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The Dream Society

"We stand facing the fifth kind of society: the Dream Society. Future products will have to appeal to our hearts, not to our heads.
Now is the time to add emotional value to products and services."
-- Rolf Jensen - The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business.

Definition of Futurist

Futurists have two sides: One side distinguishes between trends and fads, seeing trends far earlier than everyone else, far sooner than their breakthrough in the public media. They are knowledgeable about historical and societal patterns that others find irrelevant. They are neutral observers of what is happening in the environment around them. They understand that systems go up and down and that failure today could open the door to successes tomorrow. The other side of a Futurist works to put forth messages that communities, politicians and companies need to hear.

Stay Hungy, Stay Foolish

Steve Jobs Video
"Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
-- Steve Jobs - Stanford's commencement

Branding: a twenty-first century obsession

We brand businesses, lifestyles, diets and now even new born babies are called Nivea, Ikea, Pepsi, Porsche, Canon, Xerox.
In the year 2000, exclusively in the US, some 353 baby girls were blessed with the name Lexus!
According to Professor Cleveland Evans, these unusual choices for first names are made by parents from the less affluent sections of society, who - whether consciously or not - make a tribute to their own material day-dreams when they give their children names of products they will probably never be able to afford.

Design Thinking

Bill Moggridge, Ideo co-founder, created a movement known as "interaction design," which aims to do for the virtual world what industrial design does for the physical. There are three phases of adoption for a piece of technology: enthusiast, professional, and consumer. There comes a point where an industry realizes that the enthusiast phase could be applied for work. And then they start designing products which make us more productive. We're actually quite willing to learn something that's difficult to use and not very enjoyable if it makes us more productive. Then, finally, that technology becomes less expensive and more obviously applicable to our daily lives, and then people realize, Well, there could be a consumer product. And then suddenly, it's completely essential for success that the thing is enjoyable to use and easy to learn.
Ideo
Ideo helps organizations innovate through design. Duane Bray: "A cell phone is becoming this incredibly powerful repository for multimedia experiences"

Trend Spotting

The term trend describes a constant, continuos development.

Short-Term: Consumer Trends
0..5 // Continuing for a maximum of 3 more years
Changes in needs, attitudes and behaviour. Fashions.
Mid-Term: Background Trends
0..15 // Continuing for a maximum of 10 more years
Processes of change in society, economy.
Long-Term: Mega Trends
0..25 // Any Trend continuing for longer than 10 years
Paradigm changes. Revolutions.

Z_trenddatenbank - Z_trenddatabase
men.style.com
GQ Articles, Fashion Features.

Innovation Process

Futures Studies

According to Richard Slaughter, futures studies is a very broad family that includes many languages, concepts, methodologies and worldviews. Richard's concept of the "infinite toolkit" is an appropriate metaphor, as is his concept of developing social foresight. Let's use a wider, not narrower set of tools, worldviews etc.

Futures Studies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Framing: Establishment of the scope of the futures endeavor.
Research: Collection of appropriate and relevant information.
Alternative Futures: Descriptions of the long-term outcomes to enable better decision-making.
Visioning: Creation of a preferred future that imaginatively captures values and ideals.
Change Agent: Advocacy for a clear rationale for the change.

Foresight

An in-build capacity of human brain/mind system
An act or the power of foreseeing, presience
An act of looking forward

Strategic foresight is the ability to create and maintain viable forward views and to use these in useful ways.
Foresight strategy requires foresight literacy.

Detect adverse conditions > re-shape strategy > explore new markets > invent new services
One problem is that the dominant outlook remains focused on short term thinking.

Meta-Analysis of Scenario Methods

Genius Forecasting
Expected baseline future and creative stories created by one person usually without any special process 1962 Employees as Interchangeable Parts
Visualization
Using deep intuition to discover alternative futures
Sociovision
Series of questions that lead to critical discussion and deeper understanding
Incasting
Implications of a pre-established set of alternative futures; create headlines and/or describe elements of that future, such as leisure, school, crime, work, etc.
Backcasting
Horizon Mission Methodology: a path leading back from a pre-established future
Probability Tree/ Sensitivity Analysis
A branching structure with designated probabilities for each branch; testing a range of values for input variables in a quantitative model that in turn produces a range of values for output variables
Manoa
Implications of the intersection of three strong, baseline trends, futures wheels (for implications), and a qualitative cross-impact matrix for intersection
SRI Parameter Matrix
Columns are scenarios (may be present trends extended, best case, worst case, wildcard, normative or any other scenario logic); rows are domains or issues; cells are implications
Divergence Mapping (Harman Fan)
22 brainstormed plausible scenarios into a quadrant of possibilities from sooner to later with different paths to the latest for the complete scenario
Morphological Analysis (Field Anomaly Relaxation)
Different dimensions of uncertainty each with two or more alternative states, selecting one alternative from each dimension creates the complete scenario
Interactive Future Simulations (IFS)
A cross-impact approach assigning probabilities to the resulting scenarios developed by Stephen Millett at Battelle
GBN
Intersection of “critical uncertainties” builds scenario logics in a 2X2 matrix
Causal Layered Analysis
Deconstructing assumptions and reconstructing new metaphors; drills down levels from data (often quantitative) to causes (systems thinking) to assumptions (paradigms, belief systems) to images (myths and metaphors, culture)
Godet's Toolbox
Using several techniques, this method tackles the process of searching for key variables, both internal and external, strategic stakes and objectives, and scanning the field of possibilities for discovering key questions for the future

Productivity Waves

1962 Employees as Interchangeable Parts
1982 Productivity through People
2002 Employees as ... Talent!
2022 Productivity without People

Upcoming Tech Waves

2010 DIGI-INFO-AGE
2020 BIO-CLONE-AGE
2040 AI-ROBO-AGE
2060 SOLAR-HYDRO-AGE
2080 NANO-AGE

China: Metrossentials Data

Sources: gilette.com, straight.com, en.ce.cn, chinadaily.com, chinanews.cn

Percentage of Chinese men who have used some sort of whitening soap: 55 percent
Number of minutes Chinese men spend in the bath/shower per day: 17.62
Amount of money generated from men's cosmetic products in China: USD 377.5 million
Increase in sales of men's cosmetic products predicted by 2008: 67 percent
Number of men who had operations at Shanghai Ren'ai Hospital in 2004 to increase their chest muscles: 10
Percentage of clientele that are male at Shanghai's sunbed parlor MH Tanning: 75 percent
Percentage of metrosexuals' expenditure that goes to clothing: 60 percent

Urban Society Trends

Luxury Fever
Time is the new luxury. There are 7 million millionaires in the U.S. alone :)
Ego Trend
The industry of the self is emerging and we just started consuming products that we helped create/shape
Timbuk2, Build Your Own Bag
NIKEiD.com + Your Personality = Customization
Choice Fatigue
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage.
Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?
-- Trainspotting, 1996

MindMap August 2005

Concept-Mapping made with Freemind
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java.

Research Areas for building the Global Governance Systems of tommorrow

Paradigms
Identify values-systems of capitalism, and its alternatives that are used to shape political theory and world futures models. You might want to read "The next three futures: Paradigms of things to come" by Warren Wagar.
Scenarios
Identify global drivers of change across various issue areas, such as population, economic, agricultural, energy, environmental, technological and socio-political areas.
Global Scenarios Group
2100.org
2100, récit du prochain siècle
Forecasting
Use global computer models to generate alternative scenarios in comparison to baseline forecasts. Hughes' International Futures Model, country-issue forecasts for 2035 or beyond. This is key in terms of "what-if" thinking.
IFs: International Futures Computer Simulation
It has been instrumental in projects undertaken by such groups as the European Commission, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and the United Nations. After three decades of development and refinement, the computer model is now easy to access and use.
IFs Model
Download of International Futures (IFs).
Strategies
Catalogue potential strategies for positive global change at the individual, community, organizational, national, and international levels.
The GLOBE leadership project
Global leadership, their variables and values-systems

References

The next three futures: Paradigms of things to come. Wagar, W. W. (1991).
The late historian and futurist W. Warren Wagar (1932-2004) draws together all aspects of futures studies in this unique volume--comprising a vital introduction to, and defense of, an impressive array of futurist thinking. The book examines world futures and acknowledges the competing influence of capitalism and its alternative visions on this field. These values-systems of technoliberal, radical and countercultural are examined on a wide range of futures topics, including the environment, politics, economics, global security, and lifestyle issues
Exploring and shaping international futures. Hughes, B., & Hillebrand, E. E. (2006).
What will be the long-term impact of AIDS in Africa or concentration of global oil production in the Middle East? Exploring and Shaping International Futures helps readers understand such global trends in demographic, economic, energy, food, environmental, and socio-political systems. It allows businesspeople, government officials, and others to think concretely about global futures in each of these areas. It is the only book in the market that allows readers to use a computer simulation to track global trends and to develop alternative scenarios around those trends. It is one of relatively few books that really brings computer technology into the classroom, boardroom, or policy planning commission. The International Futures (IFs) computer simulation, around which the book is built, is now widely used in policy analysis as well as education. It has been instrumental in projects undertaken by such groups as the European Commission, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and the United Nations. After three decades of development and refinement, the computer model is now easy to access and use.