Most of current medicines don't work, simply because they're not adapted to your specific DNA. With the declining cost of profiling your genome, however, drugs in the future will be tailor-made to your specific needs. According to Mehmet Oz, this would enable us to treat diseases like Alzheimer well in advance.
But perhaps the most striking statement is that we shouldn't expect the health care sector, nor the government, to make this happen. This revolution should be made from within our homes...
A fascinating discussion:
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Are big corporations loosing their appeal for young innovative talents?
I recently published my second book, a study of young Flemish entrepreneurs and what every business can learn from them. For obvious reasons the book will only appear in Dutch. As a futurist, I was particularly interested in what these young entrepreneurs had in common. After all, these youngsters will partially define how the business environment will look like five to ten years from now (‘if you want to know the future, look at your children’, remember?).
Did they have the same education? Nope. Did they have their parents as role models of entrepreneurship? Nope. Did they have some particular experience abroad? Nope.
Then I checked their professional experience, and it’s there that I found something quite remarkable.
Let me start with the couple of more experienced entrepreneurs that advised me while writing the book. What you see on the graph beneath is the number of years they spent as full-time employee, as entrepreneur or as a mixture of both, starting from the end of their studies:
This picture shouldn’t be too surprising. The ‘older’ generation of entrepreneurs started by building an experience of 8-12 years in a traditional company, and then have a radical break for one reason or another, to become full-time entrepreneurs.
Let’s compare this with the younger generation of entrepreneurs that I cover in the book. Strangely enough, I had to make a distinction between those that are older than 30 years, and those younger. Let’s start with those that are older than 30:
What we see is that these youngsters start with their own initiative much earlier than the more experienced entrepreneurs, but they do this in combination with a ‘traditional’ job of some kind. Perhaps they start to have a family and for that they’re more risk-averse.
But how different is this from the entrepreneurs younger than 30!
These youngsters start immediately with their own thing. Sometimes in combination with a ‘traditional’ job, which they leave very soon in order to build their own company!
There’s plenty of explanations to this, of course: entry-level for web startups is lower than ever; virtually everyone has access to the global market nowadays; there’s plenty of programs to stimulate entrepreneurship at high-school, etc.
An extra wildcard from my side, based on all the discussions I had with these young entrepreneurs: working within a big established firm has lost a bit of its sex appeal. There’s no glory anymore in building a career in a traditional company.
This obviously poses a serious threat to traditional companies. I’m not saying every youngster will build his startup instead of joining a company. What I’m saying is that the most brilliant ones, the most innovative ones, will not hesitate to do so –at least not as long as their older peers did. Mix this with the changing needs and wishes of Generation Y employees, and upcoming talent gap which we start to experience in some areas already, and you start to have a sense of the magnitude of the challenge.
There’s plenty of things companies can do in order to counter this trend. The most important one is to (re)introduce a spirit of entrepreneurship in the company. It’s easier said than done, so stay tuned on this blog for some advise on this.
(oh, and for my Flemish-speaking readers, the book is now available at my publisher Die Keure)
Did they have the same education? Nope. Did they have their parents as role models of entrepreneurship? Nope. Did they have some particular experience abroad? Nope.
Then I checked their professional experience, and it’s there that I found something quite remarkable.
Let me start with the couple of more experienced entrepreneurs that advised me while writing the book. What you see on the graph beneath is the number of years they spent as full-time employee, as entrepreneur or as a mixture of both, starting from the end of their studies:
This picture shouldn’t be too surprising. The ‘older’ generation of entrepreneurs started by building an experience of 8-12 years in a traditional company, and then have a radical break for one reason or another, to become full-time entrepreneurs.
Let’s compare this with the younger generation of entrepreneurs that I cover in the book. Strangely enough, I had to make a distinction between those that are older than 30 years, and those younger. Let’s start with those that are older than 30:
What we see is that these youngsters start with their own initiative much earlier than the more experienced entrepreneurs, but they do this in combination with a ‘traditional’ job of some kind. Perhaps they start to have a family and for that they’re more risk-averse.
But how different is this from the entrepreneurs younger than 30!
These youngsters start immediately with their own thing. Sometimes in combination with a ‘traditional’ job, which they leave very soon in order to build their own company!
There’s plenty of explanations to this, of course: entry-level for web startups is lower than ever; virtually everyone has access to the global market nowadays; there’s plenty of programs to stimulate entrepreneurship at high-school, etc.
An extra wildcard from my side, based on all the discussions I had with these young entrepreneurs: working within a big established firm has lost a bit of its sex appeal. There’s no glory anymore in building a career in a traditional company.
This obviously poses a serious threat to traditional companies. I’m not saying every youngster will build his startup instead of joining a company. What I’m saying is that the most brilliant ones, the most innovative ones, will not hesitate to do so –at least not as long as their older peers did. Mix this with the changing needs and wishes of Generation Y employees, and upcoming talent gap which we start to experience in some areas already, and you start to have a sense of the magnitude of the challenge.
There’s plenty of things companies can do in order to counter this trend. The most important one is to (re)introduce a spirit of entrepreneurship in the company. It’s easier said than done, so stay tuned on this blog for some advise on this.
(oh, and for my Flemish-speaking readers, the book is now available at my publisher Die Keure)
Friday, August 24, 2012
The problem with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
There's a lot of debate on whether CCS is a valuable instrument to counter climate change. In my eyes, it could on the short term, but on the other hand: if the only answer we 'intelligent' beings can give to a problem is to store it under the ground, I would start to doubt our 'intelligence'.
It could however solve the issue in short term. Too bad the investments in CCS plant appeared to have stopped everywhere except in Norway, due to the 'high cost' of these solutions -after all we're in a crisis. Guess the 'high cost' doesn't factor in the costs of a declining environment...
It could however solve the issue in short term. Too bad the investments in CCS plant appeared to have stopped everywhere except in Norway, due to the 'high cost' of these solutions -after all we're in a crisis. Guess the 'high cost' doesn't factor in the costs of a declining environment...
Friday, August 17, 2012
36 Rules of social media
Even if social media is just at the verge & will undoubtedly be subject to many, many changes in the next decades, it's still worthy to learn how to cope with it today... Here's the best overview I've found so far on what to do (and not to do) with social media:
Friday, August 10, 2012
The dirty secrets of clean energy and the future of environmentalism
I must admit it: I am a techno-optimist with regards of climate change issues. Or at least I was, before reading ‘Green Illusions’ by Ozzy Zehner. In the first half of the book, Ozzy breaks down any argument that ‘green’ energy technologies could help to save the planet…
Solar? Inefficient, dirty in making, dirty in cleaning (of which it needs a lot in the best locations: deserts), dirtier still at the end of life.
Wind? Unpredictable, bound to a limited number of (remote) locations, generates loads of CO2 in the production process.
Biofuels? Pollutes water, and ethanol is quite dirty and non-renewable.
Clean Coal? A hoax! Hydropower? A cause for geopolitical tensions. Geothermal? Causes earthquakes.
It’s not that Ozzy is in denial of the challenges ahead, quite the contrary. But he arguments that producing more energy, even if it’s alternative and green(er), brings us nowhere: “Alternative energy production expands energy supply, placing downwards pressure on prices, which spurs demand, entrenches energy-intensive modes of living’. Ultimately, green energy drives demand for dirty energy.
Makes sense, which is probably why in California energy providers earn more money the less their customer spend energy! The motivation might not be to save the planet, but this kind of decoupling brings us a far way nevertheless…
In the second part of the book Ozzy offers his views on what else can make our future more sustainable, convincingly arguing that environmentalists should focus on such issues rather than on so-called ‘green’ energies.
Some are a bit surprising, for instance when he makes a strong case for the support of women rights, which through multiple effects would benefit a greener future. Some are quite rational: both the challenges and the solutions lie in an different conception and management of our cities. Some got me laughing: making cities more bicycle-friendly is something most European towns already heavily invested in. Some of the remarks and ideas in the book are clearly meant for an American audience.
I love books that shake preconceived assumptions. This one is certainly doing that, and offers some valuable ideas on how to think differently. ‘The only clean energy is: less energy’!
Check out my previous book reviews:
Solar? Inefficient, dirty in making, dirty in cleaning (of which it needs a lot in the best locations: deserts), dirtier still at the end of life.
Wind? Unpredictable, bound to a limited number of (remote) locations, generates loads of CO2 in the production process.
Biofuels? Pollutes water, and ethanol is quite dirty and non-renewable.
Clean Coal? A hoax! Hydropower? A cause for geopolitical tensions. Geothermal? Causes earthquakes.
It’s not that Ozzy is in denial of the challenges ahead, quite the contrary. But he arguments that producing more energy, even if it’s alternative and green(er), brings us nowhere: “Alternative energy production expands energy supply, placing downwards pressure on prices, which spurs demand, entrenches energy-intensive modes of living’. Ultimately, green energy drives demand for dirty energy.
Makes sense, which is probably why in California energy providers earn more money the less their customer spend energy! The motivation might not be to save the planet, but this kind of decoupling brings us a far way nevertheless…
In the second part of the book Ozzy offers his views on what else can make our future more sustainable, convincingly arguing that environmentalists should focus on such issues rather than on so-called ‘green’ energies.
Some are a bit surprising, for instance when he makes a strong case for the support of women rights, which through multiple effects would benefit a greener future. Some are quite rational: both the challenges and the solutions lie in an different conception and management of our cities. Some got me laughing: making cities more bicycle-friendly is something most European towns already heavily invested in. Some of the remarks and ideas in the book are clearly meant for an American audience.
I love books that shake preconceived assumptions. This one is certainly doing that, and offers some valuable ideas on how to think differently. ‘The only clean energy is: less energy’!
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
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