Reports from the Knowledge Labs about our recent findings, research topics, and interviews with lifestyle leaders who are creating their own futures.
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How to stimulate your own powers of foresight. Consider the following thought provokers. Ask yourself, in these categories what are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL thought for food: Electronics, Materials, Energy, Fossil, Nuclear, Alternative, Other, Manufacturing (techniques), Agriculture, Machinery and Equipment, Distribution, Transportation (Urban, Mass, Personal, Surface, Sea, Subsurface, Space), Communication (Printed, Spoken, Interactive, Media), Computers (Information, Knowledge, Storage & Retrieval, Design, Network Resources), Post-Cold War, Third World, Conflict (Local, Regional, Global), Arms Limitation, Undeclared Wars, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Governments (More/Less Power and Larger or Smaller Scale), Taxes, Isms: Nationalism, Regionalism, Protectionism, Populism, Cartels, Multinational Corporations, Balance of Trade, Third Party Payments, Regulations (OSHA, etc.) Environmental Impact, U.S. Prestige Abroad. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC Food for thought:
Labor Movements, Unemployment / Employment Cycles, Recession, Employment Patterns, Work Hours / Schedules, Fringe Benefits, Management Approaches, Accounting Policies, Productivity, Energy Costs, Balance of Payments, Inflation, Taxes, Rates of Real Growth, Distribution of Wealth, Capital Availability and Costs, Reliability of Forecasts, Raw Materials, Availability and Costs, Global versus National Economy, Market versus Planned Economies, Generations: Y, X, Boomers, Elderly, Urban vs. Rural Lifestyles, Affluent vs. Poor, Neighborhoods and Communities, Planned or Organic Growth.
Got Knowledge?
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The Journal of 2020 Foresight
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Tuesday, March 25, 2003
It’s Wired, Doing What You Want – Anywhere, Anytime
Chapter Two: The Ridge
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
"In the knowledge society the most probable assumption for organizations -- and certainly the assumption on which they have to conduct their affairs -- is that they need knowledge workers far more than knowledge workers need them."
Peter Drucker
The Polls are open. We’re asking people like you to rate trends and predictions that have the greatest direct impact on your livelihood and future plans.
Today’s polling results:
7 – The Internet will reach 90% penetration of urban and suburban households by 2010. (Dent)
4 – Basic innovation in communication technologies is allowing more people to relocate their homes to small towns and exurbs, and telecommute to business. (Dent)
Register your vote
Journal of 2020 Foresight: So far we’ve discussed the high points of three scenarios: Trapped & Permanently Temporary and Staying Put, Local Support for a Calling. and Struggling Lone Eagle. How is “Doing What You Love, Anytime, Anywhere” qualitatively different from the other three?
Trailblazer: In 1997 Lone Eagle and Lost Explorer developed their plot line around the affluence of the baby boom generation at the peak of their spending and saving years.
J2020F: How so?
TB: They focused on the three-way interaction among technology, economic, and social forces. They envisioned two decades of the knowledge era during which time collaborative tools and networks brought together project teams of experts from around the globe on behalf of an enterprise.
J2020F: A kind of stay at home just-in-time expert system?
TB: In a nutshell.
J2020F: So, the Internet matures into a commercial medium capable of secure financial transactions.
TB: Yes. And with a little ingenuity and some helpful pointers it becomes easy for anyone with entrepreneurial drive, ambition, and marketable expertise to build a business primarily operating online.
J2020F: Isn’t this the “Struggling Lone Eagle” scenario, then?
TB: In terms of mobility, yes. But, this story depends more upon the technology. In this scenario, boomers have amassed enough capital to leave corporate life in favor for small, out of the way towns with affordable infrastructure to keep an online business up and running.
J2020F: They heed their small voice and act on their options.
TB: Right. With the ability to operate anywhere there is a" wired" infrastructure, the boomers begin their move to smaller towns and rural regions, the penturbia migration.
J2020F: So, they master the newer rules of operating online. The Web or Net makes it easy for infopreneurs to find and enlist people of similar interests.
TB: And, the economic climate supports their aspirations. Since the boomer generation moves through their peak earning and spending years they command center economic stage for 2 decades. The general U.S. economy prospers before the crash.
J2020F: Tell me more about the economic climate. What about real estate?
TB: Even though there are fewer buyers coming into the real estate market, the low inflation rate and low interest rates make housing affordable. The quality of life costs less and is well within the reach of middle class boomers.
J2020F: With a lower cost of living and more discretionary income, what do they do next?
TB: Boomers purchase second homes and luxury cars once the kids are out of the home and graduated from college. Investments provide positive returns and the stock market rises to new heights. The U.S. economy leads the rest of the world.
J2020F: You said demographic, economic and technology. How does technology play out?
TB: The impact of the global information economy primarily transforms industries into knowledge networks. The network is the computer. Organizations undergo reengineering and restructuring to continuously leapfrog the competition.
J2020F: So, knowledge work takes on primary role in the economy? How so?
TB: Knowledge workers become the driving class of society. Even though boomer knowledge workers specialize in ever more fragmenting, splintering niches of expertise, the Internet features make sourcing their expertise easy with robots and services that act as middlemen, indexes, and clearinghouses.
J2020F: So, if I’m following this story line, more and more work is done on a project basis with team members separated by location and time.
TB: Exactly. A suite of affordable technology tools enhances the collaborative aspects of work with common, shared spaces.
J2020F: Won’t organizations feel threatened by exposing their secrets to outsiders?
TB: Initially, perhaps. But they will already have come to the conclusion that except for only core processes, most work is outsourced out to the web supported network of knowledge workers who plug and go with each project.
J2020F: Then it follows that project management tools become critical for core organizations to manage their consultants and experts engaged for specific projects. What about the pace of innovation? How does that play into this scenario?
TB: That good old time-to-market argument. Those organizations that can recognize new product and service niche opportunities when all their competitors perceive is random noise gain an upper hand.
J2020F: Right. If they can act sooner with incomplete information, they can get to market sooner, and enjoy higher margins.
TB: These are organizations able to navigate breakpoints on a continuous basis. And once they’ve mastered that practice they will be in a better position to cause breakpoints.
J2020F: So, a core organizational capability then becomes the ability to master anticipation skills. They’ll want to practice alternative scenario planning to explore the implications for them and their competitors on an ongoing basis.
TB: Employees of the core organization commands a small network of online specialists on retainer that significantly increase their value-added to the core organization. This provides the ultimate in customized, customer-intimate businesses.
J2020F: So, in this scenario U.S. companies maintain their technology advantages?
TB: They will prosper to the degree that they can access any information, knowledge and expertise that they require just before they need it. Except for specific proprietary information, it won't be necessary to archive information available on the net.
J2020F: What about customer service and quality?
TB: Companies feel even more under the gun to meet ever-increasing customer expectations in value, quality, and customized/personalized service ... and other values boomers march to.
J2020F: So boomers as both providing expertise and by consuming services. How does that unfold?
TB: Service workers, experts, and eventually search robots will become more and more responsible for refreshing information that employees need at the point of customer engagement to minimize customer sacrifice.
J2020F: So in this scenario technology and expertise makes the collective know-how of a value-web, the entire stakeholder community, available to serve the customer. What about the next set of four scenarios, told from the point of view of a future organization?
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:19 AM
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Struggling Lone Eagle, Overpriced for Local Market
Chapter Two: The Ridge
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
The Polls are open. We’re asking people like you to rate trends and predictions that have the greatest direct impact on your livelihood and future plans.
Today’s polling results:
15 – By 2005, technology previously confined to aircraft's onboard electric systems successfully migrates to automobiles. These cars use natural gas to power the onboard generators, which then drive the electric motors at the wheels. (Schwartz & Leyden)
14 – They also make use of super strong, ultra light new materials that take the place of steel and allow big savings on mileage. (Schwartz & Leyden)
13 – Then comes the third and final stage: hybrids using hydrogen fuel cells. The simplest and most abundant atom in the universe, hydrogen becomes the source of power for electric generators - with the only waste product being water. No exhaust. No carbon monoxide. Just water. (Schwartz & Leyden)
12 – Within 10 years, there are transitional hydrogen car models that extract fuel from ordinary gasoline, using the existing network of pumps. (Schwartz & Leyden)
11 – By 2010, hydrogen is being processed in refinery-like plants and loaded onto cars that can go thousands of miles - and many months - before refueling. The technology is vastly cheaper and safer than in the 1960s and well on its way to widespread use. (Schwartz & Leyden)
Register your vote
Journal of 2020 Foresight: We’ve summarized two of the stories, Trapped & Permanently Temporary and Staying Put, Local Support for a Calling. Let’s turn our attention to the “Struggling Lone Eagle” scenario.
Trailblazer: Unlike the first two, this one introduces the mobility theme. While the motivation may be similar to Trapped and Permanently Temporary – a layoff or some other event -- a mid-life baby boomer, or anyone else for that matter, leaves the region for a less expensive and more self-sufficient lifestyle.
J2020F: So this may be triggered by a similar “valley-of-despair” event?
TB: Yes, but their response to it is different. Instead of fight, it is flight.
J2020F: While, they fly to another location instead of fighting to regain their standard of living, what happens in this new location?
TB: This is the story of becoming more self-sufficient, with lowered economic expectations out of choice not lack of choice.
J2020F: Where does it begin?
TB: Some event, like a layoff, or a politically motivated corporate restructuring, or a spiritually significant emotional event triggers their exodus from an urban, congested area.
J2020F: So, like in “Trapped and Permanently Temporary,” either employment opportunities dry up or the middle-aged boomer middle managers discover they will not be able to command the same salary level once enjoyed.
TB: And like in that scenario, the beginning response is the same. Being unprepared for the disruption, they fall into a midlife crisis taxing financial and emotional resources.
J2020F: So they say, "what the hell" and pull up stakes?
TB: They search for and then move to a more promising location to follow their calling.
J2020F: And they live happily ever after in some remote, idyllic setting?
TB: In comes the struggling part. The more remote their new home, the less likely they can sustain their calling via the Internet. Since phone service is an expensive proposition and time consuming.
J2020F: Time consuming?
TB: For local communities without phone service, the approval process is agonizingly slow. There is no such thing as running it's approval through regulatory agencies in states like California's PUC.
J2020F: Why?
TB: When this expedition spun its first story draft, the average cost to install a line was $4K to $6K in California compared to estimates of up to $20K for more remote locations.
J2020F: So, the rest of California 19 million ratepayers would have to subsidize the installation to remote mountain areas?
TB: Commissioners felt serving small numbers of people at great cost is not in the best interest of other phone users.
J2020F: In a down economy, the question boils down to, “Do the costs outweigh the social benefits?”
TB: If a small phone company sells the commission on their plan to initially hook-up the community for $1.6 million, local customers would pay 150% the fixed monthly fee of urban and suburban users for $28/month fee, the highest in the state.
J2020F: California ratepayers across the state would kick in another $100,000 yearly to repay the interest free loan, right? So, that’s the crux of their struggle?
TB: That’s only the beginning. Through choice or not, they embrace self-sufficiency and reduce their dependence on anything but their own self-reliance, tourism and local economy. But, no-growth forces push against newer boomers migrating to more popular resort areas.
J2020F: You mean the people who already live there?
TB: Sure, having grown up there, or migrated months and years ahead of the newer movement, the locals resent the negative impact on the environment, the crowding, and taxing of the resources new arrivals bring with them.
J2020F: I’ve heard about how jumps in local population strain water supplies, especially during disruptions of water supplies in the West.
TB: Not everybody is against development.
J2020F: But, you’ve just raised the whole issue of “Californication.” The new comers driving the locals out of the market, because they can afford astronomical real estate prices, and the homegrown locals can’t.
TB: Well, there you have it. The dynamic tension forms between two local forces.
J2020F: Two?
TB: On the one hand businesses built on attracting tourist trade and the real estate and construction trades lobby for more growth, while the natives and retirees who originally escaped from the hustle and bustle of traffic and stress push to keep tight control on local regulations and ordinances.
J2020F: So, strange bedfellows and covert coalitions form and once idyllic communities become political finger pointers?
TB: This scenario becomes the Whole Earth Catalog scenario.
J2020F: The what?
TB: As Howard Rheingold, editor, says on the back cover of the catalog for the millennium, "It's all new again, because the world is all new again." It's the small guy against the big boys -- big business, big institutions, big governments. It's about maintaining independence in the era of big institutions.
J2020F: All politics is local.
TB: In working through the local issues, cooperative community learning skills emerge. These boomers re-discover the romance of self-sufficiency.
J2020F: They discover and then provide wholesale access to tools and ideas for the 21st century?
TB: Right. They take an activist-citizen, community view to “live smart, think for themselves, and to transform their own futures,” as the Catalog advocates.
J2020F: People see themselves as world changers connecting and networking with others. Not just locally, I take it.
TB: These become “co-evolving” worldwide communities of information hunters and gathers.
J2020F: What?
TB: The network's focus is on what is needed to build “practical utopias.”
J2020F: Can you give me some examples?
TB: They blend environmental restoration, community building, whole systems thinking, medical self-care with backyard biodiversity, electronic mail, eco-tourism, and green investing.
J2020F: So, this is an environmental and technology crusade?
TB: In a way. This is a story of bringing out the best in both arenas. Still important to this network are ancient forests, watersheds, technology policies and telecommunication software.
J2020F: So, each network is pioneering on the challenge and response journey, issuing field reports from what, the Amazon jungles and cyberspace?
TB: Like the PBS / NPR audience, they value the straight, honest scoop. Not what is typically broadcast or cablecast.
J2020F: Information about sex, AIDs, political grass roots organizing, parenting, preserving and restoring ecosystems?
TB: And, new ways to revitalize corporations, install more sustainable home energy systems, ways for citizens to protect their privacy, to transform schools, and to see life as a journey of lifelong learning.
J2020F: As this scenario plays out, the scarcity of resources and opportunities to make a living stimulates a quest for self-sufficiency, small cooperative networks of activists and environmentalists. They act locally, but think globally to promote sustainable growth.
TB: They celebrate the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment and share their own adventure.
J2020F: What about our final and the second of the mobility scenarios?
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
1:15 PM
Monday, March 03, 2003
Staying Put, Doing What You Love
Chapter Two: The Ridge
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
The Polls are open. We’re asking people like you to rate trends and predictions that have the greatest direct impact on your livelihood and future plans.
Today’s top five:
30 – The basic science is now in place for five great waves of technology - personal computers, telecommunications, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and alternative energy - that could rapidly grow the economy without destroying the environment. (Schwartz & Leyden)
29 – Everything comes with a small, cheap silicon brain. Tasks like handwriting recognition become a breeze. (Schwartz & Leyden)
26 – By about 2005, high-bandwidth connections that can easily move video have become common in developed countries, and videophones finally catch on. (Schwartz & Leyden)
25 – People working in all kinds of fields the professions, education, government, the arts - begin pushing the applications of networked computers. (Schwartz & Leyden)
24 – Understanding of our genetic makeup triggers a series of breakthroughs in stopping genetic disease. Around 2012, a gene therapy for cancer is perfected. (Schwartz & Leyden)
Register your vote
Journal of 2020 Foresight: You told us the rather bleak scenario for the “Trapped & Permanently Temporary,” how about one a little more upbeat?
Trailblazer: Okay, how about “Staying Put, Doing What You Love?” We’ll cover “Struggling Lone Eagle,” and Doing What You Love, Anytime, Anywhere” in upcoming conversations.
J2020F: This one doesn’t relay so much on the success of the Internet, I’m guessing.
TB: That’s right. It doesn’t play a central role like it does in “The Wired, Anytime, Anywhere …” scenario.
J2020F: And, I’m guessing this one isn’t as vulnerable to the disruption that one industry or one larger company brings in a poor economy.
TB: That’s true. This story takes place in close proximity to a diverse mix of employment and business opportunities within a short commute. It is a geographical region capable of supporting boomers, and anyone else, as they answer their call with non-conformist career changes and lifestyles.
J2020F: What kind of profile are we talking about?
TB: The region has a diversified mix of emerging and growing companies to support a variety of specialized services provided by boomers and for boomers. Employers don't feel external pressure to cutback in order to compete. If they do, they provide more than enough contract work that boomers replace their lost income with higher cash flow.
J2020F: How does technology play into this story?
TB: The Internet doesn't materialize into the one-to-one or one-to-many, or many-to-many commercial entity that entirely supports a small, third bedroom business. It may provide leisure diversion and hobby browsing, but it doesn't live up to the hype.
J2020F: So, more income is generated spinning yarns in more conventional magazines about the fantasy and the “virtual hype” than actually generated online.
TB: Baby boomers only have a passing interest in the Internet. It remains generational and gender driven. The smaller 30-something and growing 20-something generations spends the more time on it in chat groups and game playing. The Internet doesn't seriously replace other forms of entertainment, communications, and financial services in a broad, mass market way.
J2020F: That means, then, while the Internet has an impact, it enjoys only a small market share in the mix of options. Perhaps what cable networks are to the broadcast mass market, the Internet is to cable channels?
TB: It's major application is e-mail, with a lot of particle niche applications. It doesn't materialize into some renaissance, cottage industry. America Online, Microsoft, and perhaps another business entity grab market share pushing everyone else out.
J2020F: But, the Internet has been around for quite awhile. This isn’t some overnight technology revolution.
TB: True. The old Internet guard protests about the new influence of commerce.net, the big corporate web sites, and AOL newbies – but, like the Grateful Dead they become more and more irrelevant as time marches on.
J2020F: Since this is a local region scenario, how does it play out without a big Internet influence?
TB: The business in the region grows and consulting assignments flourish for boomers who parlay their experience into specialized niches. Enough customers in the niche support their business.
J2020F: If most consumers use the Internet for a source of free information and the convenience of E-mail, what are the investment opportunities?
TB: The killer investments are in the 10% breakout innovation products that the baby boomers spend discretionary income on. The technology stock areas and the U.S. stock market in general remain great investments.
J2020F: So pay attention to the toys they buy for their kids moving through adolescence. What about real estate?
TB: One boomer spouse who works won't want to move. So couples plan to wait until age 55, at a minimum to receive retirement benefits and a pension, before downsizing into a retirement home.
J2020F: They delay their move to a second home?
TB: They would be interested in planning their finances to move to a property in Colorado, for instance. And, most likely buying land before it was too late.
J2020F: Because, this story takes place in a geographical region capable of supporting boomers, and anyone else, as they answer their calling with non-conformist career changes and lifestyles, boomers feel little pressure to move according to somebody else’s schedule.
TB: That's right. You can see that while the first two scenarios took place in a geographical, they yielded two distinctly different stories of how the future would unfold. The next two factor in a mobility dimension.
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:56 AM
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