The Flux Capacitor: 001

SEPTEMBER 002009 / ISSUE 001

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Why watch trends?

Excerpt from the Special Report from the World Future Society: The Art of Foresight World Future Society members recently explained why they study trends. These are the top 10 reason: 1. To get investment ideas and save money A group of “angel investors” reports finding new ideas by studying trends and reading World Future Society publications: “You have saved us money!”

2. To get early warnings Scanning the environment for emerging opportunities and crises is like looking both ways for traffic before crossing a busy road. It just makes good sense.

3. To get confidence A solid foundation of awareness about trends can give you the confidence to take wise risks.

4. To get an edge on the competition Seeing what’s coming before others do can give you lead time to establish a foothold in a new market.

5. To get at the heart of a trend Analyzing the details within a trend can help separate truly significant developments from rapidly appearing and disappearing fads.

6. To get goals in balance Thinking about the future is an antidote to a “profit now, worry later” mentality that could lead to trouble in the long term.

7. To get informed on forces affecting your field Healthcare planners, for instance, need to know what’s going on in biotech and medicine, values and public policy, labor supply and population aging.

8. To get informed on forces in many fields Educators, for instance, may follow trends in the economy and the workforce to know how best to guide their students.

9. To get a glimpse of emerging futures A trend is a glance at potential futures; we can then take actions to turn those trends into opportunities.

10. To get yourself and others ready for the future Many futurists serve as consultants or counselors; they must keep abreast of trends not only for their own sake but also to help their clients.

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High bandwidth

Movies

One on one coaching Live Seminar

TV

Books

Cisco Telepresence

Cable News

Youtube Asynchronous

PDF

Talk Radio

Synchronized MMORPGs *

Art

Postal Mail

Graffiti

Blogs

Email

In-browser games *

Telephone IM/Texting

Low bandwidth

Twitter

The Bandwidth-Synch Correlation

By Seth Godin / www.sethgodin.com Here are a dozen or so forms of communication, arranged on two axes.

On the horizontal, they rank from asynchronous (meaning the creator and the responder are separated in time-like a letter) and synchronous (meaning the creator and the responder are in real time proximity to each other--like a phone call).

Up and down, I've charted the quality of the medium. Quality in terms of density of information exchanged. The 140 characters in Twitter is about as low density as you can get other than a stop light. A movie, on the other hand, is loud and bright and two hours long and there's audience reaction and it is edited and designed to evoke a response.

To be clear, then: movies take a long time to make, but they're high impact.

Twitter takes a second to do, but there's not a lot of info there. One on one coaching is high enough bandwidth that it can change your life and make you cry, in real time, and the Mona

Lisa, while less bits per second than a TV show, has enough emotional bandwidth to matter, even if it's 400 years old.

So, what can you learn here?

1. There's a huge correlation between how much interaction there is and how powerful a medium is (at least among successful media).

Telephones changed the world because the interaction is so real. As you get more interactive, though, you exchange less dense media. You can't have a real time conversation online that carries the digital impact of a movie or some other high bandwidth entertainment.

2. The bottom left corner is the scrap heap. It's hard to place a commercial value on this part of the grid and there's not a lot of commercially interesting work being done here. People just aren't interested in low bandwidth, noninteractive media. Graffiti, for

example, rarely draws a paying crowd.

3. The top right of the corner is where huge value and difficult sales lie. Not everyone can pay for the scarce resources needed to deliver an inperson seminar or one on one coaching, but those that need and can afford it, love it.

If you had seen this chart three years ago, you obviously would have invented Twitter.

Now that you see it today, what will you create?

Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change.

Godin is author of ten books that that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work.

Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry's leading interactive direct marketing company.

* Medias in green were added by Daniel Karpantschof (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games and browser based games -- such as online poker and betting)

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The Career Fair of 2015 Jobs you never knew existed.

So you wanna keep your job? For how long? Till the next wave of off shoring strikes -- or for good?

Odds are that your job will transcend into something very, very different. New economy jobs are tomorrows old economy jobs.

Retirement Consultant In less than five years 77 million US baby boomers will reach the age of 65. Once the paper work is filed (which alone will be a hassle) what are you gonna do with all that time? Ask your personal consultant, or the one on staff at the center.

Freelance and senior citizen centers, malls etc.

Chief Health Officer The chief health officer, most likely a doctor, will ensure and guarantee the health of all corporate employees. As corporate healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, why not take charge and keep them healthy?

IKEA, McDonalds, Accenture, Nokia

Corporate Historian To preserve the institutional memory of large corporations, a corporate historian will be assigned to the corporate archives (libraries?). The corporate memory comprises the history, business experiences, successes, failures, drama and visions.

Maersk, IBM, Carlsberg, IKEA, Samsung

Which is why we bring you a glimpse of the jobs you may expect to hear about from you grandchildren (and in many cases; children or younger siblings).

Legend: Job title Job description Likely employers A expected salary in 2007 USD

B expected entry into job market C expected mainstream status

Chief Innovation Officer The CIO will be in charge of corporate innovation, inventions, business development and technology. The focus of the CIO will be creativity within and throughout the corporate organization.

Google, IBM, Novo Nordisk, Maersk

A B C

A B C

178,000 2014 2019

170,000 2015 2021

Advertisement

55,000 2012 2015

VP of Experiences This creative individual will be in charge of developing and executing the experience of interaction with the corporate entity, being internal or external customers, employees or providers.

IKEA, Vestas, Blackberry, McDonalds, LG

A B C

A B C

57,000 2009 2012

Portable Benefits Officer As the labor market diversifies a demand for portable benefits will surge. Taking your vacation, sick and personal days with you, as well as retirement, 401(k) and other plans. This information manager will streamline the process between companies.

K-Mart, Walmart, IKEA, Google, Halliburton

A B C

175,000 2008 2018

A B C

165,000 2011 2017

Director of Corporate Alumni As the workforce will increase in the level of fragmentation, a corporate alumni officer will make sure that any individual who leaves the company, will remain a loyal ambassador to the organization, as well as re-attract former employees.

Google, Apple, AT&T, Grundfoss, Vodaphone

A B C

175,000 2015 2020

Sony Pictures International -- 2012

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Featured Early Warning Consumer Oriented Stigmas The impact of Research and Development spending keeps improving.

Quick facts (all amounts in 2007 USD) • Spending on R&D in the European Union (EU25) in 2006 amounts to 230 billion (or 1.9% of GDP).

Goal for 2010 is 3.0% and currently unmet.

• Spending on R&D in China amounts to 212 billion in 2006 (or 1.24% of GDP).

Goal for 2010 is 2.5% and was achieved at the end of 2nd quarter 2009.

• Spending on R&D in United States amounts to USD 330 billion in 2006 (or XX% of GDP)- Goal for 2010 is 3.5% and was achieved at the end of 2nd quarter 2009 Implications In the article So... What about Europe?! I painted a grim picture of the future of Europe. The data below most certainly sustain that Europe -- if to survive the increasing pressure from both US, China and Middle East -- needs to apply new radical ways of thinking. R&D 2006 is a great way to do just that! So, Europe, Goal 2010 get in the game ... or get out.

Current EU25

As the world evolved from the 20th century regimes to open democracies, so did the protection for minorities gain popular support. Western democracies today (along with a surprisingly hight share of totalitarian states) have all ratified or de facto agreed that society as an entity should refrain from oppression based on race, gender, religious beliefs, income or the like.

Yet a new kind of stigmatization is having a field trip; Consumer oriented stigmas.

Consumers driving 4WDs. Obese. Smokers. Coffee drinkers. Telecommuters.

They all face the same issue; having to deal with a public that, in spite of a personal preference, define them as something that society should be protected from. Whether by legislation, taxation, prohibition or well -- actual stigmatization.

The issue at hand is not whether or not being obese is healthy or not. Of course it isn’t. But once opinion makers and editorials start stating that obese people should pay their own healthcare, in countries with universal healthcare, you have a ball game.

Why? Because consumer behavior is not protected by legislation. It is a personal choice and no one is forcing you to do it. It is far enough away to generalize a problem for society, yet close enough to look the person in the eyes and declare him or her to be a problem for the greater good.

China United States 0

150

300

450

600

Featured Publication Every year at Marché du Film (the producers’s lounge at Cannes Film Festival) the European AudioVisual Observatory publishes the World Film Market Trends.

The publication outlines market trends along with projections and forecasts.

The scope this year is of course the current crisis’ impact on production an distribution. Interested in entertainment trends!? Go get Focus 2009!

80 75 70 65 60 55 50

1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 % Admissions in EU to US films

Featured Link Brought to you by ImpactGames, the same people who developed and sold The PeaceMaker, a highly addictive and informative game with the scope of teaching about and solving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Play The News is equally addictive, but even more informative. You play a serious of actors in local, regional and global events.

What are you reactions to a given conflict? But more importantly, what are your expectations on how the real actors will react.

www.playthenewsgame.com

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Featured Reader

Name Kenneth Johansson Dahlin Job Social Media Consultant, Oprust.dk

They met through a common friend.

They work together on the annual Roskilde Festival. They plot to take over the world together. Yet they don’t agree on much.

Hometown Copenhagen, Denmark Email kenneth@oprust.dk

Kenneth Dahlin is the featured reader of September 2009!

Link Oprust on facebook

What are your greatest expectations for 2010?

Well Google Wave is going to hit the online community on sep. 30, and that will be huge. I think that it will revolutionize the way we communicate online. Studies have shown that, users of gmail are the highest consumers of mail. Just think what Wave will do for online communication. Integration with blogs, microblogs, social media and Have you ever had an experience other good stuff is going to change and where you foresaw something and not in an insignificant way! it turned out exactly that way?

How do you apply the “future” to your work?

In 2007 i joined Facebook and predicted that it soon would grow to 1 million danish users, and it has far surpassed my I generally use online trends to forecast expectations. I also saw the twitter trend wether my clients should use this or that from the United States and predicted media to communicate. Also you really that danish politicians would be using it, now the danish prime minister is using it need to understand the way people as well as a lot of MPs. think, consume media, and buy products to be able to guide your customers to the right decision.

Known Karpantschof since 2005 Mutual Friends on facebook 24

What technology, toy or gadget of the future are you looking especially forward to?

Well I'm really psyched about Google Wave! It will be the next generation of e-mail. E-mail has been around since 1965 and is long due for an overhaul.

Also the augmented reality apps for phones and gadgets are going to be a new way that we are going to interact with the world around us. Now we will be able to get realtime feedback from The Cloud with great results. It is all very exciting!

Whats up with Karpantschof?

Currently he is working together with Benja Stig Fagerland on communicating the TalentTuning message; gender equality for the better business practice.

Karpantschof currently lives in Washington, DC from where he writes articles, gives speeches and talks and contemplate world domination.

Daniel Karpantschof sits on the board of directors of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies as well as the Academy of Futures Studies in Denmark.

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Daniel Karpantschof is a member of the World Future Society as well as NCVO Foresight, The Foresight Network and the Academy of Futures Studies.

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The Flux Capacitor is the free newsletter from Daniel Karpantschof, covering strategic planning, foresight and scenario building within the spheres of international markets and politics, fast moving consumer goods, education, entertainment and tech.

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