THE FUTURIST, March - April 2011 by World Future Society

Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas about the Future

Piecing Together Health Care’s Future Beyond various reforms and payment schemes, health-delivery systems need a multifaceted new paradigm. Special report, page 16 Why Diversity Matters in Technological Evolution, page 44 Relationships, Identity, and Immortality in the Virtual World, page 29 Was Disneyland the First Artificial Reality? Visions, page 36 World Trends & Forecasts:

Hackers of the World, Unite! Alarms Ring as Wedding Bells Do Not The “American Dream” Moves Downtown The High Cost of Bad Habits Demographic Impacts on Climate Change

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March-April 2011

About the World Future Society Why study the future?

What is the World Future Society?

The world changes so quickly that it‘s hard to keep up. New inventions and innovations alter the way we live. People‘s values, attitudes, and beliefs are changing. And the pace of change keeps accelerating, making it difficult to prepare for tomorrow. By studying the future, people can better anticipate what lies ahead. More importantly, they can actively decide how they will live in the future by making choices today and realizing the consequences of their decisions. The future doesn‘t just happen: People create it through their action—or inaction—today.

The World Future Society is an association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. The Society was founded in 1966 by a group of private citizens, and is chartered as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization.

What can we know about the future? No one knows exactly what will happen in the future. But by considering what might happen, people can more rationally decide on the sort of future that would be most desirable and then work to achieve it. Opportunity as well as danger lies ahead, so people need to make farsighted decisions. The process of change is inevitable; it‘s up to everyone to make sure that change is constructive.

How do I join the Society? Visit www.wfs.org or contact: World Future Society Membership Department 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Telephone: 301-656-8274

What does the Society do? The Society strives to serve as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future. Ideas about the future include forecasts, recommendations, scenarios, alternatives, and more. These ideas help people to anticipate what may happen in the next five, 10, or more years ahead. When people can visualize a better future, then they can begin to create it.

What does membership offer? ■ THE FUTURIST, a magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas about the future. Every member receives a subscription to this exciting bimonthly magazine. Experts in various fields share their insights and forecasts in articles directed at a general audience. ■ Special rates for all annual conferences. These conferences provide members with the opportunity for face-to-face meetings with distinguished scholars, leaders, and experts from around the world. ■ Access to your local chapter. Over 100 cities in the United States and abroad have chapters for grassroots support of futures studies. They provide a way for members to get involved in their local communities through workshops, discussion groups, and speakers.

Free e-mail newsletter! Visit www.wfs.org.

March-April 2011 Volume 45, No. 2

A magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas

DEPARTMENTS

ARTICLES

Tomorrow in Brief

News from WFS

World Trends & Forecasts

16 From Hospital to “Healthspital”: A Better Paradigm for Health Care By Frank W. Maletz

49 Consultants and Services 64 Feedback 66 Future Active 68 As Tweeted: The Futurist Playlist

BOOKS 52 Surviving the Great Recession’s Aftershocks A book review by Patrick Tucker Too much wealth in the hands of too few will result in less for all, warns former U.S. labor secretary Robert B. Reich in Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.

54 What Hath Hawking Wrought? A book review by Edward Cornish

In The Grand Design, scientists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow show how gravitational forces might create universes spontaneously.

55 Tools for Problem Solving A book review by Rick Docksai

We need less control, more distributed action, and less resistance to change, according to the authors of 2030: Technology That Will Change the World.

56 Books in Brief

The Abundant Community Acceleration Flash Foresight Green Deen The Master Switch My Brain Made Me Do It Thriving in the Crosscurrent The 2020 Workplace

Hospitals should not simply be places where people go to get well (or, worse, where they go to die). Future hospitals could become wellness information centers and proactive partners in community well-being, says a practicing orthopedic surgeon.

20 Health Insurance in America After the Reform By Jay Herson and David Pearce Snyder

If for-profit health insurers find business is too unprofitable under the new law, where will Americans find affordable coverage? One solution may rise from the nonprofit sector led by credit unions, which have already demonstrated an ability to keep up with for-profit banks.

23 Could Medical Tourism Aid Health-Care Delivery? By Prema Nakra

Medical tourism—wherein patients seek more affordable or specialized treatment outside their home countries—represents a major challenge for health-care delivery in developed countries such as the United States. It also offers an opportunity to integrate and improve medical delivery globally.

about the future

29 Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society By Arnold Brown As we spend more of our social lives online, the definitions of relationships and families are shifting. A business futurist offers an overview of these trends and what they imply for organizations in the coming years.

Plus: Avatars and Virtual Immortality By William Sims Bainbridge

36 Visions: Imagineers in Search Of the Future By Gary Dehrer In 1955, Walt Disney Imagineers achieved virtual reality with Disneyland. Eight Imagineering principles explain how they did it.

44 Understanding Technological Evolution and Diversity By Kevin Kelly

From the depths of the Amazon basin to the streets of Tokyo, technology is always evolving. Here, a Wired founding editor describes what technology wants—and what we can learn from observing the “technium,” the technological ecosystem.

25 Bike to the Future By Kenneth W. Harris

Maximizing public health will be a great challenge, but bicycling could be a big part of the solution. A policy analyst and lifelong cyclist identifies the trends that are encouraging more people than ever to bike on a regular basis—and a few obstacles that bicycling will have to overcome.

Message to the future from Founding Editor Edward Cornish. Page 3

COVER ILLUSTRATION: HONGQI ZHANG / DREAMSTIME.COM

© 2011 World Future Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. THE FUTURIST is a registered trademark of the World Future Society. Printed in the U.S.A. THE FUTURIST (ISSN 0016-3317) is published bimonthly by the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Included with membership in the World Future Society (dues: $59 per year for individuals; $20 for full-time students under age 25). Subscriptions for libraries and other institutions are $69 annually. Periodicals postage paid at Bethesda, Maryland, and additional mailing offices. • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE FUTURIST, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814. • OWNERSHIP: THE FUTURIST is owned exclusively by the World Future Society, a nonpartisan educational and scientific organization incorporated in the District of Columbia and recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit taxexempt organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. • CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Write or call Membership Department at the Society. 1-800-989-8274.

Tomorrow

in brief COURTESY OF THOMAS BJORKMAN

Broccoli researchers (left to right): Mary Van Ryn of Bejo Seed Co.; Thomas Bjorkman, assistant professor of horticulture at Cornell University; and Christy Hoepting, extension educator.

The Broccoli Plan Nutritionists tell us that roccoli is one of the healthiest b foods for us, but this super veggie must be shipped from far away to reach markets where it isn’t so easily grown. For instance, 90% of broccoli sold on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard is shipped from California and Mexico—with less than desirable environmental impacts. To solve this problem, researchers led by Cornell University horticulturalist Thomas Bjorkman are developing new

strains of broccoli that can tolerate the more-humid East Coast climate. Once the right varieties have been developed, the project will also train local growers and marketers, organizing them into production networks. With USDA support, the team aims to develop a $100 million broccoli industry on the East Coast over the next 10 years. Source: Cornell University, www.cornell.edu. MIT MEDIA LAB, CAMERA CULTURE GROUP

Eye Exams via Smart Phones Need an eye exam? There’s an app for that. A $2 smart-phone application could tell you in minutes what prescription eyeglasses you need. Developed by the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture research group, the NETRA (Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment) combines software with a small, lightweight plastic viewfinder that clips onto your smart phone. Within minutes, NETRA can diagnose whether someone is nearsighted or farsighted, or suffers from astigmatism or the vision loss associated with aging. The researchers claim that NETRA is safe, fast, accurate, and easy to use. Currently being field-tested, the device is intended primarily for use in poorer communities, such as those in the developing

THE FUTURIST

MIT Media Lab researcher Vitor Pamplona demonstrates how the NETRA works. The user looks through a small plastic device that attaches to a smart phone while using the phone’s keypad to align the patterns he or she sees. world, that lack access to proper eye care. While eyeglasses themselves can be inexpensive, the testing equipment up until now has been fairly cost-prohibitive, especially for those in underdeveloped areas. Source: MIT Media Lab, www.media.mit.edu/press/netra.

March-April 2011

NASA, ESA, AND STScI (J. ANDERSON, R. VAN DER MAREL, G. BACON)

Catching Up With the Stars The Hubble Space Telescope has enormously accelerated astronomers’ ability to detect star movement, from 50 years with ground-based telescopes to just a few years. It is Hubble’s razor-sharp visual acuity that enables the measurement of the stars’ motion, so predicting stars’ future movement has likewise been speeded up: Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore have collected Hubble’s images from 2002 to 2006 to simulate stars’ projected migration over the next 10,000 years. Source: Hubble Site, http:// hubblesite.org.

Artificial Experimenter Software that can take over the routine aspects of experimentation could help reduce its costs. An “artificial experimenter” developed at Britain’s University of Southampton autonomously analyzes a project’s data, builds hypotheses, and chooses the experiments to perform, according to one of the developers, PhD student Chris Lovell of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. The program will also help detect anomalies in errorprone areas such as biological experimentation. The next step is to join the AI software with automated platforms—labs on a chip—to

The movements of a group of stars in Omega Centauri cluster (top photo, in white box) were analyzed over four years to create a 10,000-year forecast of their trajectory (bottom photo). Each streak represents 600 years of a star’s motion.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Artificial-intelligence program guides a lab experiment with no human intervention. perform the experiments requested by the artificial experimenter, using fewer resources in the process. Source: University of Southampton, School of Electronics and Computer Science, www.ecs.soton.ac.uk.

WordBuzz: Weisure Mobility, connectedness, and competitiveness have long been blurring the boundaries between activities performed in the workplace and everywhere else. Now, a term has been coined to define these omnitasking hours: weisure (work and leisure). Attributed to Dalton Conley’s book Elsewhere, U.S.A. published by Pantheon, 2009, the

term was soon popularized by CNN in a story entitled “Welcome to the ‘weisure’ lifestyle.” Comment: We are hoping someone can still come up with a less-unwieldy coinage (something less frighteningly similar to seizure). Please send your suggestions for renaming this concept of time-use-blurring to letters@wfs.org.

News A Publication of the World Future Society

Editorial Staff Edward Cornish

from

WFS

By Edward Cornish, Founding Editor

Renewal at THE FUTURIST Magazine C. G. WAGNER / WFS

Founding Editor

Cynthia G. Wagner Editor

Patrick Tucker Senior Editor

Aaron M. Cohen, Rick Docksai Staff Editors

Lane Jennings Research Director

Lisa Mathias Art Director

Contributing Editors Clement Bezold, Government Tsvi Bisk, Strategic Thinking Irving H. Buchen, Training Peter Eder, Marketing and Communications Joyce Gioia-Herman, Workforce/Workplace Barbara Marx Hubbard, Images of Man Joseph P. Martino, Technological Forecasting Jay S. Mendell, Innovation Joseph N. Pelton, Telecommunications Arthur B. Shostak, Utopian Thought David P. Snyder, Lifestyles Gene Stephens, Criminal Justice Timothy Willard, Biofutures

Contact Us Letters to the Editor: letters@wfs.org Subscription/Address Change: info@wfs.org Advertising: jcornish@wfs.org Submissions/Queries: cwagner@wfs.org Permission/Reprints: jcornish@wfs.org Back Issues/Bulk Copies: jcornish@wfs.org Press/Media Inquiries: ptucker@wfs.org Partnerships/Affiliations: tmack@wfs.org Conference Inquiries: jboykin@wfs.org Anything Else: info@wfs.org THE FUTURIST World Future Society 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. eastern time, weekdays except U.S. holidays Telephone: 301-656-8274 or 800-989-8274 Fax: 301-951-0394 www.wfs.org/futurist

For 44 years, I have had the privilege of serving as Editor of THE FUTURIST magazine. I would like to thank all of you for your support during our journey along the frontiers of the future. It has been a thrilling ride, but the time has come for me to retire as Editor and Edward Cornish speaks at the 2008 World assume a new role at THE Future Society conference. FUTURIST. So, starting with this issue, your editor will be Cynthia G. Wagner, who has served as Managing Editor of THE FUTURIST since 1992. In my new role, I plan to act as a futurist-in-residence. After thinking and writing about the future for more than four decades, I believe I have learned some things about foresight and I would like to pass them on to readers of THE FUTURIST through the articles I plan to write. The study of the future is a pioneering field that is still developing. The World Future Society today is, I believe, only a foreshadowing of what it could become in the future. As futurists, we can make major contributions to the improvement of human life around the world. This is an awe-inspiring challenge but one worthy of our best efforts. Our New Editor Cindy Wagner came to THE FUTURIST as an editorial assistant in 1981. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the prestigious Grinnell College in Iowa and a master’s degree in communications, specializing in magazine journalism, from Syracuse University’s S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Right from the start, she proved to be a highly capable editor and quickly developed into an outstanding one. When it came time to recommend a successor I could think of no one better qualified than Cindy to replace me as Editor. Timothy C. Mack, president of the World Future Society, shares my enthusiasm for Cindy and has given her his full support. Adding further to my confidence in the future of THE FUTURIST is the fact that we have in the last six years added three talented journalists to the staff. They are senior editor Patrick Tucker, who also serves as the Society’s director of communications, and staff editors Aaron M. Cohen and Rick Docksai, who also work diligently on the Society’s journal for professional members, World Future Review. In addition, we have on staff Lisa Mathias, a highly talented artist, as our Art Director. All in all, THE FUTURIST has never had such a strong editorial staff, so I have never been more confident of the future of our magazine. We hope that you will continue to share our journey into the future.

THE FUTURIST versus the World Future Society Some readers may wonder, “Which came first—THE FUTURIST or the World Future Society?” The fact is that they were born almost simultaneously and either one can claim priority. THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

News

from

WFS

WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPH

As our plans for the proposed World Future Society began to take shape, we started preparing for its official launch, but we immediately encountered a big problem: We needed money if we were going to do anything. So we decided we would have to ask members of our new Society to pay modest dues and also to pay for their own lunches at our first meeting. Fortunately, a number of attendees were willing to do so. This policy made the Society economically viable, though money would remain even to today a serious limitation on what the Society could do. Slowly and erratically, we received membership applications and dues income while avoiding every possible expense by doing almost everything we could by ourselves. We On February 1, 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan invited leading futurists to pressed family members and colleagues into the White House for a special luncheon. From left: Heidi Toffler, co-author of providing free labor for humble projects such Future Shock; Kenneth Frederick of Resources for the Future; Vice President as typing and stuffing envelopes. My wife, George H. W. Bush; John Diebold, author of Automation; Craig Fuller, assisSally, and our neighbors, friends, and chiltant to the president for cabinet affairs; John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends; dren all were enlisted into doing Society Michael Deaver, former White House deputy chief of staff; Theodore J. Gordon, chores. founder of The Futures Group and (later) co-founder of the Millennium Project; Donald Regan, White House chief of staff; Alvin Toffler, co-author of Future So with a little money and lots of free labor, Shock and other influential futures works; President Reagan; Edward Cornish, the newborn World Future Society—and its founder of the World Future Society; Attorney General Edwin Meese. modest newsletter—could just barely manage to pay the bills. The Society’s membership gradually grew; though lack of money Here’s why. Back in 1966, I prepared a six-page newscontinued to dog us, we were able to survive and even letter providing news about new scientific discoveries grow. and the ideas that scientists and other thoughtful people To boost revenue, I decided we needed to offer memwere expressing about the future. I decided to call this bers something more than just a crudely printed newsnewsletter THE FUTURIST and sent copies of it to letter. So I decided to expand the newsletter, despite people I thought might be interested. These people inknowing nothing about typesetting, layout, art, and cluded comprehensive designer Buckminster Fuller, other skills needed for magazine publishing, and dephysicist Herman Kahn (author of On Thermonuclear spite still having almost no money to pay suppliers for War and other prescient works), science writer Arthur these services. However, I managed to recruit an unemC. Clarke, science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, and ployed friend who had had some experience in publishGlenn T. Seaborg, the Nobel Prize–winning discoverer ing, and with his help we produced the first issue of of plutonium. THE FUTURIST as a magazine (the March-April 1967 In my newsletter, I invited the recipients to join me in issue). establishing an organization devoted to the study of the To our great joy, the response to this first issue was future. To my surprise and delight, a number of wellvery encouraging and allowed us to persevere. We conknown people actually responded to my mailing with a tinued to improve the magazine and keep the World keen interest in what I was doing. Future Society alive, but it was never easy. Furthermore, a few of the respondents lived in the Today, the members of the Society can take pride in Washington, D.C., area where I lived, so I could easily inwhat we have accomplished so far. We have come a vite them to lunch and try to enlist their support for the long way, but I believe we have enormous opportunities project. Happily, several people responded and one, to develop into a far stronger Society with an increasCharles W. Williams, said he could arrange space for a ingly influential magazine that can help the people of meeting in his suite at the National Science Foundation. the world toward a far better future than any known in This was perfect: We would be born in one of the world’s the past. most prestigious scientific organizations. That fact, I hoped, would counter the view that people interested in To read more about the birth of WFS and THE FUTURIST, go to the future were exclusively science-fiction fans or perwww.wfs.org/content/search-for-foresight. haps something weird. 4

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

World Future Society wfs.org

Officers

Staff

Director of Development: Jennifer Boykin

President: Timothy C. Mack

Media Relations: Patrick Tucker

Treasurer: Kenneth W. Hunter

Business and Advertising Manager: Jeff Cornish

Secretary: Kenneth W. Harris

Membership Coordinator: Robin Goodman Administrative and Media Assistant: Sarah Warner

Directors

Global Advisory Council

Arnold Brown

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

European Futures Observatory

Marvin J. Cetron

Raja Ikram Azam

president, Forecasting International Ltd.

honorary chairman, Pakistan Futuristics Foundation

Edward Cornish

Raj Bawa

founder and former president, World Future Society

president, Bawa Biotechnology Consulting,

Esther Franklin

and adjunct associate professor,

executive vice president and director of cultural

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

identities, Starcom MediaVest Group

Adolfo Castilla

John Gottsman

economist, communications professor, Madrid

Graham May principal lecturer in futures research, Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.

Michael Michaelis president, Partners In Enterprise

Julio Millán president, Banco de Tecnologias, and chairman, Grupo Coraza, Mexico

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller visiting senior research fellow, ISEAS, Singapore

John Naisbitt trend analyst and author

president, The Clarity Group

Hugues de Jouvenel

Kenneth W. Harris

executive director, Association

Burt Nanus

Internationale Futuribles

author and professor emeritus of management,

chairman, The Consilience Group LLC

Kenneth W. Hunter director of professional programs, Institute for

Yehezkel Dror professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

University of Southern California

John L. Petersen president, The Arlington Institute

Global C hinese Affairs, University of Maryland

William E. Halal

Nat Irvin II

professor of management science and

Sandra L. Postel

director of Emerging Technologies Project,

director, Global Water Policy Project

College of Business, University of Louisville

Timothy C. Mack president, World Future Society

Jay McIntosh (chairman) president, Consumer Foresight LLC

Mylena Pierremont president, Ming Pai Consulting BV

Marian Salzman president, Euro RSCG Worldwide PR North America

Jared Weiner vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

George Washington University

Robert Salmon

Peter Hayward

former vice president, L’Oreal Corporation, Paris

program director, Strategic Foresight Program,

Maurice F. Strong

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

secretary general, U.N. Conference on

Barbara Marx Hubbard

Environment and Development

president, The Foundation for Conscious Evolution

Alvin Toffler

Sohail Inayatullah

author

professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan

Heidi Toffler

Eleonora Barbieri Masini

author

Faculty of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome

World Future Society The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific association dedicated to promoting a better understanding of the trends shaping our future. Founded in 1966, the Society serves as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future; it takes no stand on what the future will or should be like. The Society’s publications, conferences, and other activities are open to all individuals and institutions around the world. For more information on membership programs, contact Society headquarters Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Telephone: 1-301-656-8274, Toll free: 1-800-989-8274, Fax: 1-301-951-0394 Web site: www.wfs.org • E-mail: info@wfs.org

World Trends & Forecasts Cities Crime Health Families Climate Change

Cities

The “American Dream” Moves Downtown Revitalizing urban life with both nature and culture may benefit communities and citizens alike. By Roger L. Kemp In mid-twentieth-century America, the dream was to raise children in a singlefamily house with a yard, away from the traffic and noise in downtown areas. And the U.S. highway system stretched out to new residential subdivisions in the suburbs, as homes added more and more garages for everyone’s cars. This trend now is in the process of reversing. The children born in the middle of the twentieth century are now grown, and

Downtown Trends Major trends now under way in U.S. downtowns include: • Restoring and enhancing nature, such as ponds, parks, and even urban farms. • Integrating commercial and residential functions in multistory buildings. • Making public transit available, usually light-rail systems. • Restoring the public infrastructure to favor people over cars. • Combining landscaping with the restoration of all aspects of the public infrastructure. • Converting surface parking lots into parks, gardens, and open spaces.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

• Attracting culture, the arts, and entertainment facilities. • Attracting educational institutions and nonprofit organizations. • A t t r a c t i n g o r k e e p i n g smaller specialized businesses downtown while bigger businesses relocate in malls or “bigbox” sites. • Supporting ethnic and niche stores, such as markets, delicatessens, bakeries, and restaurants. • Providing a sense of “public place” in the core of downtowns to ensure that shared spaces feel truly shared.

older parents are relocating to more- convenient downtown areas. Young professionals focusing on their respective jobs, too, head toward inner-city areas, postponing the American dream of starting a family and moving to the suburbs until later in life. Another group of urban dwellers consists of those who would like to live without needing a vehicle. Hence, a new type of residential development has emerged around public transit stations, called Transit-Oriented Developments. The market for condominiums and townhouses located next to public light-rail transit systems has developed rapidly in recent decades. Now the challenge for communities is to make downtowns more attractive, more livable. Government planners at the state and local levels need to advocate for changes that will benefit downtown areas. One model is the high-rise residential area in the Lower East Side of New York City a century ago, where individuals and families lived in multistory residential structures that featured an assortment of commercial businesses located on the ground floor. All of the restaurants, markets, and other types of commercial activity took place at street level. It’s also great for those commercial businesses established on the ground level to have their market built-in above them. Rezoning downtowns to allow more residen-

C. G. WAGNER

tial units above ground-level businesses is the wave of the future. If you build them, people will come, especially if there’s public transit in the area. In addition to such mixed-use zoning, blending the commercial and the residential, thriving communities should increasingly bring arts, entertainment, and culture back to downtown areas. Some cities have used libraries and museums as tools to stimulate economic development, while others are trying to lure educational institutions and nonprofit organizations back downtown. There is also a big trend to preserve what’s left of nature in urban environments, restoring what’s been removed over the decades. Cities are expanding parks, wetlands, and waterways; they’re enhancing pedestrian access and movement by narrowing the streets and widening walkways, bikeways, plazas, and other public areas, reversing the car-centric planning of the previous century. This trend, too, has facilitated the movement of people back to downtown areas. When successful, these efforts stimulate the local economy and attract the type of businesses, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations that would benefit from revitalized downtown areas. Additional economic-development incentives would help attract desirable private, educational, and nonprofit institutions to downtowns, but selling local public officials on such incentives requires a clear demonstration of their reasonableness and long-term benefits to the taxpayers and all of the citizens within the community. A nice downtown should serve as a great public place not only for those who live there, but also for other citizens in the area

who come to work, shop, eat, or participate in cultural attractions. Prudent economic-development incentives that promote downtown renewal are a wise way to generate revenues without raising taxes and can assist in balancing a community’s budget. Most cities evolved piecemeal over the years and now need to be retrofitted and redesigned for the future. Planning and zoning regulations should be in place to accommodate mixed land-uses, infill, and redevelopment projects. Call it New Urbanism, Sustainability, Pedestrian Cities, Healthy Cities, Inner-City Renewal, or the Green Cities Movement—these practices can be applied to projects of all sizes to promote livability in a single building, on a full block, in a neighborhood, and even an entire community.

The Riverwalk District in downtown Reno, Nevada, capitalizes on the Truckee River’s natural attraction to offer residents a cool place to hang out, with water sports, restaurants, and arts and entertainment.

“There is a big trend to preserve what’s left of nature in urban environments.”

Roger L. Kemp

Roger L. Kemp is an adjunct professor in the Public Administration Program, University of New Haven, and in the Urban Studies Program, Southern Connecticut State University. E-mail rlkbsr@snet.net.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

World Trends & Forecasts Crime

Hackers of the World Unite Crowd-sourced attacks on networks are increasingly destructive.

“One can see just how effective Russian cyberattacks can be at blackmailing the citizens of other nations or causing economic chaos.” Alexi Kanskakov, member of Nashi

THE FUTURIST

Computer networks have been on guard for decades against individuals trying to “hack” them. But networks now face a larger danger from mass attacks, warns IT security analyst Richard Stiennon. “The new trend is to mobilize forces over the Internet to engage in the equivalent of mass online protests,” writes Stiennon in his latest book, Surviving Cyberwar. Political groups, organized-crime syndicates, and some governments launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which direct hundreds, thousands, or millions of computers to simultaneously strike a single Web site. The browser overloads and shuts down. In 2007, when Estonia enacted laws that some Russian-Estonians opposed, denial of service attacks from some 80,000 IP addresses based in Russia sabotaged the Web sites of Estonian government agencies, banks, and telecommunications companies. Stiennon blames many attacks on Nashi, a 120,000-member Russian nationalist youth association. Some Nashi operatives distribute the attack instructions and encourage members to use them against designated targets. “They share a political mind and have the computer skills to join a call for an attack,” Stiennon writes. In an exclusive interview with THE FUTURIST, Nashi member Alexi Kanskakof claims that Russian DDoS attacks have caused major economic disruption in Ukraine and may have contributed to Moscow-favored candidate Victor Yanukovych winning Ukraine’s presidential election in 2009. Also, during Russia’s 2008 war against Georgia, Russian hackers co-opted Georgian television stations to run proRussian broadcasts. “From these examples, one can see just how effective Russian cyberattacks can be

March-April 2011

at blackmailing the citizens of other nations or causing economic chaos,” says Kanskakof. He points out that DDoS attacks carry few risks for the perpetrators. A Nashi member could attack the Web site of a business in Ukraine, for example, without ever leaving Russia. “Even if the Ukrainian police forces found out it was you who did the cyberattack, there is really nothing they can do about it.” Of course, Russians are not the only ones who may be using this weapon. It is believed that such attacks were also deployed to thwart WikiLeaks in its attempt to distribute “anonymously submitted” diplomatic cables embarrassing to the U.S. government and its global partners. And DDos attacks were also allegedly launched by WikiLeaks supporters against its “enemies.” Businesses and government agencies worldwide are at risk, according to Daniel Gonzalez, director of information systems for the Software & Information Industry Association. He says that, while some denial of service attacks are orchestrated by masses of volunteers, others are created by “botnets,” automated software tools that infect computers and make them emit malware without their owners knowing it. “With botnets, what they’re doing is building a network of all these infected computers that they can use for their own purposes,” says Gonzalez. He adds that many organized-crime groups create botnets and sell them to buyers on every continent. Social-networking sites provide huge opportunities for botnets. These sites have few spam filters, according to Gonzalez, so hackers increasingly use them to distribute malware. “Someone I know opened up a Facebook message. It looked like it was coming from one of their Facebook friends. It said, ‘Hey, I found this photo of you.’ It turned out it wasn’t a photo. It was installing a virus,” says Gonzalez. Normal precautions that many people fail to take could be the simplest protections, such as keeping software up to date, notes Stiennon. He also urges Web sites to have independent platforms and not share

servers. That way, if one site suffers a DDoS attack, other sites won’t fail, too. —Rick Docksai Sources: Richard Stiennon, author of Surviving Cyberwar (Government Institutes, 2010), IT-Harvest, www.it-harvest.com. Alexi Kanskakof, member of Nashi, private communications. Daniel Gonzalez, Software and Information Industry Association, www.siia.net.

Health

The High Cost Of Bad Habits English and American health disparities offer lifestyle lessons. The United States and England each has a major—and unique—health-care challenge, according to a study comparing the health of senior citizens in the two countries. The study, conducted by researchers from the RAND Corporation in the United States and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the United Kingdom, found that disease and health disorder incidence was higher among U.S. senior citizens, but mortality rates were higher among English senior citizens. Americans ages 65 and older have almost twice the rate of diabetes found among their English counterparts and more than double the rate of cancer. Nevertheless, the death rate among Americans 65 and older is lower. “Americans are a sicker group of people who tend to live longer,” says James Smith, a study co-author. He attributes the U.S. health problems to lifestyle factors, including poor eating habits and inadequate exercise. Americans tend to eat much larger servings of food, for example. “There is what I call an American plate. When we go to a restaurant, it’s a plate I can’t even eat anymore. It’s a plate with so much food on it it’s not even appealing to me.” The World Health Organization (WHO)

o ff e r s a m p l e e v i dence of Americans’ bigger food servings: The obesity rate is 34% among U.S. a d u l t s , c o m p a re d with 23% of English adults. Smith also says that English adults are generally more physically active than Americans. Biking and walking are much more common in everyday life in England. He observes that “there is a lot of walking in London, and there is a lot of bicycle riding. I don’t see people in downtown Los Angeles on their bicycles.” On the other hand, England’s problem is that doctors fail to diagnose serious conditions early enough. American doctors tend to screen patients for cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses more frequently. Smith notes: “American medicine is much more aggressive. It leads to high costs, but it has benefits, too.” WHO also notes that England outranks the United States on some potentially deadlier risk factors: Higher percentages of Britons smoke, and English adults drink more liters of alcohol per person per year than their American counterparts. Deaths that are attributable to tobacco and alcohol are consequently higher in England. Higher percentages of English adults die from respiratory infections and diseases, cirrhosis of the liver, alcohol liver disease, and many forms of heart disease. “It’s pretty straightforward. If you smoke more, you will die sooner. And if you drink more, you’re more likely to get alcohol-related diseases,” says Daniel Epstein, a WHO communications officer. Aggressive diagnosis and intervention may be catching on in English medicine, however. Stephen Aguilar-Millan, director of research for the European Futures Observatory, points out that the National Health Service now guarantees every adult over 40 a wellness exam every six months. Doctors also offer every person 60 years old and older a free flu vaccination each

THE FUTURIST

A doctor walks a patient through her CAT scan results. While Americans receive earlier diagnoses than their English counterparts, they are less proactive in preventing chronic illness.

March-April 2011

World Trends & Forecasts

“The preventative element is starting to assume more of a role than the curative.” Stephen AguilarMillan, European Futures Observatory

fall and encourage all adults to join social networks, such as lunch clubs, that look out for their members’ health. “The preventative element is starting to assume more of a role than the curative,” says Aguilar-Millan. Smith notes that patients who look after their health not only live longer, but are also less costly to treat. He warns that the U.S. health system’s high expenditures on treating chronic conditions will not be sustainable over the long term. “We’ve gotten away with unhealthy lifestyles by spending a ton of money, but we can’t get away with spending five tons of money,” he says. —Rick Docksai Sources: James Smith (interview), RAND Corporation, www.rand.org. Daniel Epstein (interview), World Health Organization, www.who.int. Stephen Aguilar-Millan (interview), European Futures Observatory, www.eufo.org.

Families

Alarms Ring as Wedding Bells Do Not “Declining numbers [of married people] could reflect the passing of members of an older generation that had higher marriage rates.” Robert Groves, director, U.S. Census Bureau

THE FUTURIST

Trends in postponed marriages and births spark debate on economy’s role. Americans are waiting longer to marry, and household size declined between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Marriage is also declining among young people, the Bureau reports. The media have been quick to point to the 2008 recession as the key cause. “The United States crossed an important marital threshold in 2009, with the number of young adults who have never married surpassing, for the first time in more than a century, the number who were married,” Erik Eckholm of The New York Times reported. “A long-term decline in marriage accelerated during the severe recession, according to new data from the Census Bureau, with more couples postponing marriage and often choosing to cohabit

March-April 2011

without tying the knot,” he concluded. Meanwhile, the U.S. Center for Health Statistics has reported a 2.7% drop in fertility from 2008 to 2009, leading Marilynn Marchione of the Associated Press to comment, “The U.S. birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children. The 2009 birth rate also set a record: lowest in a century.” But, while the fertility drop is recent, it’s actually linked to a longer-term trend. The Pew Research Center reports that the number of American women who had ended their childbearing years without giving birth has doubled since 1970s, from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5. Childlessness rose among women without a high school diploma, which could be attributable to a bad economy. Another plausible explanation is the success of public information campaigns urging people to delay childbirth until after high school. Meanwhile, rates of childlessness declined by 32% for women with doctorate or professional degrees. But this group is still the least likely to have a child, according to Pew. A few researchers have cautioned that, while the economy may have played a role in some people waiting longer to wed or bear children, it is still too early to extrapolate a clear causal link between the bad economic environment of 2008 and 2009 and the recent marriage and childbearing statistics. Census Director Robert Groves, writing on his blog, noted, “Many factors can affect the estimates of the number and proportion of people currently married. For example, declining numbers could reflect the passing of members of an older generation that had higher marriage rates.” Pew recently reported that young adults (under 30) with a college degree had become more likely to marry than their peers without a degree, representing a reversal in favor of marriage among that group. Despite this, the overall marriage rate was still down among both degreed and nondegreed young adults. Pew points to what researchers call a clear “marriage gap” along economic lines. “Those in this less-advantaged group are as likely as others to want to marry, but

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World Trends & Forecasts they place a higher premium on economic security as a condition for marriage.” In sum, data from the last 10 years shows more Americans now waiting to marry, compared with a few years ago, but fewer college-educated Americans waiting than non-college educated. A drop-off in fertility occurred in 2008–2009 and was more pronounced among non-college educated women than for women with advanced degrees. The state of the U.S. economy may have been a factor in the drop-off in fertility, and an income-based “marriage gap” may be emerging. However, these trends could turn out to be a blip. A longer-term decline in marriage is seen in decades-old trends of fewer weddings among twenty-somethings and rising cohabitation arrangements in lieu of tying the knot. —Patrick Tucker Sources: The U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov. Stephanie Ventura, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov.

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Climate Change

Demographic Impacts On Climate Change Scenarios examine effects of population size, age, and migration on carbon emissions. Aging, urbanization, household size, and other changes in population trends all have impacts on energy consumption and, hence, greenhouse gas emissions. Simply slowing global population growth won’t solve the planet’s climate problems, although it will help, concludes a team of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Projecting ahead to 2050, the team’s study quantifies just how much demographic shifts could reduce or increase carbon emissions over the long term. The researchers used a global energy–economic growth metric called the Population- Environment-Technology (PET) model to build their scenarios and make their projections. The PET model arranges people into different household types based on factors such as size, age, and locale. The data sample covered close to two-thirds of the global population, spread across 34 countries. The research showed that, in general, fewer people means fewer emissions. Slowing population growth could reduce emissions by 16%–29%. “Aging and urbanization can [also] substantially influence emissions in particular world regions,” the authors write. Their projections show that, as an aging population leaves an industrialized country’s workforce (assuming people don’t postpone retirement), greenhouse gases are reduced. Conversely, they find that urbanization—people moving away from agricultural work in rural areas to seek industrial or technological work in urban areas—will increase emissions. In the years ahead, urbanization could increase emissions “by more than 25%, particularly in developing country regions.” Such an increase would be the direct result of changing consumer

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World Trends & Forecasts behaviors (people with more income buying more goods) as well as the indirect effect of a shifting labor supply. Generally, urbanization makes a greater difference in the developing world (particPHOTOS: UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH

ularly in China and India), whereas in the developed world, aging plays the larger role. The study’s authors express hope that the information will lead to better- informed policy decisions, and offer several ideas of their own. For example, many countries lack family planning and reproductive-health programs. Such services would significantly reduce the number of births in the developing world, thus reducing greenhouse gases. Economic development and education can also slow population growth in these regions, the study’s authors point out. “Understanding how demography may affect emissions helps us understand better the potential growth of emissions in the future,” says NCAR scientist Brian O’Neill, lead author of the study. —Aaron M. Cohen Sources: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, www2.ucar.edu. “Global demographic trends and future carbon emissions,” Brian O’Neill et al., Proceedings of the Na❑ tional Academy of Sciences, October 12, 2010.

An industrial power plant in Mexico. Demographic trends such as rural-tourban migration and changes in average household size are both directly and indirectly linked to carbon emissions.

A pollution-laden brown cloud associated with Denver, Colorado, appears over the smaller nearby city of Boulder. A global energy– economic growth model shows that increased u rbanization can lead to an increase in carbon emissions.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

A Special Message from the President of the World Future Society

Because the Future Matters… Dear Reader,

The World Future Society Needs You ... because the more complex that the future becomes, the more minds we need at work: • scanning the horizon, • scouting the opportunities and risks ahead, • envisioning inspiring possibilities, • deliberating and debating alternative scenarios, and • leading the teams that will build better futures not just for ourselves, but also for the generations to come. For nearly half a century, members of the World Future Society have supported the publications, resources, research, and networking opportunities that have helped develop the field of futures studies. Over the years, we have expanded the foresight capabilities of leaders in government, business, academia, and civil society; enabled people from all walks of life to come to terms with rapidly accelerating change and create better futures for their families and businesses; and promoted the more specialized work performed by professional futurists. As we look to our own future, the Society is now faced with the challenge of expanding its mission to more people via new media ventures and education initiatives. Our goals include: • Building a better Web community for members, with easier access to futures materials and connections to colleagues around the world. • Creating a dynamic network of futurist groups at the local level, enabling communities, villages, schools, and organizations to collectively envision and build sustainable futures. • Developing a meta-curriculum of futures studies that enables foresight to be incorporated into all classroom studies and learning activities. • Cultivating young futurists by providing resources, networking opportunities, and other support through the Global Youth Foresight program. • Improving the training and education of both professional futurists and those who need to incorporate futuring methodologies in their own professional activities or personal pursuits. But our goals cannot be met without your support, and membership dues alone cannot sustain the future we hope to achieve.

8 Ways You Can Help the World Future Society

1. Make a generous, tax-deductible donation to the Society. Donors are gratefully acknowledged in THE FUTURIST each year, and those who donate student scholarships for the conference are also acknowledged in the conference program. Donate online at www.wfs.org/support 2. Volunteer your expertise in fund-raising, grant-writing, sponsorship sales, and partnership program development. Contact me, Tim Mack, at tmack@wfs.org or 301-656-8274. 3. Renew your membership—NOW! Not a member? Join now, for just $59 a year. Learn more here: www.wfs.org/renew 4. Consider giving gift memberships to all your friends, family, neighbors, clients, colleagues, mentors, and mentees. The first gift is $59, and the rest are just $47 each: www.wfs.org/gifts 5. Consider giving gift student memberships, just $20 a year each for fulltime students under age 25. 6. Become an Institutional Member, enabling your organization to receive all publications produced by the Society and special assistance in finding resources and making connections tailored to meet your needs. Learn more at www.wfs.org/benefits 7. Become a Professional Member, entitling you to a subscription to World Future Review and invitations to the annual Professional Members’ Forum, in addition to all the other benefits of Society membership. Learn more at www.wfs.org/professional 8. Register for WorldFuture 2011, to be held July 8-10 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. There is no better place to express your own ideas and pick up new ones. Register online at www.wfs.org/worldfuture-2011 And there are many other ways that you can help spread the word about the World Future Society and its mission, resources, and activities: • Sign up to receive Futurist Update, the World Future Society’s free monthly e-mail newsletter, and share it with your own network of co-workers, friends, family, or clients: www.wfs.org/content/futurist-update • Follow the Society on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, ResearchGATE, and other social-networking venues. • Join a local group of futurists to participate in book discussions, lectures, field trips, and other activities. Learn more about futurist groups, in both the real and virtual worlds, at www.wfs.org/chapters By taking action now, you will help the Society to sustain the services we have, develop new and useful services and products, promote educational efforts, and support the work of practicing futurists. With a general public educated to the benefits of futures studies, the field can only grow stronger—more people and organizations will recognize the critical need for foresight, because the future matters. Thank you for your support—now and in the future! Take care,

Tim Mack President tmack@wfs.org

By Frank W. Maletz

From Hospital to “Healthspital”: Hospitals should not simply be places where people go to get well (or, worse, where they go to die). Future hospitals could become wellness information centers and proactive partners in community well-being, says a practicing orthopedic surgeon.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

A Better Paradigm for Health Care I

s health-care delivery in the United States so broken that it cannot be repaired, remediated, rejuvenated, reformed, or reorganized? Should all existing delivery mechanisms be torn down so we can start from scratch? My unequivocal answer is no to creative destruction, but creative rethinking is imperative. Nowhere on the planet is there a “perfect delivery system” for health-care modeling. In the United States, what is currently called a “system” is certainly not one in the sense of an ecosystem—i.e., controlled, sustainable, natural, with known inputs and outputs, with precise and defined resources and resource management, and with holistic feedback loops. There should also be within the ecosystem a balanced and proportionate response to all perturbations. A health-delivery system requires open adjustability. The current U.S. health-delivery system does have many strengths: strong expertise at universities and other research hubs. Its free-market structure for product development and dissemination is inventive and innovative. Its safety is ensured through oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and organizations such as the Joint Commission. The robust National Institutes of Health provides funding and research prioritization. We now also have the social networking tools (wikis, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like) to deploy seamless and remarkable change on the magnitude of a paradigm shift. But the biggest asset of the current system is the network of 5,010 com-

munity hospitals that deliver care to unique individuals locally, one provider to one patient in need, day or night, weekend or holiday. Thus, the United States already has the fundamental building blocks for a strong, personalized health-care-delivery system. So what else is needed? Goals for Health: Elements of A Redesigned Approach According to the Institute of Medicine report “Cross the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century,” the U.S. healthcare system should strive to effect the following changes: • Redesign care processes. • Make effective use of information technology (IT). • Improve knowledge and skills management. • Develop effective teams. • Coordinate care across patient condition, service, and settings. • Use performance and outcome measurement for continuous quality improvement and accountability. Reforming health care is a ubiquitous topic in the national dialogue because of the amount of resources that health consumes—16% of GDP. For all the ideas and opinions brought forth, however, all we seem to get is more GDP devoted to the problem, with partial solutions that get traction, then fizzle, doing little to improve quality or reduce the chaos in the system. Then the blame game begins: Rising costs are the “fault” of providers, or of insurers, attorneys, pharmaceutical and product companies, patient demands and

expectations, for-profit hospitals, or government leaders who lack will. It is time now for a true health renaissance, with constructive, holistic, integral, paradigm-shifting thinking and action. I believe that, until we can fix the delivery systems, we cannot begin to correct the reimbursement mechanisms. What We Already Know About Health First, we know that prevention is more cost-effective than treatment. Emergency-room visits are more expensive than routine maintenance. Chronic disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, strokes, and renal failure consume an inordinate share of health-care dollars. Smoking cigarettes is bad. Obesity and nutritional deficiencies are epidemic. Fruitless, futile care at the end of life dominates a large proportion of the Medicare allocation. Reckless behaviors are responsible for much loss of productive and functional young lives. Cure and precision diagnosis are much more desired than mere control, maintenance, or palliation. We also know that waste and redundancy in a paper-based information system have extraordinary costs both in real dollars and in time that could be allocated much more productively. A systematized, constantly updated, searchable, linkable database available at each point of care would reduce waste, repetition, redundancy, and the tendency for hand-off errors. Care could then be coordinated among all providers. THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

On the positive side, we know that workers who are healthy function more productively. Jobs, income, and reliable, portable health-insurance benefits add to security and productivity. Happy, contented people live longer and better, and many people already spend huge amounts of money on a host of programs to improve their health and well-being. We know that regular exercise, especially aerobic, improves clarity, mental functioning, and wellness. Having a meaningful, fulfilled, goaldirected life and trying to contribute to society also increase longevity. And meeting our basic needs, including shelter, nutrition, and clothing, and maintaining appropriate levels of stress, balance, and moderation, are essential ingredients for physical and mental well-being. Thus, the goal is not simply to eliminate sickness or delay death. We must take a much more holistic and expansive view of health care that embraces wellness and enrichment, a view that is flexible and that adopts the best practice from moment to moment. Hospitals Today Hospitals and sanitaria were developed to house the sick and treat or quarantine the diseased, deformed, or demented. Today, care is usually delivered locally to one patient by one provider at a time. Community hospitals provide the vast majority of the contact visits. Patients are generally not fluent in health-related matters, and this lack of understanding leads to major compliance failures with best advice and recommendations. Providers are not infallible. Patient problems are inherently complex, and there are many unknowns. Medicine itself is becoming more complex. Natural healing using biological, biochemical, and immunologic enhancing remedies will function more predictably than artificial implants, prosthetics, xenograft replacements, and the like, but we are on the verge of advanced treatments with nanotechnology, bioengineering, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, stem cells, and immunomodulation. Such advances bring us 18

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

closer to cures and disease elimination. Hospitals could do more to experimentally model an integrated, holistic health-delivery system that effects a real shift. They would collate the best research and brilliant idea production; incorporate the best of wellness, well-being, natural, and alternative options; improve oversight of chronic debilitating conditions; and mobilize and coordinate effective preventive strategies. We have the tools to craft a better more healthful future and enable more-productive lives for everyone on the planet. The first step does not require much more than a creative paradigm shift in thinking and approach—a paradigm I call Healthspital 2.0.TM Elements for Integration The biggest need is for data and information management. The needs for privacy and confidentiality of health information have not disappeared in the age of social networking, with people’s growing desire to be heard, noticed, and connected. Thus, rather than locking down all health information as a matter of privacy, we need to reconstruct laws regarding inappropriate use of data, such as in the discriminatory use of genetic information. Seamless availability and transfer of health knowledge allows in-depth knowledge of confounding variables, reduces redundancy, and potentially eliminates hand-off errors. A computerized health “passport” would serve as a template and allow interconnectivity, not just benefiting the patient, but also allowing broader public-health research to be performed. This systemization of information would be able to highlight best outcomes and best practices through true tracking and social networking. The Healthspital model also requires more-effective use of expert systems. With integrated data management, experts could render opinions from afar on questions within the database. Doctors and other practitioners would have access to remote monitoring, enabling them to render remote advice. They could

find answers to questions and discover best practices, as well as share their own discoveries, ideas, and best practices. Innovation could be instantly disseminated globally. Patients and families will more easily engage with extensive information and support networks, and self-education would expand. Healthspitals in the Community Each Healthspital would appreciate the norms, mores, and expectations of the community it serves on issues such as end-of-life ministrations. Dialogue could begin in earnest regarding hospice services. Part of the Healthspital’s mission could be to celebrate each patient as a life well lived, honoring individual care preferences during life-and-death decision making. Throughout the community, such openness would reenergize relationships between younger and older generations and promote mutual caring, which would contribute to the curing function across the health-care continuum. The Healthspitals’ integrated delivery system at the community level would allow a much truer triage at emergency departments. As these are often the places of first resort for patients with all levels of care needs, a system-wide approach to triage would help refer all patients to the appropriate (and often less expensive) level of care. This would lessen the issue of “dumping” and allow tracking of referral patterns to provide a feedback mechanism for improving triage throughout the system. A Healthspital 2.0 approach could proactively intervene against negative health modulators such as smoking, impaired driving, and other reckless behaviors and would promote modifications. Healthspitals would also assess and promote healthy lifestyles, such as appropriate nutrition and exercise regimens. Using personal monitoring devices for walks would allow people to compile and monitor their health via a database, which would be accessible to their physicians as well as to researchers tracking public-health trends.

Healthspital 2.0 would, by virtue of eliminating redundancy and improving health, allow huge savings from current health-care expenditures. These savings could be re invested into promoting more healthful programs such as building walking trails, biking areas, parks, and local organic farms. Public health and wellness would thus become self-sustaining. Once the Healthspital is fully functional, true reform of medical malpractice would be possible, as errors would decline and overall health of the community would be improved. Also, the integration would allow risk sharing across the system, which would require understanding the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders, from patients to the Healthspital personnel, all of whom are truly invested in providing and maintaining the health of the entire community—the health ecosystem. Barriers to the Healthspital Paradigm Professor Randy Pausch, in The Last Lecture (Hyperion, 2008), taught that barriers are put in front of us to see how much we want what is beyond them. Here are some of the challenges facing the Healthspital 2.0 paradigm. • Legal issues: Many modifications of current laws will be needed, especially in the areas of information use and availability at point of care. Issues that will need to be addressed include HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), patient dumping, conflict of interest, and discrimination. HIPAA, in particular, was originally enacted as a privacy guard. I contend that the American population is more comfortable sharing personal health-care information than current legislation indicates, so long as they have confidence that the information will be used responsibly. With 500 million people already utilizing Facebook, I believe the vast majority of people (therefore, patients) would make health-related data available to providers and researchers in the interests of preserving health. • Financial issues: Compared with building a new hospital, the

Healthspital model offers potentially tremendous cost savings, but care must be taken that these savings are reinvested into more healthful projects rather than shifted to various nonhealth-related special interests. • Political issues: The creation of the Healthspital 2.0 concept will require substantial commitment, investment, and will on the part of politicians. The paradigm shift is monumental, so it is certainly appropriate to work at the experimental project level where results can be analyzed in terms of cost savings and improved health care. However, politicians with appropriate foresight would also be helpful in providing leadership and serving as champions for concepts such as this. • Educational issues: As with all major changes, educational ramifications of a health system paradigm shift are tremendous. Health awareness should be taught at the earliest levels, starting in pre-school. Science and nutritional coursework throughout formal schooling is imperative, as well as example setting. Patients currently receiving treatment in the older delivery model will need tools that the local community Healthspital will provide. Lifelong education could thus enable individuals to become more involved in their own health future, allowing them to assist responsibly in the delivery of care to themselves and family members. • Punitive and unconstructive programs: Bashing and the blame game must be eliminated throughout the health-delivery system. No one—individual or institution— functions well with a stick at the back. The current pay-for-performance model does not allow the raising of all boats toward improvement, but rather widens the gap between the great performers and the health programs and systems that are performing poorly. Building a Healthspital Model I currently work at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in southeastern Connecticut, a 250-bed community hospital. We serve a number of employers and on the continuum of care from birth to death, from neo

natal intensive care to skilled nursing facilities, and with a robust hospice presence. We care for patients in 10 counties, and our primary service area includes both the destitute and the wealthy. We are regional, and our facility would be a perfect venue for an experimental design incorporating any and all of the above suggestions. How would this work? First and foremost, it would be an experiment requiring bright investigators to provide oversight and analysis of data. All elements of health care and wellness should be incorporated. Every member of the community in the 10 primary service areas should be enrolled, and a swipe-card passport developed such that, at any point of care, information is standardized. Any and all good ideas would be welcomed for inclusion in a central repository of ideas and best practices. Through instant messaging, such bright ideas would be disseminated throughout the system for consideration, and this would assure e‑quality. No person requiring care or requesting information would get anything less than the best available. Funding sources would include venture capitalists, information system vendors, federal government pilot project or American Hospital Association new investigator sources. Pilot projects shown to work effectively would merge databases and coalesce into a national or even global health-delivery ecosystem, addressing the big five issues of waste and redundancy, expensive access, prevention, chronic disease management, and fruitless ministrations at end-of-life. ❑

About the Author Frank W. Maletz, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in spine and trauma at the Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in East Lyme, Connecticut. For more information about the Healthspital 2.0TM concept, please contact the author, e‑mail malfam5@aol.com. He will also speak on this topic at WorldFuture 2011: Moving from Vision to Action in Vancouver. For more information, see page 60.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Health Insurance in America Herson and After the Reform ByDavidJayPearce Snyder If for-profit health insurers find that business is too unprofitable under the new law, where will Americans find affordable coverage? One solution may rise from the nonprofit sector led by credit unions, which have already demonstrated an ability to keep up with for-profit banks.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

he primary objective of President Obama’s 2009 health care reform initiative was to provide health insurance for an estimated 46 million people who did not have it. The Act requires insurers not to reject coverage on the basis of preexisting health conditions, and it requires all citizens to purchase health insurance or to pay a tax should they decline to purchase. Omitted from the final version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), passed in March 2010, was the so-called “public option,” a government-run health insurance program designed to compete with profit-making companies. Legislation notwithstanding, it has generally been marketplace forces—

not government interventions—that have shaped the U.S. future, so we shall examine how these market forces will create a new source of competition for the health-insurance market: nonprofit organizations. Health Insurance Forecast to 2030 Under the 2010 health care reform legislation, the health-insurance business is expected to become less attractive for investor-owned public insurance companies. This will especially be the case if courts decide that requiring citizens to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. More particularly, insurers’ inability to reject applicants or to cap the benefits (or even terminate the poli-

Should the Reform Be Reformed? Conventional post-election wisdom holds that, in spite of heavy rhecies) of patients incurring serious and costly illtorical assault, the 2010 health insurance reforms will survive the new nesses will make health Congress largely intact. Since conventional political wisdom is right only insurance increasingly half the time, this offers little assurance. However, the predictable demounattractive as a profitgraphic and economic realities underlying the coming decade will be sufmaking business. As forprofit insurers exit the afficient, by themselves, to produce the sequence of developments summafordable health insurance rized in this article—even if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care market, nonprofit instituAct (PPACA) were to be overturned. tions may step up to meet Without PPACA’s constraints, for-profit insurers can be expected to inconsumer demand. There are already a crease premiums in line with health-care providers’ costs, which are risnumber of nonprofit oring at two to four times the rate of the Consumer Price Index. At the ganizations that serve same time, the United States will experience a 50% increase in the “highlarge pools of people, maintenance” over-65 patient population—plus the retirement of the such as credit unions, baby boomers, who represent one-third of the nation’s current caregivwhich may offer their members health insurers—just as the nation passes through five to seven years of projected ance. These programs stagnant income growth, chronic high unemployment, fiscal deleveragwould be administered ing, and shrinking public-sector budgets. by large data-processing Absent the PPACA reforms, with each passing year a growing percentorganizations similar to those that currently have age of U.S. households will simply be unable to afford the premiums set service contracts with Soby for-profit insurers. Nonprofits would emerge naturally to fill the cial Security, Medicare, growing unmet marketplace need. and Medicaid and other In short, PPACA will largely serve to facilitate and accelerate the adapstate-run programs. tive free-market behavior that is almost certain to occur in the austere cirThere are now approximately 7,800 credit cumstances that will confront most Americans for the foreseeable future. unions (CUs) in the —David Pearce Snyder United States, including federally insured, state insured, and self-insured institutions. These serve tens of millions of members and hold hundreds of billions of dollars in assets, which ready in existence—could serve a number of providers (doctors, hospiincreased significantly during the re- critical mass of insured, taking ad- tals) accepting the insurance would vantage of their existing institutional increase and the insurance coverage cent banking crisis. Credit unions should have little infrastructure such as data process- would become more attractive to the concern about competing with for- ing and electronic funds transfer. public and employers. The nonprofit organizations offerprofit insurance companies since The CUs would initially offer lowthey have been competing with the cost health insurance primarily tar- ing health insurance would by no for-profit banks for the past 75 years. geted at the uninsured. However, means be limited to CUs. New Health insurance would be a logical people insured with individual poli- health insurance companies can be extension of providing low-cost ser- cies or group insurance might also created by all sorts of nonprofits vices to members, as well as an ex- choose CU health insurance as an al- banding together to represent a suffitension of their current offerings of ternative. In fact, employers could ciently large pool of insured. For exoffer CU health insurance as a bene- ample, public radio and TV stations health savings accounts. Interstate cooperatives of CUs—al- fit. As insured pools increase, the could unite to form insurance THE FUTURIST

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groups, as could university alumni associations or retirement funds such as the Texas Teachers Retirement System and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). The 2010 health care reform act provides for subsidies to people who cannot afford to purchase health insurance. Presumably, these subsidies could be used to purchase the nonprofit health insurance described above. Federal subsidies, however, may be insufficient for some families to afford health insurance. Should this be the case, there will be pressure on the states to provide subsidies. Some states may be more progressive than others in helping citizens get the necessary coverage, and those that do not provide a path to health insurance may see a dwindling labor supply as workers and businesses move to more progressive states. Under the health reform act, state health insurance programs will become a tool of economic development policy. Scenarios for Nonprofit Health Insurance Much of the foregoing discussion is, admittedly, speculative. The following are four possible scenarios, plus a most-likely scenario, that could emerge if nonprofits began a process of providing health insurance as a consequence of the sweeping, congressionally mandated reform. 1. Business as Usual. Although a nonprofit initiative is widely discussed, actual health insurance policies issued by credit unions and other nonprofits never get off the ground as Congress comes to a stalemate over legislation that would enable it. Perhaps because of intense lobbying by for-profit health insurance companies, Congress eliminates some aspects of the Act. Proposals for state-run, high-risk insurance pools to merge over state lines and provide expanded coverage are also widely discussed, but fail to get the approval of state legislatures due to budget constraints and problems foreseen in governance. Meanwhile, health-care costs continue to rise rapidly, and, as premiums charged 22

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by for-profit health insurers soar, more people are forced to abandon their coverage; there are growing lines at public health clinics for minimal care. 2. At Least We Tried. Credit unions launch several health-insurance companies, but they fail to enroll enough people fast enough to sustain the enterprise. Although subsidies from state government and charities do materialize, interest dwindles because of failing CU health insurance initiatives and a declining sense of urgency, in spite of the fact that tens of millions of Americans remain uninsured. 3. Nonprofits Succeed. The demand is so great that credit-unionbased health insurance takes off, and 30 states create funds to subsidize premiums for those who qualify. The success of the first CU groups creates the experience base for other groups to be quickly formed. Competition is healthy for all. By 2030, 93% of the U.S. population has some form of health insurance—40% from nonprofits and 53% from public company health insurance and government agencies. 4. Watch What You Wish For. After 10 years of success, CU health insurance becomes commonplace and a workplace standard. However, with the increased visibility that comes with success, fraud among providers and patients is making headlines. This causes a drop in governmental and charity subsidies for premiums. The existing CU insurance companies feel they need to grow more, and mergers begin taking place. This reduces the amount of competition and consumer choice. To compete, some of the remaining CU insurance companies decide that they can reduce costs and attract more members by actually becoming direct health-care providers, ultimately building (or buying) their own medical facilities. This leads some of the CU insurers to go public and, thus, cease to be nonprofit. By 2030, the medical insurance industry has begun to look the way it did in 2010. 5. Most-Likely Scenario. The most-likely scenario for the next 20 years lies somewhere between scenarios 3 and 4 above. By 2030, population demographics will make sce-

narios 1 and 2 politically unviable. Although scenario 4 is possible, the pendulum never swings completely back. While most Americans are likely to be covered by private and government health insurance in 2030, there will continue to be a need for the nonprofit alternatives described here. Still, barring further legislative intervention, it seems unlikely that more than 93% of the population will have health insurance in 2030. Amtrak emerged when private railroads did not want to continue providing passenger service. Rural electric cooperatives emerged when it was not profitable for private industry to provide power to rural areas. Similarly, some form of cooperative health insurance is likely to emerge to fill the void created by omission of a public option in the health insurance reform. It is difficult to forecast beyond the year 2030, but the information, comm u n i c a t i o n , a n d h e a l t h - c a r e - management technologies that exist by 2050 should make a single-payer system easy to implement and the only logical way to provide quality health care to the U.S. population. Out of necessity, nonprofit organizations will pave the way to 2050. ❑

Herson

Snyder

About the Authors Jay Herson is a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and managing editor of FutureTakes. E-mail jay.herson@earthlink.net. David Pearce Snyder is a consulting futurist and principal of The Snyder Family Enterprise and THE FUTURIST’s contributing editor for Lifestyles. E-mail david_ snyder@verizon.net. This article draws from and updates their essay in the World Future Society’s 2010 conference volume, Strategies and Technologies for a Sustainable Future (WFS, 2010, 450 pages), which may be ordered from www.wfs.org/wfsbooks for $29.95 ($24.95 for Society members).

Could Medical Tourism Aid Health-Care Delivery? By Prema Nakra Medical tourism—wherein patients seek more affordable or specialized treatment outside their home countries— represents a major challenge for health-care delivery in developed countries such as the United States. It also offers an opportunity to integrate and improve medical delivery globally.

ealth care has long been one of the most local of all industries, but in today’s world, people, information, ideas, and technologies are increasingly crossing national borders. The move to “go global” is such a strong force that hardly any human activity is exempt from its impact. Medical tourism, an outgrowth of the globalization of services, has

emerged as an innovative, bordercrossing industry, and many developing countries are poised to take advantage of this opportunity. But this opportunity also represents a challenge to health-care-delivery systems in developed countries such as the United States. U.S. health-care costs, already an estimated $2 trillion a year, are predicted to double in the coming

JAMES BENET / RYAN BURKE / ISTOCKPHOTO

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decade. By 2020, health-care spending is projected to consume 21% of U.S. GDP, compared with 16% of GDP in other developed countries. Today, more than 40 governments are involved in supporting medical tourism, and the number is growing each year. The medical community in developed countries has started to recognize medical tourism as a real phenomenon with significant impacts on both practitioners and patients. Yet “medical tourism” is not a phrase that has come up openly in the U.S. debate on health-care reform. Just after the 2011 Patient Protect i o n a n d A ff o rd a b l e C a re A c t (PPACA) was passed, President Obama signed into law the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, which made a number of significant changes to the PPACA. According to Chris Brandt and Michael Cohen of Deloitte Consulting, these reforms represent one of the most significant disruptive events for U.S. health-care providers in the last century. Key challenges that providers will face due to this reform include: • Estimating the potential impact of increased coverage and associated revenues on profit margins. • Reviewing the operational capacity to ascertain whether or not the providers can respond to the pent-up demand from the newly insured. • Handling the approximately 32 million people added to the list of those seeking primary medical care, typically provided by an internist or family-care physician. A nationwide shortage of doctors—projected by the American Academy of Family Physicians to reach 40,000 primary-care physicians by 2020—may eventually mean long hours in the waiting rooms at busy clinics, less quality time available with doctors in examining rooms, and emergency rooms packed with patients who couldn’t find physicians elsewhere. For past 30 years, the United States has relied heavily on foreignborn and foreign-educated doctors to help meet the demand for healthcare services. About a quarter of all physicians now practicing in the United States came from other coun24

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tries. In 2007, more than 38% of U.S. family-medicine residents were international medical graduates, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. If medical tourism continues to grow at its current rate, recruiting foreign-born physicians and nursing staff to the United States will become more challenging. In 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges recommended that medical schools increase their student enrollment 30% by 2015 in order to address the nation’s growing shortage of physicians. No matter what shape the current health-care reform takes or how it is

“If medical tourism continues to grow at its current rate, recruiting foreign-born physicians and nursing staff to the United States will become more challenging.” implemented, health-care costs in the United Sates will continue to increase and consume more of the public’s discretionary spending. By 2017, as many as 23 million Americans could be traveling internationally and spending almost $79 billion per year for medical/surgical care, according to a 2008 report from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Stated differently, if these predictions are correct, U.S. health-care providers stand to lose $79 billion per year to medical tourism. If the gap between the cost of major medical procedures performed in the United States and other countries continues to grow, low-cost providers will capture a larger share of the market for complex surgical procedures. Top U.S. health-services managers, policy makers, and physician and surgeon groups appear to be strategically unprepared for globalization in the health-care services industry and the resulting international competition. When patients travel out of the country for surgical care and then re-

turn home, they need follow-up care. Their providers are then faced with such challenges as the unavailability of adequate medical records and the potential of complications after their patients’ overseas surgeries. The issue of adequately reimbursing the surgeons providing the follow-up care also remains unsolved. Turning “Medical Tourism” into Globalized Health The medical-tourism industry has introduced new business models to deal with global health-care challenges. These business models are bringing about significant changes in the way that governments around the world deal with financing hospitals, recruiting physicians, reimbursing health-care providers, and building adequate health-care systems for current and future generations. It is time for policy makers in the United States and other developed countries to embrace medical tourism: It could save money by taking advantage of more-efficient healthcare systems outside the country, while also enabling providers to learn from the best practices in this increasingly globalizing industry. Globalization and medical tourism are changing the health-care landscape in industrialized and developing countries alike. A “globalized health system” of the future should include international networks of highly specialized, virtually connected providers, organized around mid-sized district hospitals that function as planning, management, and communication hubs to offer a v a r i e t y o f l o c a l , c o m m u n i t y - oriented, preventive, and curative services. Medical tourism is largely a consumer-driven trend. In order to survive and thrive, the health-delivery industry must keep up with its consumers’ demands and needs. ❑ About the Author Prema Nakra is a professor of marketing at the School of Management, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601. E-mail prema.nakra@marist.edu.

Bike to the Future

By Kenneth W. Harris Maximizing public health will be a great challenge, but bicycling could be a big part of the solution. A policy analyst and lifelong cyclist identifies the trends that are encouraging more people than ever to bike on a regular basis—and a few obstacles that bicycling will have to overcome.

bicycled a lot from about ages 9 to 15. Though I biked little after I got my driver’s license at age 16, I took up biking again in my 30s and continued into my 60s. I am going to tell you about 10 trends that are supporting increased bicycling now and will probably continue to do so, as well as five potential obstacles to increased bicycling. 1. More rider-friendly bicycles. Aided by the continuing revolutions in information and materials technology, manufacturers are offering a wide range of bicycles designed to overcome problems many riders have with conventional bicycles designed for the serious competitive or fitness cyclist. Bicycles with electric motors increase the length of trips for which the bicycle is a feasible transport mode. Riders have their choice of pedal or electric power. For example, the Sanyo Eneloop looks and operates like a standard bicycle until you press a Above: Mom and daughter bike together on the Capital Crescent Trail through Bethesda, Maryland. Projected growth in the popularity of biking may in part be due to the increased athleticism of girls and women over recent decades.

PHOTOS: C. G. WAGNER / WFS

Bikers brake for cherry blossoms in early spring. Doctors have long urged individuals to get more exercise, and communities are doing more to promote residents’ physical activity.

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button on the left handlebar that activates a 250-watt motor powered by a lithium-ion battery. Folding bicycles reduce problems in transporting and storing bicycles. There are now several models, such as the Xootr Swift, which are standard-size bikes but can be folded up and packed into suitcases. Some bicycles, like the Trek Lime and other folding and electric-assist models, are intended purely for local transportation or for adult riders taking up cycling for the first time since childhood. The three-geared Lime does the gear shifting for you with an automatic shifting system called “coasting.” You stop it with the coaster brakes many of us knew as children. It also has a full chain guard to keep grease from the chain off your clothes or bare legs. Now, companies like Denver’s Gates Corporation are offering even more elegant solutions to the problem of grease stains on riders’ clothes—polyethylene belt-drive systems that substitute for chains and require no lubrication.

XOOTR

Bikes are getting easier to carry around, says Harris. The Xootr Swift, featured above, is one of several bikes that you can fold up and store inside a bag or suitcase.

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C. G. WAGNER / WFS

Recumbent bicycle built for two: an example of increasingly rider-friendly technology that may encourage more cyclists in the future.

If you simply can’t stand not to be connected while you ride, you can now buy a weatherproof handlebar mount for your iPhone. Recumbent bicycles have become increasingly popular, mainly because riders don’t experience the same chronic back and neck pain as they do when they ride upright bicycles. There are even handpowered recumbent bicycles for riders who have lost use of their legs. 2. New bicycle infrastructure. The infrastructure development necessary to support a major modal shift toward bicycle and walking transportation is taking place, as envisioned in a Rails-to-Trails Conservancy study titled Active Transportation for America, partly with public support and partly as a result of market forces. The change is taking place relatively quickly in Europe and gradually in the United States. Dedicated bicycle traffic lanes are a key element of bicycling infrastructure. When I was in Amsterdam in 2009, I was impressed by the extensive network of bike lanes in that city and by the large number of cyclists using the lanes. The system even included special traffic lights for bikers. I learned to watch for both bicycles and cars when I crossed the street, and I found that bicyclists there were no more forgiving of pedestrians than car drivers are in the United States. Cities and towns throughout the United States are creating designated bike lanes on streets and highways.

Downtown Washington, D.C., now has 50 miles of designated bike lanes, including lengths of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the city plans to expand the network to 80 miles. Chicago and Portland, Oregon, also have extensive networks of bicycle lanes and plan major expansions. Secure parking facilities are just as necessary for bicycles as for cars. During my visit to Amsterdam, I was impressed by the huge bike parking area near the main railway station. I don’t believe there is any bike parking facility of that magnitude yet in the United States, but there are plenty of small-scale facilities, such as the bike racks and lockers at Washington’s Metro stations. Of course, if we are to make ourselves dependent on bike transport, we need convenient places to rent bicycles, just as we can easily rent cars at airports and hotels. Such bike rental programs are coming into existence. The best-known one is Paris’s Velib, which makes 15,000 bicycles available for rent at 1,000 stations. In the United States, there are bike rental programs in Washington, D.C., and Irvine, California. There are slight variations in operation, but you rent the bicycles by paying an annual subscription fee or with a credit card for a short period of time, much as you would rent a car from Zipcar. Some hotels now offer bike rentals to their guests. Some employers are also providing needed bicycling infrastructure, such as showers, changing facilities, and wellness programs

that offer financial incentives for weight loss.

3. Medical community advice to exercise. As we have heard for

many years, medical authorities are urging everyone to exercise more. They cite a growing body of scientific evidence that regular exercise prevents or mitigates a wide variety of health disorders, especially obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, substance abuse, and mild emotional and psychological disorders. Bicycling is a particularly good way to exercise because you can use your bike for transport or purely recreational purposes. Furthermore, many people will not get enough exercise for good health unless they bike to work or to and from errands, or otherwise set aside some of their leisure time for biking or another form of exercise. The medical advice for people to exercise more has promoted cycling among what used to be considered the geriatric set. National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) data show that the percentage of Americans aged 45–65 participating in cycling has grown steadily from 11.4% in 1993 to 20.2% in 2009, while participation by Americans 65 and older increased from 4.4% to 5.0%. 4. Believe it or not, people have more leisure time. A study by the

N a t i o n a l B u re a u o f E c o n o m i c Research concluded that Americans of working age had an average of more than 35 hours per week of leisure in 2003 (compared with 31 hours in 1965), even excluding time spent in necessary personal care, sleeping, and paid employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Use Survey shows that Americans over age 15 spent 5.25 hours daily on purely leisure activities in 2009—including 2.82 hours watching TV— but only about 20 minutes a day on sports and exercise. The Time Use Survey also shows that leisure time is becoming more and more fragmented, and while people do have more leisure time than they think they do, they aren’t getting out much more. Now, watching television and bicycling are no longer mutually exclusive activities. In January 2010, Nintendo released an exercise bike called the Cyberbike

to go with its Wii video game system. The game features 18 levels and allows people to compete with friends and other bike riders around the world remotely. Because it is a home bike, it offers an extra level of convenience for people who feel time-stressed (even though they actually do have the time to exercise). 5. Changing laws, regulations, and social attitudes. Participation in

sports and exercise used to be considered an activity only for young males, especially upper-class males. No more! Thanks to changing laws, regulations, and social attitudes, women’s and girls’ participation has dramatically increased. In the United States, the biggest factor contributing to more women exercising has been the passage and enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This required schools and colleges to offer equal access to sports participation for females. School and college sports participation by women and girls subsequently increased from 300,000 when the law was passed to more than 3 million today. I believe the increase in female participation in school and college sports for more than a generation has helped create an attitude that adult women should participate more in sports and fitness activities, including biking, after high school or college. NSGA data show that cycling is still male dominated, but a significant minority of women participate. Since 1993, more than 50% of men and 40% of women have participated in cycling annually. 6. Charities and others organize bike rides. Participating to finish en-

durance athletic events rather than competing to win has become a new ethic, and charities are taking advantage. They organize many athletic events, including bike rides to raise money, and thousands participate. Prominent health foundations, such as the American Lung Association, the Arthritis Foundation, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, sponsor a lot of rides. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society chapters sponsor about 100 bike rides annually throughout the United States. I learned about the MS rides when my daughter became

special-events coordinator for the Washington chapter of the MS Society. I participated in several of their rides. One memory I will always have was one year at the start there was a young man crippled with MS sitting on a chair. Beneath him was a sign, “Your legs help mine!” That’s effective marketing! I bet it brought a lot of people back the next year. There are many other rides organized to promote the areas where they take place. A great example is the annual Seagull Century that takes place each fall on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The 100-kilometer (62 miles) ride starts and ends at Salisbury State University in Salisbury. I have participated several times and have been continually amazed by the extent of participation. In 2009, 8,300 riders from 39 states and Canada participated. 7. Popularity of exercise vacations, especially bike touring. Exer-

cise vacations have become popular, and one of the most attractive options is bicycle touring. Many companies offer guided bicycle tours. Typically, the tour companies lay out the routes, rent the bicycles if participants don’t bring their own, provide mechanical support, carry the riders’ luggage in support vehicles, and arrange the riders’ meals and lodging, which range from rustic to luxurious. I have been on several that involve biking from country inn to country inn. The tours cover a wide range of distances. Some circle around small parts of a state, like the Vermont Bicycle Touring’s Champlain Valley and Islands Tour in Vermont. Others tour across the entire United States, like the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier tour from San Diego, California, to St. Augustine, Florida. 8. Creation of rail trails. A significant development for biking and other forms of exercise in the United States has been the creation of rail trails. Today, there are more than 1,600 rail trails extending 19,000 miles, with another 9,000 miles planned, compared with only 200 in 1986. Much of the rail trail mileage is in urban areas, where most Americans live. These trails are on abandoned railroad rights-of-way or on THE FUTURIST

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rights-of-way shared with intra-city freight rail or intra-urban light-rail transport. The climate for creation of these trails has been highly favorable. The U.S. railroad network shrank from its peak size of 270,000 miles in 1916 to about 140,000 miles currently as a result of substitution of trucks for rail freight transportation, as well as railway consolidations and mergers. These industry shifts left thousands of miles of railroad rights-of-way unused. Because the parcels of land included in these rights-of-way would be difficult to reassemble if they ever were needed for rail transport again, Congress passed the Rails-to-Trails Act in 1983, which gave the federal government authority to regulate disposition of these rights-of-way and save them for trail use by “railbanking” them. Railroads have been willing to turn over the rights-ofway for trail use because they are relieved of the associated property taxes and maintenance costs, and because they could still reclaim the rights-of-way for transport later, if necessary.

health. The U.S. government authorized $370 million to support bicycling during fiscal years 2004–2009 and enacted numerous laws and regulations favorable to the creation of trails. In Europe, Norway set a goal of having bicycle travel constitute 8% of all travel by 2015, compared with 4% in 2007. Sweden hopes to have bicycle travel constitute 15% of all travel. And the European Union adopted a goal of eliminating 6% of all emissions from cars by means of bicycle trips.

nonmotorized or electric motor- assisted cycling for automobile use can provide substantial pollution reductions. The Active Transportation for America study concluded that short trips of three miles or less make up half of all trips taken in the United States; shifting these short trips to biking and walking could reduce CO 2 emissions by at least 12 million and up to 91 million tons a year. That study also pointed out two important secondary environmental benefits of active transportation. First, people will use fuel-efficient public transportation more and drive less if they are able to walk or bike to the train station or bus stop. Second, the more that active transportation substitutes for motorized transportation, the less congestion there will be on the highways. Fuel savings and emission reductions will follow. 10. Government support. Governments are giving a lot of support to bicycling both for transport and

2. Alternative approaches to fitness are being promoted. The medi-

9. Environmentally friendly local transport. Substituting walking and

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Five Factors Inhibiting A Biking Future I believe that these 10 trends favoring more bicycling will continue, but change will come slowly. Here are five reasons why:

1. People are slow to adopt healthy lifestyles. Look no further

for evidence than the quarter of the U.S. population who still smoke more than 40 years after the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health. People who are not exercising enough now will likely be harder to persuade than those who are already active.

cal community’s current advice that you can get the exercise you need in episodes of as little as 10 minutes may make people more favorably inclined to forms of exercise other than bicycling, especially if they are currently inactive. 3. Bikes on the budgetary chopping block. Many governments are

likely to cut their budgets sharply in the next few years to pay for the massive debts they incurred during the economic downturn, and bicycling support programs will be tempting targets. There will be major political “tugs of war” between motorized transport lobbies and bike advocacy organizations, such as the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and League of American Bicyclists. 4. Conflicting infrastructure priorities. The U.S. population is expected

to grow by another 100 million people by mid-century. If there is prolonged fiscal austerity, growth in bicycle infrastructure might not keep

up with demand. The automobile will remain the primary transport mode. Demands for more auto infrastructure will have priority. This will also be the case in other countries with growing populations, such as India and China. 5. Conflicting leisure time priorities. Many people may have less lei-

sure time in the future than they do now. Harder economic times may force some adults to work multiple jobs, for instance. Retired adults may be preoccupied with taking care of frail or sick friends and relatives, or becoming “parents” again for their grandchildren. Children and adolescents may continue to have their leisure time organized for them by their parents and schools, with less time left over for individual exercise. Biking for a Healthier Future Continued world population growth will likely be accompanied by growing amounts of resource consumption and, hence, pollution. Advances in communications technology may also make unhealthy sedentary lifestyles less avoidable. These two threats to human health alone suggest that the world community must invest in local transportation solutions that are less polluting and that promote sufficient physical activity for the sake of everyone’s good health in the future. The trends described above indicate that the bicycle could be a part of the answer to these significant challenges. Transportation and health authorities and segments of the general public already embrace this partial answer; imaginative and continual public education, as in antismoking campaigns, is necessary to achieve total public acceptance. ❑ About the Author Kenneth W. Harris is secretary of the World Future Society and an active member of its Washington, D.C., chapter, having served as chapter president, treasurer, and book discussion leader. He is also chairman of the futures research consultancy firm Consilience Group. His areas of expertise include sports and fitness, health care, transportation, and emerging technologies. E-mail kenharris39@me.com.

By Arnold Brown

Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society As we spend more of our social lives online, the definitions of relationships and families are shifting. A business futurist offers an overview of these trends and what they imply for organizations in the coming years. ILLUSTRATIONS: LINDEN LAB

The future of business conferences? A virtual boardroom meeting in Second Life. Professional associations will hold more and more events and meetings in virtual spaces as well.

n India, where for centuries marriages have been arranged by families, online dating services such as BharatMatrimony.com are profoundly changing embedded traditions. MyGamma, a Singapore-based mobile phone social networking site, has millions of users throughout Asia and Africa, giving social networking capability to people across continents—no personal computer necessary. In China, individuals have been participating in wang hun (online role-play marriages). These gaming sites are causing actual married couples to get divorced on the grounds that this constitutes adultery—even though no faceto-face meetings ever took place. And Web sites such as GeneTree .com and Ancestry.com, which offer inexpensive cheek-swab DNA tests, link up people throughout the world who have similar DNA, thus combining genealogy, medical technology, and social networking. Clearly the Internet has radically reshaped our social lives over the span of just a couple of decades, luring us into a virtual metaworld where traditional interactions—living, loving, belonging, and separating, as well as finding customers and keeping them—require new protocols. Relationships Take on a Digital Dimension

Two avatars share a moment together in the virtual world Second Life. Could this represent the future dating experience (at least the positive side of it) as our social lives move increasingly online?

The future of falling in love may be online. Dating sites, once considered a gimmicky way to meet and connect with new people, have grown immensely in popularity, thanks in part to the convergence of information technologies and digital entertainment. FaciliTHE FUTURIST

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tating and managing relationships online is projected to become close to a billion-dollar industry in the United States in 2011. In the new Virtual Society, we will see an increasing transition from basic matchmaking sites to sites that enable people to actually go out on online “dates” without ever leaving their desks. While face-to-face dating will never entirely disappear, the process—and even relationships themselves—will happen more and more in virtual space. Especially for young people, relationships made in virtual space can be just as powerful and meaningful as those formed in the real world. Additionally, as more people gain access to broadband technologies, an increasing number are seeking social connectivity this way. There are already at least 500 million mobile broadband users globally. The speed and flexibility with which people communicate and socialize online will likely only continue to increase. Technology doesn’t just bring people together, though. As Douglas Rushkoff points out in Program or Be Programmed (OR Books, 2010), cyberspace creates a temporal and spatial separation from which it becomes seemingly easier to accomplish unpleasant interpersonal tasks. Hence, the techno brush-off: breaking up with a significant other via e-mail or text message. This will increasingly be a dominant fixture of the global youth culture. Young people everywhere link up through IM, Twitter, blogs, smartphones, and social networking sites that are proliferating at an accelerating rate. This is a critical point for businesses to understand. The emerging generation is part of what is, in essence, a vast new cross- border empire. It is marked by an instant awareness of what’s new, what’s hot, what’s desirable—and what’s not. This is the group that pollster John Zogby, in his book The Way We’ll Be (Random House, 2008), calls the First Globals. His research shows that their expectations of products and services will be vastly different and that they will force businesses to redefine their offerings. Young people will not, as their elders did, simply adapt to the tech30

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nology. The new youth cyberculture will continue to find ways to adapt the technology to their needs and desires. For example, Ning, created in 2005 by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, enables people to create their own individual social network—not join a preexisting world but actually build their own. A Web site called paper.li creates a personalized newspaper for you everyday based on whom you follow on Twitter and whether or not they said anything particularly important in the last 24 hours (as measured by retweets). Your friend’s brilliant blog post about last night’s St. Patrick’s Day party could appear directly next to Tim O’Reilly or Bruce Sterling’s most recent missive on China’s Internet policy. It’s hard to imagine a local newspaper providing that sort of personalized content. But online relationships are not exclusively reserved for young people. As the elderly become more comfortable with the Internet, they will increasingly turn to alternative spaces, such as virtual worlds, to find company or meet people with similar interests. By 2008, more than 20 million social networkers in the United States were over the age of 50, according to a study by Deloitte. There have been a slew of media reports playing up the fact that many seniors are joining Facebook and Twitter, as well as becoming an increasingly significant part of the growing commercial activity in virtual worlds. Commercializing Communities More and more people regard the virtual world as a place where they can establish and maintain safer, less demanding relationships on their own time. Ease, flexibility, and relative anonymity will continue to be three key components of dating online. Monetization will happen quickly, as virtual restaurants, movie theaters, concerts, and even wedding chapels are established. In addition to using virtual worlds as test markets for real-life products and services, as is done now, businesses will offer a much wider variety of virtual products and services. Having these options would give a

substantive feel to online relationships. The more real and satisfying these relationships can be made to seem, the more they will attract and hold people, and the more money they will generate. Commercialized virtual venues such as upscale bars and coffeehouses could even be looked to as testing grounds to develop the social skills necessary to form meaningful human relationships. Businesses could use game applications like Mall World or Café World on Facebook as platforms to advertise various specials that occur in virtual space, ranging from coupons for those aforementioned simulations of bars and coffeehouses to discounts for two to “live” streaming concert events. Advertising boards could promote online activities and events such as speed dating in a virtual nightclub setting. All this will dramatically change the nature of relationships. As social researchers have pointed out, the Internet is programming us as well, starting at an early age. For example, there are combination social networking and gaming sites for children such as Disney’s Club Penguin. Children are developing social skills within these virtual worlds. What this will mean in terms of how they will start, maintain, and end “real” friendships and relationships in the future is anyone’s guess. But the Internet can also strengthen family ties because it provides a continuously connected presence. In Norway, for example, one study showed that college students were in touch with their parents on average 10 times a week. Young people use mobile devices to Skype, text, upload photos and videos to Facebook, and more, with increasing frequency. Cyberspace enables families and friends to converse, in effect, as if they were in the same room. This is part of the reason that the Millennial generation reported feeling closer to their parents than did their older siblings during adolescence, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Survey. So what does all this tell us? For one thing, the temporal and spatial “here-and-now” limitations that formerly characterized social interac-

tions such as dating and family gettogethers have broken down. The composition of, and behavior in, relationships and households in the future will therefore change seriously. These trends are powerfully affecting how companies and organizations will design, sell, and market a wide range of products and services to consumers, with a growing emphasis on individualization and personalization. For instance, if relationships and families are more virtual, we should see an increase in the construction of new kinds of singleperson housing units or dual sleeping quarters. Family formation will need to be flexible and adaptive. The nuclear family was a response to the Industrial Age, in large measure replacing the extended family that characterized the Agricultural Era. It spurred vast economic shifts and led to new multibillion-dollar industries, from autos to washing machines to personal telephones. We are already seeing indications that the family is morphing into other forms as the Virtual Age approaches. Employers and governments will see their social, human resources, financial services, and benefits programs challenged, as the new economy takes great advantage of these multiple, newly unfolding personal relationships. For instance, should a “virtual spouse” be able to claim the Social Security benefits of a partner? The easy answer is, of course not. But what if it’s the virtual spouse who is charged with monitoring the health of an aged parent remotely? What if he or she does the household billpaying, or even contributes half of the household income? In other words, what if the virtual spouse performs many if not all of the tasks associated with a traditional spouse? And should the same polygamy laws applied to regular marriages also apply to virtual marriages? Should such marriages be subject to the same taxation laws? With the advent of an electronic era, many social scientists and other “experts” decried what they saw as a loss of social capital—the so-called “Bowling Alone” theory—because people were supposedly decreasing their participation in such things as

The Reality of Virtual Feelings Advances in brain research and multisensory perception could play an important role in the development of virtual relationships. Neural devices already allow people to control electronic equipment such as wheelchairs, televisions, and video games via brain–computer interfaces. One day soon, avatars may also be controllable this way. Virtual reality may become so advanced that it could trick the brain into thinking the invented images it is responding to are real—and human emotions would follow accordingly. Avatars will cause people to feel love, hate, jealousy, etc. And as haptic technologies improve, our abilities to respond physically to our virtual partners will also improve: Sexual pleasure may be routinely available without any interhuman stimulation at all. If it becomes possible to connect virtual reality programs directly to the brain, thoughts and emotions may also be digitized, rendered binary and reduced to 0s and 1s. Feelings of satisfaction and pleasure (two key components in any relationship) could be created between avatars without any “real” stimulus at all. But would they be real or mimetic? Once humans begin to perceive virtual social interactions as actually having occurred, it will greatly impact individuals, relationships, communities, and society as a whole. —Arnold Brown bowling leagues. The big mistake that the fearful always make is to equate change with destruction. The social turmoil of the 1970s was heralded by such observers as “the destruction of the family.” But the family did not die; it just changed—and it is still changing. Similarly, social capital is not going away; it is too intrinsic to human nature, although aspects of it may well be changing, and it is important that you view these changes objectively if you want to understand what they are and what they mean to you. Social ties are being created, strengthened, and—yes—weakened in an almost unbelievable variety of ways. This has to entail, as well, the remaking and establishing of both a deeper and a shallower social capital. Someone with more than 3,000 Facebook friends probably has more than 2,000 shallow friendships, but there’s a tremendous amount of variety in that number; some of these friendships are viable clients, others may be service providers, others may be long-term friend prospects, or secret crushes, or members of a social circle to which the person with 3,000 friendships wants access; some of them will be annoying people encountered only once at a party, be-

grudgingly given the status of “friend” to avoid seeming rude. All of these friendships have their own unique value. But Facebook sees little difference among them outside of how they are designated in privacy settings (some people can see more private posts than others). Outside institutions don’t recognize any distinction among these virtual friendships, if they recognize such friendships at all. Sociologist Richard Ling has labeled the new communication phenomenon micro-coordination—as people are constantly planning, coordinating, and changing plans because their cyberconnections are always on. University of Southern California sociologist Manuel Castells says that adolescents today build and rebuild social networks via constant messaging. This is helped by the fact that they have what he calls “a safe autonomous pattern,” in that their parents are only a speed dial away. Sociologists describe two kinds of social ties: strong ties of family members and those with shared values, beliefs, and identities; and weak ties to acquaintances and other people with shallower connections. Accordcontinued on page 34 THE FUTURIST

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By William Sims Bainbridge

Avatars and Virt D

eceased people always left active legacies in the memories of the survivors who knew them, and in the consequences of the deeds they performed in life. Now, a very great variety of avatars and agents in virtual worlds is extending the scope of action for a growing number of living people, potentially continuing their active existence after death and fulfilling the fantasies of religion through information technology. A hint of the human future can be found on Aldor Rise in Outland’s Shattrath City in the massively multip layer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. There stands C aylee Dak, an Elf huntress, with her nightsaber panther, Dusky. Her function is to bless any member of the Alliance who brings her a poem beginning, “Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, across Northrend’s bright and shining snow.” As an avatar, Caylee Dak is an active memorial for a player named Dak Krause, who died of leukemia in 2007, dressed exactly as she was when she served as his avatar in this virtual world, now 32

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providing a hint of immortality for his departed soul. Avatars need not reflect the person precisely, and indeed World of Warcraft calls them characters rather than avatars, suggesting that they have some independent nature. Thus, before we even begin to catalog the full range of avatars and agents that already exist, we should realize that they are expressions of the self, and the self may be expressed in many ways. I had 22 World of Warcraft characters, and invested more than 700 hours of my own existence in each of two of t h e m , M a x ro h n a n d C a t u l l u s . Maxrohn, a human priest, was named after my uncle, Max Rohn, who was an Episcopal priest and something of an adventurer; he once taught me a judo move that could break a man’s arm. Thus, Maxrohn was a mixture of me and my uncle, and we all are partly reflections of the family members who have shaped our own characters. Catullus was based on the ancient Roman poet of that name, and I have published an essay bylined “Catullus,” in the form of a letter from him to a supernatural being, namely me,

about his own sense of being real. Some recent gamelike virtual worlds, notably Star Trek Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, allow one to have four or five secondary avatars operating at once, and to set their degree of autonomy. In a very real sense, these secondaries are programmable by the user, because one may set ahead of time which actions each one can perform, and then in real time give them commands or leave them to operate autonomously. Their degree of artificial intelligence is low, but not entirely negligible, because, for example, they learn which enemies are doing the most damage to them and respond accordingly. When an artificial person has some degree of autonomy from control by its owner, we call it an agent. Already, many people have information technology agents, but these agents are so simple we do not ordinarily think of them as such. Your answering machine acts in your stead when it says, “Sorry I’m not home now, please leave a message.” Many companies use speech-recognition technology in more-sophisticated systems that can ask and answer questions, and it is just a matter

WILLIAM SIMS BAINBRIDGE

Already, many people have information technology agents, but these agents are so simple we do not ordinarily think of them as such. Sagittarius Sylvanus is author William Sims Bainbridge’s Dungeons and Dragons Online avatar.

ual Immortality of time before you will be able to do this with your home machine. Some investors use trading agents, programs that execute automatic stoploss actions in the stock market or follow more complex investment strategies without moment-to- moment supervision. If you ever rented a movie from Netflix and rated it afterward, or bought a book from Amazon.com, something like an agent representing you now exists inside the company’s recommender system. These online businesses use data like movie-preference ratings and book purchases to advertise your favorites to other customers, aggregating your data with data from many others. This allows your personal preferences to operate somewhat autonomously, akin to an agent who votes for which movies or books should be promoted to customers like you. The picture accompanying this article shows Sagittarius Sylvanus, my primary Dungeons and Dragons Online avatar, being magically protected by Fayden Maeleth, an Elf healer. Although the same species as Caylee, she lives in a different world, has different abilities, and is

a secondary avatar rather than a primary actor. Across all 15 virtual worlds I have inhabited, I have had 50 primary avatars and an equal number of secondaries, yet one thing is missing: persistence. Two of my favorite gameworlds have been shut down: The Matrix Online and Tabula Rasa. To become permanent, virtual worlds must become important. One way they might do this is to give the avatars enough autonomy that they can continue to function, even when their owners are offline, doing useful work that would justify the low cost of maintaining their subscriptions. Our avatars and agents will not only help us and expand our scope, but in the very near future they will also cooperate with each other, forming mutually supportive virtual teams. Over the hundreds of hours when Dak Krause operated Caylee, his World of Warcraft avatar, he made a vast number of decisions that expressed his own individual nature. All of his actions were temporarily stored in the gameworld’s computer server and could have been used as the raw material for an artificial intelligence program to learn

how to play the game the way he did—quite achievable with today’s technology. If that had been done, Caylee could be playing a far more complex role—perhaps as a guard i n A u b e rd i n e , t h e E l f s e a s i d e town—responding in the same ways that Krause would have to enemy attacks or requests for help from new players. As people gain more and more avatars, agents, and other technologybased expressions of themselves, the scope for action during their lives increases, and the possibility of life after death becomes progressively more real. Buckminster Fuller said, “I seem to be a verb.” I say, “I am a plural verb, in future tense.” ❑ About the Author William Sims Bainbridge is a sociologist currently managing the review of grant proposals in human-centered computing, and author of many books, including God from the Machine: Artificial Intelligence Models of Religious Cognition (AltaMira, 2006), The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World (MIT Press, 2010), and Multiplayer Online Games (Morgan and Claypool, 2010).

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continued from page 31 ing to some researchers, the Internet and, in particular, mobile devices are enabling the strong community ties to be reinforced, often at the expense of the weak ties. At a time when technology is being lauded for encouraging diversity and facilitating cross-cultural communication, there is, consequently, a strong and growing countertrend: digital tribalism. Aside from strengthening ties to family and close friends, people are using the technology to find others with whom they share important affinities, ranging from genomes to beliefs to lifestyle choices. This digital form of tribalism is an unexpectedly strong trend, as observed by social critics such as Christine Rosen. Information—including product and service information—spreads electronically with speed and power. Effectively getting a positive message on a tribal network could well be tomorrow’s best marketing strategy. Although the tribal identity can be deep and solid, brand connections may not necessarily be so. Maintaining the connection will require constant monitoring of the electronic tribal village and quickness to reposition or reinforce when required. Bridal showers, for instance, can be attended by distant guests through Skype, and e-registries allow gift givers to view what others have bought. There is much room for innovation here, in terms of bringing people together who would not otherwise be in the same place for business meetings, financial planning, meal sharing, celebrations, and more. Associations might capitalize on online events for far-flung and numerous businesses, professionals, and friends and families of members. Employers might do the same for their employees’ personal networks, perhaps offering discounts, education, job postings, and new products to all “friends of friends.” Expat workers and members of the armed forces might be more easily enabled to stay in touch with their families if their employers organized better around online communications and communities. This 34

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“All this could lead to growing confusion about identity. We will go from ‘Who am I?’ to ‘Who, when, and where am I?’”

would ease the burden on relocated personnel, improve morale, attract more people, increase productivity, and spin the sale of products and service to these populations. This could also be true for alumni networks and other diaspora groups. The Identity Industry Social scientists make the distinction between a found identity and a made identity. The found identity is one created by your circumstances— who your parents were, your ethnic background, your religion, your sex, where you went to school, your profession, and all the other external factors that people use to categorize and describe you. The made identity, on the other hand, is the one you create for yourself. It is how you wish to see yourself and how you want others to see you. In the past, people who wanted to escape what they saw as the trap of their found identity did such things as change their name or appearance. They moved somewhere else. Now, and increasingly in the future, technology will let you make and remake your identity at will—virtua l l y. T h i s e x t r a o rd i n a r y, e v e n revolutionary, development will profoundly affect fundamental societal values such as trust and reliability. In addition to engaging directly online with other individuals, you can also interact with them through avatars, the images that represent you (or an idealized version of yourself) in virtual worlds. Each virtual world requires a separate avatar, so in effect you can be as many different people as there are virtual worlds. In the future, you will be able to create avatars that will literally take on lives of their own. They will, once created, be able to “think” on their own, without further input

from you. They may be able to perform intensive research tasks for you, start and even manage online companies, maintain your social relationships by reading your Facebook updates and blog posts and analyzing them for significant news so you don’t have to. Increasingly, over time, distinctions between real and virtual identity will become less sharply defined, particularly for people who spend substantial amounts of time in the virtual world—or some enhanced combination of the real and the virtual. A company called Total Immersion combines 3-D and augmented reality technology on the Internet, inserting people and physical objects into live video feeds. According to the company’s Web site, “this digital processing mixes real and virtual worlds together, in real time.” All this could lead to growing confusion about identity. We will go from “Who am I?” to “Who, when, and where am I?” What in the twentieth century was seen as a problem that needed treatment—multiple personalities—will increasingly be seen in the twenty-first century as a coping mechanism, greatly affecting the evolving economy, as multiple personas split their expenditures in multiple ways. Companies that provide such services will be a great growth industry as we move further into the “Who are you, really?” era. ❑ About the Author Arnold Brown is the chairman of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., and the coauthor (with Edie Weiner) of FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006). E-mail arnold@weineredrichbrown.com. Web site www.weineredrichbrown.com.

Futuring

The Exploration of the Future By Edward Cornish, editor of THE FUTURIST and founder of the World Future Society. WFS. 2004. 313 pages. Paperback. $19.95 ($17.95 for Society members). Available on Kindle! Go to www.wfs.org/futuring for link. A “masterpiece” and “modern classic” in futures-studies literature, Edward Cornish’s Futuring is now required reading at major universities around the world, from Texas A&M to Tamkang University in Taiwan, and translated for Korean, Mongolian, and Arabic editions. Cornish’s enlightened, insightful writing has inspired seasoned professionals with a fresh take on futurism’s vital tools and concepts. This comprehensive guide to thinking about the future covers methodologies, key futures concepts, the rise of the “futurist revolution,” and six supertrends—and where they may lead us.

Get the Most Out of Futuring! Building the Future: A Workbook to Accompany Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish by Jill Loukides and Lawrie Gardner. WFS. 2006. 94 pages. Paperback. $17.50 ($15.95 for Society members). Futurist educators Loukides and Gardner of Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland have developed this thought-inspiring workbook to guide students through the key lessons of Edward Cornish’s text, Futuring. For each of the text’s 16 chapters—which cover supertrends, the nature of change, futuring methods, uses of scenarios, the origins and rise of futurism, and much more—the workbook: • Queries students on their prior knowledge and learning objectives, • Provides an outline, summary, and key terms, and • Prompts learners to evaluate their new knowledge about the future through critical thinking questions, activities, and self-study questions.

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Visions

Imagineers in Search of the Future By Gary Dehrer In 1955, Walt Disney Imagineers achieved virtual reality with Disneyland. Eight Imagineering principles explain how they did it. Here You Leave Today, and Enter the World of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy —Sign at the entrance to Disneyland

WALT DISNEY IMAGINEERING / PRNEWSFOTO / NEWSCOM

DISNEYLAND RESORT / PRNEWSFOTO / NEWSCOM

Above: Walt Disney (right) employed artists such as John Hench as Imagineers to bring the new theme park to life. Hench was the official portrait artist of Mickey Mouse.

Above: Imagineer Marc Davis (left) presents sketches and Audio-Animatronics figure created for the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in 1967, the last Disneyland attraction that Walt Disney personally supervised.

Cinderella’s Castle greets guests with magic realism at Disneyland, built in Anaheim, California, in 1955.

PAUL ALMASY / AKG IMAGES / NEWSCOM

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he opening of Disneyland in Rivers of the World, and the larger ciples were essential to the creation the middle of the twentieth Rivers of America visible. The To- of Disneyland’s virtual reality: Area century saw Walt Disney un- morrowland site, which lagged be- Development, Blue Sky, Brainstorm, leashing the forces of Imagineering hind in construction, lacked the clear Dark Ride, Elevation, Kinetics, Plusto create a true “virtual reality” identity of the other lands. The sing, and Show [see sidebar, “Eight world of entertainment and adven- Imagineers, specialists using creativ- Principles of Imagineering”]. 1. Area Development. The original ture. When the first paying custom- ity and technical know-how, became ers entered Disneyland on July 18, frustrated and suggested that the To- 1955 master plan for Disneyland en1955, they walked through one of morrowland of 1986 be concealed visioned Main Street, U.S.A., as the two tunnel passageways leading to behind an attractive fence until it initial experience funneling people Main Street, U.S.A. Many thought was ready. Although Walt Disney to a central plaza hub and then they were about to encounter an up- agreed to this at first, he changed his drawing them into one of four adgraded amusement park, but Walt mind, saying, “We’ll open the whole joining lands: Adventureland, FronDisney knew he had created some- park.… Do the best you can with To- tierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorthing much more than that. From morrowland, and we’ll fix it up after rowland. Creating an expansive and interactive 60-acre venue such as Town Square, guests looked down we open.” Disneyland was a monumental unMain Street to see Sleeping Beauty dertaking; with no other prior expeCastle beckoning in the distance. Imagineering Principles: rience, the Imagineers were faced This immediate first impression was How a Dream Is Built with a Herculean task. designed to have guests feel like In reviewing Walt Disney’s plan to they were being absorbed into a cinEight basic Imagineering prin ematic experience, a sensation of knowing they had Eight Principles of Imagineering stepped from their everyday life into an extraordinary According to Disney historian Alex 5. Elevation: “A drawing of a true world. Wright and contributors to The Imagi- frontal view of an object—usually a Virtual reality is most ofneering Field Guide to Disneyland, building—often drawn from multiple ten defined as a simulated Imagineering consists of the following sides, eliminating the perspective that sensory experience made eight basic principles. you would see in the real world, for possible by computer soft1. Area Development: “The intersti- clarity in the design and to lead conware, creating a convincing, tial spaces between the attractions, struction activities.” three-dimensional experi6. Kinetics: “Movement and motion restaurants, and shops. This includes ence that—at its best—looks, landscaping, architecture, propping, in a scene that give it life and energy. feels, and sounds like the show elements, and special enhance- This can come from moving vehicles, real thing. It can be likened ments intended to expand the experi- active signage, changes in lighting, to any virtual environment special effects, or even hanging banence.” where someone can literally 2. Blue Sky: “The early stages in the ners or flags that move as the wind walk into it and perceive it idea-generation process when any- blows.” as true to life. Another word 7. Plussing: “A word derived from thing is possible. There are not yet for virtual is enhanced reality. any considerations taken into account Walt’s penchant for always trying to While various applications that might rein in the creative process. make an idea better. Imagineers are of simulated virtual reality continually trying to plus work, even At this point, the sky’s the limit!” will be increasingly possible 3. Brainstorm: “A gathering for the after it’s ‘finished.’” in the future, people actually 8. Show: “Everything we put ‘onpurpose of generating as many ideas experienced it at Disneyland as possible in the shortest time pos- stage’ in a Disney park. Walt believed in 1955, without the aid of sible. We hold many brainstorming that everything we put out for the computer-generated special sessions at WDI [Walt Disney Imagi- Guests in our parks was part of a big effects or other advanced neering], always looking for the best show, so much of our terminology technology. ideas.” The rules include remember- originated in the show business Ground was broken for ing that there is no such thing as a bad world. With that in mind, ‘show’ bethe Disneyland Park in July idea and that nothing should stifle the comes for us a very broad term that 1954, with opening day set includes just about anything our flow of ideas. for only 12 months later. A 4. Dark Ride: “A term often used to Guests see, hear, smell, or come in frenzy of construction activdescribe the charming Fantasyland at- contact with during their visit to any ity swept over the former tractions, among others, housed more of our parks or resorts.” Anaheim, California, orange or less completely inside a show grove. In just a few months, Source: The Imagineering Field Guide to building, which allows for greater iso- Disneyland by Alex Wright and the Imagineers the outlines of now-familiar lation of show elements and light con- (Disney Editions, 2008). landmarks began to emerge, trol, as needed.” with Main Street, Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Jungle THE FUTURIST

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have everyone enter Disneyland at Town Square, amusement-park experts questioned why there was only one entrance. They warned that this would create unnecessary congestion. They also questioned the expense of Town Square, especially since it was not going to produce any revenue. Disney responded that this entry space was designed to create an essential first impression and special mood for his guests. All guests had to enter the Park the same way to share an identical illusion. Even the Main Street transportation, which included a fire wagon and horsedrawn trolleys, was not intended to make any money but to help add to

the overall sensory experience. Town Square was to serve as the gateway to Disneyland’s virtual reality. The dramatic, one-two punch of the Main Street environs with Sleeping Beauty Castle looming down the street convinced Disney that he was on the right track in lifting his guests to a higher entertainment experience. Disney was able to use his experience in animation and films, especially his extraordinary storytelling skills, to add believability to his Park creation. He grasped the importance of quickly altering the perception and attitudes of guests entering Disneyland, thereby drawing them into a new reality. This is similar to what

video-game designers would be doing decades later using an interactive electronic visual format. 2. Blue Sky. Disneyland was the first project for Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), which was created on December 16, 1952, as part of WED (Walter Elias Disney) Enterprises. Walt Disney, considered to be the foremost Imagineer of modern times, had built a major animation and film studio by the early 1950s. WED was to address all Disney activities outside the film studio and this would come to include Disney parks, resorts, special attractions at World’s Fairs, cruise ships, and other diverse entertainment activities. Disneyland offered the Imagineers an

Now Is the Time for the Future At the entrance to the original some first-generation Disneyland1955 Tomorrowland, the first at- ers able to recall it. The clock contraction to come into view was a tinued to faithfully perform its tall clock structure. This was the timekeeping duties until it was reClock of the World, which declared moved in 1966, along with the that now is the time for the future. widespread demolition of the origThis clock was intended to symbol- inal 1955 Tomorrowland. The exitize the incredible futuristic world ing of the clock was captured in a about to be entered. Standing more than 17 feet tall, the clock looked much like a squeezed soda can topped with a half sphere, gold-spiked anodized aluminum sun and a stylized silver crescent Man in the Moon face. The blue tiles encircling its base depicted the vast universe. Few passersby stopped to notice that the timepiece showed not only the time in Anaheim, California, but also around the world. Other than serving as a convenient place for parents to meet their kids, the clock rapidly faded into obscurity. The towering r e d - a n d - w h i t e T WA Rocket was a much moreremembered symbol of Tomorrowland. The Clock of the World is now gone, with only The author poses at the entry to Tomorrowland.

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photo showing the timepiece, minus its top ornamentation, being hauled away with the lower edge of its blue “universe” mosaic tiles broken off at the base. Sometimes the future can be treated rather shabbily. —Gary Dehrer COURTESY OF GARY DEHRER

JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER / ZUMA PRESS / NEWSCOM

Disneyland ride designer Bob Gurr holds a model of the monorail car he helped design. With his aptitude for mechanical engineering, Gurr also worked on the Autopia cars, Matterhorn, and other rides.

opportunity to demonstrate that anything is possible. He was creating something to bring people across disciplines—engineering, animation, scriptwriting and filmmaking—together to tackle specific projects. Early in the development of the Disneyland project, Walt Disney realized that creating his park illusion or “show” needed mechanical know-how as well as artistic expertise. To make his “big dreams” a reality, he would have to enlist an army of Imagineers, versed in an everwidening range of disciplines. The Disneyland show needed not only people who could design and illustrate the dream, but also writers, architects, interior designers, engineers, lighting experts, graphic designers, set designers, craftsmen, sound technicians, landscapers, model makers, sculptors, special-effects technicians, master planners, researchers, managers, construction experts, and more. Disneyland was first envisioned as a “place for people to find happiness and knowledge.” Here, people would not be watching a movie, but rather participating in it. They would be walking through a tunnel and emerging in another world.

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Walt Disney takes his daughter Diane Disney Miller and grandson Christopher for a ride in one of Disneyland’s Autopia cars.

Even the landscaping and specially scaled architecture would add to the credibility of this dream place. He was intent on creating an illusion of time and space taking people away from their daily cares on a journey of imagination that was different from anything they had ever experienced before. In explaining the secret of his suc-

cess, Walt Disney had one word for it: curiosity. “There’s really no secret about our approach,” he said. “We keep moving forward—opening up new doors and doing new things— because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We’re always exploring and experimenting.” And curiosity was forever wrapped in endless “Blue Sky” posTHE FUTURIST

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WALT DISNEY IMAGINEERING / PRNEWSFOTO / NEWSCOM

Imagineering Realism And Fantasy To realize his Disneyland vision, Walt Disney assembled a talented team of Imagineers, who would transform ideas and dreams into reality. Looking up at the second-floor windows along Disneyland’s Main Street, you can see painted signs with the names of people and their businesses. While the businesses are somewhat fictitious, the people are not. These are names of Imagineers—such as Harper Goff, Ken Anderson, Herb Ryman, and Sam McKim —and others who played significant roles in making Disneyland happen. Even Walt Disney’s father, Elias Disney, has a window with his name painted on it with “Contractor Est. 1895” listed. Goff, with his background in designing movie sets, would lend a hand with Main Street and the Jungle Cruise ride. Anderson, trained as an architect a n d a l l - a r o u n d d e s i g n e r, worked on many last-minute Disneyland projects. Ryman, a versatile artist who rendered the dazzling overview of Disneyland in 1953, would later help conceptualize New Orleans Square. McKim, a multi talented artist, rendered concept sketches for Disneyland and other Disney projects. These and many other Imagineers to follow helped dream and bring Disneyland into existence. —Gary Dehrer

sibilities that begged to become realities. 3. Brainstorm. Brainstorming was used to shape and define the Park, as well as to solve practical problems. The collaborative-thinking process energized the designing of Disneyland as the Imagineers pursued ideas both good and bad. Brainstorming represents a continuous process where success is many times 40

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intermingled with failure, as evidenced by Disneyland’s 1955 opening. Two of Tomorrowland’s brightest ideas—the freeway Autopia and Rocket to the Moon—both experienced initial failure. Bob Gurr, a young Imagineer with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design but scant mechanical knowledge, was put in charge of the Autopia’s first fleet of cars. On opening day, the Autopia drew a good-sized crowd, but by closing time, half of the cars were disabled. By the end of the first week, only two cars were still moving. Walt Disney came by to inspect the ravaged car fleet and said, “Well, we’ve got to do something.” Gurr responded that he didn’t have a place to repair the broken cars. The Park, by this point, was already built, so there was no place to construct a shed. Some outside-of-the-box thinking was in order. Half an hour later, a tractor showed up towing a small wooden shed. The driver asked Gurr, “Where do you want your damn garage?” An enhanced Auto-

Walt Disney (right) and Imagineer John Hench don hard hats to inspect work in progress at Disneyland. In 1965, Hench created a concept sketch for what would become Space Mountain.

pia with its sporty cars and meandering freeway is still thriving in the twentyfirst century. 4. Dark Ride. Of all the rides in Fantasy land, Walt Disney’s favorite was Peter Pan. He particularly appreciated its flyt h ro u g h c o n c e p t , with its tiny galleon cars suspended on ceiling cables allowing passengers to soar over landscapes. It was one ride that he rode over and over again. Peter Pan was an original 1955 dark ride housed completely inside of a building. Dark rides formed the backbone of Fantasyland’s entertainment experience, as special effects could be used to further create illusion and magic. In 1965, John Hench, one of Disney’s first and longtime Imagineers, rendered a concept sketch that would evolve into Space Mountain, housing a dark-ride roller coaster. The Space Mountain ride was finally achieved in 1975 as Tomorrowland continued to be reworked. Hench said, “The ride is above all an experience of speed, enhanced by the controlled lighting and projected moving images. But it evokes such ideas as the mystery of outer space, the excitement of setting out on a journey, and the thrill of the unknown.” The power of dark rides pulled guests deeper into the Park experience, whether it was riding with Mr. Toad or flying with Peter Pan. Guests would themselves pass through the live-action scenes and physically experience being part of

the story. The rides and attractions were designed to work in harmony to produce a series of sensations. Arguably, the Park setting and attractions worked well to subliminally capture moods and influence attitudes that are so important in creating virtual reality. Fantasy would become real. 5. Elevation. Imagineering ushered in the concept of three-dimensional storytelling. Imagineers detailed the images and settings they felt important to telling stories through mood and sensation. Even Main Street, U.S.A., had a story to tell. John Hench explains, “Mood is created mainly by the sensation of carefully orchestrated and intensified stimuli, of color, sound, form, and movement. Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., which represents the main shopping street in an idealized American turn-of-the- century small town, is a good example of mood created by sensation that results in enhanced reality.” Disney historian Jeff Kurtti notes, “While the first Imagineers had no formal training in urban design, the nature of the animator ’s art made them natural systems architects. As storytellers, they ‘wrote’ the park, giving it consistency of narrative that is matched by few other public spaces.” As the architectural elevation drawings of Disneyland were made into real buildings, Walt Disney was achieving an unprecedented breakthrough in entertainment, causing people to directly experience and interact with a virtual world as stories and adventures came alive. The Imagineered elements of storytelling created a virtual-reality setting by placing Park guests in a fantasy, larger-than-life environment. Transferring imagination into blueprints and then into an actual park virtual experience was a singular achievement that foreshadowed a future world as yet unknown. 6. Kinetics. On an inspection tour of Disneyland when it was under construction, Walt Disney spent several hours riding around in a Jeep accompanied by several people, including Joe Fowler, his construction boss. Departing from Town Square, Disney and his small party drove over to Sleeping Beauty’s unfinished

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Disneyland’s magic captures a 1955 cast member, comedian Steve Martin, who began his career as an entertainer performing tricks at the Park’s Magic Shop.

castle, where he described all of the attractions and how everything would look in full color. He was describing the kinetics of Fantasyland and how the carousel horses would be leaping. Disney realized that transferring stories from film to real-life three dimensionality would be challenging but knew his guests could use their imaginations in the Park just as they did in movie theaters. Thus, the Park experience would become believable, allowing guests to trust and enjoy the attractions and illusions. The Jeep visited all the lands, and everyone could feel the enthusiasm of Walt Disney. When the Jeep returned to the Park entrance, Disney looked back down an unpaved Main Street and remarked, “Don’t forget the biggest attraction isn’t here yet.” When asked what that was he responded, “People. You fill this place with people, and you’ll really have a show.” 7. Plussing. Walt Disney said of

Disneyland, “It’s something that will never be finished, something I can keep developing, keep ‘plussing’ and adding to. It’s alive.” Disneyland has been compared to an animated movie, where main attractions are much like “key frames” in a film. Disney even went so far as to devise ways to fade from one Disneyland attraction and then focus guests into another, much as a film moves from scene to scene. John Hench said of Disney, “He would insist on changing the texture of the pavement at the threshold of each new land because, he said, ‘You can get information about a changing environment through the soles of your feet.’” Thus, through continuous plussing, the Disneyland experience would be both ordered and harmonious, not chaotic or confusing. From opening day in 1955, Disneyland was meant to undergo continuous innovation and upgrading. Walt Disney and his Imagineers envisioned that Disneyland would emTHE FUTURIST

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brace ongoing change and newly emerging technologies, while retaining its original footprint of a wondrous “magical kingdom.” Imagineering plussing kept the park vision alive, with each “frame” being reedited to achieve the best real-life experience possible. Virtual reality is all about “plussing” an environment so that it is constantly being changed and improved. 8. Show. Crucial to the virtual- reality creation was its cast of characters. To further create his Disneyland illusion, Walt Disney instituted his Disneyland University, which would train Park personnel to not just do their jobs, but to perform as though they were onstage. Employees were expected to be happy and cheerful, further creating the feeling of an optimistic world. They would follow special protocols and a dress code to help guests feel comfortable about participating in the show. Adding to this inclusive effect were Mickey and Minnie Mouse, along with other Disney cartoon characters, who would join guests in the Park. These costumed walkaround characters were meant to mingle with guests, posing for pictures but remaining silent. The physical impact of the walk-around characters enhanced the show and produced a convincing and compelling fantasy environment for adults and children alike.

The Disneyland Story: For Further Reading • Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas (Walt

Disney Company, 1994). Thomas chronicles Disney’s keen attention to detail in perfecting an enhanced park experience, as with tree placement, the scale of the trains, and noise level of cars in his dark rides. He also observes that Walt Disney challenged those around him to go the extra mile in their work, but that this was not always well received. According to Thomas, Walt Disney viewed the Park as a living motion picture that could change and grow with its guests. • Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal G abler (Vintage Books, 2006). G abler ’s candid assessment of Walt Disney offers an excellent companion to Bob Thomas’s insightful biography. Gabler feels that Disney saw the Park as an interlocking series of movie sets, whereby guests were to be absorbed as participants in a cinematic experience. He sees Disneyland as both transforming and therapeutic in helping people feel good about themselves and in love with life, and he sees Walt Disney, as the master animator, pulling his audience or guests into his own creation.

• Walt Disney’s Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park by Jeff Kurtti

(Disney Editions, 2008). Kurtti’s book is an informative overview of the men and women who created the Disney theme-park concept. Beyond Disneyland’s “architecture of reassurance” is a carefully crafted encounter with virtual reality. Kurtti writes, “Nothing looks fake. Fabricated, yes; fake, no. Disneyland isn’t the mimicry of a thing. It’s a thing.” Once through the entry tunnels, you are quickly absorbed into Disney’s imagineered world of fantasy. • Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show by John Hench (Disney Editions, 2008). Hench, a legendary Disney Imagineer, had a 65-year Disney career, from 1939 to until his death at age 95 in 2004. In this book, he relates how the 1955 Disneyland was to be a venue for a succession of new attractions within the park’s original Main Street and four lands framework. Hench suggests the enhanced simulated reality is achieved through carefully orchestrated and intensified color, sound, form, and movement. —Gary Dehrer

Disneyland: A Living Virtual World And Portal into the Future In 1955, Walt Disney had made Disneyland a living virtual reality. It would pull generations of people into Town Square to start altering their moods and sensations, and then down Main Street, U.S.A., and on into the Park, enabling them to escape into their imaginations through carefully Imagineered experiences, settings, stories, and adventures. Imagineering architecture, landscaping, and storytelling created not only a compelling “show,” but also a living virtual world. Walt Disney, who died in 1966, had a family apartment over the Fire Station overlooking Town Square in Main Street, U.S.A., where he would sometimes stay overnight at the 42

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Park. Staff members knew that, when the front window lamp was on, their ever-watchful boss was on board. Few guests took notice of the apartment lamp, as there were many lights along Main Street. Today, if you look up to the second-floor Fire Station apartment, you realize that the lamp in the window behind the curtain is always on. In assembling his team of Imagineers, Walt Disney had created an extension of himself that would pursue his dreams and the future long after he had died. Disneyland is a living virtual world that is a portal into an optimistic future. It is “another world” where everything is all right, people are innately good, and

anything can be handled. In this sense, all of Disneyland is indeed a bright and hopeful Tomorrowland. ❑ About the Author Gary Dehrer is a retired principal of the San Bernardino City Unified School District (San Bernardino, California), a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, author of Building a Championship Family (New Horizon Press, 2007), and a lifelong visitor to Disneyland. He resides in Yucaipa, California. E-mail gpdehrer@yahoo.com. This article draws from his essay “Tomorrowland,” to be published in the 2011 World Future Society conference volume, Moving from Vision to Action.

World Future Society Professional Membership Tools and Techniques… Leading-Edge Ideas… Highly Productive Collaborations… AARON M. COHEN

The World Future Society’s Professional Membership is a focused program for individuals involved in futures research, forecasting, corporate or institutional planning, issues management, technology assessment, policy analysis, urban and regional planning, competition research, and related areas. Professional Members include educators, government and business leaders, researchers, think-tank members, corporate planners, and analysts, plus others involved in the study of the future and its impact on their organizations. World Future Review

In addition to all of the vital benefits of regular membership, Professional Members receive a subscription to the exclusive World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight. This new bimonthly publication offers full-length refereed articles, interviews of leading futures practitioners, insightful reviews of important new publications, and abstracts of the most critical new foresight-relevant literature. Professional Members’ Forums

Professional Members also have the opportunity to meet once a year to focus more intensively on crucial topics in our field. The Professional Members’ Forums feature some of the top thinkers in futures studies, who convene to share insights in a small-group setting that allows for dynamic interaction. Recent forums have been held in Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Boston. Upcoming forums are also scheduled in Vancouver and Toronto. Join now, and receive:

• A subscription to World Future Review, the Society’s professional journal. An international editorial board referees all articles for this unique publication, which covers a wide range of futures-relevant subjects. • Invitations to Professional Members’ Forums. (Join now to qualify for the 2011 Forum in Vancouver.) • All benefits of regular membership in the World Future Society, including a subscription to THE FUTURIST, the Society’s bimonthly magazine on the future; discounts on books and other products; the Society’s yearly “Outlook” report of selected forecasts from THE FUTURIST; and a subscription to Futurist Update, a monthly e-mail newsletter. Professional Membership is $275 per year. A special rate of $185 per year is available for individuals belonging to educational or nonprofit organizations. Join online at www.wfs.org/professional or call 1-800-989-8274 weekdays (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time).

Understanding Technological Evolution and Diversity By Kevin Kelly From the depths of the Amazon basin to the streets of Tokyo, technology is always evolving. Here, a Wired founding editor describes what technology wants—and what we can learn from observing the “technium,” the technological ecosystem.

When a new technology has found its ideal role in the world, it becomes an active agent in increasing the options, choices, and possibilities of others. Our task is to encourage the development of each new invention toward this inherent good, to align it in the same direction that all life is headed. Our choice in the technological ecosystem or technium—and it is a real and significant choice—is to steer our creations toward those versions, those manifestations, that maximize that technology’s benefits, and to keep it from thwarting itself. What does technology want? Technology wants what we want—the same long list of merits we crave. Our role as humans, at least for the time being, is to coax technology along the paths it naturally wants to go. But how do we know just where it wants to go? If certain aspects of the technium are preordained and certain aspects are contingent upon our choices, how do we know which are 44

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which? Systems theorist John Smart has suggested that we need a technological version of the Serenity Prayer. Popular among participants in 12-step addiction-recovery programs, the prayer, written in the 1930s by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, goes: God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.

So how do we acquire the wisdom to discern the difference between the inevitable stages of technological development and the volitional forms that are up to us? What technique makes the inevitable obvious? I think that tool is our awareness of the technium’s long-term cosmic trajectories. The technium wants what evolution began. In every direction, technology extends evolution’s 4 billion–year path. By placing technology in the context of that evolution, we can see how those macroimperatives play out in our present time. In other words, technology’s inevitable forms coalesce around the dozen or so dynamics common to all extropic, or increasingly intelligent systems, including life itself. I propose that the greater the number of extropic traits we observe in a particular expression of technology, the greater its inevitability and its conviviality. If we want to compare, say, a vegetable-oil steam-powered automobile versus a rare-earth-metal solar-electric car, we could inspect the extent to which each of these mechanical manifestations supports these trends—not just follows the trends, but extends them. A technology’s alignment with the trajectory of extropic forces becomes the Serenity Prayer filter. Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants: • Increasing efficiency. • Increasing opportunity. • Increasing emergence. • Increasing complexity. • Increasing diversity. • Increasing specialization. • Increasing ubiquity. • Increasing freedom. • Increasing mutualism. • Increasing beauty.

• Increasing sentience. • Increasing structure. • Increasing evolvability. This list of extropic trends can serve as a sort of checklist to help us evaluate new technologies and predict their development. It can guide us in guiding them. For instance, at this particular phase in the technium, at the turn of the twenty-first century, we are building many intricate, complex systems of communications. This wiring up of the planet can happen in a number of ways, but my modest prediction is that the most sustainable technological arrangements will be those manifestations that tend toward the greatest increases in diversity, sentience, opportunity, mutuality, ubiquity, etc. In my book What Technology Wants, I explore all of these different motivations. Let’s take a moment to look at one: diversity. Technology Wants Diversity The diversity of the universe has been increasing since the beginning of time. In its very first seconds, the universe contained only quarks, which began to assemble into a variety of subatomic particles within minutes. By the end of the first hour, the universe contained dozens of types of particles but only two elements—hydrogen and helium. Over the next 300 million years, drifting hydrogen and helium bound themselves together into masses of growing nebulae that eventually collapsed into fiery stars. Star fusion built up dozens of new, heavier elements, so the diversity of the chemical universe increased. Eventually, some “metallic” stars exploded into supernovae, spewing their heavy elements into space to be swept up over millions of years into new stars. In a kind of pumping action, these second- and third-round star furnaces added yet more neutrons to metallic elements to create more varieties of heavy metals until all 100 or so varieties of stable elements were created. The increasing diversity of elements and particles also created an increasing variety of star species, galaxy types, and kinds of orbiting planets. On planets with active tec-

tonic crusts, new kinds of minerals increased in time, as geological forces reworked and rearranged the elements into new crystals and rocks. This diversity of crystallized minerals on Earth, for instance, increased threefold with the advent of bacterial life. Some geologists believe biochemical processes, and not geological processes alone, are responsible for the bulk of the 4,300 mineral species we find today. The invention of life greatly accelerated the diversity in the universe. From a very few species 4 billion years ago, the number and variety of living species on Earth has increased dramatically over geological time to the 30 million now present. This rise has been uneven in several ways. At certain times in Earth’s history, large-scale cosmological disruptions (such as asteroid hits) have wiped out gains in diversity. In specific branches of life, diversity sometimes did not advance very much, or even retreated temporarily. But overall, in life as a whole over geologic time, diversity has widened. In fact, life’s diversity of taxonomic forms has doubled since the dinosaurian era, only 200 million years ago. The growth of biological differences is expanding exponentially, and this rocketing increase can be seen in vertebrates, plants, and insects. The trend toward diversity is further accelerated by the technium. The number of species of technology invented every year is increasing at an increasing rate. It’s difficult to precisely count the varieties of technological invention, because innovations don’t have the defined borders of breeding that most living organisms do. We might count ideas, which underlie each invention. Each scientific article represents at least one new idea. The number of journal articles has exploded in the last 50 years. Each patent is also a species of idea. At last count there were 7 million patents issued in the United States alone, and their total has been increasing exponentially as well. Everywhere we look in the technium we see increased diversity. Manufactured species of underwater organisms, such as 70-foot-long submarines, parallel living organisms, such as a blue whale. Airplanes THE FUTURIST

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mimic birds. Our houses are but better nests. But the technium explores niches that living creatures never ventured into. We know of no living organism using radio waves, yet the technium has produced hundreds of varieties of radio-communicating species. While moles have been digging up Earth for millions of years, two-story tunnel-digging contraptions are so much larger, faster, and less daunted by solid rock than living things are that we can truly say these synthetic moles occupy a new niche on Earth. X-ray machines have a type of sight unknown among the living. And there is simply no biological analog to an Etch A Sketch or a space shuttle. Increasingly, the diversity of the technium has no counterpart in biological evolution, so the technium has truly increased diversity. The diversity of the technium has already surpassed our skills of recognition. There are so many varieties of things that no single individual can name them. Cognitive researchers have discovered about 3,000 easily recognizable noun categories in modern life. This total includes manufactured objects and living organisms—elephant, airplane, palm tree, telephone, chair. Now add an average of 10 varieties for each of these things—10 kinds of chairs, 10 kinds of phones, and so on. That gives a rough estimate of 30,000 objects in most people’s lives, or at least 30,000 that they would recognize. Even when we name a form, most of the variety of life and the technium goes by us without a specific name. We may recognize a bird, but not which species of bird. We know a grass, but not which grass. We know it is a cell phone, but not what model. When pressed we can discern a chef’s knife from a Swiss Army knife from a spear point, but we may or may not be able to distinguish a fuel pump from a water pump. There are branches of the technium where the diversity of technological species is dwindling; today there are fewer innovations in spark catchers, buggy whips, handlooms, and oxcarts. I doubt anyone has invented a new manual butter churn in the last 50 years (although many people are still inventing “better” 46

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mousetraps). Handlooms will always be around for art. Oxcarts are not extinct and will probably never go extinct globally as long as oxen are born, but because oxcarts encounter no new demands, they are remarkably stable inventions, continuing over time unchanged, like horseshoe crabs. Most artifacts hovering near obsolescence show a similar constancy. But technological backwaters like these are overwhelmed by the mind-numbing avalanche of innovation, ideas, and artifacts throughout the rest of the expanding technium. The avalanche of innovation in the expanding technium goes beyond artifacts to include ideas, objects of the mind. So far, humans have created 500,000 different movies and about one million TV episodes. At least 11 million different songs have been recorded. Chemists have catalogued 50 million different chemicals. If the current rates of inventiveness continue, in 2060 there will be 1.1 billion unique songs and 12 billion different kinds of products for sale. A few iconoclasts believe that this ultradiversity is toxic to humans. In The Paradox of Choice, psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that the 285 varieties of cookies, 175 kinds of salad dressing, and 85 brands of crackers for sale in the typical supermarket today are paralyzing consumers. Shoppers enter the store looking for crackers, see a bewildering wall of cracker choices, become overwhelmed with trying to make an informed decision, and finally walk out not purchasing any crackers at all. “Whether people are choosing jam in a grocery store or essay topics in a college class, the more options people have, the less likely they are to make a choice,” says Schwartz. Similarly, in trying to choose a medical-benefits plan with hundreds of options, many consumers give up because the complexity of choice is mind-numbing and instead withdraw from the program, whereas programs that included a default choice (no decision necessary) had much higher enrollments. Schwartz concludes: “As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become over-

loaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.” It is true that too many choices may induce regret, but “no choice” is a far worse option. Civilization is a steady migration away from “no choice.” As always, the solution to the problems that technology brings, such as an overwhelming diversity of choices, is better technologies. The solution to ultradiversity will be choice-assist technologies. These better tools will aid humans in making choices among bewildering options. That is what search engines, recommendation systems, tagging, and a lot of social media are all about. Diversity, in fact, will produce tools to handle diversity. We are already discovering how to use computers to augment our choices with information and Web pages (Google is one such tool), but it will take additional learning and technologies to do this with tangible stuff and idiosyncratic media. At the dawn of the Web, some very smart computer scientists declared that it would be impossible to select from a billion Web pages using a keyword search, but we routinely do just that on 100 billion Web pages today. No one is asking for fewer Web pages. The Future Is Cluttered: That’s a Good Thing Not too long ago, the stereotypical image of a technological future was one of standard products, worldwide sameness, and unwavering uniformity. Yet paradoxically, diversity can be unleashed by a type of uniformity. The uniformity of a standard writing system (like an alphabet or script) unleashes the un expected diversity of literature. Without uniform rules, every word has to be made up, so communication is localized, inefficient, and thwarted. But with a uniform language, sufficient communication transpires in large circles so that a novel word, phrase, or idea can be appreciated, caught, and disseminated. The rigidity of an alphabet has done more to enable creativity than any unhinged brainstorming exercise ever invented. The standard 26 letters in English

have produced 16 million different books in English. Words and language will keep evolving, of course, but their evolution rides on basic fundamentals that are conserved and shared; unvarying (over the short term) letters, spelling, and grammar rules enable creativity in ideas. Increasingly, the technium will converge upon a few universal standards—perhaps basic English, modern musical notation, the metric system (except in the United States!), and mathematical symbols, but also widely adopted technical protocols, such as ASCII and Unicode. The infrastructure of the world today is built upon a shared system woven from these kinds of standards. That is why you can order machine parts in China to be used in factories in South Africa or have research done in India for drugs released in Brazil. This convergence of fundamental protocols is also why the youth of today can speak to one another directly in a way not possible even a decade ago. They use cell phones and netbooks running common operating systems, but they also employ standard abbreviations and increasingly share common cultural touchstones by watching the same movies, listening to the same music, studying the same subjects and textbooks in school, and pocketing the same technology. In a curious way, the homogenization of shared universals allows them to transmit the diversity of cultures. Global Diversity Thrives On Local Diversity In a world of converging global standards, a recurring fear among minority cultures is that their niche differences will be lost. These niche differences need not vanish. In fact, the increasingly common carrier of global communication can heighten the value of these minorities’ cultural differences. The distinctive foods, medicinal knowledge, and child-rearing practices of, say, the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon or the San Bushmen in Africa were once only esoteric, local knowledge. Their diversity constituted a difference that did not make a difference outside the tribe, because their

knowledge was not connected to tions. If technology converges into a other human cultures. But once these single global sequence of innovaisolated cultures are connected to tions, in what way does this encourstandard roads, electricity, and com- age technological diversity? The sequence of the technium is munications, their differences can potentially make a difference to oth- akin to the development of an organers. Even if their knowledge can be ism as it grows through a scripted applied only in their local environ- series of stages. All brains, for inment, wider knowledge of their stance, progress through a growth knowledge makes a difference. pattern from infancy to maturity. But Where do wealthy people travel to? anywhere along that line, the brain Places that retain differences. What can generate a remarkable delivery eateries attract customers? The ones of thoughts. For the most part, technology will with distinctive characteristics. What products sell in a global market? converge to uniform usage around Ones that showcase different think- the globe, but occasionally some ing or, in the future, that actually group or subgroup will devise and refine a type of technology or techthink differently themselves. If such local diversity can remain nique that has limited appeal to a distinctively different while it is con- fringe group or marginal use. Very nected (and this is a very big if), then occasionally, this fringe diversity that difference becomes steadily will triumph in the mainstream and more valuable in a PATRICK TUCKER global matrix. Maintaining that balance of connected-but-different is a challenge, of course, because much of a group’s cultural difference and diversity originated via isolation, and in the new mix it will no longer be isolated. Cultural differences that thrive without isolation (even if they were A resident of Kyoto, Japan, looks at cell phones on Teramachi born out of it) will Street. Japanese cell phones offer a wide number of features, compound in value like two-way video communication, that are still relatively rare as the world becomes on U.S. phones. standardized. One example is Bali, Indonesia. The rich, distinguished Balinese may wield En- overwhelm the existing paradigm, glish as their universal second thus rewarding the processes the language while speaking their own technium has of encouraging divermother tongue at home. They make sity. Anthropologists have noted that their ritual flower offerings in the morning and study science at school tribes using one kind of technology in the afternoon. They do gamelan for decades are not emulated by (an act of music making native to other tribes within a day’s walk of them. This is still true today. CellBali) and Google. But how does widening diversity phone use is significantly broader square with the inevitable sequence and deeper, and is changing faster, in of technologies and the convergence Japan than in the United States. Yet of the technium upon certain forms? the same factories make the gear for At first glance, it would seem as if both countries. Similarly, automobile the channeling of the technium’s di- use is broader, deeper, and fasterrection would work against its changing in the United States than in spreading outward in new direc- Japan. THE FUTURIST

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ouflaged under leaves and branches; one is a row of sharpened stakes hidden beExtropy is neither wave, nor parhind a low barrier protecting ticle, nor pure energy. It is a non bait; and one is a deadfall—a material force that is very much like heavy weight suspended information. Since extropy is deabove a path that is tripped fined as negative entropy—the reand released by a passing versal of disorder—it is, by definipig. tion, an increase in order. Technical know-how of this But what is order? Despite our insort passes easily from viltuitive sense, we lack a good operalage to village in the West tional definition of order, which Papua highlands. What one seems to be tied up with complexcommunity knows, all know ity. For simple physical systems, the (at least over decades, if not concepts of thermodynamics sufcenturies). You have to travel fice, but for the real world of cumany days before variation cumbers, brains, books, and selfin knowledge is felt. Most driving trucks, we don’t have groups of Anga can set any of useful metrics for extropy. The best the three varieties of traps as we can say is that extropy resemneeded. However, one particbles, but is not equivalent to, inforular group, the Langimar, igmation. nore the common knowledge —Kevin Kelly of the deadfall trap. According to Lemonnier, “Members of this group can name without difficulty the ten pieces that make up the dead-fall The pattern is not new. Since the trap, they can describe its functionbirth of tools, humans have pre- ing, and they can even make a rough ferred some forms of technology sketch; but they do not use the deover others for irrational reasons. vice.” Right across the river, the They may avoid one version or one houses of the neighboring Menye invention—even when it appears to tribe can be seen; they can use this be more efficient or productive— type of trap—which is a very good simply as an act of identity: “Our technology. Two hours’ walk away, clan does not do it that way” or the Kapua tribe uses the deadfall, yet “Our tradition does it this way.” the Langimar choose not to. As LemPeople may skip an obvious techni- onnier notes, sometimes “a perfectly cal improvement because the new understood technology is volunway does not feel right or comfort- tarily ignored.” It’s not as if the Langimar are able, even though it is more utilitarian. Pierre Lemonnier, an anthropol- backward. Further north of the ogist specializing in technology, has Langimar, some Anga tribes make reviewed such patchy interruptions their wooden arrow tips barbless, sein history and says, “Time and lectively ignoring the critical techagain, people exhibit technical be- nology of injurious barbs that the haviors that do not correspond with Langimar use, despite the fact that any logic of material efficiency or the Anga “have had many occasions to note the superiority of the barbed progress.” The Anga tribesmen of Papua arrows shot at them by their eneNew Guinea have hunted wild pigs mies.” Neither the available wood for thousands of years. To kill a wild type nor the available type of game pig, which may weigh as much as a hunted explains this ethnic disman, the Anga construct a trap using missal. Technologies have a social dimenlittle more than sticks, vines, rocks, and gravity. Over time, the Anga sion beyond their mere mechanical have refined and modified trap tech- performance. We adopt new technolnology to fit their terrain. They have ogies largely because of what they devised three general styles. One is a do for us, but also in part because of trench lined with sharp stakes cam- what they mean to us. Often we re-

Extropy Defined

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March-April 2011

fuse to adopt technology for the same reason: because of how the avoidance reinforces or shapes our identity. Whenever researchers look closely at the dispersal patterns of technology, both modern and ancient, they see patterns of ethnic adoption. Sociologists have noticed that one group of Sami, a group of Arctic tribesmen associated with the Laplanders, rejected one of the two known types of reindeer lassos, while other Laplanders use both forms. A peculiarly in efficient type of horizontal waterwheel spread all over Morocco, but nowhere else in the world, even though the physics of waterwheels are constant. We should expect people to continue to exhibit ethnic and social preferences. Groups or individuals will reject all kinds of technologically advanced innovations simply because they can. Or because everyone else accepts them. Or because they clash with their self-conception. Or because they don’t mind doing things with more effort. People will choose to abstain from or forsake particular global standards of technology as a form of idiosyncratic distinction. In this way, while the planetary culture slides toward convergence of technologies, billions of technology users will diverge in their personal choices as they edge toward using smaller and more eccentric selections of available stuff. Diversity powers the world. In an ecosystem, increasing diversity is a sign of health. The technium, too, runs on diversity. From the dawn of creation the tide of diversity has risen, and as far as we can look into the future, it will continue to diverge without end. ❑ About the Author Kevin Kelly is senior maverick at Wired magazine, which he co-founded in 1993 and served as executive editor from its inception until 1999. From 1984 to 1990, he was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review. Web site www.kk.org. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from What Technology Wants, copyright © 2010 by Kevin Kelly.

S P E C I A L

A D V E R T I S I N G

S E C T I O N

CONSULTANTS AND SERVICES

listing of consulting futurists. For information about being listed in the directory, published in every issue of THE FUTURIST and available on the Web at www.wfs.org, call Jeff Cornish toll free at 1-800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274, or fax 301-951-0394.

Karl Albrecht International

Christensen Associates, Inc.

San Diego, CA U.S.A. Phone: 858-576-1500 E-mail: futures@KarlAlbrecht.com Web: KarlAlbrecht.com Contact: Dr. Karl Albrecht Conference Keynote: “Possibilities: Getting the Future You Deserve — Survival Secrets of the World’s Oldest Companies.”

8168 Manitoba St., No. 2, Playa Del Ray, CA 90293-8291 Phone: 310-578-0405 Fax: 310-578-0455 E-mail: chris@camcinc.com Web: www.camcinc.com Contact: Chris Christensen, CMC Avoid devastating surprises! Exploit ANY future! Stimulating and entertaining keynotes, workshops, assessments, and consulting.

Alternative Futures Associates 100 N. Pitt St., Suite 235, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures-afa.com Contact: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck, Eric Meade Vision and scenario development, strategic planning, trend analysis, workshop design and facilitation, presentations, keynotes, consulting.

Atlas Safety & Security Design, Inc. 770 Palm Bay Ln., Suite 4-I, Miami, FL 33138 Phone: 305-756-5027 Fax: 305-754-1658 E-mail: ratlas@ix.netcom.com Web: www.cpted-security.com Contact: Dr. Randall Atlas, AIA, CPP Pioneers in crime prevention through environmental design. Design of jails, prevention of premises liability lawsuits.

Aviv Consulting 15363 NE 201st St. Woodinville, WA 98072 Phone: 425-415-6155 Fax: 425-415-0664 E-mail: avivconsulting@gmail.com Web: www.avivconsulting.com Contact: Aviv Shahar Helping leaders and teams develop their vision and design the future. Innovation, strategy, coaching, consulting, retreats.

Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking 46 B/4 Jerusalem St., Kfar Saba, Israel 44369 Phone: 972-54-558-7940 Fax: 972-9-766965 Web: www.futurist-thinking.co.il E-mail: bisk@futurist-thinking.co.il Contact: Tsvi Bisk Strategic futurism: “Getting from Here to There” (Keynote speaker) Jewish, Mid-East and Mediterranean Futures (consulting).

Joseph F. Coates, Consulting Futurist, Inc. 3930 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste. 401, Washington, DC 20008 Phone 202-363-7440 Fax 202-363-4139 Email: joe@josephcoates.com Web: www.josephcoates.com The future is my business: futures research, consultation, trend analysis, scenario development, visioning, scientific, technological and social forecasting, training, briefings, workshops, presentations and keynotes. Coates has been one of the most frequently cited authors in Future Survey and one of the most popular speakers at the World Future Society annual meetings. He is the author or co-author of six books, most recently A Bill of Rights for 21st Century America, and of 2025: Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology. He has had assignments from half of the Fortune 100 firms, and has had published 290 articles on the future since 1990. He is also responsible for 200 proprietary reports to business, government and association clients. Coates will enlighten you on the future of any subject. Prepare for an unforgettable encounter.

Common Sense Medicine 812 W. 8th St., Suite 2A, Plainview, TX 79072 Phone: 806-291-0700 Fax: 806-293-8229 E-mail: drjonzdo@yahoo.com Web: www.commonsensemedicine.org Contact: Lon Jones DO, Jerry Bozeman M.Ed., LPC Adaptations today are the future. The authors of The Boids and the Bees tell how to guide adaptations in our living systems: healthcare, education, economy, even us.

Coombs Consulting Ltd. / Creating Living Workplaces 401-1265 West 11th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6H 1K6 Phone: 604-733-9014 E-mail: info@thelivingworkplacec.com Web: www.thelivingworkplace.com Contact: Ms. Ann Coombs, Thought Leader Areas of practice include sessions for renewal in work, personal leadership and emerging trends based on the best seller The L iving Workplace. Markets served: corporate/social/ nonprofit/foundations/associations.

Creating the Future, Inc. with Edward D. Barlow, Jr. 2907 Division St., Suite 109, St. Joseph, MI 49085 Phone: 269-982-1830 Fax: 269-982-1541 E-mail: info@creatingthefuture.com Web: www.creatingthefuture.com Contact: Ed Barlow (staff: Sandy, Tammy, and Tresea) Relating influences of a changing world to industries, organizations, professions, communities. Presentations, strategic planning facilitation.

DaVinci Institute Inc. 511 E. South Boulder Rd., Louisville, CO 80027 Phone: 303-666-4133 E-mail: deb@davinciinstitute.com Web: www.futuristspeaker.com Contact: Thomas Frey, Debra Frey Google’s top-rated futurist speaker. Speaking topics: business trends, colleges and universities, city of the future, innovation, education, information, libraries, transportation, and more.

de Bono For Business 248 W. Loraine St., #103, Glendale, CA 91202 Phone: 818-507-6055 E-mail: info@LyndaCurtin.com Web: www.deBonoForBusiness.com Contact: Lynda Curtin, the Opportunity Thinker Lift your thinking. Learn breakthrough futurist tools—lateral thinking, six thinking hats. Workshops. Keynotes. Facilitation.

More consultants and services, next page THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Consultants

and

Services

FutureManagement Group AG

H.G. Hudson and Associates

KAIROS Future AB

Wallufer Strasse 3a, Eltville, Germany D-65343 Phone: 49-6123-7 55 53 Fax: 49-6123-7 55 54 Web: www.FutureManagementGroup.com E-mail: Office@FutureManagementGroup.com Contacts: Pero Micic, Claudia Schramm Use the “Eltville Model” of FutureManagement to see more of the future than your competitors!

34 Warren Dr., Newport News, VA 23608 Phone: 757-874-5414 E-mail: HUDSON2059@msn.com Contact: Henry G. Hudson, president and CEO Management consulting help in advanced administrative services, operations, systems, methods, procedures, policies, strategy, and management.

P.O. Box 804, S-10136 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: (46 8) 545 225 00 Fax: (46 8) 545 225 01 E-mail: info@kairosfuture.se Web: www.kairosfuture.se Contacts: Mats Lindgren, Anna Kiefer Values, work, technology, marketing. Methods: scenarios, studies, lectures, seminars, consulting. Public and private sectors.

Future Problem Solving Program International, Inc.

Innovation Focus Inc.

2015 Grant Pl., Melbourne, FL 32901 Phone: 321-768-0078 Fax: 321-768-0097 E-mail: mail@fpspi.org Web: www.fpspi.org Contact: Marianne Solomon, Executive Director FPSPI is an established educational program that provides a 6-step problem solving process to assist students as they think about the future.

111 E. Chestnut St., Lancaster PA 17602-2703 Phone: 717-394-2500 Web: www.innovationfocus.com Contacts: Christopher W. Miller, Ph.D.; Anne Orban, M.Ed. Innovation Focus is an internationally recognized consulting firm that brings innovation to all stages of product life cycle management and provides proven processes for deep customer understanding and meaningful innovation. Clients include: Kraft Foods, Kimberly Clark, WD-40, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Kemp Consulting, LLC

Institute for Alternative Futures

Leading Futurists LLC

100 N. Pitt St., Suite 235, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures.com Contacts: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck, William Rowley, MD Uses research reports, workshops, scenarios, and visioning to help organizations understand future possibilities and create their “preferred future.”

4420 49th St., NW, Washington, DC 20016 Phone: 202-271-0444 E-mail: jbmahaffie@starpower.net Web: www.leadingfuturists.biz Contacts: John B. Mahaffie, Jennifer Jarratt Futures consulting, workshops, scenarios, research, keynote talks to help organizations discover new opportunities and challenges. Members, Association of Professional Futurists.

The Futures Corporation 1109 Main St., Ste. 299A, Boise, ID 83702 Phone: 208-345-5995 Fax: 208-345-6083 E-mail: JLuthy@futurescorp.com Web: www.futurescorp.com Contact: Dr. John Luthy Strategic thinking/planning; evolving leadership; organization redesign/development; trend analysis; scenario planning; business growth strategies.

The Futures Lab 2130 Goodrich Ave., Austin, TX 78704 Phone: 512-468-4505 E-mail: dwoodgate@futures-lab.com Web: www.futures-lab.com Contact: Derek Woodgate International futures-based consultancy specializing in consumer, business futures. Leaders in the future potential business.

The Greenway Group 25 Technology Pkwy. South, Suite 101, Norcross, GA 30092 Phone: 678-879-0929 Fax: 678-879-0930 E-mail: jcramer@di.net Web: www.greenway.us Contact: James Cramer, chairman Strategic change, trends, forecasts, research. Architecture and design technology. Journals: Design Intelligence. Publications: The Almanac of Architecture & Design, How Firms Succeed, Design + Enterprise, Leadership by Design, Communication by Design, Value Redesigned.

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March-April 2011

Institute for Global Futures 2084 Union St., San Francisco, CA 94123 Phone: 415-563-0720 Fax: 415-563-0219 E-mail: info@globalfuturist.com Web: www.GlobalFuturist.com Contact: Dr. James Canton Futures based keynotes, consulting and research for any vertical industry by leading futurist James Canton.

Institute for Participatory Management and Planning P.O. Box 1937, Monterey, CA 93942-1937 Phone: 831-373-4292 Fax: 831-373-0760 E-mail: ipmp@aol.com Web: www.ipmp-bleiker.com Contacts: Annemarie Bleiker, Hans Bleiker, Jennifer Bleiker We offer a Leadership Boot-Camp for guiding complex problem-solving and decision-making efforts.

P.O. Box 342, Meriden, CT 06450-0342 Phone: 203-686-0281 Fax: 203-265-2746 E-mail: rlkbsr@snet.net Web: www.linkedin.com/in/rogerlkemp Contact: Dr. Roger L. Kemp, president and CEO Dr. Kemp has been author, editor, and contributing author to nearly 50 books dealing with cities and their future. He gives keynote speeches, strategic briefings, and does futures research and consulting on emerging trends in cities, both in the U.S. and internationally.

MG Rush Performance Learning 1301 W. 22nd St., Suite 603, Oak Brook, IL 60523

Phone: 630-954-5880 Fax: 630-954-5889 E-mail: info@mgrush.com Contacts: Terrence Metz, Kevin Booth Facilitative leadership training, group decisionmaking methods and tools, facilitation, keynotes, workshop design and facilitation.

Minkin Affiliates 135 Riviera Dr., #305, Los Gatos, CA 95032 Phone: 408-402-3020 E-mail: barryminkin@earthlink.net Web: minkinaffiliates.com Contact: Barry Minkin Keynote speaker, bestselling author, global management consultant, three decades linking emerging trends to consumer and market strategy.

Next Consulting 104 Timber Ridge Rd., State College, PA 16801 Phone: 814-237-2575 Fax: 814-863-4257 E-mail: g7g@psu.edu Web: nextconsulting.us Contact: Geoffrey Godbey, Ph.D. Repositioning leisure/tourism organizations for the near future. Speeches, ideation, imagineering. Client list on request.

Jim Pinto Associates 11645 Caminito Magnifica, San Diego, CA 92131-2119 Phone: 858-695-6788 E-mail: jim@jimpinto.com Web: www.JimPinto.com Contact: Jim Pinto Speaker and consultant: technology futures, industrial automation, global business trends, Internet business relationships.

Pinyon Partners LLC 140 Little Falls St., Suite 210, Falls Church, VA 22046 Phone: 703-651-0359 E-mail: pshoemaker@pinyonpartners.com Web: www.pinyonpartners.com Contacts: Peter B.G. Shoemaker; Dan Garretson, Ph.D. Quantitative and qualitative. Art and Science. However you want to characterize it, our distinctive combination of the hard-nosed and the deeply intuitive is perfectly suited for those navigating over the horizon. Expansive explorations of what’s next; engaging engagements with change; consultations, workshops, research, and talks aimed at creating future-oriented clarity, purpose, insight, and confidence. Member, Association of Professional Futurists.

Qi Systems 35 Seacoast Terr., Apt. 6P, Brooklyn, NY 11235 Phone: 718-769-9655 E-mail: QiSys@msn.com Web: www.qisystems.org Contact: Ronn Parker, Ph.D. Spectrum Counseling: conflict resolution, conscious evolution, martial arts, meditation methods, mindbody strategies, transformational learning.

Connect!

David Pearce Snyder, Consulting Futurist The Snyder Family Enterprise, 8628 Garfield St., Bethesda, MD 20817-6704 Phone: 301-530-5807 Fax: 301-530-1028 E-mail: david@the-futurist.com Web: www.the-futurist.com Contact: Sue Snyder High-impact motivating presentations. Strategic assessments, socio-technologic forecasts/scenarios. Keynote addresses, strategic briefings, workshops, surveys.

Strategic Futures® Strategic Futures Consulting Group, Inc. 113 South Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: 703-836-8383 Fax: 703-836-9192 E-mail: info@strategicfutures.com Web: www.strategicfutures.com Contact: Ron Gunn or Jennifer Thompson Strategic planning, succession planning including mentoring, executive coaching, organizational change facilitation, and matrix management assistance.

The TechCast Project Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052 Phone: 202-994-5975 E-mail: Halal@gwu.edu Web: www.techcast.org Contact: William E. Halal, professor, George Washington University; president, Techcast LLC TechCast is an online research project that pools the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide to forecast breakthroughs in all fields of science and technology. Results are updated in real time and distributed to corporations, governments, and other subscribers to aid in their strategic planning. The project has been featured in The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Futurist, and various journals. The National Academies consider TechCast among the best systems available, and Google ranks it No. 2 or 3 out of 45 million hits. TechCast also gives presentations, conducts customized studies, and performs most types of consulting related to technology and strategic change.

van der Werff Global, Ltd. SynOvation Solutions 455 Hazelwood Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 Phone: 415-298-3008 E-mail: info@synovationsolutions.com Web: www.synovationsolutions.com Contacts: Bruce L. Tow, David A. Gilliam Future-is-now resources to help you achieve key and mission-critical breakthroughs or creatively evolve your business to meet future challenges.

Synthesys Strategic Consulting Ltd. Belsize Park, London NW3 UK Phone: 44-207-449-2903 Fax: 44-870-136-5560 E-mail: www.hardintibbs.com Web: www.synthstrat.com Contact: Hardin Tibbs, CEO Synthesys specializes in using futures research to develop innovative strategies. Based in London UK, with international experience in both the public and private sectors, across many different industries. Projects include horizon scanning, strategic sense-making, scenarios, vision building, assumption testing, and strategy formulation, either as expert input or by co-production directly with leadership teams.

4958 Crystal Circle, Hoover, AL 35226 Phone: 888-448-3779 Fax: 888-432-9263 E-mail: terry@globalfuture.com Web: www.globalfuture.com Contact: Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC Confidential advisor to corporate leaders worldwide on global trends, executive leadership, and strategic change.

Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. 200 E. 33rd St., Suite 9I, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-889-7007 Fax: 212-679-0628 E-mail: info@weineredrichbrown.com Web: www.weineredrichbrown.com Contact: Arnold Brown, Edie Weiner For over two decades, the pioneers in detecting emerging trends and linking them to a ction.

Xland sprl 111 Av Grandchamp, Brussels, Belgium 1150 Phone: 32-475-827-190 Fax: 32-2-762-46-08 Web: www.xland.be E-mail: xland@skynet.be Contact: D. Michel Judkiewicz Trend analysis, scenarios, forecasting opportunities/threats based on strong and weak signals for resilient strategies.

Link to futurist consultants and services online at www.wfs.org/consultants

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Book Reviews Surviving the Great Recession’s Aftershocks By Patrick Tucker

Too much wealth in the hands of too few will result in less for all, warns a former U.S. labor secretary, who offers a prescription for rebalancing wealth. The inequality of wealth in the United States will result in a stagnant economy and political turmoil by the year 2020, argues public- policy scholar and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in Aftershock. Millions of deeply indebted Americans will embrace isolationism, reject both big government and big business, and sever America’s ties with the rest of the world, he predicts. To illustrate the size and scope of this disaster, Reich sets up a credible and horrifying scenario: The year is 2020. The recently elected president, Margaret Jones of the Independence Party, is about to set forth on a legislative agenda reflecting the frustrations of the broad, outsider constituency that elected her. Her objectives: a freeze on legal immigration and the swift deportation of all illegal immigrants; increased tariffs on foreign goods; prohibition against foreign investment; withdrawal from the World Bank, the United Nations, and other international organizations; and a default on the U.S. debt to China. The results are immediate. “On November 4, the day after Election Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 50 percent in an unprecedented volume of trading,” writes Reich. “The dollar plummets 30 percent against a weighted average of other currencies. Wall Street is in a panic. Banks close. Business leaders predict economic calamity. Mainstream pollsters, pundits, and political consultants fill the airwaves with expressions of shock and horror. Over and over again, they ask: 52

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March-April 2011

How could this have occasional r iots, and happened?” massive resentment This aftershock, says over the issue of debt Reich, is a direct result and wealth inequality, of Americans failing to as chronicled by the learn the lessons of the late historian Howard Great Depression, thus Zinn in A People’s Hissetting the country up tory of the United States: on a course for yet an1492-Present. other economic crisis. Today’s wealth inThe most important of equality is a moral failthese lessons is that too ing, says Reich, but it’s much money resting in also an operational the hands of too few malfunction at the root people cannot grow an of many of America’s e c o n o m y. W h a t ’ s other problems. An needed is an orderly Aftershock: The Next economy that is growd i v i s i o n o f i n c o m e Economy and America’s ing across all income spread across lower, Future by Robert B. Reich. levels encourages m i d d l e , a n d u p p e r Knopf. 2010. 192 pages. people to buy more c l a s s e s , h e a rg u e s . $25. things like new cars, When income (hence, consumer electronics, wealth) is too concenbachelor ’s degrees, trated among elites, the economy at- bigger houses, and the like. Instead, rophies and declines. over the last two decades, a larger It’s a classic Keynesian argument portion of the wealth went to a that would ring shrill and tinny if smaller group; as a result, Americans we didn’t live in such Dickensian were forced to resort to a number of times. Consider that, prior to the coping mechanisms to continue to Great Recession of 2008, income and consume at ever higher levels. wealth inequality in the United The first of these coping mechaStates were higher than they had nisms was the two-income housebeen any time in the recent past hold. In the 1970s, the mass entry of other than just before the Great De- women into the workforce increased pression, with the top 1%—those household income, but only up to a with incomes more than $380,000 point. Over the last decades, those per year—owning roughly 23% of economic gains have been eaten up the assets. Median wages for work- by such things as the costs of child ers have been stagnant since the care. 1970s, at about $45,000 a year, deThe second coping mechanism spite the fact that the economy itself that Americans employed to mitiis much larger than it was three dec- gate stagnant wages was longer ades ago. Those gains mostly went working hours. This also worked to those at the top. well until, by the mid-2000s, AmeriThis present situation is, of course, cans were putting in 500 more not without historic precedent. In hours—that’s 12 more weeks—of the 1700s, wealth inequality in the paid work a year than they were in American colonies was similar to 1970. that of the United States today. The Finally, Americans resorted to savsituation was particularly dire in ing less and borrowing more in orBoston, where the top 5% of the pop- der to continue consuming at ever ulation controlled 25% of the wealth higher levels. Reich points out that in the 1720s (this would become 50% average household debt was 138% of by 1770). Too often we forget that the household income in 2007, up from a decades leading up to the American manageable 55% in the 1960s. This Revolution were marked by the represents the largest gap since the burning of rich merchants’ shops, Great Depression. Much of that debt

was tied up in home loans that people would never be able to pay off. The question becomes, Does voluminous spending by the well-funded few necessarily lead to reckless spending on the part of the many? Reich argues that it does. There is some recent independent research to back him up on this. In an October 2010 paper titled “Expenditure Cascades,” Robert H. Frank of Cornell University, Adam Seth Levine of Vanderbilt University, and Oege Dijk of the European University show that “changes in one group’s spending shift the frame of reference that defines consumption standards for others just below them on the income scale....” What of the gainers, the 10% who saw unprecedented wealth and income increases? They didn’t fare as well as you might expect. With too much capital to ever spend efficiently, many of them invested in a series of asset bubbles through unscrupulous Wall Street intermediaries, with predictably lackluster results. The battle against falling middleclass wages is one that Reich has been fighting for decades, since serving as labor secretary in the Clinton White House. He acknowledges that, even in those instances when he’s had the ear of the president (he also served briefly on the Obama administration team), he hasn’t had much success in implementing the sorts of structural changes that would set the nation’s distribution of income on a more equitable path. “We in the Clinton administration tinkered. We raised the minimum wage.… We offered students from poor families access to college and expanded a refundable tax credit for low-income workers.… All these steps were helpful but frustratingly small in light of the larger backward lunge.” Reich lays out several proposals— either reasonable or radical depending on your point of view—to correct the imbalance of wealth in the next decade:

• A reverse income tax. The government would put extra money into the paychecks of low wage earners and cut taxes on middle class Americans (those earning less than $90,000 per year). The policy would be modeled after the Earned Income Tax Credit but would be more ambitious in reach. Reich speculates that the cost to the government would be about $600 billion per year. • A carbon tax collected against energy companies. Reich estimates that, if set at $35 per metric ton of CO 2, this tax would raise about as much as the reverse income tax (wage supplement) would cost— around $600 billion. • A one-time “severance tax” levied against employers who lay off long-term workers, equal to 75% of a worker’s yearly salary. • Federal subsidization of lessprofitable but socially valuable college majors. Public universities, under a Reich plan, would be free, and loans for private schools would be available at low cost. Upon graduating, a student who took such a loan would pay about 10% of his or her income on the loan for 10 years. After that, the loan would be considered fully paid. “This way,” says Reich, “graduates who pursue lowincome occupations such as social work, teaching, or legal services would be subsidized by graduates who pursue high-income occupations including business, finance, and corporate law.” The effect of these proposals, with the exception of the college funding one, would be to transfer investing power away from the private sector (rich people and their money advisors) and put it in the hands of the federal government, which would then distribute those funds to the people to buy consumer goods. There’s a libertarian argument against this, but also a practical one. As Reich himself points out, a rising share of consumer spending now goes abroad, as more Americans purchase products made in other countries. Taxing U.S. energy companies—at a time when a larger than

ever portion of the fuel the country uses comes from Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia—in order to pay Americans to purchase electronics from Malaysia, toys from China, and wine from Spain seems unlikely to have a positive effect on national GDP. A better use of such money might be infrastructure or public works, which would put more money in the hands of Americans. Reich acknowledges the dilapidated state of the country’s roads and bridges, but he doesn’t propose a single large-scale public infrastructure project. In fact, he derides the 1990s as a time when too much private investment capital resulted in “more miles of fiber-optic cable than could ever be profitable.” The 1990s telecom asset bubble was certainly severe, but Reich dis regards or ignores the types of services that can be offered over the Internet once bandwidth limitations are removed. Perhaps, while serving in the White House, he never experienced the frustration of a slow download. The idea of a company paying severance costs of 75% of a terminated employee’s yearly salary—in essence paying the “social costs” for outsourcing—is a radical one for the United States. Businesses would argue that such a measure would crimp their flexibility and that the ability to hire and fire freely helps keep companies lean, nimble, and competitive. They might say that, faced with a 75% severance requirement, firing anybody would be too difficult and American companies would come to resemble Japanese companies during the 1990s—the socalled “lost decade,” when every employee was guaranteed a high degree of job security regardless of whether or not he (it was mostly men) helped or hindered the overall

Feedback Welcome Send comments on any article, story, or review to letters@wfs.org.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Book Reviews

corporation. The suggestion that companies be penalized for firing people reads like an open pander to labor interests, not a viable revenue generating strategy. A straight tax hike on corporate entities, regardless of hiring or firing behavior, would seem to meet the same objective with fewer downsides. The principal argument against Reich is that his proposals are politically untenable in an environment where any effort to raise taxes on any American, for any reason, meets with nearly insurmountable resistance from the Right and passionate charges of socialism on the floor of the House of Representatives. The 2010 election saw a number of Tea Party candidates rise to power in some very poor states like Kentucky—places that would benefit greatly from the wealth-redistributing policies that Reich proposes. How did these candidates win? They succeeded by promising to thwart any increase on taxation for the very wealthy, no matter what the cost; they promised to halt any remaining “bail-out” funds from being spent. They vowed to undo the recently enacted health care law and its provisions to expand health coverage to more Americans. It’s one thing to argue that the country, running a record deficit, cannot afford such policies. It is another thing entirely to suggest that such policies are not in the interests of the growing poor. Yet, people in the first district of West Virginia and the first district of Arkansas voted against their own interests. What does this show? Perhaps the worst enemy of the American middle class is not the most wealthy 1%, but the mistrustful and ever-angrier middle class itself, all of which adds to the timeliness and value of Reich’s achievement with this important book. About the Reviewer Patrick Tucker is the senior editor of THE FUTURIST magazine and the director of communications for the World Future Society.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

What Hath Hawking Wrought? By Edward Cornish

Scientists show how gravitational forces might create universes spontaneously, with no divine intervention required. In their ambitious new book, The Grand Design, mathematician Stephen Hawking and his collaborator, physicist Leonard Mlodinow of Caltech, offer scientific explanations for many of the mysteries of the universe. Why do we exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we live under this particular set of natural laws and not some other? Philosophers have long struggled with such questions and typically ended by invoking God. But Hawking and Mlodinow insist on a strictly scientific view, commenting, “It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.” To warm up for Hawking’s expansive thinking, we might begin with his assertion that our universe is merely one of a set or assemblage of universes, which he calls the Multiverse, or M-Theory. “Our universe seems to be one of many, each with different laws,”

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. Bantam Books. 2010. 119 pages. Color illustrations, including original art by Peter Bollinger. $28.

Hawking and Mlodinow assert. “The Multiverse Theory is the only theory that has all the properties we think the final theory ought to have.” According to the authors, a whole universe can be created out of nothing because gravity shapes space and time. “Gravity allows space-time to be locally stable but globally unstable,” they write. “On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of matter can be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes. Because there is a law like gravity, a universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God….” Hawking and Mlodinow write in a friendly, engaging style, but the average reader may still struggle with their mind-blowing ideas. Never mind: It’s worth making the effort. Most of us don’t stretch our minds nearly enough. Readers will certainly expand their thinking by reading The Grand Design, but they may have difficulty finding immediate practical use for

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

it. But let us be patient: Practical uses may well come in the future. In science, theory tends to precede practical applications. Benjamin Franklin’s theorizing about electricity (along with his experiments) led eventually to the huge electric-power industry that we know today. So sometime in the future, Hawking’s ideas may well reshape the world economy and other aspects of our world that we have yet to imagine.

From left to right: Rutger van Santen, Bram Vermeer, and Djan Khoe.

About the Reviewer Edward Cornish is the founding editor of THE FUTURIST magazine and founder of the World Future Society.

Tools for Problem Solving By Rick Docksai

In order to meet the challenges ahead, we’ll need less control, more distributed action, and less resistance to change. Technology could contribute to solving many of the world’s problems, ranging from resource shortages to financial crises, state three Dutch scientists in 2030: Technology That Will Change the World. Citing interviews with researchers from health, information technology, energy, foreign policy, and other fields, they identify an array of innovations that could improve life across the globe. The authors—chemist Rutger van Santen and electro-optical communication professor Djan Khoe, both of Eindhoven University, with science journalist Bram Vermeer—and the experts they cite express agreement on several fundamentals: that the world’s global systems are growing more interconnected, that information systems must become more ad-

2030: Technology That Will Change the World by Rutger van Santen, Djan Khoe, and Bram Vermeer. Oxford University Press. 2010. 295 pages. $29.95.

ept at gathering information from the ground level and rapidly responding to it, and that humans must overcome their reticence to change. “We need to pursue more flexible solutions so that technology can serve us more effectively in a fastchanging environment. And we must also come to grips with complexity itself,” the authors write. Some promising research areas, according to the authors, include the following: • Water management. Droughts worldwide will worsen in the absence of new methods to reduce stress on water systems. Potential remedies include drought-resistant crops, improved irrigation, and water purification and desalination systems that operate at the neighborhood or household scale. • Energy efficiency. Humans already consume the earth’s resources more than 1.5 times faster than the planet can replenish them—and the deficit is widening. Some hope, however, lies in more energy-efficient buildings and household appliances. Prototype alternative-energy systems also show promise. Solar cells made with conducting polymers would be lighter, more flexible, and

easier to manufacture than presentday solar cells, for example. Nuclear breeder reactors would provide massive amounts of energy with minimal nuclear waste. And hydrogen could be a practical fuel if combined with other, denser gases. • Medicine. In the future, medical scanning software will process more images in less time. Also, the scanners will analyze the images and advise physicians on follow-up tests and treatments. Cognitive decline may be inevi table for some people at advanced ages, but they may better cope by using technological applications such as cookers that turn themselves off or kettles that protect users against accidental burnings, for example. • Manufacturing. Microplants— whole factories the size of a computer chip—will construct devices “to a precision of a few micrometers,” all with much less energy and waste than traditional manufacturing processes. Computer chips cannot get much smaller, but they can become far more capable. “Smart” computer chips will be aware of their environments and act upon them. Applications could include brain-wave monitors for patients who have epilepsy. The monitor would recognize an oncoming seizure and avert it. • Communications. Numbers of radio stations, TV stations, and mobile-phone and satellite connections THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Book Reviews

are increasing, but room on the electromagnetic spectrum is limited. Networks will operate better if regulations governing bandwidth are loosened and control delegated to local units, the authors argue. Communications will further benefit from new systems that broadcast with less spectrum and from software-defined radio sets whose components change frequencies and perform upgrades automatically in accordance with changing airwave transmissions. • F i n a n c e s . Major economic crashes are often preventable if market observers spot market instabilities before they spiral out of control. Use of computer simulations and other new network science tools would enable economists to better understand market mechanisms. Computers could even perform trades for people: “Automated” trading would eliminate unnecessary trading and lower market risk. • Conflict resolution. Civil conflicts are more numerous, and nuclear weapons are an ever-present danger. Satellites and environmental sampling can help keep the peace,

however, by enforcing disarmament agreements. Foreign policies have to evolve, too, according to the authors. Governments need to pursue greater integration, economic cooperation, and interdependence. In addition, every measure that nations take to use less oil and electricity will engender a more peaceful world. The world and the challenges it faces are both becoming increasingly complex, the authors acknowledge. They are hopeful, however, that if humans expand their capabilities to cooperatively gather information, analyze it, and act upon it, they will thrive. “Protecting the future of our industry is not about securing the status quo but fostering the dynamics needed to adapt to changes as they arise,” they write. In 2030, the authors have provided an incisive report about the upcoming frontiers of modern scientific research. Readers will find this book an approachable guide to the new applications that we might realistically see come into use in the decades ahead.

Books

Brief

Edited by Rick Docksai Keeping Connected With the Joneses The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods by John McKnight and Peter Block. BerrettKoehler. 2010. 173 pages. $26.95.

Avid consumerism became a societal trend in the early twentieth century, and since then “keeping up with the Joneses” has impacted life in many harmful ways, according to social-policy professor John M cKnight and workplace consultant Peter Block in The Abundant Comm u n i t y. T h e y argue that the m a r k e t p l a c e has essentially replaced the

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community in most people’s minds, and thus people’s neighborhoods no longer satisfy their emotional needs. The incessant drive to buy and consume requires huge corporations, health-care infrastructures, and thousands of different types of specialists to feed it. People work nonstop and rely on specialists to look after their health, maintain their homes, keep their neighborhoods in order, and care for their children. Families spend less time together, neighbors scarcely know each other, and relationships become shallow and utilitarian. Should consumerism persist, the health of communities everywhere will suffer greatly, the authors warn. No neighborhood can effectively prevent crime, educate its youth, create jobs, keep parks clean, and ensure that the elderly, the poor, and other people in need are cared for unless its residents work together to make all these things happen. McKnight and Block hold out hope that communities everywhere will rediscover their own nonmaterial abundance and relearn how to create vibrant community life. They conclude by laying out the values a community must adopt to achieve this. The Abundant Community is an indepth evaluation of twenty-first- century society and the values that define it. Community activists, organizers, and leaders of all kinds will find it deeply meaningful.

Engines of Human Advancement Acceleration: The Forces Driving Human Progress by Ronald Havelock. Prometheus. 2011. 363 pages. $28.

Humanity has much to look forward to in this century, argues technology consultant Ronald Havelock in Acceleration. He describes a sweeping transformation of human

life by 2050: longer life spans, growing knowledge platforms, swelling ranks of scientists and engineers, exponentially more powerful computers, and the diffusion of a more inclusive human ethics. Havelock identifies a powerful “Forward Function”—movement of societal and technologic a l p ro g re s s — that he says has been active throughout hum a n h i s t o r y. Progress has been especially great over the last 60 years due to an array of new forces: expanded learning, increased information storage capacity, the evolution of social networking, a larger division of labor in the service of problem solving, more sophisticated problemsolving processes, and immensely enhanced power to distribute knowledge via media. For the first time in human history, individual groups of researchers, producers, distributors, and consumers are all continuously connected. These ties of communication will bring all more closely into alignment and enable them to work together to make more rapid and consistent innovation. Pessimism about the future still runs deep, Havelock notes. Vast numbers of people believe that the future will be grim. Havelock encourages a more positive outlook: Pessimism not only lowers quality of life, but it also slows the Forward Function. He remains confident that the Forward Function will stay on course for as long as there is a human species and will continue to improve human life. Acceleration is an upbeat philosophical perspective on humanity’s past, present, and future. Audiences from all walks of life will find it thought-provoking and inspirational.

Foresight in a Flash? Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible by Daniel Burrus with John David Mann. HarperBusiness. 2011. 268 pages. $27.95.

We’ve all had moments of “flash foresight”—i.e., intuitive grasps of what is to come—says executive consultant Daniel Burrus in Flash Foresight, written with business journalist John David Mann. The challenge, Burrus adds, is to know when to act on it; sometimes this foresight is counterintuitive and req u i re s d o i n g the opposite of what everyone else is doing. You exercise flash foresight when you look to the future and try to discern what you already know. Then, once you’ve established your certainties, you attempt to fill in the uncertainties. There is much about the future that we can predict in advance, Burrus says. He describes real-life examples of people who exercised flash foresight to solve real problems. Apple Computers’ leadership used it to resurge from market failure to market domination. The phone company Mobile Telephone Networks used it to create burgeoning cell-phone markets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. And Burrus claims to have used it in the early 1980s to accurately predict the digital revolution, the explosive growth of fiber-optic cable networks, and the sequencing of the human genetic code by the year 2000. Burrus also points out examples of people who failed to use it. They include the heads of General Motors, who had a hugely successful company in the mid-twentieth century but faced collapse and federal takeover in 2008. Flash Foresight presents helpful THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Book Reviews

case studies in how decision makers in any industry can more effectively shed light on their futures.

Islam’s Call to Sustainability Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin. Berrett-Koehler. 2010. 232 pages. Paperback. $16.95.

Conservation of the earth is integral to Islam, argues Muslim author and policy advisor Ibrahim AbdulMatin. He presents multiple examples of what Muslims are doing and can do to improve human stewardship of the planet and its resources. These include “green” mosques that incorporate sustainability into their architecture; urban and suburban food gardens that flourish in some Muslim neighborhoods; and Alpujarra, a Muslim community in Mexico that draws all of its energy from localized solar and wind generators. There are also individual Muslims who are leading sustainability changes in their own communities, such as Adnan Durrani, an organic

food pioneer, and Qaid Hassan, an entrepreneur who delivers fresh produce to low-income communities in Chicago. Also, the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a Chicago nonprofit, operates a Green Reentry Project that helps recently incarcerated men transition into green jobs. None of the examples above is an anomaly, Abdul-Matin asserts. He notes that Muhammad, Islam’s foremost prophet, once said that “The Earth is a Mosque, and everything on it is sacred.” Abdul-Matin points to many verses in the Koran pertaining to daily living and how each actually contributes to solving global problems of energy use, food distribution, water supplies, and waste. He further explains how these teachings can be useful and relevant to anyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who is concerned about the environment’s long-term health.

Call for Papers World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight (WFR) is the World Future Society’s publication for Professional and Institutional members. WFR seeks to encourage and facilitate communication among futures researchers and practitioners in all related fields and from all geographic, social, political, and economic sectors. It is our intent that this journal shall provide a forum for all who are professionally involved with the theory, methodology, practice, and use of futures research. The editors of World Future Review are especially seeking the following types of material: 1. Methodological and conceptual analysis of both a quantitative and qualitative nature. 2. Papers based on research, modeling, and strategic planning (the substantive outcomes of futures research). 3. Papers outlining the challenges of government, corporate, and nonprofit planners and other practicing/professional futurists. 4. Articles about futures research practitioners (individual, institutional, or at a national level) and their contributions to the art/discipline. E-mail submissions or queries to WFR Executive Editor Timothy C. Mack, tmack@wfs.org. For more detailed manuscript preparation and writer’s guidelines, please visit www.wfs.org/content/world-future-review-editorial-guidelines.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Green Deen offers a new perspective on Islam—the world’s secondlargest religion—and its potential as a force for positive worldwide change. Secular and religious audiences of all faith traditions may find it informative and enlightening.

Can Information Empires Be Free? The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu. Knopf. 2010. 366 pages. $27.95.

Since the invention of the telephone, every information technology has evolved along a similar trajectory, says Tim Wu, chairman of the media reform organization Free Press, in The Master Switch. He calls this trajectory “The Cycle.” At first, the technology is an open system that is controlled by no one and subject to extensive innovation by many different developers. Over time, however, one corporation or entity gains exclusive control. Then the technology becomes a “closed system,” and innovation grinds to a halt. He traces the Cycle as it played out during the twentieth century in film, telecommunications, and broadcast media. Key industry players took over each market, and the outcomes were blander media content, stifled individual expression, and fewer choices for consumers. The Internet is still an open system, Wu adds. But there are signs that it, too, could fall under centralized control. The consequences would be staggering, given that information industries are integral to almost every aspect of our lives. Wu advises against aggressive government regulation of information markets. At the same time, he insists that those who develop information, those who own the networks on which it travels, and those who control the tools of information access must all be kept separate from each other. Government must

also remain vigilant against excessively large corporate mergers. These basic checks are vital, Wu argues, to prevent any one corporation from becoming the sole arbiter of what consumers see and hear online. The Master Switch is a provocative thesis on where the Internet has come from and where it is headed. It will interest technology enthusiasts and all who value a vibrant media market.

Putting Our Minds to Morality My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer Sternberg. Prometheus. 2010. 244 pages. Paperback. $21.

As neuroscientists learn more about the influences that the brain’s neurons and neurotransmitters have, difficult questions arise over how much control people really have over their lives, according to Tufts University medical student Eliezer Sternberg in My Brain Made Me Do It. Some neurologists believe that human behavior is entirely predetermined by brain chemistry and that free will does not really exist. Many philosophers object strongly to this viewpoint, however. They hold that to deny free will is to reduce human beings to mindless machines without capacity for moral responsibility. Sternberg presents both sides and then concludes with his own nuanced view: The brain influences behavior, but it does not determine it. Humans still have the capacity to make their own decisions. Referencing numerous studies of brain activity, brain hormones, and mental disorders, he constructs the complex process of human decision making and the multiple factors—emotional, hormonal, logical, and situational— that underlie it. Sternberg recasts complex theories about the human brain and human behavior in simple terms that almost any audience will readily grasp. My Brain Made Me Do It will be an en-

gaging read for scientists and lay readers alike.

Crosscurrent a compelling case for hope.

Humanity’s Next Great Evolution in Values

Working with Millennials

Thriving in the Crosscurrent: Clarity and Hope in a Time of Cultural Sea Change by James Kenney. Quest. 2010. 253 pages. Paperback. $16.95.

The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd. HarperCollins. 2011. 294 pages. $26.99.

A cultural sea change is under way across the globe, says interfaith activist Jim Kenney in Thriving in the Crosscurrent. Old beliefs and new beliefs are clashing, and the end result will be the prevalence of cultural values that are better attuned to current realities. Ethnocentric values—sexism, racism, war, materialism, greed, and exploitation of the environment—are receding. And world-centered values—gender partnership, intercultural dialogue, religious pluralism, nonviolence, spiritual awareness, social justice, a n d e n v i ro n mental justice— are taking their place. At least three such sea changes have taken place in human history: the rise of agriculture, the emergence of the major Eastern and Western religious traditions, and the Copernican realization that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Each one signified a profound shift in human understanding and an affirmation of interdependence and creative complexity. Kenney points out concrete examples of the sea change in academia, the nonprofit world, contemporary politics, and other areas of life. He describes current reactionary forces opposing change, but argues that the new values will ultimately prevail. Readers who worry about humanity’s future will find in Thriving in the

The Millennial generation—all those born between 1977 and 1997— will constitute nearly half the world’s workforce by 2014, according to workplace consultant Jeanne Meister and Sun Microsystems vice president Karie Willyerd in The 2020 Workplace. They call on employers to plan now for a new paradigm in how and where people will work, the skills they will offer, and the technologies they will use to communicate. Workforces will exhibit greater diversity in age, gender, and ethnicity, the authors forecast. Also, due to the proliferation of virtual communications, more offices will consist of employees who are dispersed across remote corners of the globe. Professionals everywhere will have far more options as to how, where, when, and for whom they work— provided that they produce results. Leadership will have to be more global, culturally aware, and skilled at building alliances and sharing authority. The authors describe the unique values that will set the Millennial workforce apart—such as freedom, personal choice, collaboration, corporate integrity, and innovation—and how these priorities will influence their professional lives. They advise employers on how to best engage this new generation while still keeping their senior employees satisfied. Workplace managers and leaders in practically any industry or sector may find The 2020 Workplace to be a helpful guide to how they can prepare their workplaces for success in the world of 2020. ❑ THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

WorldFuture 2011 Moving from Vision to Action

Friday evening, July 8, 2011, through Sunday, July 10, 2011. Preconference courses on Thursday and Friday, July 7 and 8, plus Two-Day Education Summit—NEW in 2011! Professional Members’ Forum on Monday, July 11. Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, Vancouver, BC, Canada You Asked, and We’re Making It Happen! Through various surveys and member outreach efforts, we’ve been striving to get in touch with you—our regular attendees, members, supporters, and futurists—to get your ideas for bringing even more value to WFS events. This year’s program is organized around the main interest areas members requested. Sessions will address one or more of the following areas: • Advancements in Technology and Science • Business and Careers • Environment and Resources • Learning and Education • Global Issues, Government, and Security • Studying the Future: Methodologies • Health and Wellness • Social and Cultural Trends Here are a handful of the 50+ sessions currently scheduled: Social and Cultural Trends

Environment and Resources

The Future of Language

The New Maritime Arctic: Global Connections (Saturday Keynote Luncheon)

Lawrence Baines, University of Oklahoma–Norman Of the 6,000 unique languages on Planet Earth, as many as 5,000 could perish by 2050. Accelerating the decline in the diversity of languages is the increasingly globalized nature of communications. On the Internet, 85% of all messages are communicated using only 10 different languages. At the same time, a plethora of texting phrases, such as LOL and IDK, become rapidly and seamlessly integrated into the language. The future of language is at once a simplified plainspeak and a condensed technospeak.

Lawson Brigham, University of Alaska Fairbanks The Top of the World is undergoing extraordinary changes. The maritime Arctic is a case study illustrating an interplay of global forces—climate change, globalization, and regional geopolitics— where modern scenarios thinking and futures tools can be applied to better under the uncertainties in a dynamic and changing place. The complexity and range of issues makes the Arctic Ocean a challenge for public strategic planners and regulators in the Arctic, as well as planners in an array of global industries.

Health and Wellness

the FBI/PFI Futures Working Group

Healthspital 2.0: Paradigm Shifting Reinvention of the American Community Hospital

Despite the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past half century, government remains deeply rooted in Industrial Age organizational structures. Highly institutionalized and politicized, these agencies are cursed by inertia. Alternatives to the highly bureaucratized and hierarchical networks that dominate government agencies promise the ability to accomplish important missions in a faster, less-expensive way. The panel examines how a transformation to an agile networked future might occur. Through the example of a fictional police department in 2020, the panel describes how a police agency built on an alternative network paradigm might function. Using the backcasting method, the panel also lays out a course for achieving such a transformation.

Frank W. Maletz, orthopedic surgeon. Captain, naval reserve, Persian Gulf service aboard hospital ship USNS Comfort Health care is estimated to be a $2 3-trillion industry and represents 16%–17% of U.S. GDP. Its delivery is sickness-intervention based, fragmented, and lacks integration. The big five issues are appropriate level of care, prevention strategies, chronic care management, futile end-of-life interventions, and ending waste, duplication, reprocessing, and repetition. If these issues were addressed, there would be better quality and outcomes and money left over to be reinvested in health and wellness pursuits. This model works at the community level and integrates information/ social networking technologies with best practice dissemination. This session will address barriers to implementation. Learning and Education

So This Is School? Brian Collins, Florida Virtual School As educational opportunities move from the traditional classroom to cyberspace and beyond, the very paradigm of how students are engaged is being redefined. Mobile devices? Location based technologies? Gaming? Holograms? Artificial intelligence? All of these things, and more, are converging to provide unparalled experiences for today’s learners. The most innovative schools are exploring bold steps to redefine where and how educational content is being delivered. This, combined with an understanding of where technology and society is heading, with a little imagination thrown in, will provide profound changes in the educational landscape and surely captivate students as we move into the future! Health and Human Rights

The Future and Urban Health Equity Clem Bezold, founder and chairman of the board, Institute for Alternative Futures Health equity is likely to be the next civil-rights movement. Great inequities are everywhere as revealed in the recent report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Topics will include the relationship of urban planning, social conditions, climate change, globalization, urban and regional governance, and technology to urban health equity. Global Issues, Government, and Security

Police Department 2020: From Hierarchies to Networks John Jackson, Houston Police Department and member of

Technology and Science

The Weak Signal of Mobile Governance Rick Smyre, president, Center for Communities of the Future, Gastonia, North Carolina Many local leaders are not familiar with social and economic trends and weak signals, and, as a result, they are often not able to develop effective strategies to maximize the quality of life in their communities. With the advent of smart phones and GPS systems, we are entering a new age that will lead to a new concept, “mobile governance,” where community leaders will work in partnership with community members to find cutting edge concepts and techniques to resolve new challenges. As these new processes develop, a shift will occur from radical individualism to deeper collaboration.

The program is evolving all the time. Please check back at wfs.org often to see what the latest plans bring. Current session leaders include: Stephen Aguilar-Millan, director of research at the European Futures Observatory, an independent not-for-profit organization based in the United Kingdom, and director of The Greenways Partnership, a firm of consulting futurists also based in the United Kingdom Maria H. Andersen, Learning Futurist at The LIFT Institute, Higher Education Editor at eLearn Magazine, math faculty, Muskegon (Michigan) Community College Lawrence Baines, author of eight books on education and literacy; chair, Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum, University of Oklahoma–Norman Hans Peter Benschop has been active in implementing strategic projects at national and local government level for 15 years and has managed The Netherlands’ Trendbureau Overijssel since 2007 Clement Bezold, founder and chairman of the board, Institute for Alternative Futures; contributing editor, The Futurist magazine; member, Association of Professional Futurists

Peter Bishop, associate professor in the College of Technology and director of the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston Lawson Brigham, professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Karen Lam, principal of Compass International; she is a masterful communications strategist and executive coach Bud Levin, faculty member at Blue Ridge Community College, staff member the Waynesboro, Virginia Police Department

Michael Buerger, faculty member at Bowling Green State University, member of the PFI/FBI Futures Working Group

Adam B. Lowther, defense analyst, Air Force Research Institute, Maxwell Air Force Base; director, Air Force Strategic Study 2020-2030; author, Americans and Asymmetric Conflict; editor, Terrorism’s Unanswered Question, Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Joseph F. Coates, president, Joseph F. Coates Consulting Futurist, Inc.; author, A Bill of Rights for 21st Century America

Frank W. Maletz, orthopedic surgeon, Lawrence & Memorial Hospital

Brian Collins, curriculum innovation specialist, Florida Virtual School

Kate McCallum, founder of the c3: Center for Conscious Creativity

José Luis Cordeiro, founder, World Future Society (Venezuela Chapter); chair, Millennium Project (Venezuela Node); Teaching Fellow, Singularity University

Axel Meisen, chair, Foresight, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures; past president, Memorial University; chair, UNESCO Canada

Karen W. Currie, defense analyst, Air Force Research Institute, Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Sheila Murray, chair, Canadian committee for the Club of Rome

Timothy M. Daniel, chief, Strategy and Integration Office, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Ramez Naam, technologist and author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement

Sandra de Castro Buffington, director, Hollywood, Health and Society (HH&S), a program of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

Ruben Nelson, executive director of Foresight Canada. He is Canada’s most widely experienced teacher and practitioner of the next generation of strategic foresight

Romulo Gayoso, staff engineer, Intel Corporation

Erica Orange, vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

Jerome C. Glenn, director, Millennium Project; co-author, 2010 State of the Future

Peter Padbury, director, Forward Scanning, Policy Research Secretariat

Aubrey de Grey, biomedical gerontologist, chief science officer of SENS Foundation, a California-registered nonprofit charity dedicated to combating the aging process; also editorin-chief of Rejuvenation Research, the premier academic journal in the field of biomedical gerontology

Leslie Schneider, president, Formative Networks; consultant for Design Worlds for Learning Inc.

Arnold Brown, chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.; co-author, FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change

Tom Dover, Federal Bureau of Investigation Ed Dillenschneider, head of enterprise strategy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers John P. Geis II, director, U.S. Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology; associate professor, International Security Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama Trevor Hancock, population health promotion consultant Dewey Harris, assistant county manager, Catawba County, North Carolina Barbara Marx Hubbard, author, speaker, and evolutionary educator, and one of the original Advisory Board Members of the WFS John Jackson is with the Houston Police Department and an active member of the FBI/PFI Futures Working Group John Jarvis, FBI criminologist and chair of the PFI/FBI Futures Working Group Ted M. Kahn, co-founder, president, and CEO of DesignWorlds for Learning Inc.; chief learning officer/learning and careers coach, for DesignWorlds for College and Careers

Mary O’Dea, Special Operations Command

Joseph Shafer, faculty member at Southern Illinois University, vice chair of the PFI/FBI Futures Working Group Rick Smyre, president, Center for Communities of the Future David Pearce Snyder, consulting futurist, Snyder Family Enterprise; author of numerous books on future trends Suzanne Stein, associate professor, Foresight, OCAD University Sean Varano, assistant professor, School of Justice Studies, Roger Williams University Edie Weiner, vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., co-author, FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change Jared Weiner, vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. Al Youngs, former police chief, founding member of the PFI/FBI Futures Working Group, 2011 conference program committee For the latest news about conference activities, special events, networking opportunities, and more, visit the official WorldFuture 2011 page at www.wfs.org/content/ worldfuture-2011. To register, use the form on the next page or go to www.wfs.org.

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Feedback n Education and Career Articles Right on Target The January-February 2011 issue of THE FUTURIST is one of the best and most relevant I’ve read in a long time. The special section “70 Jobs for 2030” and the articles on education by John Eger (“Pleasure, Beauty, and Wonder: Educating for the Knowledge Age”) and Maria H. Andersen (“The World Is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning”) were all direct target hits to my longtime interests. I will be giving copies of this issue to our current and future DesignWorlds for College & Careers high school and college clients. Bravo! Ted M. Kahn Cupertino, California www.designworlds.com

n A Senior’s Perspective on the “Very Long Life” As a senior citizen, I would like to add a few observations to Verne Wheelwright’s article “Strategies for Living a Very Long Life” in the November-

Futurist Update

December 2010 issue of THE FUTURIST. Employees fired in their 50s do not get the choice to “stay in the workforce ... to maximize their income.” Also, taking a temporary leave and returning to the labor force from time to time is an option that many women have tried, without success, when their children have reached school age. While aging individuals in good health may like to travel, ski, pursue advanced degrees, or invest in “rapidly changing communications and entertainment technologies,” they do not consider it wise to commit funds they may need for health care later, especially when they have seen home values and stocks take a big hit. Far from considering themselves a burden on their children, older people who live with or near their adult children can be an enormous help to two-income families. Older people provide very necessary no-cost child care for many hours while parents are working and children are not in school. Plus, these grandparents receive the benefits of ongoing, inperson family relationships. Finally, I would add the category of religion and spirituality. No matter how long we live, at some point we are not going to live. That suggests the need to develop a strategy for the afterlife. LuAnne Feik Kenosha, Wisconsin

n Paper Storage: Not Outmoded Yet On “Tried and True: Technological Transformation, from Paper to Disk to C l o u d ” b y C y n t h i a G . Wa g n e r (September-October 2010), yes, it is awfully painful to let books go, especially because paper is tried and true, and books are easy to flip through (and can be searched if they are indexed). Also, you can tuck many relevant news clippings in between the pages of books, thus adding to their value manually. Although I am still unyieldingly clinging to the survival of paper storage, I must at the same time go along with your apposite remarks about bad handling. Accessibility, “searchability,” and recoverability surely vanish when a pile of paper (let’s abide by a loose definition like that) lies on top of other piles for decades. I have been leading a life-or-death war against pile-on-pile sights at my desk. This has always meant extra (and of course time-demanding) steps of deciding whether to throw away a certain piece of paper immediately or use it as a clipping to be tucked somewhere (placed into the relevant family of my books). A risky reaction, I know, but it has paid off—to date, at least—because it has kept me within the limits of my capabilities. Géza Szathmáry Budapest, Hungary

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Futurist Update: News and Previews from the World Future Society is a free monthly e-mail newsletter sent to all World Future Society members. Nonmembers are welcome to sign up, too! There is no better way to keep up with the trends and ideas that are shaping our collective future—and to stay connected with the futurist community. Recent editions of Futurist Update have covered a wide range of fascinating stories and breakthrough research, including: • Too much texting by teenagers may be a warning sign of other risky behaviors, such as smoking and binge drinking. • Energy development programs also need to invest in battery technologies—and in superconductor research. • More cooperation among independent research institutes could yield faster progress on tackling climate change.

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World Future Society Programs The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization chartered in the District of Columbia, U.S.A., and is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization. The Society has about 25,000 members and subscribers in 80 nations.

World Future Society wfs.org

PUBLICATIONS

• The Futurist: A magazine published bimonthly, covering trends, forecasts, and ideas about the future. • Futurist Update: An e-mail newsletter available monthly to all members, covering a range of future-oriented news and useful links. • World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight: A journal for futures practitioners and scholars, with articles on forecasting techniques and applications, profiles of futurists and organizations, and abstracts of current futures-relevant literature. ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES

• Conferences: The Society holds at least one major conference per year, to which all Society members are invited. Most conferences cover a wide range of topics related to the future. Most conferences are in the United States, but the Society has also held meetings in Canada and Austria. • Groups: Futurist groups are active in a number of U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta, and in more than two dozen countries. • Books: New books of special interest to members may be purchased through the Society’s partnership with Amazon.com. MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMS

• Regular Membership: Includes THE FUTURIST magazine; discounts on conferences and books published by the Society; and such other benefits as may be approved for members. Discounted memberships are also available for full-time students under age 25. • Professional Membership: Programs and publications are available to meet the special needs of practitioners, researchers, scholars, and others who are professionally involved in forecasting, planning, or other futureoriented activities, including education and policy making. Professional members receive all the benefits of regular membership, plus a subscription to the journal World Future Review, as well as invitations to Professional Members’ Forums, and other benefits. • Institutional Membership: The World Future Society’s Institutional Membership program offers special services for business firms, educational institutions, government agencies, associations, and other groups. Members receive all of the benefits of Professional Membership, plus copies of all books, monographs, conference proceedings, special reports, and other publications produced by the Society during the year of the membership; special discounts on bulk purchases of Society publications; assistance in locating sources of information, consultants, and speakers for conferences and meetings, getting information tailored specifically to the organization’s needs; and inclusion in the Society’s list of institutional members published on the Society’s Web site and annually in THE FUTURIST. For more information and an application, contact the Membership Secretary at Society headquarters, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814; www.wfs.org.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Future Active Edited by Aaron M. Cohen Symposium Tackles Sustainable Transportation University of Virginia professors from such diverse departments as business, nursing, urban planning, and architecture came together to discuss sustainable transportation at the symposium “The Car of the Future / Future of the Car.” The event was conceived as a multid isciplinary exploration. “If you want to approach the subject properly, you need expertise that comes from many different disciplines,” said co-organizer Manuela Achilles, program director of UVa’s Center for German Studies. Guest speakers included bestselling author and futurist Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, who presented on “The Third Industrial Revolution and the Reinvention of the Automobile.” Christopher Borroni-Bird, GM’s director of advanced technology vehicle concepts and co-author of Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century, spoke as well. Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, the co-authors of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability (Oxford University Press, 2009), also gave a presentation. Their book examines, among other things, the global emphasis on individual car ownership. Most of the sessions were free and open to the public. University undergraduates also participated in “The Car and its Future,” a contest that gave them the option to either write an essay or design a project around the symposium’s theme. Source: University of Virginia Center for German Studies, http://artsandsciences.virginia .edu/centerforgermanstudies.

Ten Likely Global Occurrences “Much can happen in ten years— just review the past decade.” So begins the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies’ report “Ten Tenden66

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

cies Towards 2020.” With this in mind, the CIFS analyzes 10 shifts that the organization believes are already well under way and examines how they could play out in the future, charting potential consequences. The fact that things are already moving in these general directions, with some momentum behind them, is what distinguishes these as tendencies as opposed to trends. A panel of Danish executives from different industries rates the significance of each item on the list, on both industrywide and global levels. Some highlights from the report are as follows: • Due to a number of factors, ranging from aging populations to the financial crisis, companies will place increasingly greater value on employees’ talent and ability, to the point where talent will be “regarded as a company’s most important asset for future growth.” In order to retain talented employees, businesses will compete with each other to offer better work environments, larger salaries, and other benefits. Worth noting: “One method of identifying potential and existing employees’ undiscovered talents in the future could be brain scanning.” • The 10-year economic prognosis looks good for many countries in Africa—particularly the so-called African Lions, which include Botswana, Egypt, Libya, Mauritius, Morocco, South Africa, and Tunisia. Fueled in no small part by attention from investors in China and India, “the region’s economic capacity is one of the fastest growing in the world,” according to the report. However, there will continue to be substantial divides between haves and havenots within these countries. Worth noting: Africa could become an increasingly popular vacation destination for Westerners. • In contrast, “the indications are that Europe’s glory days are coming to an end,” according to the CIFS. One (perhaps all-too-likely) scenario shows Europe and the United States experiencing zero economic growth.

“On the other hand, it is possible to set up scenarios in which [basic] reforms are gradually implemented, and there is a return to growth, albeit at a lower level than we experienced during the decade from 20002010.” Worth noting: Spain, the EU’s fifth largest economy, recently made headlines when it reported zero growth for the third quarter of 2010. • A renewed and lasting interest in collectivity and community will benefit global society. Examples of such range from social networking sites to urban car-sharing programs. The CIFS writes, “The communities of the future will be based on co- creation.” In other words, rather than competing against each other, talented people will work together to find innovative solutions to overarching problems. Worth noting: The report suggests that digital media could be facilitating a kind of collective intelligence on a global level. • Mental doping is on the rise. Prescription medications such as Adderall, Ritalin, and beta blockers are being used (and abused) more and more as brain stimulants by students and workers looking to improve their mental performances. Yet, cognitiveperformance enhancement does not have the same stigma attached as physical-performance enhancement has. “Is this a development that gives cause for concern? Opinion on this is divided,” the report says. Whether such substances will be banned from schools and workplaces—or at least tacitly allowed—is a big question. Worth noting: This tendency overlaps with i ntensifying genetic research, personalized medicine, and the pioneering of such methods as in utero gene therapy. The CIFS report is a follow-up to 2003’s “Ten Tendencies Towards 2010.” Source: Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, www.cifs.dk.

Legendary Conservationists Share Award President emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden Peter H. Raven

MICHAEL IAN / ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Biologist Edward O. Wilson (left) and botanist Peter H. Raven share a moment at the New York Academy of Sciences before receiving the 2010 Linnaean Legacy Award. Wilson and Raven were honored for their extraordinary contributions to taxonomy and the exploration and classification of species.

and Harvard University entomology professor Edward O. Wilson were the co-recipients of the 2010 Linnaean Legacy Award. The award was presented to the two colleagues in recognition of their contributions to the field of biological classification by the Linnaean Society of London and the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The ceremony was held at the New York Academy of Sciences as part of the conference “Sustain What? The Mission to Explore and Conserve Biodiversity.” During the conference, scientists also worked on developing an ambitious 50-year plan to discover and classify at least 90% of the Earth’s species. It is estimated that only 20% (1.9 million) of all species have been discovered and classified so far. What’s more, experts predict that around 30% of all species will become extinct during the twenty-first century. This massive extinction is “changing the entire character of life on Earth,” Raven told the crowd. Preserving the various species—the so-called living environment—is essential to protecting the physical environment, Wilson said during the joint keynote presentation. Raven’s past articles for THE FUTURIST, including “A Time of Catastrophic Extinction: What We

Must Do” (September-October 1995) and the cover story “Disappearing Species: A Global Tragedy” (October 1985), have also sounded this alarm. In “A Time of Catastrophic Extinction,” he suggests ways to prevent what he warns would be “an episode of species extinction greater than anything the world has experienced for the past 65 million years.” Source: The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University, www.species.asu.edu.

Europe’s Blue Future: Offshore Energy The Marine Board of the European Science Foundation presented a report at the EurOCEAN2010 conference that details how Europe could MISJEL DECLEER / VLIZ

Marine Board chair Lars Horn speaks at the EurOCEAN 2010 conference.

get half of its electricity from renewable marine resources by 2050. The plan entails researching and developing innovative ways to harness energy from offshore wind, tides, and ocean currents, as well as marine biofuels such as algae. The report, entitled “Marine Renewable Energy: Research Challenges and Opportunities for a New

Energy Era in Europe,” points to the fact that the EU currently imports more than half of its energy and that this amount is projected to increase if current trends are unchanged. In making its case, the Marine Board highlights potential economic benefits, such as job creation and new business opportunities—which were dubbed “blue jobs” and “blue growth” at the conference. The Board’s projections show that “by 2050, the Renewable Ocean Energy sector could provide 470,000 jobs, which corresponds to ten to twelve jobs (direct and indirect) created per megawatt installed.” Developing the technology means developing new bodies of knowledge in fields ranging from engineering to ecology. It also entails crafting innovative legislation to help facilitate it. “Marine renewable energy is in its infancy, but it has remarkable potential, so the target of 50% is ambitious, but achievable,” said Marine Board chair Lars Horn. “We just need research, industry and policy to come together.” The report further recommends comprehensively assessing the available aquatic resources, and developing ways to properly monitor them, in order to keep track of the environmental impacts caused by large commercial-scale installations. Such issues could include electromagnetic disturbances and problems caused by altering water circulation patterns. The report states: “There is limited data or knowledge on the medium- and long-term environmental impacts of Marine Renewable Energy devices.” The Board advocates finding better ways to research, predict, and respond to potential cumulative impacts. To that end, it also advocates for the creation of an initial test site. The Marine Board is a co-organizer of the EurOCEAN2010 conference, which was held in October 2010 in Belgium. Sources: European Science Foundation, www.esf.org. EurOCEAN2010 Conference, www.eurocean2010.eu.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

❑ 67

As Tweeted By Cynthia G. Wagner

The Futurist Playlist The future has been the subject of awe, fear, hope, cynicism, and inspiration, reflecting our changing relationship with what may be ahead. Music can express ideas and feelings both through the rhythms, melodies, and harmonies that evoke passions and through the words that distill complex thought into poetry. So we recently asked our Twitter followers to nominate their favorite songs about the future, then added a few of our own to create the official Futurist Playlist. Here is a sample of what we came up with. • Also Sprach Zarathustra (Adagio, aka the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey). Composed by Richard Strauss in 1896, this theme gave the idea of the future a sense of grandeur in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. At the dawn of the space age, it was time for humanity to look back upon its history and ahead to its potential with equal parts of humility and hope.

shadows across the cultural landscape. “In the year 6565,” they warn:

• The Times They Are a-Changin’, written and performed by Bob Dylan. In this 1964 release, Dylan gave voice to the civil rights and war protest movements of the early 1960s, inspiring all who questioned authority and defied the status quo. The driving force for the changes Dylan described was the younger generation, and the song advises the adults not to stand in their way:

• Imagine, written and performed by John Lennon. Throughout history, culture feels the pulse of trends and countertrends, so this playlist reflects both pessimism and optimism. Of the latter sentiment, perhaps the most inspiring example I can imagine is “Imagine,” from 1971:

Your old road is Rapidly agin’ Please get out of the new one If you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’.

• Future Shock, written and performed by Curtis Mayfield. In 1973, an addition to ongoing concerns about civil rights and war came from the “future shock” of environmental degradation. Mayfield urged us not to “dance” but to take active control: We got to stop all men From messing up the land When won’t we understand This is our last and only chance

• In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus), written by Rick Evans and performed by Denny Zager and Rick Evans. Written in 1964 but not released until 1968, this song judges the very long-term prospects for humankind, as technological tampering begins to cast long 68

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You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too From the bottom of a long glass tube

Imagine all the people Sharing all the world …

• Space Oddity, written and performed by David Bowie. We return to the theme of space exploration as the emblematic destination of the human future. Bowie’s recording coincided with the U.S. lunar landing in 1969, but gave it a familiar touch with “Major Tom.” Bowie also gave a wink to the celebrity culture surrounding the astronauts of the era: This is Ground Control to Major Tom You’ve really made the grade And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

For better or worse, the future now belonged to popular culture. • Tomorrow (from the musical Annie), music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, performed by Andrea McArdle. An anthem for the hopelessly hopeful, the congenitally uncynical, this scrappy little bit of American inspiration from 1977 was an oasis in the encroach-

DramaTweep Personae

ing deserts of globalizing competition. The sun’ll come out Tomorrow So ya gotta hang on ‘Til tomorrow Come what may

@WorldFutureSoc [World Future Society] We’re compiling a playlist of the best #future-oriented songs of all time. Name your favorite—song title and artist. @jfcashman [John Cashman] Good 1!—Year 2525; Days of the Future Past; Space Oddity; Future Shock (C Mayfield); Archandroid (entire disc) @Geofutures [Josh Calder] I have a fondness for “Welcome to the Space Olympics” from SNL but hesitate to call it a “best” @ryonck [Richard Yonck] Rocket Man (Elton John), We Are the Robots (Kraftwerk) #futuremusic @WorldFutureSoc Already on my playlist: Future News Blues by Nnenna Freelon (“3rd World War and killer bees, threat of famine and disease...”) #futuremusic @apmichel [Anthony Michel] Road to Nowhere—Talking Heads #future #playlist @ryonck Forgot this was even in my collection: In the Future (Sparks) (Irony: all my #futuremusic seems 2B on retro-vinyl) @futureofmuseums [Future of Museums] Does the future need a soundtrack? I think yes! C playlist: http://bit.ly/e7p2DR ...so bright I gotta wear shades :) @dddraeger [Dennis Draeger] #futurist-playlist NEEDS: Talking Heads—Nothing but Flowers Laurie Anderson—O Superman and http://bit.ly/f95ZFn [links to “Future in Question” by The Still Lifes] @Geofutures heard a #futurist song last night, in “The French Connection”— ”Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon” http://imdb.to/frSFnG @WorldFutureSoc Missed a great mash-up opportunity: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Road to Nowhere” ;-) The Futurist Playlist shar.es/XouSM

• Road to Nowhere, written by David Byrne, performed by Talking Heads. A decade later, and another tick of the psychic metronome, society’s cynicism reasserts itself: They can tell you what to do But they’ll make a fool of you … We’re on a road to nowhere

• The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, written by Pat MacDonald, performed by Timbuk 3. Like many people hearing this song, I mistook its upbeat flavor for a bright outlook expressed by a young scientist. Superficial research (i.e., Wikipedia) reveals the writer’s view of a more-sinister future during the height of the Cold War—the brightness of nuclear holocaust being the inducement for wearing shades. Well I’m heavenly blessed and worldly wise I’m a peeping-tom techie with x-ray eyes

• One Child At a Time, written and performed by Nnenna Freelon. The song that inspired the Futurist Playlist in the first place, Nnenna’s witty “Future News Blues” (1992), is unfortunately not available as an MP3 download. But I recalled from my interview with her at the time that a sense of the future was very much embedded in her writing. As a mother and an educator, Nnenna knows how much the future matters.

These ideas are even more vivid in the earnest “One Child At a Time,” written in 2000, urging all of us to take responsibility for the future: We all have a part to play Teacher, friend, or mentor We’ll make it a brighter day With children at the center

Our musical journey to the future takes us through fear, anger, inspiration, cynicism, idealism, responsibility, and courage. The essential truth is this: There is always hope. Or, as Bing Crosby sang in Going My Way (music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke): So you see it’s all up to you You can be better than you are You could be swingin’ on a star. About the Author Cynthia G. Wagner is editor of THE FUTURIST. E-mail cwagner @wfs.org. Lyrics and album art used for illustrative purposes; ownership belongs to the respective copyright holders. For the complete Futurist Playlist of 20 selections, please visit http://www.wfs.org/content/futurist-playlist. The Futurist Playlist may be downloaded from Amazon.com, http://amzn.com/l/ RAFLG976G73DS.

THE FUTURIST

March-April 2011

Now Available!

Strategies and Technologies for a Sustainable Future Three dozen of the world’s leading “practical visionaries” offer sweeping perspectives and big-picture thinking in this volume of 25 essays prepared for WorldFuture 2010. Topics explored include: • New ways to collect intelligence to solve global problems. • How scenarios aided decision makers in one major industry. • Strategies for improving creativity among futurists. • Ways that technology can improve both our health and our health-care systems. • An outline for planning a significantly longer life. • How conscious machines may one day inspire us with ideas of their own. • A profile of what qualities an “anticipatory leader” should have. And much more! Order online at www.wfs.org/wfsbooks or call 1-800-989-8274.

Contributors Janna Quitney Anderson Raj Bawa Tsvi Bisk Michael Blinick Irving H. Buchen Dennis M. Bushnell Cláudio Chauke Nehme José Luis Cordeiro Cornelia Daheim

George V. Dragotta Adriano Galvão Jerome C. Glenn Ramiro Gonçalves Jay Herson Roger Kemp Lester Kuhl Barton Kunstler Gioietta Kuo

Strategies and Technologies for a Sustainable Future edited by Cynthia G. Wagner WFS. 2010. 480 pages. Paperback. ISBN 13: 978-0-930242-67-1 $29.95, or $24.95 for Society members. Note: Strategies and Technologies for a Sustainable Future was distributed free to all attendees of the World Future Society’s 2010 annual meeting and to Institutional Members of the World Future Society. To learn more about Institutional Membership, visit www.wfs.org/benefits.

Thelma Leaffer Jan Lee Martin David J. LePoire P. H. Liotta Megan Mitchell Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira David F. Parker Liliane Rank Eric Rasmussen

Jay H. Sanders Marcio de Miranda Santos Marci Segal Allan W. Shearer David Pearce Snyder Jan Sturesson Stephen L. Thaler Vanessa Watkins Verne Wheelwright