused on student’s use of ‘Nootropics’ and other ‘smart drugs’ to improve their studies.

In the pressure cooker environment of top universities, students have looked to products like Piracetam and Modafinil to optimize their mental performance for revision and exams. You don’t have to be an Ivy League or Oxbridge student, the wish to improve our minds or fight some of those everyday signs of aging, such as forgetting where you put the car keys is universal.

As use of cognitive enhancement products for recall, concentration and focus increases, the current wave of interest is just the tip of what has been described as the ‘age of cosmetic neurology’.

IAS has been at the forefront of supplying these for nearly 19 years, we currently stock the following cognitive enhancers..." #### 

You can read the rest of this bulletin at http://www.antiaging-systems.com/?utm_source=YMExpress&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Live%201%20-%20Smart%20Drugs%20-%20Reclaim%20your%20Brain%20With%20Nootropics.

 

You can also expect more and more regulatory attention on the part of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the recently elevated and largely self-governing Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Customs (now a part of the Homeland Security Agency) to every aspect of the use, sale and importation of any of these substances. This will be big news during the course of the next three years, while many government agencies are aggressively taking advantage of the lack of oversight by any citizen-empowered groups (or government agencies which ostensibly protect consumer rights), and in the names (pretexts, really) of "The War on Terrorism," and "The Protection of the US Domestic Economy". The marketplace within the EU and Asia will continue to grow, with less encumbrances by regulatory agencies. 

 

5.  Author/reporter John Myers of Bob Livingston's ultra-conservative publication, The Personal Liberty Digest, writes a fascinating article (regardless of your political inclinations and agenda) about the U.S. Government's purported reasoning and efforts to make the United States into a "cashless society". The article, Titled

Banker, Butcher, Spy: Who Our Government Bullies And Bribes to Make This Their Cashless Society is definitely worth reading. Again, I don't lean left or right politically...I am an Internationalist, a Futurist and a Compassionate Capitalist...and I don't frequently agree with or endorse any of the investment advice or predicitions offered in this publication (in the same way that I don't always agree with the Progressive folks at BuzzFlash, but I follow them). I hope that you get some utility out of the information and resources listed above, and, more importantly, I hope that you will take action in response to ideas with which you agree. Just reading the news and not applying the knowledge that you glean from it doesn't make you any more than a willing victim. When I was in college, there were two sayings spray-painted on the side of one of the administration buildings at Stony Brook University. They were: "If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem," and, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." Student activism...how I miss it. If you care about Humanity and Human Society, then you should help to shape the future anstead of passsively waiting for it to sweep you away. A futurist with a social conscience finds it difficult not to be an activist.  Faithfully, Douglas Castle

 

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16 Phrases to Illustrate Some Human Common Traits

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16 Phrases to Illustrate Some Human Common Traits

The article which follows was authored by Dr. Franco Oboni (foboni@riskope.com) for The Global Futurist. As an expert in multiple areas of international risk assessment, mitigation and management, Dr. Oboni, through his firm (http://www.riskope.com) and http://www.foboni.wordpress.com/ advises both private sector and public sector entities and organizations on integrating risk factors into their decisionmaking processes. Through his dealings with many organizations throughout some of the most dangerous parts of the world, and in his capacity as advisor to senior policymakers, Dr Fanco Oboni has become, albeit inadvertently, somewhat of an expert in behavioral psychology and the "Human Factor" which is involved in every business decision. Dr. Oboni is a Featured Columnist for THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Newsletter.  

As a Risk and Crisis Manager working all over the world supporting corporations, governmental agencies and individuals in their decision making and alternatives selection process, I have learned that we, human beings, share very strong and significant common traits, despite the apparent huge differences contributing to make our world such a colorful and wonderful place.

I am neither a psychologist nor a sociologist, so I will leave the discussion related to the origins of these common traits to those specialists.

Having said this, I feel it necessary to set forth a list, to raise awareness, as I believe that the world would be a better place, and more importantly, that we would build a better future, if we were to modify our characteristic behaviors and responses in these areas.

To make it simpler and clearer I will not describe the traits themselves, but instead compile a list of typical, commonplace phrases which reflect those traits. The list is split into four categories, A to D, describing the situation in which a person “normally/unfortunately” generally comes out with a phrase (I have included four examples per category) corresponding to a trait that we should modify.

So, for example:

WHEN: (A) People are made aware of a hazard (something unpleasant that could happen to those people), they GENERALLY REPLY:

1. 
   
   "Oh, yeah, I know, but that will not happen to me...because I know better, I am lucky, It has never happened before...."
   
   
   
2. 
   
   "Well, it has happened last year/in the last five-ten years, so we are good for a while."
   
   
   
3. 
   
   "Actually we had a security system for that, but we turned it off, as the alarm was scraring off people...and you see, no accident has happened since!"
   
   
   
4. 
   
   "Risk assessment is only there to scare people about huge accidents that never happen. Think positively!"
   
   
   

WHEN: (B) Something has gone wrong (could very well be the same guys in the list above), they GENERALLY REPLY:

1. 
   
   "What  bad luck, gee..."
   
   
   
2. 
   
   "I cannot understand how this happened... we had it all under control until then!"
   
   
   
3. 
   
   "Well you know, the alarm did not work that well."
   
   
   
4. 
   
   "We should probably do some risk assessment right now."
   
   
   

WHEN: (C) Decisions are to be made (could very well be the same guys in the two lists above), they GENERALLY REPLY:

1. 
   
   "You can do all of the analyses you want, but at the end, I will make the decision, following my instinct/my gut feelings, (and other body parts or particular garment areas): it has never failed me before."
   
   
   
2. 
   
   "I can see pros and cons and my decision will take all of those into account: you know, I have always taken calculated risks."
   
   
   
3. 
   
   "Man, when you are an entrepreneur, you know you have to take risks!"
   
   
   
4. 
   
   "You know, we have the experience to deal with whatever might come up in the course of this project."
   
   
   

WHEN:.(D) Contemplating project's fiasco, failure to perform, bankruptcy, they GENERALLY REPLY:

1. 
   
   "What happened is unprecedented, unforeseeable, how could we have...."
   
   
   
2. 
   
   "Well, there were so many uncertainties, what a pity..."
   
   
   
3. 
   
   "Well, we tried with all our best people and invested all of that money, ...well, you know, sometimes the best intentions.... (or, "sometimes things just happen")
   
   
   
4. 
   
   "We had done it so many times before, and lots of others have done it, how come it did not work this time?"
   
   
   

I am sure you can dig out examples you have heard about (or you may have lived as an actor), where these or other similar phrases were used by one or more stakeholders.

For instance, the Subprime fiasco and resulting economic turmoil, generated at least the following statements among Bankers, politicians and affiliated professionals:

A1, A3, A4, B1, B2, B3, B4, C1, C2, C3, C4, D1, D2, D3, D4.

You may have noticed that the only one missing is A2 [“well, it has happened last year, so we are good for a while”]. BEWARE: when the next bubble blows up, A2 will most certainly be in the list.

Am I pessimistic? Please do not get that very wrong impression. All my work, and my life is geared toward getting people, corporations and governmental agencies to turn to rational risk and crisis management, to perform risk-based decision making, to establish their risk tolerability and enhance their chances of success. Approaches and methods scalable for small to huge businesses and projects do exist, and I use them every day for the benefit and protection of my clients and their interests.

It's important to note the difference between rational risk and crisis management, and rationalized risk and crisis management. The very Human trait of rationalizing is indeed one of the biggest impediments to sensible risk mitigation or avoidance.

-- Franco Oboni

Labels and Terms: alternatives, bubble, business strategy, decisionmaking, economy, Making the Future, oboni, participation in the process of future-building, recession, risk, selection, turmoil

WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

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Dear Friends:


A future (and the good news is that there will be one!) fraught with some very interesting, but frightful possibilities lies before us. If we fail to think about these possibilities, we are abdicating our "say" in our future. Put in more offensive terms, if we fail to act, we will invariably become the victims of someone else's actions.

In a recent post in TAKING COMMAND!, I briefly discussed some of these "unthinkable" possibilities. The article, in ful, follows.

The real issue facing every interactive Global Futurist is what can be done to a) stop some of these things from actually occurring? (i.e., a pre-emptive intervention), or, b) what can be done in the event that these things do come to pass, and we wish to navigate around them successfully.

THE FUTURE DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN - IT IS CREATED OUT OF THE PRESENT.

This premise imposes a greater responsibility upon any Global Futurist than mere prognostication. It imposes a burden of strategic intervention. This begs the question,"Do we predict the future, or do we make it?" My answer is frightful but honest: We do some of each.
Enjoy the article...



Dear Friends:

One can and does, paradoxically, think about the "unthinkable". You have to visualize, at minimum, the terrors which you dare not venture to think about, and in so doing, you have given them the keys to the darkest corridors of your imagination. We often term things"unthinkable" simple because they are unconscionable, terrifying or of consquences that we are unprepared to contend with. Everything, de facto, is thinkable.

Let's exercise our ability to anticipate that which we should not dare to anticipate, discuss it (hypothetically, of course), and address it (either standing upright, or from under the bed).

Join me:

1. Giant computer service providers like Google and Yahoo (to name only two) have access to as much information about every individual computer user, credit card user, property owner, bank account holder, taxpayer, scofflaw, outlaw, porno-downloader, consumer and other person who has transacted something as seemingly inconsequential as filling up his or her gas tank or walking into a 7-11 for a Slurpee than the NSA does. And these companies not only have all of our identity information, but they have all of our passcodes. If they chose to, they could literally take over our identities and our entire lives -- we are at their mercy, and we trust them. The government relies upon them, utilizes their systems, and by simple logic, cannot police them -- nor would they be inclined to. We are in a naked society. We are, by a lack of vision and vigilance, targets. As with Samson and Delilah, persons or organizations comprised of persons will always use the power that they are given...it is Human Nature. It is only a matter of time.


2. Your credit rating, long regarded as so precious, so sacred and so crucial to a respectable existence, is a nostalgic farce. Credit card companies are aggressively cutting credit lines without adequate cause or notice, and leaving their cardholders with miniscule credit lines, sudden "overdrafts" and "over limit drafts," and are actually charging them fees, as they deprive them of credit and irreparably blemish the credit reports issued to the three major credit bureaus with unexplained reductions in credit lines, overdrafts and all other manner of default. Your credit rating, if you are like most people in the United states, will be destroyed. But take heart -- the financial institutions are not interested in extending credit to consumers anymore. You credit rating may well become as meaningless and as vestigial as the batting average of a pet shop owner. Remember Mr. Peebles? Magilla Gorilla has been repossessed.


3. The IRS, which is a contractor and not even a righteous government agency, is hell-bent on collecting money from an all-but-destitute society. They are, practically speaking, immune to due process, and charged with the responsiblity of feeding the government so that it may be fruitful and multiply (in size and deficit). They can assess you any tax which they feel "may be due," levy and lien any of your assets without contest, charge you usurious interest and fees on spuriously determined delinquent amounts. In fact, in a soon-to-be cashless society, they will be undoubtedly given the power to directly debit sums, as they judge appropriate, directly from your bank accounts (and the banks are actually an extension of the Executive Branch of government) -- if they are wrong (and they are wrong most of the time), you'll have to retain counsel to fight back...ironically, as your funds have already been depleted, you won't have the money required to retain a lawyer. Talk about irony! Going further, be advised that your cash will all have to be declared and banked before a critical date when paper currency is rendered illegal. This will make things easier for the DEA, the FBI, The Treasury Department, The Secret Service and all of the other agencies that are chartered to investigate, confiscate, eviscerate and incarcerate. We will be afforded the opportunity to commiserate. That will be our only "-ate".

4. Private enterprise will cease to exist as it becomes fused with the government. Any conventional employment will, in effect, be government work. Think of Huricane Katrina on a national level. The only "free enterprise" will be small and entrepreneurial. Genius and spontaneity will become increasingly persecuted, and often forced into hiding by a government and a social establishment in fear of being posed with "dangerous" questions which might lead to "revolutionary" actions.

5. That last sanctuary and sanctum of privacy, your cranial vault, will remain the last repository of original, "unthinkable" thought. The trouble which I foresee, is the most frightening thing that I have ever envisioned -- it may reach a point, within your own mind, when you have become so indoctrinated with "groupthink" and assumption that you are no longer able to determine which thoughts are genuinely your own, and which are deeply implanted through pervasive, invasive external influence.

Have a wonderful day.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle
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