Unlimited free and clean energy to all... could it be feasible?

I'm not a scientist, so I cannot judge on the scientific credibility of the ideas in this video -nor on whether a large-scale rollout of this technology is feasible at all... but then, given the beauty of what these guys ultimately work at - free, unlimited and clean energy for all- I can only hope for these guys' dream come true. As you'll see from the video, this would have far-reaching, beneficial consequences...

amazing stuff...

Season's greetings from i4fi !

The feasibility and cost of 'vertical farming'

I've been reporting on vertical farming in a previous blog already, but for those interested in the subject the video beneath just goes one step further in explaining the scientific feasibility of the idea, as explained by the guy who virtually imagined the whole concept of vertical farming: Dickson Despommier...

The only bottleneck remains the cost of such buildings, but sooner or later we'd need to weigh this financial cost against the cost (human, climatic AND financial) of feeding ever bigger urban cities. The result might show that vertical farming is actually very cheap...

Why genetic engineering will inevitably be part of our future...

If you're from my generation -and older- chances are that you are at least skeptical about intervening in human genetic material in order to enhance or correct certain parts of it ('genetic engineering'). The idea might sound arrogant (are we playing god?) or dangerous (where will this end?) if not ethically insane (are we still humans when we modify our genes?).

In the latest Futurist magazine, professor Jeffrey Coker goes at great length explaining how genetic engineering could contribute to a better world, or why at least it's not as bad as it seems. He does make some points:

• as it turns out, our genes are already being modified constantly by viruses and bacteria... much of our DNA is already not 'human' by nature;
• genetically modified crops would require less pesticides and chemicals, hence turning into a solution to pollution of all kind;
• by making it feasible to grow -for instance- rice in salt water (sea), or make it more resistant to drought or long periods of flood (both consequences of global warming) we might solve famine in some areas of the world;
• genetic engineering holds promises of more efficient treatments of diseases like cancer and HIV, in a more 'natural' way since it wouldn't need chemicals to do so;
• in an extreme world, we might 'grow' meat instead of depending on -polluting and voracious- animals for it, and even enhance many of our human functions (anyone want to be able to see in the dark?).

According to Jeffrey, these all belong to the scientific realities, and because of that they will get adopted. This is not demagogy: if one country starts to use genetic engineering to its advantages, governments in other countries will need to follow due to its competitive pressure, regardless of the reserves they might have towards this science.

So, all is not bad with genetic engineering, but all is not rosy neither... The biggest negative aspect about it is the fact that this science -and its applications- can quickly become the monopoly of a few big corporations. This is scary, of course, since it can easily lead to vast mismanagement, price agreements, locking poor farmers to one suppliers, etc. This could be overcome, argues Jeffrey, if governments get a looser approach to genetic engineering, so that it becomes easier for smaller players to obtain patents and offer genetic engineering solutions. The competitive forces will then ensure a fair market (not at all a convincing argument as this deregulation is what happened to the financial markets last couple of decades, with all the consequences we now endure).

Sure, genetic engineering will not be the solution for all of the challenges we face in the future, it will still need to be combined with more sustainable practices. Jeffrey convinced me of that, at least, but I'd rather have some form of control over it rather than leave it to the 'market dynamism' to develop in the future...

But then, I'm so GenX... ;-)

(the video beneath is a nice short introduction to the field of genetic engineering:)

Afraid of nanotechnology for medical purposes? think again...

(From the World Economic Forum:) Get sick every time you fly? Sonia Trigueros is developing nanoparticles to kill drug-resistant bacteria. Such nanoparticles to be developed in the laboratory can be incorporated onto surfaces in hospitals and air-conditioning units on airplanes where the spread of contagious diseases has become almost inevitable. But for such technology to fulfil its potential, education must remove fear and ensure that society understands the remarkable potential of nanotechnology.

5 tech innovations that will revolutionize our life in the next 5 years -according to IBM

Always interesting to see what IBM is working on... the video beneath shows the 'big bets' of IBM in terms of technology innovation in the next five years.

I'd immediately buy into the first two:
(1) generating power by any human movement and
(2) making passwords obsolete.

Two others freak me out however:
(3) mind reading by machines? Not having to type my books or blogs anymore -the machine would just transcript my thoughts? hm... would need to learn to concentrate on one topic at the time then...
(5) 'junk mail will become priority mail' with which IBM means to say that systems will know, select and submit the info that is relevant for us... not an appealing thought for someone who's always looking for surprising, 'out of the box' thinking...

#4 sounds a bit idealistic, but there's nothing wrong with that:
(4) 'The digital divide will cease to exist', mostly thanks to mobile internet... I don't doubt that internet access for everyone might have tremendous positive effects in making a more equal world, but I do doubt that mobile internet -however cheep it may be- will be accessible to everyone in the future... it's still a steep investment for plenty of poor people.

Can humans live till they're 200? If so, what would be the consequences?

The answer to the first question, apparently, is yes. It's not even so far off...

The answer to the second one is a little tougher (will people stretch their phases of life, or will there be more phases added) and raises a couple of unexpected ethical questions (rich people 'buying more years'... in a way they currently do already).

"Sarah Harper is Oxford University Professor and world-expert on ageing. In this talk she asks whether we want to enter a world where we live for 200 years. Maybe we do, maybe we don't, but it is certainly something we should be discussing, because it is looking like being scientifically possible within a couple of generations."

The state of social media at the end of 2011

Always good to take a pause and assess the status of social media nowadays -developing at incredible pace as shown in the video beneath... makes one think about where this type of figures will take us end of 2012 but, as Peter Hinssen argued in the last TEDx in Brussels, things don't 'naturally' move exponentially, but rather in 'S' curves. So will we see a stagnation in these figures somewhere in the next year(s)?

Food for thought...

The link between consumerization of IT and the virtual company

In its latest Internet Security Report 2011, Cisco goes into great length explaining how new trends are threatening (or better: challenging) corporate IT. The report covers a wide range of topics, but the two that caught my attention most were the consumerization of IT and the virtualization of corporations.

About consumerization of IT: Cisco states some key facts about GenY's expectations on their working environment. Conclusion? It is unavoidable to let people use their personal devices and social media for professional purposes, and companies and (young) employees need to find a balance in order to secure company data while letting young employees be more efficient through their personal resources.

According to the report; the anytime, anywhere young worker:

• believes he should be allowed to access social media and personal websites from company-issued devices;
• checks Facebook pages at least once a day;
• doesn't believe he needs to be in the office on a regular basis;
• believes IT is ultimately responsible for security, not him;
• will violate policies if it's necessary to get the job done.

On corporate virtualization, I was struck by Cisco's chart showing the different stages in this trend, and the role both consumerization of IT and 'anything as a service' play in it. The drive towards virtualization looks inevitable if you look at it that way...:

Click here to access the full report.

Some examples of how biomimicry could help us built a more sustainable world...

Humans have developed science in order to explain and control nature. We would have been smarter if instead we would have let nature inspire our scientific exploration... well, it's never too late... in fact, it's currently happening, and a completely new scientific domain is being built around it: biomimicry. Given the examples beneath, biomimicry applications could help us a long way in building a more sustainable world!

Let yourself be inspired:

Do-it-Yourself applications in Health Care, some examples

While I was building the 40 megatrend fact sheets I use as brainstorming technique at my workshops, I experienced some difficulties in stating exactly what the 'Do-it-yourself' (DIY) trend in business is about.

We all know Ikea, of course, and my previous experience with building a website on my own could also be seen as an example of this trend. But it's still difficult to really grasp the real extend of this trend -and whether or not this constitutes a new opportunity for specific companies (could we imagine DIY banking, for instance, or DIY retail?).

Maybe it helps to know that there's something like DIY Health provisioning already. Looking at the examples in the video, you might conclude that these are all just gadgets. But taken together, they signify a completely new way we handle our health altogether -namely by ourselves:

Some unsuspected consequences of the aging society

I’ve been reading the work of George Magnus, 'The age of aging' over the weekend. The book certainly offers a thorough study of the consequences of the aging society on our society, although it contain a few gaps as well. Some of the points I noted:

• George Magnus’ central point is that there will be an insufficient growth (and even a decline) of the number of persons at working age to take care of the inactive persons (since the portion of elderly people will swell due to longer life expectancy), the so-called dependency ratio will rise dramatically. Magnus seems to believe there is a very strong correlation between the number of persons at working age and economic growth –with less persons at working age one cannot produce as much as previously, unless dramatic productivity increases can be found –which Magnus seems to doubt.
  
  All fair and logical points, but it would have been truly complete if Magnus’ would have integrated the impact of automation on economic growth (and unemployment) in his equation. The devil is in the detail… The next 10-20 years we’ll see a massive retirement of baby-boomers from the active workforce, with not enough people to replace them. OK, but there’s an army of unemployed youngsters ready to take their place:
  
  (youth unemployment %, copied from the BBC)
  
  
  But even then, it’s not sure all the retired people’s jobs will need replacement –due to automation-, and it’s not sure that the current unemployed youngsters will be able to take these jobs over –this is an educational issue.
• One thing I didn’t fully grasp before reading this book is the impact of the aging society on our ‘wealth’. The increase of elderly people will certainly put a strain on public finance. It is likely that pension levels will go down in the next decades. As a result elderly people will save less (also because their health care expenditures will increase). This, in combination with the fact that there will be less people at the age where savings are highest (40-60) will result in an overall decline in savings. These savings are usually used for investments, so a decline in savings will also result in a decline of investment capital, and hence of economic growth.
  
  I won’t make this too long, but the overall conclusion is that bigger parts of the population could be much less well off than today. A troubling thought.

• One of the logical solutions to the aging society is to boost the supply of people at working age. You could increase the participation rate, but according to Magnus’ calculation in a country like France for instance retirement age would need to increase by 7 years to make up for the increased amount of retired people. A second solution is to increase immigration, but that is not a solution on the longer term (immigrants get old as well and likely didn’t contribute as much as locals to the social security system, so this worsens the problem). Furthermore, this would require a growth of immigration of more than 20% in the advanced economies in order to keep the same dependency ratio.

There’s plenty more thoughts in this book. And, while Magnus takes care not to fall into dramatization of the subject, the conclusion is that there no structural solution to this challenge, we’ll just have to make them up while we move ahead.

Check out my previous book reviews:

• "Different - how to escape the competitive herd" Youngme Moon
• "The shift" Lynda Gratton
• "The future of work" Thomas Malone
• "Making globalization work" Joseph Stiglitz
• "2030 -Technologies that will change the world" Van Santen, Khoe, Vermeer
• "What Technology wants" David Kelly
• "Crowdsourcing" Jeff Howe
• "The next big thing" William Higham
• "Future Files" Richard Watson
• "Future savvy" Adam Gordon
• "Futurewise" Patrick Dixon
• "Ecological intelligence" Daniel Goleman

Why 'cause marketing' gets onto most company's agenda

I stumbled upon this great video while doing some research on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and Shared Value. Okay, it turns out to be a commercial, but since it's ultimately for a good cause I don't mind putting it up here. Furthermore it contains some great insights into why 'cause marketing' is slowly getting on most corporations' agenda, like:

• 88% of consumers would switch from one brand to another if the brand was associated with a good cause (all other things being equal);
• 85% of people have a more positive image of a company when it supports a cause they care about;
• 79% of people would prefer to work for a socially responsible company.

Before I forget: cause marketing is much more than writing a fat check to a good cause and telling everyone about it ;-)

40 megatrend fact sheets, an ideal input for planning or innovation sessions

are you...

• looking for insights to generate new innovation ideas?
• looking for fresh ideas to base your strategic planning on?

Get the most out of your planning or innovation sessions by using megatrend fact sheets. 

These fact sheets can be used as a briefing document prior to your innovation or planning meeting, or at the meeting itself as eye-openers. I've even seen planning sessions where these fact sheets were hung on the walls all around the room for people to discuss!

But the crucial thing for this to be successful is to keep the fact sheets light and digestible... after all they're meant to stimulate ideas, not to be academic papers. As an example, here is what I usually include in my fact sheets:

These megatrend fact-sheets should be designed to:

ü prepare your team for long-term planning session;

ü help you understand the long-term challenges of your business;

ü discover new opportunities for your business;

ü generate innovative ideas to ensure your long-term success!

Creating these fact sheets is not rocket science, but it can be quite time-consuming to check the most relevant sources and graphics, and summarize the most thought-provoking questions to ask your team.

In case you like the idea but you don't have time to spend on this, you might consider using the ones the Institute for Future Insights has designed. They all follow the fact sheet design above, and cover 40 specific megatrends:

This is over 80 hours of research condensed in 40 fact sheets, available to you for just 299,- euro !

See how this looks like with a sample of 3 demographic megatrends:

Megatrends fact sheets sample

View more presentations from Frederic De Meyer.

You can order the Powerpoint slide pack '40 Megatrend Fact Sheets' designed by the Institute for Future Insights here:

Shipping options

send by e-mail $299,00 USD postal on CD-ROM $399,00 USD

Please mention the e-mail delivery address when ordering your copy!
If you choose the 'e-mail' delivery the PPT will be sent to you within 3 business days.
If you choose the 'Postal on CD-ROM' option the PPT will be sent by e-mail within 3 business days, the CD-ROM will be sent by post within 3 business days, delivery date depends on destination country.
This document is for internal use only by the acquiring company!

Probably the most massive example of collaboration... to a useful end

Well, how smart can one get in using the wisdom (and time) of the crowd? This guy is probably reaching the highest level anyone can get in efficient crowdsourcing... in fact, in my eyes, his projects are combining a multitude of megatrends I cover:

• crowdsourcing -but than at a scale rarely experienced...
• disintermediation... -if I was a translation bureau I'd get very worried...
• microtasking
• social entrepreneurship -well, the 'microtasking' part could turn into this...
• gamification -in a way people would be contributing to business goals by having fun (or by learning in the meantime)

What's up for the next decade? Some interesting thoughts

Well, it's (almost) that time of the year again... time for predictions, projections and future guessing... The World Future Society is the first one to come up with predictions for the next decade. The 10 trends mentioned in the video are not the only one they cover (you'd need to buy the latest magazine for that), but they're certainly the ones with the highest probability to emerge in next decade...

My personal top 3:

• gaming in education
• robotic earthworms to clean up our garbage
• buildings that respond to weather conditions ('protocell cladding'

What's yours?

'The end of e-mails' getting one step closer

'The end of e-mail'? It's been announced a few times already, and certainly at my previous company we were developing alternatives to it, social network type of applications for internal use...

But Atos France goes just one step further: it wants to eradicate internal e-mails all together in 18 months from now and, according to the SAI chart beneath, with good reason to do so.

(From Business Insider)

"In case big email providers like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo hadn't already been scared stiff by recent online communication trends, this news should wake them up.

A huge French company has just banned the use of email within the company. Instead, having concluded that the vast majority of email is just time-wasting noise, it is switching all employees to a Facebook-like interface and instant messaging.

The company is Atos. CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.
Caroline Crouch, a spokeswoman for the company, told ABC News the goal is focused on internal emails rather than external emails with clients and partners. Atos has already reduced the number of internal emails by 20 percent in six months.
When asked how employees have responded to the policy, Crouch told ABC News the overall response “has been positive with strong take up of alternative tools.” Breton, Atos's CEO, says he hasn't sent an email in three years. (And he's obviously managed to keep his job.)

This trend at the corporate level mirrors email trends among young people--the future workforce. As the chart below shows, the use of web-based email by the younger crowd is plummeting, as these folks communicate via Facebook, IM, and texting instead.

Email is still an extremely convenient way to communicate, so it's not likely to go anywhere. But there's no question that email is losing share of digital communications, including in the workplace. And that's not good for companies that depend on it for their livelihoods."

 

KLM enables people to chose their flight neighbor through social networks

The Dutch airline company KLM is developing a booking feature that allows passengers to choose their flight neighbors based on their social media profile... It's not official yet, well, half, but they have confirmed it to a Belgian newspaper (see link below, sorry it's in Dutch).

The 'social seating' feature could potentially lead to some good networking opportunities, for business people or other... I just wonder how the hell they are going to resolve some issues (what if one would like to sit next to someone, but that person desperately wants to avoid this? what if everyone want to sit next to one specific person - will there be auctions to determine which one will have that chance?)

Anyhow, it's an interesting experiment. The bigger question however, is in which overall trends does this fit?

• my good friend Jonas who pointed me to the article seems to think this shows that even airplanes are 'part' of social networking nowadays;
• I'd rather reverse this logic by saying this proves that ultimately social media is only relevant as an enabler of 'real' human interaction;
• others will probably say this only proves social media helps us to be more efficient (though in this case this still needs to be checked)

what's your take?

KLM laat passagiers buurman kiezen via sociale media - Magazine - De Morgen

Another example of social entrepreneurship: Acumen Fund

Another fine example of social entrepreneurship... Acumen Fund is not a 'micro-lending'-type of fund like Grameen Bank, but a true investment fund offering advice and management skills to the projects they choose to fund. But, contrary to the classical investment funds, Acumen chooses sustainable, long-term projects in the poorer parts of the world, and doesn't necessarily need (or want) to maximize profits...

Perhaps such a model could work in the 'developed' world as well....

Why companies should adopt gamification...

According to a survey from Saatchi, businesses should take a close look at gamification, both for internal purposes as for their consumers. The results are a bit unexpected I must say. Using Games in a professional environment would please plenty of employees and consumers:

• Among respondents who are employed, 55% of Americans said they were interested in working for a company that uses gamification to increase productivity
• Among respondents who are employed , about half of online Americans are already playing social games during a typical day
• 58% said it is important for brands to be fun and playful
• When asked how they would like to hear about a new product, 37% would choose some kind of online game experience
• 27% of those interested in social challenges said they would be very likely to opt in to a social challenge sponsored by a large corporate brand

Saatchi S Gamification Study

View more presentations from Saatchi & Saatchi S

How to grow your business in an ever fragmenting world

It's an intriguing question... consumers and markets are fragmenting as never before, each of them determined by an ever increasing set of diverse communities. This is a new paradigm for businesses. Not so long a go they could adapt products or services to well-defined segments. Not anymore...

So what do companies need to do to to ensure sustained growth? According to a recent report from Accenture, they need to develop aggregation skills. And for that, they'll need to rely on four technologies in the next three to five years:

"First, they’ll use sophisticated analytics to gather the massive amounts of data required to identify and
serve new customers worldwide. Second, cloud computing will help them to combine services by providing users access to remote computing power and software on a pay-per-use basis. As a result, all companies will be able to access the advanced computing power they need to identify global customer segments at the click of a mouse, without large upfront capital investments.

Meanwhile, two other technologies—mobile connectivity and online social media—will allow these companies to connect with customers wherever they are located and spot themes shared among individuals worldwide, respectively. "

Thanks to these technological shifts market segments don't need to be determined by geographical boundaries, but by common needs and attitudes at a global level. One of the driving forces behind this is the rising middle class in emerging markets, that make specific segments based on common needs and attitudes much bigger -and profitable to serve...

A worthwhile read (click here for the full report)

The future buildings, some examples of floating architectures...

Some fascinating examples of how 'floating building' could look like in the future... sure there's some extravagant hotel or cruise-ship concepts in there, but some other could offer concrete solutions to the challenges humanity might face in the future...

My favorite? The floating village that shelters 50,000 inhabitants and is completely self-reliant...
what's yours?

10 future technologies that already exist...

Short video of some of the technologies that will likely roll out in the coming years (from an interesting Youtube site alltime10s).

• perhaps unsurprisingly most of the technology breakthrough are in the health care sector (printing of human parts, chip implant controlled human spare parts, retinal implants, ...)
• robotics (this time in the form of... a dog... well, why not?)
• wireless power (the idea still sounds freaky to me)
• hologram TV (still need special glasses though)

...nice collection altogether, though far from complete ;-)

(does anyone understand #4 ?)

Top reasons why businesses are adopting sustainable practices

Some interesting findings in this years' executive survey on how and why companies integrate sustainability practices in their short and long-term strategy. The most notable conclusion is that 'reputation management' is not the most cited reason for sustainable practices anymore -the top reason now is 'improving operational efficiency and lowering costs', which jumped 14 percent as the most mentioned reason. Other reasons score quite high as well: alignment with the companies business goals, developing new opportunities or retaining and motivating employees, for instance.

"In a related opinion piece, “Putting it into practice,” at the end of this survey, the authors argue that more businesses will have to take a long-term strategic view of the issue by identifying and pursuing sustainability opportunities that hold the highest value potential."

Click here to access the survey report (after free registration on McKinsey Quarterly)

How future water and food shortage are linked

I stumbled across this presentation while doing some research on (potential) future food shortages. Obviously both water and food shortage are linked, although strangely enough I never made this connection until I saw this presentation.

To me, food shortage (and price volatility due to this) was going to intensify because of four factors:

• climatic change (more severe weather with failed harvests as a result);
• biofuels (using increasing portions of farming land);
• rising middle class in emerging markets (with rising demand for some 'upscale' food products);
• the rising world population (going to 9 billion soon).

As this presentation shows, I should add water shortage to the list... But what it also shows is that this doesn't have to lead to a dramatic outcome. Better -more rational- water management should not even be so hard to develop; ensuring food for 9 billion people is a challenge, but not unfeasible to respond to...

Well worth having a look:

Trends And Scenarios In Agricultural Development - Colin Chartres - International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

View more presentations from International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

How people's attitude towards their health is changing, and how this affects the health care providers

Excellent presentation from one of my favorite future watcher at TED Brussels this week... Peter Hinssen sheds his light on the major influences that are currently changing the healthcare sector -probably for good:

- averages won't work anymore - personalization is key
- there is an enormous push to compute and quantify health (how healthy are you exactly?)
- health is not a product anymore, it's a service (people get pro-active about their health)
- health (and sickness) becomes a subject of communities...

bottom line: people are taking ownership of their health, the health care providers better adapt to that...

fascinating talk:

The economic consequences of global migration

Interesting interview with Giovanni Peri, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis, discussing the economic impacts of global migration and human mobility. He sees 3 major pressures for increasing migration:

• wage differential (attractiveness of bigger money in West);
• demographics (more young people en developing countries);
• economic (supply of less educated workforce)

In a strange way, Giovanni argues that new migrants in fact elevate the local workforce's work level. At least in the US, that is, where migrants are more naturally embedded in the culture. It works much less in Europe which has a more rigid market structure. Bottom line, according to him, is that more international flexibility would benefit both the receiving countries and the migrants themselves.


Interesting indeed, and according to me an increasing global mobility it is almost inevitable -not only for the forces explained by Giovanni, but also due to new forms of migration such as ecological migration or even young people from the developed world moving to emerging countries (where in time working conditions will be better).

How well is your company prepared for the future? ... and your competitors?

How confident are you that your company will survive the next decades? …

and your competitors? 

Admittedly, these are tough questions. At first they might even look like impossible to answer. After all, is the future not a big unknown?

Not necessarily… there are some things we can be pretty sure of. The combination of the ageing population and the coming of GenY workers will worsen the talent gap, for instance. The climate is definitely changing and, even if there’s discussion on how dramatic the change will prove to be, it will certainly require companies to adapt. There are indeed a couple of things we can be certain of for the next two decades.

So the big question is: are you prepared for this future? And are your competitors better prepared than you?

Knowing this is crucial the ensure your competitiveness in the (near) future. And it’s relatively easy to build such a benchmark:

• Take +/- 20 metrics around a couple of megatrends themes;
• Look for evidence of yourself or your competitors in how companies are preparing (if at all) for these issues;
• Put some scoring together and build recommendations. 

The benchmark we developed at the Institute for Future Insights, for instance, contains 24 metrics grouped around 6 topics:

Scoring how well you and your competitors are doing in these fields can be based on publicly available information of these companies. It is pretty time- consuming, but highly rewarding: the conclusions that can be drawn from this exercise for your future strategy are quite substantial. For instance, you could map out the strengths and weaknesses of your company in comparison to your competitors in a number of areas:

As said, this is an easy but time consuming exercise. But it leads to very practical, concrete recommendations. Go through this sample report to find out:

Future Readiness Benchmark sample report

View more documents from Frederic De Meyer

If you need some help building the benchmark for your company or performing it altogether (which guarantees a neutral look at the information at hand), feel free to contact me.

How global migration patterns will evolve in the future

It's intriguing to think about future migration patterns. There are a couple of forces playing, each of them with a different, somewhat contradictory outcome, which makes any prediction on how it will eventually turn out painful:

• ecological migration: as more and more territories will suffer from drought and -likely- more severe weather conditions, new forms of migration will emerge -likely from the center to the North and/or South;
• economic migration: the form we now know -from poorer to richer countries-, will likely be supplemented by a now form: Western youngsters migrating to countries with higher growth (emerging countries) in search of better working conditions, more growth prospects or even -in term- better education;
• diaspora returning to country of origin... something now happening with Indian immigrants, but just imagine what this would lead to for China (if further democratization materializes, for instance).

...this would give a completely different picture than the current status, nicely shown in the graph of The Economist beneath...

(From The Economist) MORE Chinese people live outside mainland China than French people live in France, with some to be found in almost every country. Some 22m ethnic Indians are scattered across every continent. Diasporas have been a part of the world for millennia. But today their size (if migrants were a nation, they would be the world’s fifth-largest) and the ease of staying in touch with those at home are making them matter much more. No other social networks offer the same global reach—and shrewd firms are taking notice.

The trade-off between biofuel and food production

I was pretty surprised to find out that 40% of the corn production in the US is used to produce ethanol (as an alternative for oil). Projected at a worldwide level this would cause major disruptions on the food market.

Surely this is happening already if you look at the price evolution of some of the food resources. In the example of corn, one can clearly see how the monthly price (per metric ton) is increasingly volatile since 2007:

No doubt it's a difficult trade off... higher food prices would put plenty of people in difficulty, but biofuels are almost inevitable as we will reach peak oil somewhere in the next decade (well, this is debatable). A big challenge for the years to come, and one with far-reaching consuequences...

The future of... Europe

Some twenty years ago -at the start of my career- I did a traineeship at the European Council of Ministers. The European construction by then was all about creating a single economic market. There were no talks yet of the Euro, but their was a monetary stability pact with some level of political integration, as embodied in the painfully adopted Maastricht Treaty. The thing is, back then there was still quite some excitement about what Europe tried to move into (even if you were against it).

Despite a couple of crises, the model was not put to the test so far. Europe is still a relatively well functioning single market, and in some areas it even speaks with a single voice to the outer world (which I see as a sign of political integration). Surely, the excitement has gone, but good sense dictated that the European construction was all in all a good thing.

The current crisis is changing even this latest statement. Even rational people are building arguments to defend the deconstruction of Europe -not only of the Euro. The question 'where is Europe heading' now turns into 'does Europe has a future?'.

There are different scenario's at hand. The editor of The Economist in the video beneath seems to think Europe will 'muddle on' (read: solve small problems piece by piece, without overall grand vision or direction). Possible. My feeling however is that the second scenario, where just a handful of countries would retract and build a more integrated zone, seems at least as likely and -in my eyes- more preferable. After all, it's only when you provide a concrete example of what you try to achieve, that you will motivate other countries to change in order to join the club. In a way, that's how the European construction started, so maybe that's how it could reinvent itself as well...

Megatrends and strategy execution (#4): how to deal with the long term when short term is tough?

For the third week in a row, strategy execution expert Jeroen De Flander sheds his light on how companies need to put more focus on strategy execution in order to exceed in the long run. This week, Jeroen explains what the impact of the current recession should be on strategy overall and, no doubt more importantly, strategy execution:

(by Jeroen De Flander)

Strategy execution in the aftermath of the financial crisis

Companies who haven’t prepared may survive the recession only to find themselves overtaken by their competitors as the economy gets back to normal. The question is: “How do I prepare my organization for recovery?”

The Performance Management Research Platform from Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School andthe performance factory joined forces to find an answer to that question. I will highlight the conclusions in three articles. You can download the complete research report for free.

A NEW WORLD
At some point in time, each crisis will come to an end. Forgotten strategic topics will pop up on the radar screen again. And you will probably agree that it won’t be business as usual as the world around us has changed dramatically in times of crisis.

YOUR STRATEGY REVIEW NEEDS A PUNCH
Your strategy review – the kick-start of every thorough budget process − needs an extra punch. You want − and probably need − that something extra that helps you and your company digest the changed environment and prepare for a strong recovery. The classical elements of a sound strategy review (like a sound analysis and scenario planning) remain the basis − but that’s not enough. You need to dig deeper into existing analysis areas and be creative by looking at others.
So, here’s a list of 8 dynamics you should integrate into your upcoming strategy review process. Some build on classical strategy analysis and will hold no surprises for you; others are probably new analysis areas and challenge you to look beyond the obvious.

1. Economic dynamics
This is the obvious one. The one you hear on the news every day. The one you most probably know best and have integrated already. This is all about macro indicators telling us what happened in the past, while economists (try to) predict what is going to happen and politicians try to stabilise the market. These dynamics should definitely be included, but only in your basis as you start. Don’t limit yourself to listening to what others write or say, but dig in. What does it really mean? How acute is the danger (think of the Mexican flu)? What does it mean for my sector, for my company?

2. People dynamics
It’s impossible to win without the right people. So ask yourself the following questions: Who’s still in your company? Are they going to stay, or are they just waiting for the right moment to leave? As you know, the job market follows a pattern different from that of the economy − so, when do you expect the job market to pick up again?

3. Budget dynamics
How fast can we make budget changes? An interesting question, when you know that the 2011 budget has been made in the midst of one of the largest economic crises of all time. Most probably, your – and your colleagues’ – current budget ideas are coloured strongly by the current crisis and are very cost-driven. But watch out for the boomerang! If the financial climate improves, you might be stuck with an inflexible budget. So, look at the budget dynamics in your company and evaluate the time needed to shift gears when necessary.

4. Industry dynamics
Some of your competitors won’t survive the crisis. Others will, but they will definitely look different. They might have had an extreme makeover. And there will be new players on the market − competitors, suppliers, and customers too. In order words, business won’t be as usual. You’ll need to find out how the crisis has affected − and will continue to affect − the dynamics in your industry with all the different players involved: from customers and private and public investors, to suppliers and partners, to existing and new competitors. KPMG research involving 852 companies in 29 countries indicates that about 50% of the companies are changing – or planning to change − their business model (reported in De Tijd, 3 June 2009). Find out why changes have occurred in your industry, predict what is going to change, and see how all this can be played to your advantage.

5. Customer dynamics
You were well aware of your customers’ needs before the crisis. But do you still know what they are today? Chances are that the difficult economic climate has altered your customers’ ‘needs’, or loyalty, dramatically. So, don’t rely on past research − do your homework. You might be very surprised by the results.

6. Decision dynamics
The crisis has scared many executives. They have become hyper-vigilant and avoid taking risks. Long-term decisions are postponed until things stabilise. Be bold and put this on the table. We are not saying that you need to take unnecessary risks. You might want to be more careful about certain decisions than you were before − but you don’t want to become paralyzed either. Entrepreneurship always goes hand in hand with a healthy dose of risk. Each executive team should put this (RSL: what is “this” referring to?) foremost on the agenda.

7. Execution dynamics
Take into account what you can do. Restructuring has a negative impact on morale and impacts your change capacity as well. Good people have left or may be leaving soon. The amount of stress your remaining managers are experiencing is very high. Proper supporting processes might be at risk. We will touch upon this in more detail in other articles. The key take-away is: a previously approved strategy could very well be less realistic today, due to reduced execution capacity in your organisation. It’s crucial to take this into account now!

8. Leadership dynamics
Last but not least, you should examine the captains on your ship. How well did they perform during this extreme crisis situation? Any signs of burn-out? Is their style suitable to guiding the company through the recovery period?

Targeting the rising middle class in emerging markets, some caution to consider

One of the most spectacular megatrend is undoubtedly the rising middle class in the emerging markets. In China and India for instance, each year the life standards of tens of millions of people are rising to levels where they can afford to spend money on other things than just vital products.

This constitutes a very clear and defined opportunity for plenty of (Western) companies. The market for certain products is growing considerably, simply because of this growth. However, as the case of Tata's Nano car shows (amongst other examples), things are not that simple.

Laurie Duthie from the University of Los Angeles has been studying the middle classes of China extensively. Here's some of her advise advise for those targeting the rising middle classes as a market:

• income is not the same as spending power, so consider closely which sub-segments you are covering;
• look at who these middle classes are benchmarking their spending patterns to (it's mostly not to the Western world's middle class);
• the (self-)perception of middle classes can vary hugely dependent on country, profession, etc.;
• Financial Services and Education should have the biggest opportunity.

Interesting stuff:

Social media trends in 2012

Some interesting gathering of the main current social media trends from the CEO of Mashable, Peter Cashmore. The most interesting takes as far as I'm concerned:

• Touch
• News aggregation apps;
• TV everywhere;
• Social gestures;
• Second screen experience...

Nothing too revolutionary, after all he's talking about next year! But an interesting overview of all the new stuff coming ahead:

What drives businesses to become more social?

I've written a lot on social businesses and shared value so far, mostly from the view that these business practices are either pushed by the environment or driven by profitable opportunities.

Probably, what I missed so far is that social business can come from a genuine will or 'mission' of business leaders. Well, that would be new in business world, but according to Tonya Surman from the Center for Social Innovation, it happens more and more often. Regardless of the reason, the good thing is that it happens.

Bytheway, Tonya's view ties in pretty well with the message in my previous post stating that social awareness and engagement will be a key skill for future business leaders. I urgently need to gather more examples of companies who put social value at the core of their strategy...

Global trends and how business leaders should adapt to them

Interesting interview with Dominic Barton, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company at the occasion of IBM's leadership forum. In the first 3 minutes Dominic discusses why emerging markets other than China and India should be on every international business' agenda as well. Poland has a mass of well educated talent, Ethiopia is the fastest growing economy on earth, Indonesia is a massive market with a stable government, ... all fair points.


But the second part of the interview is more interesting. In it, Dominic sheds his light on how business leaders should adapt to the 'new normal' in order to be successful. A couple of notes I took:

• Adaptability will become a key leadership skill - learning to work with different cultures;
• Successful careers will be characterized by lifelong learning;independent of age or skills already acquired;
• Successful leaders will increasingly be involved in the community they do business in - think of social innovation and entrepreneurship;
• 'do not manage your image', just be yourself... 

Megatrends and strategy execution (#3): 9 reasons why strategy execution often fails

This is the second article of the series of posts by strategy execution expert Jeroen De Flander. Given his first-hand experience in assisting companies in implementing strategies, Jeroen is very well placed to see why and how good strategies sometimes lead to poor results due to ineffective implementation. In this post, he highlights 9 primary reasons why companies fail at strategy execution.

(guest post by Jeroen De Flander)


The Strategy Execution process is your highway to performance. To be more precise, you should picture your Strategy Execution process not as a single street but as a network of unique roads – smaller and larger ones –all interlinked together. And the roads carry names like ‘strategy review process’, ‘initiative management process’, ‘coaching process’, ‘individual objective setting process’ and so on. And all of these processes, and the interaction between them, are vital to your execution success.


Some facts & figures

Here are 2 striking results. Almost 20 percent of all managers – the key people involved – cannot explain the implementation process and 25 percent believe that their execution job is made more difficult due to the complexity of the processes.

To join the Strategy Execution elite – the best-in-class – organisations need to overcome the following 9 bottlenecks:

There is too much complexity.

Managers don’t understand the process.

Clear ownership is lacking.

The process and improvement actions are not visible on the executive radar.

Managers fear proposing, and making, changes.

The process isn’t adapted to the needs of the organisation.

The quality of the process isn’t measured.

One part of the process gets all of the attention, and others none.

It’s too expensive

The future of... personal productivity

Chances are that you have seen this video already, but for those who didn't: here's a very strong vision of where personal productivity tools might lead us a couple of years from now. It appears to be from Microsoft, though its certainly not loaded with commercials for its products; only the vision prevails.

Anyhow, one question that increasingly keeps me busy is the future of productivity (in a macro-economic sense): will robots take over human activity? can every human activity eventually be performed by machines? will automation be applied to critical decision-taking? will this worsen the income divide between those with high value jobs (those designing the robots, for instance) and low value ones (those maintaining the robots, for instance)?

Actually, the vision of Microsoft in this video shows people still working very much like the past decade, they still have to make the same decisions and working on are working on pretty much the same things, only more efficiently. This might be one potential scenario -even a likely one in my eyes- but certainly not the only one... It's a nice one nevertheless:

From megatrends to strategy execution (#2): 14 striking strategy execution figures

This is the first article of the series of posts by strategy execution expert Jeroen De Flander. His company is performing yearly benchmarks on strategy execution, generating loads of insights on how strategy is (and quite often: is not) implemented within companies. Here is a first set of findings from that exercise.

(guest post by Jeroen De Flander)

On average, companies lose 40-to-60 percent of their strategic potential during execution. Imagine the amount of money you could save by closing that gap.

HOW TO CLOSE THE EXECUTION GAP?

But in order to take the next step – to close that gap – organisations need a more detailed view of exactly where they are losing performance. Knowing that your organisation loses between 40 and 60 percent of its strategic potential on the execution highway between the city ‘strategy’ and the city ‘performance’, is an interesting fact but doesn’t really help solve your problem.

14 STRATEGY EXECUTION INSIGHTS

Here are 14 insights, researched by the performance factory:

• Almost all – 94 percent – have indicators that relate not only to financials,
• but also to customers, processes or people.
• Around 1 in 3 – 30 percent – receive no information on how to execute the strategy.
• Only 61 percent is convinced that the strategic initiatives are staffed with the right people.
• As little as 27 percent believe that the strategic initiatives are being managed correctly.
• 27 percent doesn’t receive any individual feedback.
• As many as 17 percent lack leadership objectives.
• 17 percent indicate that performance isn’t monitored.
• 38 percent indicate that poor performers don’t face any consequences.
• More than one third – 37 percent – have never had the opportunity to participate in a 360° skills assessment exercise.
• 18 percent is unable to explain how to set individual objectives.
• 27 percent receives no training on essential management skills.
• 36 percent do not question appraisals objectively.
• Of all managers, 24 percent do not receive any useful strategy information from other departments.

Using megatrends to ensure the long-term success of your company

My latest presentation on how to use megatrends in corporate strategy. This presentation covers:

- why you need to take megatrends into account in long-term strategic planning;
- how this relates to business model innovation and strategy execution;
- list of 60 megatrends to take into account;
- a simple process to discuss megatrends internally and draw conclusions for your strategy.

enjoy!

Using megatrends for future success

View more presentations from Frederic De Meyer

Where will the next wave of innovation come from?

Nice compilation of speeches of one of the futurists I admire, Mike Walsh, covering topics such as:

• where the next wave of innovation will come from;
• future of the web;
• how to include consumers in your innovation process;
• when to act on trends...

Okay, it's only a compilation and you won't have all the answers to these questions by looking at the video, but consider this a good brain teaser ;-)

Gamification of business: advergaming is the new thing !

Looking for more evidence of the 'gamification of business' trend, I stumbled on this great intro of the concept of 'advergaming' by Jesse Schell... both the trend and the guy look like worth following:



(the full speech can be seen on: http://fora.tv/2010/07/27/Jesse_Schell_Visions_of_the_Gamepocalypse )

Augmented reality through your wireless headset

Call me old-fashioned, but this somehow starts to scare me... okay, I'm a laggard in terms of technology (at least of gadgets), so in a way I wouldn't be surprised to use this type of headsets somewhere in a decade or two. But still, wearing a headset throughout the day that whispers things to me and takes decisions in my place, it's somehow, well... scary...

Anyhow, this type of gear will most probably invade much of our lives in the future... in fact, its a combination of multiple trends -not all of them megatrends:

• automation of personal decisions and choices (think of the fridge ordering milk automatically as well);
• location-based services (which does imply that your social network tracks you anywhere you go);
• personalisation (services based on your personal preferences... the result of this would be that your device -in this case your headset- would have a more intimate knowledge about you than your partner...).

From megatrends to strategy execution (#1) -intro

In an ideal business world, determining your long-term strategy should start with a thorough assessment of the impact of megatrends on your business –and would not only take into account the trends that have an obvious, direct impact on your industry, but others as well that might have indirect effects (on your customers or your ecosystem for instance).

Based on the ideas and strategic directions obtained from the exercise, the second step would look at how to adapt and change processes in order to respond to the challenges and reap the benefits of the future, using business model innovation techniques for instance.

However, a third and often forgotten discipline is equally important to make strategy work: strategy execution!

I must admit I’m not an expert in this field. But I was fortunate enough to have a couple of discussions with an expert, Jeroen De Flander, whose book ‘Strategy Execution Heroes: Business Strategy Implementation and Strategic Management Demystified - A Practical Performance Management Guidebook for the Successful Leader’ stroke me both for its practical usability (it’s loaded with concrete tips on strategy execution) and its breadth (nothing is omitted, it even goes down to the presentation style of the CEO).

Jeroen agreed to share his top strategy execution advice on my blog, so in the next 3 Fridays he will be posting on this blog, covering following topics:

• 14 striking strategy execution figures (28/10) 
• 9 reasons why strategy execution fails (4/11) 
• 8 dynamics for strategy review (11/11) 

So watch this space to get some crucial advice on strategy execution! (or, if you can’t wait, visit Jeroen’s blog archive full of tips and tricks on strategy execution).

How to escape the competitive herd?

It’s an intriguing question, you have to admit. In a time where –so it seems- every brand digs itself into an ever increasing amount of ‘hyper segments’ (aren’t we all waiting for a toothpaste that whiten our teeth while tasting like chocolate?), how does one differentiates itself?

The classical tools for brand augmentation –by addition and by multiplication- are not effective if every competitor follows the same strategy. Furthermore, competitive strategies tend to level out the players in it. If every brand is focusing on improving the metrics where it scores badly compared to competitors, what really happens is that every brand will start to look the same –like ‘average’:

So how can one differentiate itself from the competitive herd?

Youngme Moon provides some examples of companies who do, and even provides a classification for them –although she goes in great length in explaining that this classification is neither waterproof nor complete. It’s not a magic lotion neither. But it provides some good sense of ‘direction’:

• Reverse branding –those that ignore augmentation and get to the core of the added value of the product or service (take Google with its white, almost empty homepage, created in the midst of a fight among portal sites to get as much things as possible on their homepage);
• Breakaway branding –those that redefine the category they’re in, linking it to other categories if needed (take Swatch as an example, a ‘disposable’ watch where watches were supposed to be a high standing products; or –funnier- The Simpsons, redefining both the kids’ cartoon and the adult soap show;
• Hostile branding – those that willfully go against any preconceived conception of business soundness, like believing the customer is king (Apple, Bathing Ape, Birkenstock) or that everybody wants bigger and better things (Mini Cooper’s introduction in the US market, with their slogan: ‘XXL XL L M S MINI’). 

It’s not waterproof indeed, but it provides plenty of food for thought and a common vocabulary to understand how some brands succeed in escaping the competitive herd.

Both for its intimate style and witty insights, it’s the best business book I’ve read so far this year.



"Different" by Youngme Moon from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.




Check out my previous book reviews:

• "The shift" Lynda Gratton
• "The future of work" Thomas Malone
• "Making globalization work" Joseph Stiglitz
• "2030 -Technologies that will change the world" Van Santen, Khoe, Vermeer
• "What Technology wants" David Kelly
• "Crowdsourcing" Jeff Howe
• "The next big thing" William Higham
• "Future Files" Richard Watson
• "Future savvy" Adam Gordon
• "Futurewise" Patrick Dixon
• "Ecological intelligence" Daniel Goleman