10.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Coming Explosion of Single Use Devices

Posted by admin on January 18th, 2010
The Coming Explosion of Single Use Devices
Over the past couple decades the World Wide Web has been growing by leaps and bounds with huge amounts of new data being added on an hour by hour basis. Accessing this information, however, has always required an interface device which has traditionally been the computer. A computer was a computer and for most of us if we had a screen and a keyboard we were good to go.
However, as gamers are quick to attest to, there are huge differences in the gadgets we use to interact with the data, and these gadgets often determines the speed, ease of use, and even our willingness to interact with it.
Until recently, the push among device manufacturers has been to create one awesome super cool piece of equipment that could do everything, although nothing particularly well. That, however, began to change when Amazon and Sony started getting traction with their electronic book readers.
The reason book readers began to catch on was because they provided a better user experience. The way a person reads a book is vastly different than the way they interact with a computer. People who studied the humans-to-book interface realized that generic computers provided a rather poor book reading experience and that if a specialty device were to be constructed, it would open the doors to very niche marketing opportunities that were currently getting lost in all the noise of Web.
They concluded that the optimal book interface would have to be a book reader with a paper-like reading surface that allowed people to read for long periods of time while lying in bed or sitting on a plane without the slightest hint of eye strain. It needed to have wireless download capabilities, batteries that last as long as the person doing the reading, the flexibility of changing font sizes, making notes, marking up the pages, and saving the changes for later access. It had to be light and portable, and to really make serious inroads, it had to be less expensive than a computer.
With Amazon’s success in selling the Kindle, others have been quick to jump onboard with their own book reader products. Recently my wife Deb and I visited several dozen of the companies who were launching new book reading gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. (Notes on these companies below)
What’s most important to understand here is that Amazon didn’t just create an opening for book readers. They proved a market for many other single use devices, provided they have a superior interface than multi-use devices.
With this idea in mind, I began to think through the world of possibilities, speculating on the next big idea for single use devices, and what the applications might be. I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface, but here are a few ideas that came to mind:
• Airline Booker: Travelers in airports have a tough time accessing the Web. Currently it is very difficult to use an iPhone or Blackberry to surf the web and make an airline reservation and airports tend to be a rather unfriendly setting for someone sporting a laptop. The trend here will be toward branded airline bookers with names like Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia taking the lead. Individual airlines like Southwest, United, and British Airways will be quick to follow, with some offering free devices to their “gold club” members.
• Day-Trader Portfolio Manager: People who have money to invest are often too busy to sit behind a computer monitoring the minute by minute changes in a stock. They need a device that is lightweight and portable with super fast access to specific pieces of data. Perhaps what’s most critically important is a feeling of control where the user has the feeling that they are in command of any given situation. Again, look for branded devices to surface with names like Ameritrade, E*Trade, and Charles Schwab.
• Courseware Taker: Students immersed in online education know the current limitations of sitting behind a computer all day. And the people creating the courses know all the limitations of channeling a learnable experience through the Internet. People who carefully study the student-learning interface will quickly find hundreds if not thousands of ways to improve upon it. These improvements will then manifest themselves into a device that is lightweight, portable, and inexpensive, with book-reader screens and audio-video capabilities that allows students to do all the things they like to do on the side.
• Health Checkers: Our ability to understand the inner workings of our bodies is creating a greater need to monitor and manage certain conditions. Athletes in training, people with restrictive diets, and those with diabetes, heart problems, and other reoccurring conditions are all seeking more timely information as well as access to solutions, experts, and the location of nearby medical facilities should problems occur. As a way to extend their brand, look for HMOs and insurance companies to put their name on these devices to create a branded health experience. Future heath care companies will be judged by the devices they offer to their customers.
• Facebooker:  Many social networkers don’t want to be left out of a conversation, not even for a little bit. Devices for managing multiple accounts, allowing for quick audio and video segments to be both produced and reviewed, may unlock even larger audiences. Although some believe the world revolves around Facebook, the interface will also need to accommodate other social networking platforms like MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and much more.
• Buyer-Seller Device:  People who engage in online auctions know the importance of a timely bid. Others who are involved in buying and selling products online have an ongoing need to stay plugged in to the marketplace. As a way to separate themselves from the free services like Caigslist, look for Amazon and eBay to take the lead on this one.
Certainly there have been many single use devices in the past like pocket games, address books, and music players that have failed to get much traction. The difference here is the level of sophistication and the deep understanding of user interaction.
The advantage of a single use device is that it is less complicated, and far less distracting. It caters to the specific needs of an individual and helps focus their attention with a superior operator experience.
I should make one clarification though. Certain kinds of data require a unique and different interface. While I have been referring to them as single use devices, they can in fact be multiuse devices based on a newly established interface. The inputs and outputs will start out as industry specific applications, but additional applications may give end users far more latitude.
At CES it was very easy to imagine how existing components like keyboards, screens, and touchpads could be combined to make an entirely new device. Whether it has a flexible screen, head-mounted displays, flip-down lenses, or embedded Pico projectors, or the user requires a touch screen, gesture controls, or sensory monitoring components, the advantage will go to people who best understand the specific user interface.
In the end, the best device will be the one that is invisible to the user, an imperceptible doorway between the user and what they are hoping to accomplish. Final results far outweigh the look and feel of the metal and plastic clenched between one’s fingers, but we have a few more evolutionary steps before the physical interface goes away.

Amazon Kindle 762

In the end, its less about the device and much more about the interface

Over the past couple decades the World Wide Web has been growing by leaps and bounds with huge amounts of new data being added on an hour by hour basis. Accessing this information, however, has always required an interface device which has traditionally been the computer. A computer was a computer and for most of us if we had a screen and a keyboard we were good to go.

However, as gamers are quick to attest to, there are huge differences in the gadgets we use to interact with the data, and these gadgets often determines the speed, ease of use, and even our willingness to interact with it.

Until recently, the push among device manufacturers has been to create one awesome super cool piece of equipment that could do everything, although nothing particularly well. That, however, began to change when Amazon and Sony started getting traction with their electronic book readers.

The reason book readers began to catch on was because they provided a better user experience. The way a person reads a book is vastly different than the way they interact with a computer. People who studied the humans-to-book interface realized that generic computers provided a rather poor book reading experience and that if a specialty device were to be constructed, it would open the doors to very niche marketing opportunities that were currently getting lost in all the noise of Web.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 1 Comment »

8.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – Alternatives to Incarceration

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2009
Alternatives to Incarceration – In a country that claims to be the land of the free, the number of people under the control of the U.S. corrections system has exploded over the last 25 years to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. The actual number of people behind bars rose to 2.3 million, nearly five times more than the world’s average.
The U.S. currently boasts the highest rate of incarceration of any country at any time in history. We also have the greatest number of laws of any country at any time in history, laws created by nearly 90,000 separate governmental entities, a spaghetti mess of rules and regulation so complicated that virtually any person can get tripped up. One simple mistake may very well end up with the person being incarcerated, and it goes downhill from there.
Incarceration is a system that breeds failure.
On the prisoner level, an incoming prisoner is instantly immersed in an “us vs. them” mindset as their surrounding community is transformed into the worst of all possible social circles.
On the operational level, success in the prison industry is not measured by how many lives have been improved, but rather on occupancy levels, the number of prison incidents and escape attempts, and how well the budget is managed.
On the justice system level, more prisoners mean more money. Police and court systems improve their standing in the justice community through the sheer volume of cases they handle. They are incentivized to “create more criminals” because more criminals mean more money.
The outrageousness of the overreaching authority called the U.S. justice system can be found in the system itself. There are no checks and balances on the system level for the criminal justice system.
Authorities will be hard pressed to argue that higher incarceration rates are warranted in the U.S. because of an inferior gene pool. They will also be hard pressed to argue that the system works well. A 2002 study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners released, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years, and 51.8% went back in prison.
Making matters worse, 35% of the people entering prisons in the U.S. are there for violating parole.
Some minority groups are being particularly hard hit. Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice puts it this way. “On a national level, an African-American man today has a 30 percent lifetime chance of serving at least one year in prison. I would like to be optimistic about the likelihood of reversing this reality and returning to the status quo of 1972, but I think the chances of even getting close to that are slim. I think we have to recognize that we now live—regrettably in my view—in an era of mass incarceration.”
Martin Horn, NY City Corrections Commissioner, voices a similar concern. “We are creating a culture of imprisonment; we are turbo-charging whatever is going wrong in those young people’s lives.”
In addition to the great human toll of incarceration, $68 billion of our taxpayer dollars has been committed to pay for this travesty.
In the past two decades, state general fund spending on corrections increased by more than 300%, outpacing other essential government services like education, transportation, and public assistance.
But things may finally be looking up. We are simply too broke to keep locking people up.
Incarceration rates in 30 states declined last year. Could this be an indication that the $22,000 per year spent on housing prisoners is starting to outweigh the benefit. Fact is that people coming out of the system are worse than when they went in, and virtually all of them will eventually make it back into society.
The U.S. has constructed a massively bureaucratic justice system that feeds off the missteps of its citizens, a system that it can no longer afford. As a result, new systems are coming to light.
Restorative Justice is one such approach where offenders are brought into the same room with the people they harmed and encouraged to take responsibility for their actions. Sometimes they agree to repair or pay for the damage, return stolen money, or perform community service
In Longmont, Colorado, Chief of Police Mike Butler has been a pioneer in Restorative Justice techniques, applying it in more than 1,200 cases with an amazing 90% success rate.
“We work with people before the lawyers get involved and before they enter the courts,” says Butler. “By doing this, we have been able to eliminate most of the costs and give the offenders a reasonable shot at turning their life around.”
These offenders are given a chance to meet with their victims and community members in a respectful process where they can learn the full impact of their crime and agree to repair their harm. On average 90% complete their agreements and are welcomed back to the community. What a different model from “lock ‘em up!”
Restorative Justice is a balance between the rights of offenders and the needs of victims. Perhaps better stated, it is a balance between the need to rehabilitate offenders and the duty to protect the public.
You might think it is dangerous to allow lawbreakers back into the community, yet the opposite appears to be true. The average re-arrest rate for offenders who participate in Longmont’s restorative justice program is 10%.
Compare that to the nearly 70% re-arrest rate for the national penal system. According to participant feedback data, every group engaged in the Longmont program – including victims, offenders, parents and community members – reported over 95% satisfaction with their restorative justice experience.
In restorative justice, because victims are heard and offenders repair the harm of their crime, they become higher functioning citizens able to work and make a contribution to their community, including paying their share of taxes.
So why hasn’t Restorative Justice caught on in a big way yet? It’s because no one stands to profit individually from the switch. Therein lies the crux of the problem.
PREDICTION:
• Even though the signals are weak, the system is too broken to be maintained. Look for the U.S. prison population to decline by over 25% over the next ten years.
• Look for a significant defunding of the justice system and a radically new set of criteria for measuring success.
OPPORTUNITIES:

Restorative Justice 676

In a country that claims to be the land of the free, the number of people under the control of the U.S. corrections system has exploded over the last 25 years to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. The actual number of people behind bars rose to 2.3 million, nearly five times more than the world’s average.

The U.S. currently boasts the highest rate of incarceration of any country at any time in history, a full 25% of the world’s prison population. We also have the greatest number of laws of any country at any time in history, laws created by nearly 90,000 separate governmental entities. This spaghetti mess of rules and regulation is so complicated that virtually any person can get tripped up by them. One simple mistake may very well result in incarceration, and it goes downhill from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

historical perspective, new strategy, people making a difference, powerful idea, social trends 2 Comments »

6.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Turing Test for Avatars

Posted by admin on December 27th, 2009
Turing Test for Avatars
The recently released James Cameron thriller “Avatar” has set an entirely new standard for moviemaking, and in the process has given us a visualization of what the evolution of the avatar may lead to.
The term “avatar” was first coin by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. The translation for avatar is ‘a form of self’- a virtual clone that has long meant nothing more than an intangible visualization. However, in the movie Avatar the envelope of understanding has been pushed far beyond the virtual world into a life-breathing physically-interactive being.
The power behind the movie is in its portrayal of the future. Much like DaVinci’s portrayal of human flight 400 years before the time of the Wright Brothers, the images became a visual goal, a rallying cry if you will, for a future yet to come. In Avatar, audiences become fully immersed in this exciting new vision of the future, and in doing so, begin to mentally plan for the technology that will take us there.
But, as much as we’d like to ratchet forward in time and move to that new level of sophistication, the movie glosses over many of the key technological stepping stones along the way.
An avatar today exists as little more than a cartoonish representation of ourselves, sent as our personal emissary to experience online, virtual worlds. Think of today’s avatars as the Model T version on a pathway that will eventually lead to flying cars. With each new generation of the avatar, they will become more life-like, growing in realism, pressing the limits of autonomy as we become more and more reliant on them for experiencing the world.
Eventually we will pass the Turing Test for Avatars.
In 1950, computer visionary Alan Turing proposed we would reach a time where a person entering a room with a human and a computer placed behind separate curtains would find it impossible to distinguish which was which through mere conversation. This idea of “passing the Turing Test has long served as a benchmark for bestowing humanoid qualities on a computer.
Raising the stakes even further, the Turing Test for Avatars will be a realism test with multiple stages of accomplishment.
• Stage One – An avatar become indistinguishable from a human on a two dimensional screen. Our visual and auditory senses will make it impossible to differentiate.
• Stage Two – Avatars will only live in the computer world for a short time longer. It is only a matter of time before they emerge from the computer and appear as visual beings, walking around among us. The Stage Two Turing Test for Avatars will yield a tree dimensional representation that is impossible to distinguish without touching.
• Stage Three – Once an avatar goes through the radical metamorphosis from an image that we see on a screen to a three dimensional being that joins us for dinner, carries on conversations with our friends, and serves as a stand-in for us at meetings, we will see work start on an even more realistic avatar, one that we can touch. The long held ideas of humanoid robots, and more recently cloned humans, will be superseded by organic avatars with human mannerism and capabilities so lifelike that they become indistinguishable from real humans.
The avatar of the future will become an extension of ourselves. The pain that we feel is the same pain that they feel, and vice versa. Like symbiotic twins separated only by a dimension or two, we are destined to become one with our avatars.
One key issue that will arise will be the autonomy with which our avatars can operate. How much freedom should an avatar have?
While some might envision the avatars to be the perfect clone of ourselves, the reality will be much different as frictions develop between us and the autonomous avatars that represent us. Men will find their girlfriends are more attracted to their avatars than to themselves, even having affairs with them. Avatars will eventually get their own apartments and start buying things for themselves. Some may even go off the deep end and start stealing money, even taking on insane addictions and diseases that only avatars can experience.
A series of self-help books will emerge that discuss “how we can improve our relationship with our avatars”, “how to keep our avatars from reproducing without our consent”, and “how to breed avatars for fun and profit”.
Only after going through all these technological evolutions will we get to the state of avatars portrayed in the James Cameron movie. We have a long ways to go.
PREDICTION:
• Within the next five years a series of prize competitions will emerge based on the Turing Test for Avatars
OPPORTUNITIES:
Great opportunities lie in our ability to create storylines, images, movies, and other visualizations of each of the intermediate steps leading up to stage three avatars.
Along with each new generation of avatar will come an exponential growth spurt of innovation surrounding the tools, games, and other forms of technology spawned by the avatar economies.

Turing test for avatars 564

The recently released James Cameron thriller Avatar has set an entirely new standard for moviemaking, and in the process has given us a visualization of what the evolution of the avatar may lead to.

The term “avatar” in the context of a digital computer-self was first coin by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Before that, the concept of avatar within Hinduism was associated with Vishnu, the preserver or sustainer aspect of God within the Hindu Trinity. The translation for avatar is ‘a form of self’- a virtual clone that has long meant nothing more than an intangible visualization. However, in the movie Avatar the envelope of understanding has been pushed far beyond the virtual world into a life-breathing physically-interactive being.

The power behind the movie is in its portrayal of the future. Much like DaVinci’s portrayal of human flight 400 years before the time of the Wright Brothers, the images became a visual goal, a rallying cry if you will, for a future yet to come. In Avatar, audiences become fully immersed in this exciting new vision of the future, and in doing so, begin to mentally plan for the technology that will take us there.

But, as much as we’d like to ratchet forward in time and move to that new level of sophistication, the movie glosses over many of the key technological stepping stones along the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 3 Comments »

5.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – Bookless Libraries

Posted by admin on December 25th, 2009
Bookless Libraries – Many people regarded the September 2009 headline, “Cushing Academy
Goes Bookless” as more of a curiosity than a serious trend. The way Cushing Headmaster James Tracy put it, “Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books.”
But underlying this blip on the radar screen lies a groundswell of innovation that promises a revolution in books. The book industry along with authors, publishers, and the online giants: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo are still arguing over the rights conveyed to each member of the value chain. Consumers, however, are simply looking for faster, cheaper, quicker access to books and information.
Beyond the issues of digital rights an entire new industry is emerging around interface devices with electronic book readers gaining tremendous market share. Amazon’s Kindle broke the ice in 2006 and is now joined by Sony, LG, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others. 2009 saw the price of bookreaders drop by 50% to under $200. 2010 will see a similar plummet with some being offered for under $100. In less than 5 years bookreaders will cost less than $20 and become ubiquitous. The result will be a very chaotic downward spiral for the ink-on-paper publishing world.
In spite of the dwindling interest in books as a physical object, books themselves will flourish. The demand for well-produced literary works will continue to grow, but will transition in style and form as technology creates new ways for people to interact with authors and experts in the field.
Despite the objections of book lovers, the days of wandering through the stacks are coming to an end.
As the popularity of books in the printed form begins to dwindle, libraries will be faced with rethinking their role and the way they interact with their user constituency. Their purpose will still revolve around being a point of access for information, but will evolve into a center of culture, a media archive for the community, and a place where great ideas can spring to life.
Even with expanded services through the web, their greatest value will lie in their sense of place. They will remain a place where questions get answered but will also become a gathering place for people to meet people and teams are able to plan, network, and interact with the information before them.
Future libraries will become fluid structures for causing positive human collisions. Next generation tools and equipment will be a source of intellectual spontaneity, giving people the ability to produce audio, video, graphic, and other sensory works as a way to breathe life into their thinking.
The ultimate “library of the future” will be the home for highly relevant informational experiences, where great ideas are born, and people have access to the tools and facilities to act on their ideas.
PREDICTIONS:
• In less than 20 years, the majority of libraries will no longer have traditional printed books in them.
• Since digital libraries have a much smaller labor component, the demand for traditionally trained librarians will drop over the next 20 years to less than half of what it is today.
OPPORTUNITIES:
Along with the transformation of libraries will come a great opportunity to help them reinvent themselves. The technology component will continue to increase and support for the technology will create many new openings.

Bookless Libraries 726

Many people regarded the September 2009 headline, “Cushing Academy Goes Bookless” as more of a curiosity than a serious trend. The way Cushing Headmaster James Tracy put it, “Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books.”

But underlying this blip on the radar screen lies a groundswell of innovation that promises a revolution in books. The book industry along with authors, publishers, and the online giants: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo are still arguing over the rights conveyed to each member of the value chain. Consumers, however, are simply looking for faster, cheaper, quicker way to access books and information.

Read the rest of this entry »

future scenario, powerful idea, prediction, social trends, technology trends 3 Comments »

4.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Personal Mobility Explosion

Posted by admin on December 23rd, 2009

Audi-snook-concept5

Personal Mobility Explosion
Pay close attention, there is a revolution brewing on the personal mobility end of the transportation spectrum.
Nothing symbolizes personal freedom more than our ability to travel from one place to another quickly, and efficiently. But for the most part, we’ve been putting all our eggs into one basket – the basket of automobile transportation.
In this post I will try to spell out the reasons why transportation is on the verge of dramatic change, and show you photos of a few of the unusual personal mobility devices that will play a key role in this revolution.
Transportation varies tremendously based on the country. As an example, in China, non-motorized transportation accounts for roughly 50% of all trips, and in India, the number is around 30%. But when it comes to public transportation, over 60% of the Indian population use bus and trains compared to 25% in China. The China and India statistics are vastly different from the U.S.
Some will argue that an efficient transportation system in the U.S. has led to a healthier economy. The US Bureau of Transit Statistics now shows over 243 million registered passenger vehicles in the US, which amounts to more than one for every licensed driver.
But cars are expensive. The average cost of car ownership in the US combining payments, maintenance, insurance, and licensing has mushroomed to over $10,000 per year, with California and Hawaii pushing the high end of $12,000 per year.
According to the U.S. Dept of Transportation, commuters in 2007 drove their vehicles over 3 trillion miles on a road system consisting of over 4 million miles of roadway. This is a dramatic increase from the 458 billion vehicle miles on 3.3 million miles of roadway in 1950.
The average car in the U.S. is driven 12,345 miles per year, or about 34 miles a day. Assuming an average speed of 30 mph, the average car is only in use 68 minutes a day. That means the remaining 95% of the time the car is sitting idle. From the standpoint of how well we are utilizing our natural resources, cars represent a hugely under-utilized resource.
As of lately, people and their love of cars has been shifting to a craving for something better. However, the “perfect car” doesn’t seem to exist. The perfect car is one that doesn’t pollute, is highly efficient, is only as big as necessary for the demands of the moment, makes virtually no noise, is extremely safe, and collapses into the size of a suitcase when not in use.
It is this quest for something better that is priming the market for unconventional vehicles. Below are a few of the alternative transportation vehicles coming out of the woodwork.
Since these vehicles fall outside of the current requirements for automobiles, many cities have chosen to ban them altogether until they can figure out what to do with them.
Our current infrastructure, the highway system, is all about cars. Whenever a smaller alternative transportation vehicle drives onto a highway, it’s at a significant disadvantage in terms of safety and risk. Currently there is no infrastructure – roads, trails, or pathways – designed for non-traditional forms of transportation.
Most importantly, any city that does not actively promote alternative transportation, will by default, encouraging more car usage. The one-size-fits-all thinking about cars has left some gaping holes in the transportation market, holes that some very ingenious entrepreneurs are attempting to fill.
Manufacturers and distributors of these vehicles are search desperately for alternative transportation friendly communities to work with. Therein lies the opportunity.
PREDICTIONS:  Within the next 5 years we will see over 1,000 new alternative transportation vehicles hit the marketplace. (Non-gas powered, light weight, smaller than car vehicles)
OPPORTUNTIES:
Create a classification scheme around size weight and speed of vehicles.

The Audi Snook – concept vehicle

Pay close attention, there is a revolution brewing on the personal mobility end of the transportation spectrum.

Nothing symbolizes personal freedom more than our ability to travel from one place to another quickly, and efficiently. But for the most part, we’ve been putting all our eggs into one basket – the basket of automobile transportation.

In this post I will try to spell out the reasons why transportation is on the verge of dramatic change, and show you photos of a few of the unusual personal mobility devices that will play a key role in this revolution.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 5 Comments »

3.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – Forced Entrepreneurship

Posted by admin on December 22nd, 2009

6 entrepreneur 795

Forced Entrepreneurship
One of the overriding forces in 2010 will be the financial pressures stemming from the recession. The recession will not be ending anytime soon because Washington is too focused on the wrong issues, and the stimulus money is not being channeled to the people who are most likely to create the jobs.
The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 8.7% of job seekers started their own businesses in second quarter 2009, a dramatic increase over the 2.7% during the last quarter of 2008.
May of the laid-off workers have simply reached the end of their rope. They have given up on sending out resumes and have concluded the only way to deal with today’s brutal job market is to start their own business. Even though they start out as reluctant business owners, and the learning curve is anything but smooth, once they get a sense of the true potential in controlling their own destiny, there is no turning back.
Whenever the economy takes a nosedive, it is typical for people to begin to dance with their “inner entrepreneur” and brainstorm ideas for launching their dream business. But today’s business climate no longer allows for people to wait for the ideal time or prefect conditions to make it happen.
When nothing else is working, they decide it’s time to blow the doors off their “comfort zone” and enter the “entrepreneur zone.”
Forced entrepreneurship often starts with project work, temp jobs, consulting gigs, or other opportunities for making money. Sometimes the work is done as a trade-out to just get a foot in the door. Very often one opportunity will lead to another, and a patchwork business plan begins to form in the person’s mind. Formal business plans are rare, but the key metrics for managing the operation begins to crystallize in their head.
The Internet is now enabling people and ideas to connect in ways never before possible. The business models that eventually spring to life often have little, if any, resemblance to their original idea for a dream business. But the fluid nature of the startup world is more than enough to keep them engaged.
To succeed as a forced entrepreneur, bootstrapping is king. They quickly learn to never spend a dime unless it is absolutely necessary. Their skills, talent, and ideas become a form currency that they can exchange for equally valued goods and services.
The web is an extraordinary tool not just for finding ways to do things for free, but for marketing ideas, find business partners and suppliers, and to run your entire operation on the cheap: keeping the books, interacting with customers, even turning a small idea into a big idea.
In 2008, 3.8 million companies had fewer than 10 workers, and they employed 12.4 million people, or roughly 11% of the private sector work force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Don’t look for a lot of hiring with this crowd though. It’s far easier to work with people and not take them on as employees in today’s virtual work environment.
PREDICTIONS:
Within the new ten years we will see the all-time greatest wave of entrepreneurship hit the U.S. and the number of one-person “empire of one” entrepreneurs will more than double.
Many cities will begin to establish “business colonies” as next-generation incubators for growing their local economy.
OPPORTUNITIES:
Since no colleges or universities currently teach one-person entrepreneurship, there is great potential for training and study material.
Many projects call for an complete team to cover the entire range of talent and skills required. People who are good at assembling and managing virtual teams of solo entrepreneurs will find an endless stream of opportunities ahead.
Large and midsized companies that learn to master the fine art of engaging solo entrepreneurs on a project basis will quickly discover the wide range of talent available to them outside the normal hiring channels.

Forced entrepreneurship, making its way to a family near you

One of the overriding forces in 2010 will be the financial pressures stemming from the recession. The recession will not be ending anytime soon because Washington is too focused on the wrong issues, and the stimulus money is not being channeled to the people who are most likely to create the jobs.

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 8.7% of job seekers started their own businesses in second quarter 2009, a dramatic increase over the 2.7% during the last quarter of 2008.

May of the laid-off workers have simply reached the end of their rope. They have given up on sending out resumes and have concluded the only way to deal with today’s brutal job market is to start their own business. Even though they start out as reluctant business owners, and the learning curve is anything but smooth, once they get a sense of the true potential in controlling their own destiny, there is no turning back.

Whenever the economy takes a nosedive, it is typical for people to begin to dance with their “inner entrepreneur” and brainstorm ideas for launching their dream business. But today’s business climate no longer allows for people to wait for the ideal time or prefect conditions to make it happen.

When nothing else is working, they decide it’s time to blow the doors off their “comfort zone” and enter the “entrepreneur zone.”

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, new strategy, powerful idea, prediction, social trends 4 Comments »

The Future of Colleges & Universities – Part Four

Posted by admin on December 16th, 2009

Future of Colleges and Universities 543 Disruptive Scenarios

NOTE: The following is the fourth in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

Most of us have great difficulty translating ideas of what the future holds into useful stories and concepts. For this next section, I have chosen to describe the upcoming changes in terms of scenarios. Each gives a brief description of one element of change, explaining how it will unfold and what the likely consequences will be.

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The Future of Colleges & Universities – Part Three

Posted by admin on December 15th, 2009

Future of Colleges and Universities 552

Disruptive Technologies

NOTE: The following is the third in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

Even though learning technologies will ascend to the realm of the virtual world, there will still be interface devices that connect digital learning with the human mind. In this section I will focus on five disruptive technologies to give you a sense of the ingenuity about to be unleashed. There will be far more, perhaps hundreds of new categories, and thousands of such devices.

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The Future of Colleges & Universities – Part Two

Posted by admin on December 14th, 2009

Future of Colleges and Universities 545

The College Experience

NOTE: The following is the second in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

Colleges and Universities carry with them considerable inertia. They have long-standing traditions, huge alumni networks, solid brands in the minds of consumers, and are more durable than corporations with many having lasted centuries and still going strong. Most have integrated themselves into their respective communities with multiple funding tentacles, many with massive State-funded budgets, and others with intense fundraising operations that extend around the world.

People attend colleges for many reasons including a desire for a better job, a sense of personal accomplishment, to improve their resume, status and prestige, build relationships, and to have fun. However, all of these reasons boil down to one overarching motivation – a quest for a better life.

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The Coolest Profession on Earth – Next Generation Agriculture

Posted by admin on November 17th, 2009

Future Farming 483s

Next Generation Agriculture
The coolest profession on earth
When people think of farming, they typically conjure up images of a tractor cresting a hill billowing large plumes of exhaust into the air. However, recent news of a system for channeling tractor exhaust into the dirt, so carbon fumes are plowed into the soil eliminating the need for fertilizer, has been gaining significant attention. The win-win arrangement of turning a known pollutant into a soil enriching additive, combined with the prospects for significantly lower operating costs from the elimination of fertilizer has many farmers buzzing. The technique, developed by Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, is currently in trials at 100 farms around the world.
Stories such as this are happening with ever greater frequency as the slow process of farming adapts to the fast world of communications, and ideas that used to take years to ferment, now begin to snowball within days, even hours. The stage is being set for an unprecedented new generation of farming driven by ever greater levels of precision, relevancy, and control, the likes of which will transition the once primitive profession, typified by long grueling hours in the sun, into a hotbed for techno-geek agrarians packing handhelds and data readers trained to monitor far more than markets, yields, costs, and moisture content.
As with all industries, there are many micro-forces driving the changes ahead. But viewing them through the lens of these three progressing trend lines helps us grasp the interwoven nature of these sometimes competing drivers.
Trend Line #1 – Precision
We have witnessed the transition from corn sold by the bushel, to corn sold by the kernel. Bags are now being shipped in units of 80,000 kernels with approximately 24,000 to 30,000 kernels planted per acre depending upon soil and moisture variables.
A typical ear of corn holds 800 kernels. Since one kernel of seed will grow into a stalk with more than one ear on it, the yield per kernel can be as high as 1 to 3,200 or more.
Accurate GPS systems enable farmers to plant far more consistent crops with steering-assist features on tractors to navigated near-perfect patterns in the fields, and planters automatically shutting off seeding tubes if any overlap occurs.
Spraying systems for herbicides and pesticides also employ GPS trackers that cause the shut-down of individual spray nozzles to maintain optimum consistency.
Emerging tech companies such as the Denver-based Moedus and their LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanners with accuracy to 1 mm, have the potential to not only radically improve GPS accuracy, but also add 3D imaging characteristics to the data.
With this level of precision already existing, it becomes inconceivable to most that we may be striving for even greater precision. However, borrowing a term from my Oxymoron Dictionary, not only will we be pushy for greater accuracy, the stage is being set for “explosive precision.”
Smart Dust:  The idea of smart dust was introduced by Kristofer S. J. Pister at the University of California in 2001. Smartdust has been conceptualized as an RF powered network of tiny wireless micro-electromechanical systems including sensors, robots, or other devices, installed with wireless communications, that can detect anything from light, to temperature, to vibrations, to chemical composition, etc.
With the same equipment used to sow seeds, smart dust will be “planted” into the soil to begin the monitoring process. Farms that are imbedded with smart dust will essentially be glowing with real-time information.
Beyond the notion of simply monitoring a piece of land, smart dust will become the interface to the soil. Scientists are now studying the use of magnetism at the nanoscale to monitor and control biological activity, at the cellular and even the single-molecule level. By emitting everything from magnetic fields, to sound waves, to signal frequencies, farmers will begin to experiment with micro-controls to alter plant characteristics, ward off pests, and enhance crop production.
Higher protein levels needed? Just dial it in.
Problem with borers or weevils? Just adjust the frequency to chase them off.
First generation smart dust will be quite expensive and each particle will be carefully tracked. But a few innovation cycles later, the price will plummet, and over time their use will become ubiquitous.
Trend Line #2 – Relevancy
Can better food create better people? Will a better food supply lead to healthier, stronger, better thinking people?
These are exactly the type of questions driving the relevancy issue. How can we make the food we eat sync up with our own unique metabolism? In short, how do we make food more relevant?
Consider a model that already exists – in the human-food interface. Metabolism is a term used to describe the various chemical reactions that take place in every cell of the body. Every metabolism is different. With our rapidly improving ability to read and monitor a person’s metabolic reaction to the food eaten will cause the agriculture industry to evolve with great precision around the tiny niche demands of consumers.
Smart Foods: Over time the food industry will create feedback loops and demand signals similar to human metabolism. Science will create real-time reactive sensors in our bodies that can read everything from the fluctuation of brainwaves, to micro changes in heartbeats, to gastro-digestive processes, to variations of skin perspiration rates. This constant monitoring of hundreds if not thousands of bodily nuances will translate into healthier food choices and, more importantly, choices tailored specifically to an individual’s needs. Sensors will be designed to interface with a hyper-segmented supply chain to meet the needs of a hyper-individualized consumer.
To put this into perspective, a typical home in 2030 will have a personal monitoring system that generates a grocery list based on the anticipated needs and stated desires of each person living there. Food orders will be placed either automatically or with as much control as the person desires. The order will go to the local food supplier, who will be in constant communication with regional suppliers, and they will be in constant communication with the food producers.
The entire demand-driven supply chain will be wired to the needs of the end user.
Much like the seemingly endless iterations of coffee at Starbucks, food from restaurants and fast food outlets will come in over a million variations. Customers will be able to order a 13.2 percent fat cheeseburger with 2.7 grams of potassium and 3.6 grams of calcium, coupled with a hint of almond and banana flavoring, on a sesame seed bun with exactly 47 sesame seeds on it.
This may seem like a ridiculous level of specificity. But in an automated society, the process will become seamless and invisible to the end user. It will be commonplace for a person to simply order their particular cheeseburger. Medium for me, please – with only one dill pickle, no lettuce and a tomato.
Farmers will become expert at producing “jacked-in” food stocks with countless variations, managed through computerized processes designed to manipulate the end results. Controls will be exercised along a broad spectrum from environmental conditions such as light, water, and oxygen levels in the air to genetic manipulation according to approved safety guidelines.
The regulatory system for insuring ultra-safe food supplies will be constantly monitored through automated data feeds at each step of the supply chain.
By 2030, a farm or ranch will adopt technologies that leave today’s operations far behind. Pushing the envelope even farther, the ultra high tech farms of the future will generate exotic half-plant, half-animal vegetation as well as crystalline plants, air plants, and generic non-species plants designed for post-harvest flavor and nutrient infusions.
Trend Line #3 – Control
Every business is more easily managed with better control of the variables. Farming is an industry with far too many variables to yield consistent results.
First, the weather variable. It is extremely rare to hear a farmer say, “I had the perfect amount of rain this year.” It’s either too hot, too dry, too wet, too cold, too windy, lightning, tornados, hail, or something else.
Second is the pest variable. Everything from birds, to insects, to army worms, to moths, to gophers, to other unimaginable little critters raising havoc on a crop.
Beyond that are soil variables (mineral composition), climate variables (length of growing season), and distance variables (shipping costs to processors, distributors, and consumers).
Farmers are constantly searching for better ways to gain control of the hundreds of variables that currently exist.
Silo Farming:  The precision we use to monitor consumer demand, coupled with the increasing need to control variables, will begin the transition to ultra-precise farming operations in highly controlled environments. Today’s surface farming is both imprecise and subject to extreme external influences, making it less than ideal to supply the consumer marketplace of the future.
Since traditional greenhouses are expensive to build and inefficient to operate, farming in the future will go vertical.
Several experimental vertical farming projects like Dr. Dickson Despommier’s at Columbia University are in various conceptual and experimental stages of implementation. However, most designs are far too expensive to compete economically with existing ag operations.
The concept of vertical farming that I envision, has been framed around the idea of creating both below-surface and above-surface silos serving as vertical greenhouses for the production of food. These cylindrical shaped silos with either layered or honeycomb lined walls filled with rich top soil have the ability to convert a small surface area on land into a much larger surface area on the walls of the silos.
The entire production area in these silos will be managed with a robotic arm that travels up and down a central shaft performing all necessary tasks of planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, and post-harvest cleanup.
The central vertical shaft will double as both an optical shaft through which sunlight will be channeled to provide natural illumination for optimal plant growth as well as the primary rail for the robotic arm. Sunshine will be collected via a solar concentrator from the above-ground portion of the silo.
Special hybrid crops will be created for these confined space environments. Short-stalk corn, personal sized fruits and vegetables, and fragile seed crops are but a few of the ag options coming for silo farms.
With water generated from an ongoing evaporation system that extracts moisture from the air, and external wind generators for power, these self-contained farming silos can be constructed in desolate climates, deserts, on rocky ground, and some of the most unforgiving places on the planet. This, coupled with the fact that it creates a year around farming operation on greatly expanded surface area, has the ability to increase the earth’s ability to produce food by a thousand fold.
As we monitor the trend lines of precision, relevance, and control, the future starts to come into focus. Next generation farming operations will create unprecedented new levels of opportunity, making future agribusiness professionals some of the most highly skilled people on earth, and the envy of the executive class.
Farming is about to become the coolest profession on earth.
About
Thomas Frey is the Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute and currently Google’s top-rated futurist speaker.
Because of his work inspiring inventors and other revolutionary thinkers, the Boulder Daily Camera has referred to him as the “Father of Invention”.  The Denver Post and Seattle Post Intelligencer have referred to him as the “Dean of Futurists”.
Before launching the DaVinci Institute, Tom spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270 awards, more than any other IBM engineer.  He is also a past member of the Triple Nine Society (High I.Q. society over 99.9 percentile).
Thomas can be reached at dr2tom@davinciinstitute.com or 303-666-4133

Future agribusiness professionals will be some of the most highly
skilled people on earth, and the envy of the executive class

When people think of farming, they typically conjure up images of a tractor cresting a hill billowing large plumes of exhaust into the air. However, recent news of a system for channeling tractor exhaust into the dirt, so carbon fumes are plowed into the soil eliminating the need for fertilizer, has been gaining significant attention. The win-win arrangement of turning a known pollutant into a soil enriching additive, combined with the prospects for significantly lower operating costs from the elimination of fertilizer has many farmers buzzing. The technique, developed by Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, is currently in trials at 100 farms around the world.

Stories such as this are happening with ever greater frequency as the slow process of farming adapts to the fast world of communications, and ideas that used to take years to ferment, now begin to snowball within days, even hours. The stage is being set for an unprecedented new generation of farming driven by ever greater levels of precision, relevancy, and control, the likes of which will transition the once primitive profession, typified by long grueling hours in the sun, into a hotbed for techno-geek agrarians packing handhelds and data readers trained to monitor far more than markets, yields, costs, and moisture content.

Read the rest of this entry »

business trends, future scenario, powerful idea, prediction, technology trends 2 Comments »
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