Major Trend Update: Definitions And Predictions - 11.28.12

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There are several terms which all Global Futurists, Strategic Planners And Marketers must become familiar with. These terms are already becoming the subject matter of numerous popular and scholarly articles as well as the nuclei for entire fields of academic and business concentration. Some are quite new, while others have been rolling around for several years already. I will note provide you with complete dissertations, but I will provide you with either basic definitions or with hyperlinks to some good source research material:

DRAMATIC CLIMATE CHANGE - The climate is getting warmer. In fact 2012, when the scores come in, will likely have been the warmest year worldwide in recorded history.

DESALINIZATION - The world's most essential commodity for the sustenance of life is water. And with increased climatic heating and the occasional mega-polluting BP catastrophe, pollution of water is becoming a problem of rapidly-growing proportions. The greatest source of water is the ocean, and the little nation of Israel has the best desalinization technology and plants worldwide. A true shortage of fossil fuels will occur after a worldwide shortage of potable water becomes a United Nations priority.

INFORMATION ASSURANCE - Integrity, security, safety and storage of data are becoming increasingly difficult with the advent of the cloud, reliance on computers, the growing sophistication of hackers, and the increasing use of mobile devices. There are entire careers developing around this special info-watchdog function. Read The Business And Project Planning And Management Blog for some details in terms of the issues and the opportunities.

GENETIC MEDICINE - Rather than trying to fight diseases with protocols involving antibiotics and antiviral drugs, more and more companies will be involving in trying to predict and prevent many diseases by gene mapping, finding disease "activator genes" and bolstering those genes which act as "suppressor genes." A related and inescapable term is bio-genetics and another is biomedical engineering.

MENTALISTS - Instead of using terms like behavioral analysts, psychics, hypnotists, NLP practitioners, interrogators, the whole art and science underlying each of these wondrous phenomena is now being referred to as mentalists. Purportedly, Mentalists are highly-trained, well practiced experts at analyzing non-verbal cues, body language, speech patterns and other cataloged habits (or "tells," with apologies to Simon Baker) and deriving conclusions based upon these keen observations in conformity with time-tested behavioral patterns.

DISRUPTION AND DISRUPTION (or DISRUPTIVE) INNOVATION - This is best defined by taking a look at The Disruption Theory And Disruption Innovation Blog. We used to call it "rapid change" or "displacement of markets." Now we have a fancy neologism.

NEUROMARKETING - This field is a cousin to subliminal programming, consumer behavioral psychology, impulse consumption, emotional triggers and a bit of inter-synaptic neurochemistry. You can find out much more about it by visiting (admission is free! While supplies last!) The Neuromarketing - Scientific Influence And Persuasion Blog.

And now, with the vocabulary section finished, here are a few things to start thinking about for the future: immediate, short-run, and longer term.

I'll offer you one: I believe that within the next three to five years, digital photography will become the industry standard and professional (social functions and portraits) photography will decline steeply in demand. Simultaneous with this, I predict that royalty-free stock photos are going to become cheaper and in more common usage.

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The items which follow have been excerpted from Thomas Frey's Future Trend Report, published by The DaVinci Institute. As I've said before, while I don't always agree with all of his predictions, Thomas always provides me with some interesting and compelling input as source material for the building of my blog, The Global Futurist Blog

The portions marked with [Editor's Comment] were inserted by the blogger - Douglas E. Castle 

Ray Kurzweil talks about the future workforce
Singularity University’s Vice President of Innovation and Research, Vivek Wadhwa, has written about why he believes this will be the most innovative decade in human history and how we are headed for an era of abundant and affordable health care, and how robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing will lead to an era of local manufacturing in which the creative class flourishes.
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Text message use falls in the U.S. for first time ever

Around the world, text-message traffic has been declining because Internet-powered alternatives are becoming so widely used. American cell carriers have fought off the decline until now. [Editor's Note: Texting does not permit the vast scope other multi-sensorial inputs and features offered by alternative mobile applications, particularly those which permit transmittal of still images and/or video clips]
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Six electronic gadgets you can control with your mind
Brain-computer interface (BCI) has been a favorite of science fiction movies for a long time. So, forget about keyboard, mouse, touch screens or even voice recognition: the real dream is thinking about what you want your gadget to do.
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The world's top cities for startups

The world’s unquestionable leader in generating high-tech start-ups that launch new technologies that change the way we live and work is Silicon Valley. Many cities around the world have tried to emulate its success. But until recently, the data has been lacking to calibrate and rank how far they have come.
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Social media in the workplace - Is anyone actually working?
It seems like almost everyone is social today.  Every minute, Twitter users average 100,000 tweets, Facebook users post 684,478 pieces of content, Tumblr blog owners publish 27,778 new posts and Flickr users add 3,125 new photos. Facebook and Twitter are great tools for connecting and communicating with people in our social lives, or for brands communicating with customers, the real value of pure-play social tools as standalone applications within a business has yet to be proven.
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Top 5 trends that will change HR in the future

When you look at HR trends people tend to look at what we do today and discuss ways it can be done better in the future. Applications and tools for recruiting, training, on-boarding, etc. are being developed at dizzying rates. The problem is that these new HR innovations are going to have a short half life.

[Editor's Note: Having dealt with Human Resources Departments and personnel before, and on too many occasions, they are, in my opinion, the least qualified persons making some of the most key personnel decisions - especially in larger companies -- with current "online job application techniques,' they don't ever receive or review cover letters, and provide no create way (in their automated computer field format) for prospects to differentiate themselves or to explain special extenuating or extra qualifying circumstances. The process is becoming increasingly a study in statistical matching instead of a necessary humanitarian interaction. If something poses a problem for HR departments and personnel, it actually makes me smile...]
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Wharton School and startup Evolv use big data to predict when you will quit your job
You did everything by the book when you went in for that job interview. But, after going through all the effort, would you feel slighted if the interviewer made the ultimate decision about whether or not to hire you based on an algorithm? [please refer to the Editor's previous comment]. Sadly, algorithms are only as good as the input data and the programmers who design them. Pattern recognition is not intuitive intelligence or "chemistry." It is a cheap means of stuffing applicants into prefabricated containers.]
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Boom in app development lures coders but it's tough to make a living
Over the last two years Shawn and Stephanie Grimes have spent much of their time in pursuing their dream of doing research and development for Apple, the world’s most successful corporation. [Editor's Comment: Perhaps brilliant programmers, designers and coders need 1) self-esteem training and 2) a participation in the revenue or profits associated with the programs, designs, templates, systems and applications which they devlop. Remember incentive management?]
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NASA launches Big Data Challenge
NASA along with a couple other government agencies have kicked off a series of TopCoder challenges designed to find innovative solutions to the government’s big data problems. The first contest is all about making disparate, incompatible data sets usable and actually valuable across agencies.
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Streaming video viewed on tablets is up 90%
There has been a dramatic increase over the last six months in the amount of streaming videocontent veiwed on tablet devices, according to a report released by Ooyala’s Q3 Global Video Index. (Infographic)
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Makeup may be the key to a woman's success
In a recent study  from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Procter And Gamble, and Boston University, they had a sampling of over 200 individuals, both men and women, participants rated women wearing makeup as more competent than women without makeup. [Editor's Note: And gentlemen wearing Armani Suits, Patek Phillipe watches, Bruno Magli footwear and sporting Montblanc pens are probably viewed as more competent than chaps in $150.00 suits, Hush Puppies and bathed in drugstore colognes.]
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The item which follows has been excerpted from the SmartBrief Newsletter For Nutritionists. It appears that, at least for 2013, the trend will be (amongst the gustatory cognoscenti) toward 1) eating more vegetables and less meats and processed foods; 2) eating raw, uncooked but appetizingly prepared veggie-centered dishes; and 3) consuming fewer calories. As I've mentioned before, in experiments with rodents, a 40% reduction in caloric intake corresponded with a 20% increase in lifespan.  Joyously, we have a client at CrowdFunding Incubator (Chef Brian Au) who is a renowned expert at the preparation and presentation of raw foods.

The forecasts generated by SmartBrief's collection of topically-oriented newletters tend to be highly accurate and observable within the near-term (as in 1 to 2 years), as opposed to The Future Trend Reports more generalized predictions over a longer time horizon (5 to 25 years).  SmartBrief always provides me with some interesting and compelling input as source material for the building of my blog, The Global Futurist Blog.

Low-calorie diet may reduce the risk of age-related diseases
Calorie restriction was associated with a slower aging process in the mitochondria of cells, resulting in a lower risk of age-related diseases including diabetes and heart disease, researchers wrote in the journal Nature. A low-calorie diet appeared to retain the cell membrane's acidity levels, which reduced the degradation of the mitochondria, researchers reported. Yahoo/Asian News International (11/22) 

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Thank you as always for reading me, and for retweeting me, as well.

Douglas E. Castle for

The Global Futurist Blog
The Internationalist Page Blog
The Braintenance Blog
The Crowd Funding RSS Feeds Blog
The CrowdFunding Incubator Blog and the CrowdFunding Incubator Website, due to launch tomorrow!
 

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Related articles

• Insight: predicting the climate over decades (environmentalresearchweb.org)
• Saudi solar power project gets ISO certificate (nanowerk.com)
• McKinsey Predicts The War For Talent Will Go Nuts By 2020 (businessinsider.com)
• Peter H. Gleick: Desalination: Let the Buyer Beware (huffingtonpost.com)
• Top 5 Security Predictions for 2013 from ISF (news.softpedia.com)
• The Big Data Disaster (thejonathanmacdonald.blogspot.com)
• Big Data: You Have No Idea How Much It Will Change Your Life (inc.com)
• The Big Data Fallacy And Why We Need To Collect Even Bigger Data (techcrunch.com)
• Scientists start untangling genome architecture (smartbrief.com)
• The Future of The Internet: Big Data, SoLoMo, Privacy, Human Machines? (slideshare.net)

SIGN-SPOTTING AT 6/30/09

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Dear Friends:

THE GLOBAL FUTURIST is one of my favorite places to post. What I cannot offer in frequency I try to more than compensate for in quality. The information which follows can be used to either prepare for the future, or, more ambitiously, to alter its course. The time horizon at issue in this article is approximately two years...from July, 2009 to August, 2011.



1. The photograph to the upper-right was taken at a local Bank of America branch. Several possibilities, none of which is mutually exclusive, are worth investigating:

• More and more major financial services and other service firms are going to be using text-messaging as a means of communication...and advertising (not coincidentally). Within the next two years, at least one-third of the population of the United States (and slightly less on the average for the G-8 Group of Industrialized Nations) over the age of 11 will be actively using text-messaging. Obama used it to coordinate his election; kids are using it to cheat on exams and to communicate when speaking aloud is prohibited; the percentage of communications sent via text will likely exceed the number of conversations via cellular telephone within the next two years.
• Financial services firms and other service firms are focusing more of their marketing efforts on trying to attract high-school and college-age individuals to become customers. This audience is technologically more sophisticated and less interested in person-to-person non-social communication than their parents. As jobs are cut, automated communication becomes increasingly appealing.
• Financial services and other services firms (especially utilities and other "service providers of necessity") are trying to improve their ailing images by being technologically "cutting edge" and getting to an audience that can be wowed by form over substance. The youth orientation is no accident.

2. Climate Change and Global Warming are spawning a wealth of new international organizations, projects, initiatives and regulations -- a trend that will continue. This is a positive development for international relations in general (i.e., addressing a potentially global problem -- not unlike those movies where the whole world unites against invaders from outer space, or where all of the world's governments put aside their differences to deflect a giant comet from impacting the Earth and decimating the entire Human Race). This will also spawn some employment and new activity in governmental and international regulatory agencies, and their symbiotic prosecutorial counterparts. Going further, crimes against the environment by cigar-chomping corporate bigwigs will be punishable by large fines (we must balance the budget!) and incarceration. On a humorous note, this will make for some amazing potential social interactions among drug dealers, hedge-fund managers and "shameless emitters of greenhouse gasses."

3. Social media (used both for social and business purposes) will be on the rise as a large consumer of time. The average G-8 citizen with social media access at home and/or at work, will be spending in excess of 6 hours daily utilizing these communication mechanisms and forums within two years' time. This seems lamentably appropriate in a civilization (which term I use loosely) where the distinction between office life and home life has become increasingly blurred, and where a six- to seven-day work week is growing increasingly common, with a decreasing quality of life and an ever-increasing frequency of emotional ills requiring attention.

4. Anticipate an increase in the number of government alerts about shrinking availability of funds for Social Security and Medicaid. Look for sweeping changes in healthcare (under the banner of "reform"), bringing the United States to a system of semi-socialized medicine, with public health insurance fueled by greater taxation of all social classes than ever before.

5. Look for an increasing number of U.S. citizens leaving the United States to find work in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Look for a corresponding increase in the number of first and second generation immigrants working in the United States.

On a somber note, I do not anticipate the beginning of a worldwide economic recovery until after the first half of 2012, with European (ECU, EU) markets recoving more rapidly and significantly than their U.S. counterparts. If I were to purchase publicly-traded equities at this time, I would only purchase with an eye toward corporate control.

On other fronts, I came across a very interesting article on certain unconventional indicators and indices of a recession on Yahoo! News, as reprinted from the KIPLINGER LETTER:

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10 Quirky Economic Indicators
-by Candice Lee Jones, Friday, June 12, 2009:

These off beat barometers of the economy can give you much needed guidance for your portfolio or simply a good laugh.

Everyone is scrambling to get their fingers on the pulse of the economy. When will it turn around? Have we seen the worst? The answers may not be as elusive as you might think.
In the past, you might have relied on the old Hemline Theory to determine which way the market was heading: As hemlines rose, so did stock prices. Think model Twiggy in her super-short mod dresses of the '60s, followed by falling hemlines in the '70s as the economy weakened.

But these days you'll find all sorts of clues in everyday life to help determine where the economy really stands. Dry cleaners, for instance, may seem a bit more cluttered these days, and it's true -- many people are stalling an extra week before shelling out to pick up their clothes. Eyeliner sales are surging these days, and a cutback in eye makeup may signal a resurgent economy in which people are spending on costlier personal luxuries.

1. Packed Theaters
During the last seven recession years, box office sales have increased in five of them. The new Star Trek movie pulled in more than $200 million in the month of May, just one example of how well cinemas are faring these days. According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, the number of movie tickets sold in the first quarter of 2009 increased more than 9% from last year.

Better films? Hot new actors? People continue to fill theater seats, NATO says, because movies are one of the least expensive entertainment options out of the house. The average ticket price in 2008 was $7.18. So when the lines get shorter, go buy some stock.

2. Green Thumbs
The National Gardening Association finds that the number of households who will grow their own fruits, berries, vegetables and herbs this year is 19% higher than in 2008.
That makes 43 million gardeners in the United States this year. It's fun and relaxing, no doubt, but 54% of the respondents say the prospect of saving money on groceries motivates them to till the soil.

3. First Dates
Misery loves company, eh? Online dating service Match.com notices a pattern in its site activity during tough times. The fourth quarter of 2008 was their busiest in seven years (the site has been around since 1995). Match had a similar surge in late 2001, right after 9/11.
The company believes people are looking for someone with whom to try to forget about money troubles -- or share the pain. When the Dow Jones industrial average dropped to a five-year low last November, Match.com had its second busiest weekend of the year.

4. Romance Novels
The economy has broken your heart and stomped it to pieces and now you need to put it back together. At least that's what Harlequin, the giant romance novel publisher, says is happening. In 2008, Harlequin's sales were up 32% from the year before. In 2009, its sales are still rising.
The publisher credits this its uplifting stories that offer a haven, and to the low prices of the books relative to other entertainment. This theory has stood the test of time. Harlequin saw a similar sales increase during the recession of the early 90's. So if these stories start piling up unwanted on the discount table at the bookstore, alongside all those mis-timed guides to real estate riches, better news is on the way.

5. Droopy Eyes I
America is all tuckered out. A poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that nearly one-third of Americans lost sleep because they were worried about their finances. The 2009 Sleep in America Poll also found that 10% of those people tossed and turned specifically worrying about their jobs -- roughly the same percentage of Americans who are out of work.

6. Droopy Eyes II
Americans spent $10.3 billion in 2008 to endure 1.7 million cosmetic surgeries, which is 9% less than in 2007. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons cites the bad economy.
Without as much extra cash -- and facing depleted retirement funds and much less home equity -- fewer people can spend freely on plastic surgery. The number of liposuction procedures was down 19% in 2008 and tummy tucks down 18%. If you can get an appointment with a top surgeon without much of a wait, that's a sour sign for the economy. But, then again, maybe you can strike a deal.

7. Goopy Eyes
You've got that recession look in your eye. Total eye makeup sales at supermarkets and drugstores were up 8.5% in the one-year period that ended on March 22, compared to the previous year. In that time period, more than $260 million was spent on eye makeup -- in particular, eye liner was up 9% and mascara almost 13%.
The leading lipstick indicator -- the idea that lipstick sales rise in economic downturn as consumers settle for inexpensive luxuries -- is not holding up. Lipstick sales are down 11%. But eye make-up has replaced lipstick as the indicator, so the principle is the same.

8. Gators
What do 100,000 alligators have to do with the economy? The gators are all residents at Savoie's Alligator Farm, one of the largest alligator farms in Louisiana. The farm, which sells gator skin hides to tanners who in turn sell them to luxury designers like Louis Vuitton, has not sold a single hide since November, according to Savoie's.
This business is awful because people are not buying alligator skin handbags and luggage. The makers of designer labels therefore don't need to buy hides. This is tough on the gator farmers who are losing money fast and trying to keep the hides they already have in stock from spoiling. But it's good news for alligators everywhere -- if they only knew.

9. Dry Cleaning
The International Drycleaning and Laundry Institute is hearing gripes from many of its 5,000 members. The poor economy has customers are visiting less frequently and leaving clothes for longer. Weekly customers visit every two weeks, monthly customers visit bi-monthly, and some people delay their pickups even longer to avoid the bill. This has been a staple indicator of hard times before.

10. Mosquito Bites
We know the real estate bust has done a number on the economy, but did you know it can actually make you itch? In Maricopa County, Ariz., enormous numbers of foreclosed or abandoned homes have vacant swimming pools and unattended ponds. The stagnant waters -- known as green pools -- are a hotbed for mosquito breeding.
Maricopa County Environmental Services Department's Johnny Diloné says crews have treated more than 4,000 green pools already in 2009. During the same period in 2007, before metropolitan Phoenix's housing market collapsed, they had treated only 2,500. While most of the "green pools" are on vacant properties, some do belong to residents who just cannot afford to maintain their pools and ponds.

The above Article Appeared c/o Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: While the above indicators may seem a bit silly at first blush, they speak volumes about the Human psyche, and the things that bring us comfort in times of a perceived recession. This starts to become a forecasting approach (consumerism patterns) worth taking very seriously when once gives effect to the fact that all recessions and depressions are initiated by the failure of a venerable, time-honored institution, and are followed and steepened by disillusionment and fear on the part of the consumer public, .i.e., a major crisis of confidence precipitating a catastrophic self-fulfilling prophesy.

A friend was trying to make the case for a recovery within the next two fiscal quarters in the U.S. and Britain brought about by "pent-up consumer demand". I responded by saying that consumer demand for numerous goods is elastic depending upon the price of the goods in question, the requirement for other goods which are competing for the same consumer dollars (but which are perceived to be necessities which have been foregone for too long), and the availability of disposible personal income, or of credit from banks and other financial institutions. Disposible personal income comes primarily from post-tax earnings, less housing and other essential cost items -- no employment, no disposible personal income -- and credit comes from banks and finance companies, but only when they are willing to lend, either by a feeling of moral obligation, or by court-ordered or regulatory compliance.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle