Population pyramids: Powerful predictors of the future

A fascinating crash course in demographic studies, and why this is important in order to anticipate the future...

The new Corporate Social Responsability... businesses be aware !

The Future of Business Citizenship - People's Insights Magazine

The impact of automation and robotics on the labor market

Seems like a lot of bright people are seriously investigating the impact of automation and robotics on the labor market nowadays. According to most, we're heading some serious storms in this regard. Not only is automation destroying plenty of blue-collar jobs, but with the avenge of smarter devises and self-learning software, even white collar jobs could suffer from this trend in the long-run.

However, as Andrew McAfee brilliantly explains in this TED talk, as automation first and foremost benefits the corporate profits, it will no longer do so in the future if this keeps on destroying jobs - companies will simply have no consumers to sell their products to if all jobs would disappear. This somehow pleas for a guaranteed minimum wage (or a different way to re-distribute corporate profits, if you'd ask me, this could be done in other ways than a minimum wage).

The vision of labor-free citizens that spend their time thinking, discussing, making art and designing new things while robots do the hard work, is reappearing. Sounds pretty sixties and tech-utopian, perhaps. But why not? Whether we want it or not, we are already facing a completely new logic in the way our society gets organized. Trends like 3D printing, climate change, crowdsourcing, sharing economy etc etc already are impacting the very fabric of our society. If you project all of these trends on a larger scale (okay, a very dangerous thing to do for any forecaster) you see a completely new society emerge.

How exactly this will unfold is obviously very hard to predict. No doubt the path to this transition will be painful for many, as is the case with all transitions of this magnitude. But if we're all looking in the same direction, it might lead to something better at the end... it just might...

The art and science of prediction (Nate Silver's 'The Signal and the Noise')

“This book is less about what we know than about the difference between what we know and what we think we know”, writes Nate Silver somewhere at the end of his book. He could not have phrased it more beautifully. Our brain is a remarkable instrument that, when it comes down to predicting almost anything, contains a substantial amount of techniques to mislead us. Of course, these techniques often helped us to survive in tougher times, but they fail us miserably in the area of future-watching. Just as an example: apparently we have a bad habit of neglecting certain risks just because they’re too hard to measure…. Not sure how far this will get us in terms of survival, however…

The solution? Statistics. According to Nate Silver, that is. He’s not saying statistics can predict everything (or, for that matter, anything) –‘all statistic models are faulty, but some are useful’- but at least it can provide us with a more accurate picture of the (possible) future(s).

Chapter by chapter Nate applies this thought on very specific subjects, ranging from the American elections (his specialty), to weather forecasting, earthquakes, economic growth and climate change, to more tangible topics such as poker, chess, or beating the stock market (which, he concludes, is impossible).

Fascinating material, and some conclusions linger on for quite some time. For instance: the level of uncertainty of prediction increases when the system we study is non-linear and dynamic (which sounds intuitive at first, but is very often forgotten, for instance when governments predict next year’s GDP), or when the data we start with is not accurate enough (like with weather forecasting). We also need to watch out not to ‘overfit’ our models (adapting it with the data we have at hand), as we often do with predicting earthquakes. Sometimes we can use models developed for one system onto another system, like applying the power-law distribution we use for earthquakes onto the event of future terrorist attacks (which results in a somewhat bewildering conclusion).

The central thought Nate Silver uses across his book is the formula of Bayes which, for the curious people among you, looks like this:

[xy] / [xy + z(1-x)]

Where

X = the initial likeliness you would attribute to an event.

Y = the ‘positive possibility’ (the likeliness of an event without taking x into account)

Z = the ‘negative possibility’ (the likeliness of the event not taking place).

Believe it or not, but with this formula you can even calculate the likeliness that your partner is cheating on you! The key figure in the formula is the ‘x’, the likeliness you grant to an event accuring –which implies that the overall likeliness gets more accurate as you gather more experience or knowledge about the event (if your partner cheated on you in the past, the ‘x’ would increase, and hence the overall likeliness in a particular event as well).

Strangely enough this thought process can be applied to virtually any system (or prediction), though dependent on a number of factors it can produce totally different outcomes, with different levels of accuracy. The world will never be predictable, but with a sensible use of statistics it can become a little more so…

Fascinating reading…

Meet the new Meat

...have to love this quote, just because it makes you think "A vegetarian in a Hummer is more ecological than a meat eater on a bike"... meat has some future though:

Why CSR is moving to the core of corporate strategy

It still strikes me that people look surprised when I talk to them about CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). To many, CSR is just a fashionable word for ‘greenwashing’, a handy way to disguise activities that are far from ‘responsible’ at all. Others see CSR as an argument to attract a new breed of clients, or a way to attract Generation Y employees who –according to plenty of surveys- would prefer to work for a socially responsible employer.

To counter this skepticism I often explain that CSR is increasingly getting to the core of corporate strategy. Even better: in many industries CSR has become an imperative. To show why, let us take a look at this graph:

The vertical axis shows the source of motivation for CSR: is this imposed by society, or is it a company’s own initiative? The horizontal axis shows the impact of CSR on a company: does it involve its core business, or does it only impact the ‘business periphery’ (the context) of a company?

We now obtain 4 segments, each reflecting a different behavior to CSR:

The lower left segment (‘must do’s’), where CSR is imposed by society but touches the business’ context, is where we find activities that companies must comply with. A fair treatment of employees, honest communication, compliance with the law, etc. Nothing too exciting here.

In the upper left segment (‘good to do’) we find the numerous corporate foundations that each company from a certain size feels obliged to possess. This space is pretty crowded, and hence offers little room for competitive differentiation. In a certain way this segment is responsible for the skepticism I talked about earlier: what good can we expect from the foundation of an oil company when, due to bad practices, the mother company causes a natural disaster?

But it starts to get really interesting once the CSR activities touch the core business of corporations. The lower-right segment (‘major threat’) is clearly a danger zone companies would want to avoid. Think of how BP had to review its activities after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Or think of Coca Cola, whose products were boycotted for years throughout India because of its bad management of water in a plant in the Southern State of Kerala. This factory was located in a region that is increasingly suffering from water shortage, hence the anger of the local farmers for Coca Cola’s water spoilage, and ultimately the boycott throughout India. To be fair with Coca Cola: they since reviewed the water usage  of their factories, and even win sustainability awards with it. In each threat lies an opportunity…

Now to my point: in order to still gain competitive advantage from the overpopulated ‘corporate foundation’ activities, and to avoid the threat of society imposing changes on companies, more and more companies move to the upper right segment (‘major opportunity’), where the core activities of a company are used to do social good. Google.org is a good example of this, since it uses plenty of Google’s tools at the disposal of aid organizations after a natural disaster. Some would call this a clever way to position its products favorably (‘cause marketing’), but I just wonder how many day-to-day users of Google know about this initiative…

Other examples include the many traditional energy providers who increasingly put sustainable energy at the core of their long-term strategy. Or take technology company Siemens, that recently completed a reorganization where each business unit now focuses on resolving one specific societal challenge (ageing population, mobility, sustainability, etc). But the most impressive example is probably Umicore, who transitioned from a (dirty) mining and natural resources company into a world-class recycling company, and now consistently appears in the lists of most sustainable companies worldwide.  

This movement becomes inevitable in many industries. The two ‘forces’ we discussed are driving companies to put their core products at the service of their CSR activities. But there is a third force at play: in this segment companies face an increasing competition from social entrepreneurs, who very often threaten the overall business model of the industry, and at any rate are eating market share from traditional players. Pure providers of green energy are a good example of this, but also the multiple initiatives that have to do with the ‘sharing economy’, which are forcing traditional players to at least ask themselves the (vital) question whether they should join or fight this movement.

Admittedly, these three forces will play with different intensity dependent on the industry you’re in, but from the multiple examples I have seen in recent times, I can only conclude that virtually no industry will remain unaffected by them.

The future of democracy: towards a 'participative' democracy?

I recently had the chance to read the essay of David Van Reybrouck ‘Against elections’ (‘Tegen verkiezingen’, in its original title). As far as I can see it has not yet been translated in English, which is a bit of a shame, since it poses some pressing questions on the current functioning of our democracy, as well as its future.

The starting point of the essay is quite comprehensible:  there are two vital criteria for exercising ‘power’ (in the democratic sense, that is): efficiency and legitimacy.  Most Western democracies are in crisis on both these criteria. Elected powers are decreasingly regarded as the safeguard for an efficient organization of society; and in many cases the very basis of their power is questioned. Result? Ever fewer people are participating in the elective process, and those that do tend to vote in an increasingly volatile way.

This is what Van Reybrouck calls the ‘democratic fatigue syndrome’, and according to him this fatigue mainly results from the fact that we tend to assimilate ‘democracy’ with ‘elections’ all too often.

Elections, however, are a relatively new phenomenon, at least in relation to democracy. When we look at what is vastly considered the birth-state of democracy (the Athens of the ancient Greeks), we see that this democracy was to a big extend based on a lottery. A lottery among a small selection of citizens, surely, but still, this had some considerable advantages. For instance: since the ‘power’ of decision takers was by definition limited in time, they were more inclined to take measures that reached further than their tenure of this power (instead of just taking short-term measures to make sure to get reelected).

But this system of lottery has been with us ever since. The leaders of the city-states of Venice and Firenze were selected through a combination of lottery and elections. Philosophers like Montesquieu and Rousseau even warned that a system based on elections would ultimately benefit the aristocracy. This probably explains why the lottery method disappeared altogether from the constitutions of the US and France after the revolutions: the people writing these constitutions had nothing to gain from a system based on lottery… It leads to the somewhat bewildering conclusion that the system of elections was never meant to be democratic in the first place!

But things are changing. We see an increasing amount of initiatives based on ‘participative democracy’. In Texas (above all places!) a decision about investments in wind energy originated from the feedback of its citizens; in Japan the population took part in a decision about the pension system; and in Iceland the inhabitants contributed to the development of a new constitution.

These initiatives (and multiple others, most of them can be found on the website www.participedia.net) were not merely referenda, but genuine efforts to take decisions on a collaborative basis. This could lead to a a complete new model for our democracies, such as the very sophisticated ‘multi-body sortition’ method developed by Terrill Bouricius.

This is not necessarily the ‘ideal’ state of a democracy –arguably there is no such thing. But what’s for sure is that a more participative form of democracy is preferable over an election-based one, and as the increasing number of examples show, the idea is catching on.

The classroom of the future: delusion or necessity?

I have followed a lot of discussions about the use of technology in classrooms lately. Personally I thought it was a no-brainer: if schools want to educate pupils in how to function in society, they need to reflect this society as well as possible, right? Well, skeptics have a point as well: don't we want schools to reflect values that don't necessarily have anything to do with technology? Additionally there's a practical side to this: how to pay for it all if education already eat huge portions of an ever shrinking budget... and how fast can we realistically educate teachers on how to use technology efficiently in the classroom?  

As always the answer will lie somewhere in between these two opposite visions.

So, first: is there a need for using technology in the classroom?  I would think so, if only because it enables great improvement in efficiency of teaching, and in personalizing the pace and content of the classes to each individual pupil:



So how might this integration of technology in the classroom look like? If you want an extreme example, look at this vision of HP:




In comparison, Intel's view of the future classroom contains pretty much the same elements of smart computer usage, gamification and collaboration, but somehow looks much more feasible on the short term than HP's:



Looks impressive, right? But obviously it will take a while before getting there, I'm afraid... In the meantime, we'll have to go step-by-step, and perhaps this example of a school in a remote community in Arizona, shows how small-scale introduction of technology can already lead to huge improvements (be aware that this is an advertisement by Samsung, but try to watch behind the ad here):


...to be continued, no doubt ;-)

59 Megatrends Fact Sheets 2015, invaluable input for your planning and innovation sessions!

Are you looking for refreshing ideas an insights for your planning or innovation session? Get the most out of your session by using i4fi's updated Megatrend Fact Sheets!

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But the vital thing for this to be successful is to keep the fact sheets digestible for everyone. After all they are meant to stimulate ideas, not to be academic papers. This is why we've kept the fact sheets simple and light!

Each fact sheet contains:

• 1-2 revealing charts or tables explaining the trend. In this 2015 version, over 98% of the charts used are from after 2011;
• 'Key Facts': a short description of the trend en/or its impact;
• Assessment of the major industries impacted by the trend, in an elegant and impactful word cloud;
• Notes with access to +300 sources (reports, articles, infographics) saving you hours of research! 95% of the sources date from after 2011!

This document will save you hours of research time, and will help you to:

• prepare your team for long-term planning sessions;
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List of megatrends covered in the 2015 version:

Major changes of the 2015 version:

• lighter, more readable 'look & feel' of each sheet;
• 4 megatrends added in comparison to 2014 version, 1 deleted;
• Refreshed sources and charts;
• Neutral (logo-free) sheets and colours. 

Buy the full 2015 updated document now in order to save hours of research and get fresh insights for your planning or innovation session! 
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Trends in Clean Technology (adoption)

Slides from my intro speech at a debate about the adoption of clean technology and sustainability practices ate the KULeuven (University of Leuven)

Some advise for young (aspiring- futurists

I had the opportunity to give a lecture to (brilliant) post graduate students in 'Trendwatching' at the Hogeschool Gent. Ended my presentation with some advise for those of them who would make it their profession, which might be of interest to some of my readers:

Advise for young (aspiring) futurists from Frederic De Meyer

The vanishing corporation

Of course, the future is never extreme... but there are some very distinct signs that corporations as we know them are bound to evaporate as they are increasingly opening their operations to the external world. This won't be happening for all companies, obviously, but in one form or another it is already happening to many... Here's how:

The future of personalized medicine... not so fast

In my speeches I very often talk about personalized medicine as a showcase of an unavoidable future. After all it makes sense, no? Instead of prescribing medicines based on the average result they have on a test group (with many failures as a result), personalized medicines could provide patients with exactly what they need in order to cure. Result? More effective health care. Ah, and let's not forget: cost reductions!

But the real key to making this happen is DNA profiling, or, to be more precise: genome sequencing. As far as I know this can be done relatively easily and at a rapidly declining cost. What I didn't know was that the idea of using genome sequencing in health care provisioning still needs some way to get adopted by the health care providers in the first place!

This brilliant -and entertaining, even for those like me who understand very little about DNA and medicine-speech explains you why that is, and why genome sequencing should be used in the future:

Urbanization in India, challenges and opportunities

With 16% of world population living on 2% of the world's land mass, no doubt India has some challenges to resolve... Two third of Indians still live in rural areas, though this is rapidly changing since an increasing number of them move to the cities. This in turn forms another challenge, since most cities are ill equipped to absorb the extra population, at least not in a sustainable and healthy way. The city of Surat however shows that it can be done...

We will see the same challenges in other parts of the world that are coping with emerging megacities. I wonder whether new solutions will arise from them.

The (near) future of 3D printing

Of the many trends I closely monitor, 3D Printing is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating ones, given its sheer impact on the economic texture in which we have come to live... But, to many people I introduce this trend to, it still sounds like science-fiction, or at best just another gadget to print useless stuff with.

This presentation aims at showing how wrong this view is. 3D printing is much more than a gadget and, though its exact future evolution is relatively unsure, what's certain is that it is bringing new threats and opportunities to many industries.

Here are some slides I will use in my speech about the subject at IT Work's seminar on the future of manufacturing (slides are in English but the presentation will be in Dutch). See them as a brief introduction to the subject:

The future of energy according to Shell... not very reassuring...

No doubt big oil companies hold the key to how we will deal with energy after ‘Peak Oil’, and thus how we deal with sustainability overall. Given the stakes, they are likely to keep drilling for every drop of oil this world still contains, but surely they must prepare themselves for what’s coming after the last drop has been used, no?

This question made me particularly interested in the video oil giant Shell posted on Youtube, picturing the world in 2050, or at least how energy will relate to the world in 2050:

For those who don’t have 45 minutes to spend on the video, here’s a short account:

Overall the video is about how to change the current dependency on oil. The first part tells about alternatives for fossil oil. The ‘first generation’ alternative basically relates to ethanol extracted from sugar cane (mostly in Brazil) or corn (mostly in the US). The video points out a problem here: while ethanol from sugar cane is relatively efficient (producing 7 times more energy than it costs to produce), corn is absolutely not (energy produced more or less equals the amount of energy it costs to produce). Brazil can rely on its own production of sugar cane for its own energy needs, but cannot produce ethanol for the whole world, at least not without destroying vast amounts of rain forests and starving their own population (a second problem with ethanol production: it claims vast amounts of farmable land).

Up comes the second generation of alternatives, where ethanol, or any form of liquid fuel, is extracted from weeds, produced through photosynthesis or even synthetically (believe it or not, using methodologies used to produce anti-malaria drugs, if I understood it correctly). No doubt Shell is investing heavily in this, otherwise they would not have dwelled on this subject in their video (which, after all, serves to promote their business in some way). But the fact that no mention is made of when we could expect mainstream energy production from this source makes me think they are quite far from it… or, if you want to be cynical, perhaps they wait until the last drop of oil is extracted before revealing their capacity to generate energy at large scale from this source.

The second part is about reducing our energy consumption –or rather: make us use energy more smartly. Fair enough: it is brave of Shell to focus on this subject, since ultimately it reduces the need for their own products. On the other hand, according to their own projections (see the chart that one Shell employee draws in the video): demand for oil will likely grow to levels that  surpass supply by a number of times. According to any economic logic this will increase the price of oil, so regardless of the smarter use of energy in the future, Shell still looks into years of profitable business…

The video zooms in on a smarter use of our roads (through  self driving cars, with some appealing example of research done by Scania trucks) and ‘smart cities’ (with a compelling example of Masdar City in the UAE), as ways to reduce our energy dependence.

So did these examples reassure me with regard of the pending energy crises we are facing in the coming decades? Not for a millimeter. Did it reassure me in the way big oil companies are searching solutions for it? Not an inch.

Basically, the message of this video is this: we’ll think along a bit in how to reduce energy dependency, we’ll even do some research in alternatives for oil, but for the next three decades or so we’ll make sure to protect our profits.

What the story totally misses out on, in my humble opinion, is the grander scale of changes that are currently occurring, and might expand dramatically in next three decades. Evolutions such as 3D printing, the sharing economy, collaborative working tools and peer-to-peer development are, while relatively small still, trends that indicate that the very texture of our economic model is radically shifting. The very problems expressed in the video, while offering no compelling sign of how to solve them, will make these developments even more pressing. To name just one example: if every house or community somewhere in the future would own a sizeable 3D printer, what would the effect be on the global supply chain, global transport –and, hence, on oil consumption?

Shell’s message in the video forms a nice example of how to think within the confinement of one’s own paradigm, but it’s not this kind of thinking that will solve the energy problem overall.

Why national borders are not set in stone...

If you think European national borders were fixed in stone, think again... here's a hallucinating trip of thousands years of nation building in Europe, just makes me wonder how this video will look like a thousand years from now !

Will (and should) governments be run like businesses in the future?

It is a question that has been puzzling me for a while now: how will ‘governments’ evolve in the future. The question might sound bizarre. Haven’t governments always been around? Most probably, but not necessarily in the form we experience them now. Even government can morph into different shapes and functions, and indeed have done so in the past. Furthermore, the current crisis, the impact of climate change if (or: when) the worst scenario’s materialize, and specific trends such as disintermediation, might impact governments as we know them quite fundamentally.

I have recently been sent a video which gave me further food for thought. It’s about why governments should not be run like corporations:

Created by OnlineMBA.com

All solid arguments as far as I’m concerned, even if you omit the ideological beliefs some might have about the subject. But my question is whether these arguments still stand in current circumstances.

Let’s look at the first argument: governments do not exist to make profit, but have to spend each Dollar of income to improve the common good. Sounds great. However, if like me you live in a (democratic) country that sits on a burden of over 100% of debt vs GDP, and a yearly budget deficit of 3% (and, no, I’m not Greek or Italian), you might wonder if governments shouldn’t be forced to make profits for the years to come, if you want to avoid jeopardizing the future of our children and grandchildren (after all, someone will have to pay the bill). Sure, the money governments collects should (and mostly does) serve the common good. But the sad fact is that they have ever fewer money available to serve this purpose. Some even start divesting in certain public responsibilities, at least in states where public finance have come under strain. In case you wonder: no, this trend is not limited to the ‘failed states’.

The second argument is that citizens are not shareholders. Small shareholders have no means to weigh on corporate decisions, but in a perfectly working democratic process, citizens should weigh on decisions that affect them. But how big is my vote as a citizen, really? My vote only counts when it is shared by a majority of voters, just like it would if I was a shareholder of a company, no?  At any rate, even if it is shared by a majority, I would have no guarantee my ideas would be effectively implemented, probably much less so in a democratic government election compared to a shareholder meeting (where the CEO mostly has to act upon decisions taken by shareholders).  In a way, I know of no democracy that genuinely implements the opinions and choices of the majority of its citizens.

The third argument is about customers vs constituents. Surely, governments should not treat us as mere customers, choosing to opt out on us when we’re too hard to handle or to serve? Makes sense, even if I hear lots of my fellow citizens wishing their government would look at them as clients rather than voting cattle. But there’s something else going on, made inevitable by the crisis we are in and the poor public finances in most Western countries: the rise of public-private partnerships. For an increasing number of tasks, the help of private companies is the only way to ensure things ‘get done’. And have no doubt that the ‘private’ piece of the equation is aiming at maximize profit, closing down any activity that is not profitable, even if it serves the common good.

The ideas in the video are certainly valid, and I have no hesitation in underwriting them. My fear, however, is that we are already in a maelstrom that will turn governments into businesses, whether we like it or not. With Naomie Klein’s ‘The shock doctrine’ in mind: we’re in a perfect storm to make this happen. Just read the ‘recommendations’ of the IMF or the European Commission to have clearer sight on the hidden agenda. While their arguments are valid, their solutions are not necessarily.

On the other hand, one has to wonder whether this will not lead to a situation where the government simply becomes irrelevant. If crises (both financial and climatic) worsen in decades to come, and governments increasingly fail at fulfilling their basic mission, will private initiatives not simply take over? Is the outbreak of young social entrepreneurs (and even social innovation within existing corporations) not an early sign of this?

Guesswork, of course… but not that idle I believe…

Can Big Data save the planet?

Big data is perhaps best known to companies for its capacity to provide much more knowledge about their customers, and eventually predicting their consumption patterns. The power of Big Data for this mean can hardly be underestimated. I've read a story today of a father who got enraged after his 16 years old daughter got mailings from a company trying to sell her baby stuff (picture the scene if you have a 16 year old daughter yourself!). When an executive from the company called him to apologize for the mistake, the father told him there was no need to, since his daughter just admitted to be pregnant after all… The power of analytics…

But Big Data can be beneficial in a much more profound and meaningful way as well. It can drag people out of poverty and generate social benefit for plenty of people (see one of my next blogs). And, more spectacularly: it can be of tremendous help to build a more sustainable future. Let me give some high-level examples of how this would work:

• The most obvious example lays in the way we manage our energy consumption. So-called ‘smart buildings’, among others, use the tremendous power of data analytics to manage energy consumption in the most efficient way. Think of smart meters etcetera, nothing new. But soon the smartness in buildings will automatically calculate and pro-actively take decisions to provide the most comfortable experience, in the least energy-consuming way. Based on thorough calculation and prediction of your habits and wishes. Your lifestyle will be digitized –for your own comfort! – and Big Data will be the heart of it.
  
• A less obvious example now. Look at the big retailers. They pile a massive amount of food of which huge chunks are bound to turn to waste, just because they want –and, let’s not argue about this- need to make sure all their shoppers’ needs are immediately fulfilled, even if these are merely potential needs. Overconsumption is clearly a flaw in our system (with regards of sustainability issues, that is), but overproduction is even worse. I didn't find any figures about this yet (if you have, let me know), but I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of each two cows that is bred and fed to end on my weekly menu, ends up dumped on the wasteland. Tie this to how polluting a cow is during its lifetime, and you see where I’m heading… If Big Data can predict more accurately when and how we want our steaks (above the usual barbecue season prediction), perhaps we could adjust our cattle management and make it more sustainable, or at least less polluting.
  
• Which brings me to a next point… as the example of my weekly steak points out, if Big Data can predict my consumption of it more accurately, as well as where I’m likely to buy it, it will tremendously decrease the logistic strains linked with my consumption. My retailer will know when I need my steak, and avoid having a stockpile of steaks for the eventuality of me coming around to buy one. With the result of having to throw away half of them if I don’t get by while they maintain this stock, or having truckload of useless meat driving around to get me meat I don’t want at that moment… I know, I’m stretching the limits of my credibility here. But it’s not just about my steak. Project this example on millions of consumers, and you can easily see how predictive modeling (Big Data) could tremendously improve, make more efficient, and make less polluting the global logistic spider-web on which we have grown to be dependent on. 

 Okay, these examples are high-level, I grant you that. And they omit many peripheral yet important factors. Think of it: if a competitor of my retailer wants to attract me as a new client, he’d sure as hell would need to have a supply of juicy steaks for the eventuality that I would check him out. Only then can he start to be able to predict my consumption patterns and adjust his supply chain to it. And this without knowing whether I’d remain faithful to him, though he’d probably gather from my Facebook-feeds how likely to would be that I go back to my original retailer. Project this to thousands or millions of consumers… At the face of it, things surely will get more complicated with Big Data. But more sustainable as well…

Is Big Data really a megatrend?

Many people ask me why I don’t include ‘Big Data’ in my list of (mega)trends I am monitoring. Surely, ‘Big Data’ is more than just a buzz-word, and is certainly to evolve much further in the coming years?

Well, at the risk of being semantic about this, ‘Big Data’ as such is not exactly a trend. Analyzing big portions of information and turning it into insights is something humans have been doing increasingly since the start of written language. What has changed recently however is the sheer amount of data at our disposal, and the emergence of tools with which we can make since of all this data. But the exponential amount of data is in itself the consequence of other trends I closely monitor (social media, Internet of Things, …), and the new technologies are not so much a trend in itself, rather a natural response to our specific need in understanding the data.

That said, Big Data in itself will certainly become a big factor in many of the trends I follow (see the updated list hereunder). For instance, it can play a huge role in limiting the pace of climate change, through a better monitoring of the climate itself, for one. But one might think of more subtle, indirect impact of Big Data on climate change. Big Data could improve the complete supply chain of retailers, adjusting their stocks to what their customers are predicted by Big Data models to need in the near future, hence reducing waste and overproduction. Insurance companies could use Big Data to transform themselves into a service for people to avoid specific risks, again reducing potential waste (it could send an sms to its clients warning them to put their car in the garage when a big hail storm is underway, preventing damage to the car).

Okay, for some of the Big Data applications we still have a long way to go. But if its applications surpass the mere predictions of customer behavior for advertising needs –I have no doubt it will- it promises to have a big, positive impact on the efficiency (and, hence, the green-ness) with which our society is organized…

Stay tuned for more thoughts on this matter

Ah, for those in need of an introduction to Big Data, spend some time on these presentations: