Click here to view the embedded video.

Short video clip about the opportunities associated
with creating an alternative transportation district.
Recorded at the Plan Fort Collins event on March 3, 2010

Over the past few years I have been carefully watching what has turned into an explosion of alternative transportation vehicles being developed all over the world. These vehicles include everything from electric and fuel cell scooters, to hybrid motorcycles, to electric skateboards, to turbo-wheelchairs, to dog-powered bikes, to Segways and Segway knockoffs.

Nearly every one of these vehicles is different. They differ in size and shape, height and weight, fuel source, speed, and maneuverability.

Perhaps the only thing they have in common is that there are virtually no roads to drive them on, and that’s where we find a tremendous opportunity.

If we do not encourage the use of alternative transportation, we are by default encouraging more car usage. This single-minded approach is limiting not only our mobility, but also our ability to innovate.

Innovation comes in many shapes and forms, but in the area of transportation, it has to come in the shape or form of a vehicle that is compatible with our current highway and street systems.

Because of the thousands of alternative transportation vehicles coming out of the woodwork, most cities have chosen to ban them from the streets.

To be clear, most haven’t bothered to legislate a ban on the vehicles. Instead, responsibility for dealing with them is handed off to the police departments and for them, the easiest solution is simply to not allow them on the streets. And they are also not allowed on the bike paths, sidewalks, or any other existing trails.

Trail Systems

In my home state of Colorado, people take great pride in the elaborate networks of trails that have been created in many of the cities and small towns.

The trails, however, are the exclusive domain of pedestrians and bicyclists, even though the two often have their own set of compatibility issues.

Some communities have invested heavily in the creation of these trails, but few, if any, have invested in the signage, maps, and traffic management systems necessary to turn them into functional transportation routes. Very few first-timers have a clue where they will end up on these trails.

Trail systems still tend to play the role of the ugly step child when compared to roads and highways. Hardly any have lane dividers. Many are not plowed when it snows. Few have names or signage to give any indication where you are in relationship to the rest of the community. If an accident occurs, emergency vehicles are forced to hunt down the location.

Additionally, few trail systems come with any form of support services. In most cases, restrooms are few and far between. It’s hard to find water, food, or shelter in case of rain or hail.

As a result, our current trail systems have become the domain of those who are looking for recreation and exercise, not for people looking to go from point A to point B.

No Current Classification System

When it comes to alternative transportation vehicles, there are very few rules… well, other than you can’t drive them anywhere.

What I mean is that there are no classification systems regarding such things as size, weight, noise, and speed.

If, for example, there was a classification system for electric scooters (We’ll call it the ES-12 Classification) where all vehicles were “silent” electric powered scooters, weighing under 500 pounds, under 4’ in width, with 3 wheels or less, traveling at speeds not to exceed 20 mph, the vehicles become a known commodity and cities could decide whether to allow ES-12 scooters on the streets or trails.

Similarly, if there was a classification system for hybrid off-road wheelchairs (We’ll call it the HW-14 Classification) where all of the wheelchairs are one-passenger vehicles, wheels that are between 12-20” in diameter, less than 3’ wide, traveling at speeds of under 12 mph, a different set of decisions could be used to determine the proper usage of HW-14 wheelchairs.

Once the classification systems are in place, and cities start paying attention to them, the alternative transportation industry will begin designing vehicles to match the various user groups that develop around each category.

The Opportunity

The real opportunity lies in the ability of some bold community to step forward and develop the first alternative transportation district. This district will become the trailblazing authority upon which this growing new industry will turn for answers.

As a first step, the city needs to convene a meeting that involves representatives from many of the major players in the transportation industry – Honda, Audi, Daimler, Ford, GM, Suzuki, Yamaha, and many more. The intent of this meeting will be to set the stage for defining the presently undefined alternative transportation industry: vehicle classifications, industry standards, usage requirements, safety issues, and more.

In tandem with hosting the meeting, the host city will need to take an active role in forming a leadership team complete with industry and community experts to serve both as the ongoing decision-making body and the driving force of action and initiatives.

The community will need to understand both the risks and opportunities associated with this type of venture. Not everyone will be in favor of it, and serious opposition may develop along the way.

At the same time, this is an industry looking for a home. Along with becoming the first alternative transportation-friendly city will come an economic development play that can be used to entice many early stage players to pull up stakes and move into town. Many others will establish regional offices as a way to stay in touch with each new development.

The city will be committing to the development of a trail/road system that operates outside of the bounds of current highways, railroads, trails and bike paths. Since many cities already have pieces of this infrastructure already in place, the commitment will be to improve and redevelop it into a workable phase-one alternative transportation system.

To be sure, this will not be an easy undertaking, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

The future of transportation will not be defined by bigger, faster, sportier-looking cars. Rather, it will be defined by matching every individual’s unique mobility needs with the most appropriate vehicle for satisfying those needs.

Libraries in the future will come in many different forms

NOTE: The following is a reprint of an interview that recently appeared in American Libraries Magazine

Without consulting a crystal ball, Thomas Frey, executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute, writes and speaks about a promising future for those libraries strongly connected to their communities and quickly adaptable to the changing world around them. Tom Sloan, executive director of the DuPage Library System in Geneva, Illinois, asked Frey to discuss the future of libraries.

Sloan – Unlike many futurists, you have stated that “libraries are here to stay.” Why?

Frey – Libraries have been around in various forms for nearly 4,000 years and have become a cornerstone of activities for the communities in which they exist. Even though the role and function of what’s happening inside will change, the library itself will remain a powerful entity around which communities will rally.

Beyond the evolving nature of libraries, there are very few people who don’t like libraries. The library-hater crowds are very small. While some will argue about the value of dollars going into a library, not many have waged an all-out assault. On balance, the vast majority of people want libraries to remain, and this public sentiment will help solidify the staying power of libraries for many years to come.

An important role of libraries that often gets overlooked is that of archiving the community in which they exist. While many forms of information can be digitized and reside in “the cloud,” and various devices will give us access to information anytime and anyplace, there are a variety of documents and artifacts that are necessarily local.

I’ve suggested libraries install “time capsule rooms” as a way to help archive their communities. The more a library can do to establish itself as an archive of everything local, the better it will be at touching the hearts and minds of everyone it serves.

Sloan – You’ve said that within 10 years the ink-on-paper publishing industry will not be a sustainable economic model. What will the new business model be?

Frey - In January I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and saw over 20 new digital book reader products being introduced. Over the next few years we will see fierce pricing competition with the cost of book readers dropping to under $20.

At the same time, the number of digital downloads, which cost a fraction of the price of traditional books, will soar, and the sale of ink-on-paper books will plummet.

People today have grown to resent the one-way flow of information. They want to participate, make comments, interact with other readers, and somehow take ownership of the content.

The most successful business models for future publishing companies will involve interactive forums where authors engage in give-and-take sessions with readers and the former static content of books takes on an organic life of its own, and continues to grow along with the discussions.

I can only speculate on the most effective business models, but my guess is that readers will be willing to pay significantly more to engage in things like live webcasts, digital book signings, and vibrant talk-back sessions than they ever paid for books in the past.

Sloan – You have written and spoken about libraries becoming “Electronic Outposts.” What is an Electronic Outpost library?

Frey - An Electronic Outpost is a satellite branch of a central library designed to be an efficiently run community gathering place. Size, shape, and purpose will vary. Some may fit well in shopping centers while others may be better suited to function as stand-alone buildings. Some may be very small, others quite large. Some will take on a homey, living room–like feel, others a more traditional library reading-room setting, and still others will opt for the look and feel of a cyber café.

My hope is that communities will begin to experiment, and electronic outposts be synced with the needs of the surrounding community. In the end, they will serve a different role than that of a traditional branch library.

The possibilities are endless. Some will offer a selection of digital tablets and book readers, other will feature mini-theaters, gamer stations, day-care centers, working studios, and search command centers.

Even though the days of traditional books may be numbered, our need to access information will continue to escalate and our methods for interacting with the information will continue to evolve.

Sloan – What is the “Empire of One” business model and why should libraries be interested in this trend?

Frey - An “Empire of One” business is a one-person business with far-reaching influence. Some exist as private practices like that of a doctor or dentist, others as coaching or consulting businesses, and still others as freelance service providers. A growing number have taken on massive operations with products manufactured overseas, customers all over the world, and a global customer base.

Most work out of their homes. Much like the growing ranks of the telecommuters, they often feel isolated from the rest of the world and tend to crave meaningful conversations with like-minded people.

An emerging new trend is towards creating what’s known as co-working spaces, which serve as social work environments for independent workers. Co-working spaces offer enough privacy so productive work can be accomplished, but also social spaces that allow sidebar conversations to spring to life.

This is an interesting area that libraries need to experiment with.

Sloan – In the 2006 book The Long Tail, Wired magazine Editor Chris Anderson said, “When the tools of production are available to everyone, everyone becomes a producer.” What new roles and functions can libraries adopt to support producers?

Frey - All around me I see people transitioning from consumers to producers. These “tools of production” that Chris Anderson talked about are now easily accessible. For libraries, the patrons are shifting from information consumers to information producers. Readers are becoming writers, audio listeners are becoming audio composers, and video watchers are becoming video producers.

Libraries need to begin offering access to these “tools of production.” They may range from podcast studios, to audio capture and audio editing, to video capture and video editing, to virtual world stations, to blogger stations, to mashup consoles, to graphic editing stations. The possibilities are only limited by our own imaginations.

Sloan – In addition to libraries, you write and speak about the future of business, education, government, and transportation. What trends in these areas do you think will have the greatest impact on the future of libraries?

Frey - Perhaps the biggest impact will come from tomorrow’s education systems. Future education systems will be oriented around an iTunes-like system that enables experts all around the world to create courses with a rapid courseware builder.

Envisioned as a smooth, fill-in-the-blanks template process, the courseware builder will carefully step course producers through the design, build, and launch phases of each course. With courses stored as part of a global distribution center, they will then be made available to people all around the world.

Apple has already launched iTunes U and is currently hosting over 200,000 college courses. These courseware builders will get far better over time, and it will soon be commonplace for kids of all ages to take the majority of their classes online.

The future of education will revolve around hyper-individualized learning, self-paced, organically generated content that is modality diverse, and available on-demand 24/7. Any topic, anywhere, anytime … it will be less dependent on teachers, less dependent on schools, and offer more personal control. Libraries have the potential for becoming the working laboratories for people creating new courseware.

Sloan – Over the past few years you have visited hundreds of libraries and spoken to many library groups across the country. What have you learned about libraries that you didn’t know prior to your visits?

Frey - This may sound a bit odd, but libraries are really a life form. They exist as a human system, and as such tend to take on many of the same attributes as other life forms.

Going back to your first questions, libraries are here to stay because they have a survival instinct. They have created a mutually dependent relationship with the communities they serve, and most importantly, they know how to adapt to the changing world around them.

I am always impressed with the creative things being done in libraries. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” There are a lot of beautiful dreams taking place that will help form tomorrow’s libraries.

Thomas Frey is executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute where he works closely with the institute’s Senior Fellows and Board of Visionaries to develop original research studies. As part of the celebrity speaking circuit, Frey pushes the envelope of understanding, headlining events with some of today’s most recognizable figures.

Tom W. Sloan is executive director of the DuPage Library System, a regional, multitype library system headquartered in Geneva, Illinois, consisting of more than 130 members in over 300 libraries in the greater Chicago area.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can’t read & write,
but those who can’t learn, unlearn & relearn.” – Alvin Toffler

So what is literacy?

The first time I listened to an audio book I thought I was cheating. As a child, reading for me seemed like a lot of work, and my teachers kept piling on more reading assignments, continually feeding into the notion that reading is hard work.

Later, I rationalized that the process of reading is the process of taking characters on a page and turning them into mental concepts and images. Listening to an audio book is a little different process where we convert sounds into mental concepts and images.

Today, when someone talks about literacy there is an instant assumption that they are talking about the ability to read and write – basic ink-on-paper communications 1.0. However, communications is evolving and our ability to craft words and preserve them on paper is being replaced with digital forms of communications, and the options people now have to communicate with each other have exploded into thousands and thousands of nuanced variations of what was formerly called language.

Tomorrow there will be even more.

Understanding Literacy through the Words We Consume

In 2008, Americans consumed 1.3 trillion hours worth of information. This information consumption translated into an average of 12 hours per person, 100,500 words, and 34 gigabytes each day.

If we base the notion of literacy on the number of words that flow into our mind on a daily basis, we suddenly realize that the incoming words are coming from a variety of different sources. Today the vast majority of our “word intake” comes from television and computers with only 9% coming from print media. In 1960, print media accounted for 26% of our word consumption but has shrunk to 9% today, with the prospects of getting even smaller in the future.

For many people working within the book-centric world of today, it’s difficult for them to wrap their mind around the changing attitudes of today’s information consumers. And even for those who can, it’s not clear what the next steps should be, and how fast the changes should be made.

Programming as a Language

In 1972, I was a young engineering student at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD and for my first computer programming class I was trained to “speak” the language of Fortran. We were taught a basic form of machine communications to “talk” to the giant computer through punch cards that were fed in and out of the beast through a card reading input-output device.

In this class our training involved such sophisticated tasks as sorting numbers, basic addition, and putting lists in alphabetical order. The whole process was very time-consuming with very little to show for the effort.

At the end of the class, being the true visionary that I am, I concluded, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there would be no future for the profession of computer programming.

Computers spoke a different language. In many ways it was similar to the language differences of people in Europe or Asia. While learning French, German, Mandarin, or Japanese required learning foreign words, definitions, and vocal inflections, the mastery of a computer language required the writing and interpretation of computer code, Boolean algebra, and many long and frustrating hours of dealing with non-human, no personality machines.

Next Generation Literacy

So going back to my original question, what really is literacy?

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) describes literacy as the “ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.

Going beyond the textbook definition, literacy is evolving, and deep inside this evolution we can begin to understand some of the underlying complexities associated with the options currently at our disposal.

1. Reading and writing
2. Computer literacy
3. Web surfing literacy
4. Cell phone & telephone literacy
5. Smart phone literacy
6. Body language literacy
7. Financial literacy
8. Cartooning
9. Online commerce literacy
10. Online security literacy
11. Graphical literacy
12. Animation literacy
13. Audio literacy
14. Video literacy
15. Social networking literacy
16. Gaming literacy
17. Virtual world literacy
18. Cultural literacy

It is a common trap to associate our talent for communicating with our ability to read and write. However, texting is different than cartooning. Audio podcasts are different than video podcasts. Each new form of communications comes with its own unique style and attributes for conveying thoughts and ideas.

Literacy will continue to evolve along with every new system and each form of technology that gets created along the way.

Basic reading and writing forms of communications will no longer be sufficient for the workforce of the future. People will still need to read and write, but they will also need a whole lot more.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

32 accomplishments that will give you the influence of a college degree

“Does being smarter make you happier?”

This was the question I posed to the audience at a recent DaVinci Institute event, hoping to gauge their reaction.

I found it fascinating to watch this very conflicted group of amazingly bright people as they struggled to put their thoughts into words. In the end, the answers, which varied tremendously, seemed to fall mostly into the category of “No, but…..”

A natural follow-on question would be, “Okay, so what constitutes being smart?”

Ignoring College

Last week it was announced that Han Han, a Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author and China’s most popular blogger, has been nominated as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is also a person who never graduated from college.

Han Han has taken his place among the likes of Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, Paul Allen, Ben Stiller, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Sean Combs as some of the smartest and most influential people in the world, none of whom have ever graduated from college.

Over the years, college degrees have evolved into a significant status symbol, one of the world’s most recognizable symbols for being smart. A college degree is a definable accomplishment requiring years of study, so there is some validity to the notion that people who graduate from college, on average, are indeed smarter than the average non-degree holder.

However, it is also clear that some of the world’s most successful people took a different path and never bothered with finishing college. In fact, few people know, or care, that the sheepskin is missing from their walls. They have achieved status in other ways.

Logically then, if you are a talented person and haven’t had the time, money, or opportunity to go to college, are there some legitimate substitutes for status that the rest of the world will consider to be of equal or greater value?

College leaders have done a tremendous job of cementing the value of a college education into the minds of virtually everyone.

If you asked a cross-section of business leaders, “What other accomplishments would you consider to be as important as a college degree?” chances are they will struggle to give you an answer that doesn’t have a college education somewhere in the background.

But many options do exist.

A Status Symbol under Attack

In one of my recent papers, The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution, I talked about how colleges were on the verge of being attacked, and one of the areas they will be attacked on is the areas of “status.” College degrees are important but new status symbols are beginning to emerge that compete directly with the inherent status of a degree.

Until recently, colleges have primarily faced competition from other colleges. Even though they will debate the value of one college degree over another, they remain unified in their support of higher education.

Today, there are many status symbols that compete with college degrees, and in the future there will be many more.

Royalty, such as the King and Queen of a country, is a great status symbol that comes with tremendous privilege, but it is not an accomplishment. People are born into it.

A Nobel Prize is also a remarkable status symbol, but it generally requires one or many college degrees somewhere in the person’s background.

So what kind of accomplishments are accessible to most people that could be construed by a potential employer, business colleague, or acquaintance as being the equivalent to a college degree, or for that matter, even better?

To answer this, I’ve decided to break this discussion into four categories:

1. Components of Equivalency (equal to a course or multiple courses)
2. Equivalent to a College Degree
3. Better than a College Degree
4. Future Status Symbols

Even though we are discussing alternatives to going to college it doesn’t mean that there is no learning involved. Quite the contrary. Learning becomes an essential ingredient in virtually every path to success, but in some cases, far less formalized.

The following examples are simply intended to expand your awareness of literally thousands of options that currently exist.

Components of Equivalency

Much like taking a series of courses that stack up and form the basis for a college degree, a series of smaller achievements can easily be used to form an equivalent status.

1. Certificate Programs – Most certificate programs are intended to either replace or supplement existing degree programs. The weight of this accomplishment varies tremendously with the institution that is granting it.
2. Certification – Certifications, such as Microsoft, Cisco, or Oracle Certification, have become a very popular way to bestow credentials.
3. Apprenticeship – The age old process of working for years under the tutelage of a master craftsman is still alive and well in some industries.
4. Foreign Travel – With foreign travel becoming increasingly common, it tends to hold less value today than in the past, but is still recognized as a significant achievement.
5. Own a Patent – Becoming a patent holder is also less rare in today’s world than in the past, but is still regarded as a noteworthy accomplishment.
6. Produce an Event – Events range from small to huge. But a successful event, no matter the size, has the ability to position you in a way that will cause others to take notice.
7. Memberships – Status by association. The credibility of an association adds to the credibility of you as an individual.
8. Start a Business – Launching a business is a significant learning experience regardless of how successful it becomes. It also adds a new dimension to the identity of the founder.

Equivalent to a College Degree

College degrees are viewed as a significant personal accomplishment sustained over a longer period of time. Similarly any accomplishment competing for that kind of status needs to convey a similar sustained effort. Here are a few examples:

1. Published a Book – If a major publisher gives the green light to publish your book, their endorsement brings with it considerable esteem.
2. Produce a Documentary – There is something noble and noteworthy about producing a documentary that puts documentarians into a class of their own.
3. Foreign Travel with a Cause – Whether you’re working with Engineers Without Borders creating bridges or water systems for desolate villages or working with Teachers without Borders and teaching young people a much needed craft, foreign travel that is tied to a cause carries far more weight than travel alone.
4. Serve on a City Council – Local elections have a way of validating your status in the community and serves as a wonderful learning experience.
5. Commissioned Artwork – Artwork is only as important as the artist who tells the story. Commissioned art brings with it a rare position of honor.
6. Become an Expert - Brendon Burchard, Founder of the Experts Academy, has defined 10 key elements that qualify someone as being an expert. Most people can achieve the ranks of “expert” once they understand the process.
7. Creating a High-Traffic Website – The size of your digital footprint is directly proportional to your online status.
8. Dog Breeder – This is an example of a well-recognized industry specific title that virtually everyone recognizes as important. Dog breeders hold prominence in social circles far removed from that of the pet-owner community.

Better than College

It is a fine line between status symbols that are the equivalent to college and those that are considered better than college. Here are a few that fall into the better-than-college territory:

1. Become Famous – Whether you become famous as an actor or actress, writer, cartoonist, artist, columnist, movie director, or fashion designer, fame is a rare privilege bestowed on the limited few.
2. Prestigious Awards – Granting awards is a time-honored tradition, but over the years, only a few awards have risen to the top. These awards bestow tremendous privilege on the recipients.
3. Elected to a Higher Office – When people vote someone into office, it’s a unique and powerful way of telling the world they are important.
4. Build a Financial Empire – There are many ways to build a personal fortune, but only a limited few who actually figure it out. People who have amassed a financial empire command tremendous respect.
5. Building a Business Empire – Building a business empire is like playing the game of chess without the rules. It is a game of skill, timing, determination, and chance that only the exceptional few have mastered.
6. Game Designer – Much like movie producers, game designers are relegated to the lofty ranks of royalty in the emerging kingdom of the pixel elite.
7. Successful Inventor – Becoming successful as an inventor is far different than what Hollywood would have you believe. It requires mastering many complicated skills. Successful inventors are part business people, part visionaries, part opportunists, and a big part lucky.
8. Create/Manage a Fund – Those who are placed in a position of “trust” and granted the role of gatekeeper to the money, tend to command special respect among the general public.

Future Status Symbols

When systems and technologies evolve, so do the opportunities. Each change in these areas comes with a need for next-generation rockstars. Here are a few possibilities.

1. The Outlier Label – As Malcom Gladwell so aptly described in his book The Outliers, any person who dedicates over 10,000 hours of their life to a particular skill or profession moves into the elite ranks of revered master or expert. The dedication and proficiency exuded by an “outlier” is far beyond that of the vast majority of degree holders.
2. Owner of a Unique Data Feed – Information is still powerful and having access to a novel and unique data feed will grant you unusual clout and status in the future.
3. Global System Architect – We are transitioning from national systems to global systems and one of the coolest monikers in the future will be that of a Global System Architect.
4. “Disturbance-in-the-Force” Web Presence – Having a significant online presence is one thing, but causing the center of gravity to shift among the digital natives, with the introduction of a new organic business model, will grant you unusual preeminence in the online world.
5. Clone Designer – “I need a clone.” As time constraints begin to overwhelm much of the world’s population, the pent-up demand for clones can be felt almost everywhere. Uniquely positioned at the apex of this soon-to-be emerging industry will be the clone designers.
6. Launch a Network – Networks have far reaching influence and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Whether it’s a communications network, a professional network, or a social network, the founder of a network is also the heart and soul of its significance.
7. Launch the “You Inc.” Brand – You are your own brand. When you, as a brand, become a household name, many new doors will open for you.
8. Founder of a Movement – With every movement comes a certain nobility and distinction that helps circumvent the traditional path to success.

The Seeds of Competition

After listing all of these ways to gain status without going to college it occurred to me that I’ve only tangentially discussed the competing forms of status that will be putting colleges on the defensive.

Status ends up being a culmination of who you are, not how much you know. While the experience of going to college can be quite valuable, so can other experiences. Competition will come in the form of competing experiences, and going beyond the experience itself, and translating it into significant accomplishments.

Successful people don’t have jobs, they have a calling. Each accomplishment stems from a passion and drive that is uniquely their own, not from a requirement that someone else dictates. Competing experiences will be designed to nurture the budding talents in people and give them ownership of the path they choose to take.

We are entering the age of hyper-individuality, and the path to each person’s most significant accomplishments will demand a hyper-individualized approach. Competition will be framed to fit around the wants, needs, and desires of that specific individual at that specific moment in time.

In the end, it will be far less about the path and far more about the results.

By Thomas Frey

.

Virtually everywhere you look there are video screens. You see them in bars and restaurants, on elevators, in the back of taxis, and on airplanes. Even most cell phones have now have video screens. Some are connected to the Internet and others are connected to cable television, two distinctly different uses for what amounts to the same screen technology.

In the future, people will look back at this time and see it as very confusing. Corporate turf battles have slowed the promise of the everything display where all content is available through all screens. And in many cases the public wasn’t ready to make the leap. All of that is about to change.

Cable TV companies and the major television networks are not going to like the years ahead as their market shares of the video content world begin to dwindle.

Until now, consumers have felt ill prepared to deal with the dizzying array of options when they enter an electronics store and manufacturers have interpreted that confusion as a marketplace not ready to make the switch.

Greg Belloni at Sony says, “Our stance is that consumers don’t want an Internet-like experience with their TVs, and we’re really not focused on bringing anything other than Internet video or widgets to our sets right now.” A widget is an industry term for narrow channels of Internet programming like YouTube or Hulu.

Bob Scaglione, Senior VP of Marketing at the Sharp voiced a similar comment. “I don’t think that consumers are yet ready to access all content on the Internet on their TV. For now, it’s more important to deliver content consumers want on a TV and let them do their browsing on a PC.”

Industry analysts also make the point that watching television is an entertainment activity where people lean back in their couch and disengage. Browsing the Internet, as the thinking goes, is a more immersive, lean forward activity, where the brain is in both output and input mode.

However, that argument has already been disproved with the iPhone, a do-everything device that has met with raging success.

3D video coming soon to a cell phone near you

Most of the problems leading up to the convergence have centered around the design of the interface. Consumers have become well-versed in working with browsers and surfing the Internet. And most have logged time working with game controllers found in the likes of Wii and Xbox. But they feel like they took a step back in time when they try to work the cable TV controls to access a television show or movie.

The Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas will feature TVs with direct Internet connectivity, or with on-screen access to content sites such as YouTube, Blockbuster and Netflix. As online video becomes intermingled with the living-room TV experience, a new consumer-friendly television interface will emerge, and downloading and streaming content services will take on a major role in the home entertainment ecosystem.

Here are some of the key data points to consider:

• The FCC recently announced it is moving forward with plans that will ensure broadband Internet access is available to virtually all households.
• Computers have penetrated 74% of American homes, but televisions are in 99% of all homes. Adding Internet to television will improve market penetration of the web by 25%.
• A recent survey by Deloitte showed that 65% of Internet users want online content available on their televisions with the younger generations pushing the hardest to switch.
• In Sao Paulo, a consortium of university researchers is nearly finished with a five-year digital TV project that promises to bring low-cost, high-quality broadcasts and TV-internet convergence to 50 million Brazilian households.
• In October, Intel announced its own TV-centric SoC (system-on-chip) chip, and other semiconductor designers and manufacturers are following close behind.

With the economy showing signs of improvement, and people have already started to wash their hands to rid themselves of the past decade, the consumer marketplace is preparing for some long overdue changes.

PREDICTIONS:

• Within 5 years, over 98% of all new televisions will be broadband Internet compatible.
• Within 10 years, cable television set top boxes will no longer exist.

OPPORTUNITIES:

If Apple were to start manufacturing their own televisions, they would quickly dominate the consumer TV marketplace because they know how to build an interface. Significant opportunities will be found in the design and implementation of next generation interfaces.

Video search technologies continue to be an area ripe for innovation. So far no one solution has really risen to the level where video search results are comparable to searching text.

Major opportunities can also be found in the aggregation and delivery of video content, and most importantly, the advertising and marketing mechanisms used to monetize the content.

Most living room furniture will need to be redesigned to match the needs of the active/passive uses of next generation Internet TV.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

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.

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 translate into larger budgets. The system was created to protect people from criminals.  Its based on the notion that if someone is removed from society they can no longer harm anyone. While certain crimes warrant imprisonment, it becomes an inappropriate form of punishment for most.

Police and court systems improve their standing in the justice community through the size of their organization which directly relates to the sheer volume of cases they handle. On a certain level, albeit indirectly, there are incentives to “create more criminals” because more criminals mean more money. A more appropriate measure of the effectiveness of an organization would be in the corrective or transformative nature of their actions, the overall efficiency with which a problem is solved and people (both the offenders and the offended) go back to leading productive lives.

The flaws in the overreaching authority of 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. There are no caps or upper limits, no incentives for rehabilitating criminals.

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. There are no ways of measuring the toll it takes on society on an individual level, the relationships it severs, the dreams it shatters, the cost of opportunities lost.

Individuals who enter the prison system lose their jobs and their ability to earn an income. The spillover effect is severe. In most instances it has major repercussions on their spouse, their children, parents, siblings, and friends. For the victims it offers little resolution. Each imprisonment creates a blast zone of destruction that is difficult to recover from.

Authorities will be hard pressed to argue that the U.S. has an inferior gene pool, so therefore higher incarceration rates are warranted. They will also be hard pressed to argue that the system works well. A recent study 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 benefits?

Restorative Justice

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. Its a far different model than the old school idea of just “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? My guess is that the current prison system has a lot of inertia and any changes will require the buy-in from everyone currently working inside the system. Barring any legislative changes, its just easier to maintain the status quo.

PREDICTIONS:

• 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:

There will be major opportunities for those who can help unravel the present bureaucracy and help rethink the new system that will soon be created.

Since many of the people in the currently criminal justice system will be looking for new career paths, significant opportunities will be found in helping people through the transitions.

Prisoners who are released early through this process, and there will be many of them, represent a sizable labor force that can, and should, be put to good use.

Many existing prisons will be closed. These facilities will need to be converted into other uses.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

7.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – Colleges Face the Perfect Storm
9.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – TV-Internet Convergence

After looking at all the signals, there is no other way to describe it. Colleges are under attack.

Several legs of the financial stools upon which they are sitting have been kicked out from under them, forcing higher tuition rates on an already cautious base of consumers. But money is only part of the equation. Cultural shifts, technological advances, and changes in customer perceived value are all working to create the perfect storm for colleges.

To the carnivores of the free enterprise system, the slow lumbering gate of colleges today makes them look like easy prey. But they bring with them tremendous inertia and the longstanding loyalties and traditions of generations past.

The true effects of this storm front have been masked by higher enrollments, as people without jobs opt to go back to school and hit the reset button for their next career. But that is about to change.

Much like Henry Ford’s “control everything” approach to building cars at the River Rouge Plant where raw materials were brought into one end and finished cars rolled out the other end, colleges have maintained tight control over virtually every aspect of the academic food change.

Professors are carefully recruited, classroom times and schedules are thoroughly planned, courses are tightly prepared, degrees are framed around in-house talent, and academic accomplishments are meticulously positioned to help brand the experience.

Those days are numbered.

While there are many areas subject to change, the primary attack points will be the six areas where colleges are most vulnerable:

1.) Money – As the cost of colleges skyrockets, student loans and financing are becoming harder to get. Here’s what’s going on.

Many states are hurting financially, and they are cutting their support for colleges. As an example, ten years ago the price of tuition at the University of Virginia, excluding room and board, was just over $4,000 for in-state students and nearly $17,000 for out-of-state students per year. Now it’s nearly $10,000 and $32,000, respectively.

Similarly, the State of California slashed their support for colleges by 20% causing the state board of regents to increase tuition by 32% in 2010.

Exacerbating the deficits are losses to college endowments, which declined significantly with the losing stocks in their portfolios.

At the same, student loans are getting hard to come by. Students can individually sign up for the government-backed Stafford loans, but they have limits of $5,500 a year. The other major type of federally backed student loan – the Parent PLUS – has no limit, but it requires the parents to co-sign, making them responsible for repayment. To make matters worse, the interest rates for these loans have nearly doubled in the past five years.

Most college students have relied heavily on credit cards to handle personal expenses while they were in college. However, congress passed a bill in May that will dramatically restrict the issuance of credit cards to anyone younger than 21. Consumer groups helped push the measure through because credit card companies have been praying relentlessly on naive college kids, charging hidden fees and exorbitant rates. According to Sallie Mae, 84% of college students have credit cards, carrying balances of more than $3,000.

Parents are also struggling to help out because they are losing access to home equity loans. The availability of money to homeowners through home-equity lines of credit has fallen by 25 percent in the U.S., to $538 billion, since the end of 2007, according to federal data.

In our fast-paced society, student thinking can change quickly, and the forest of red flags now being raised spells troubling times ahead.

With entrepreneurial minds cleverly attacking the flow of money currently being allocated to colleges, even seemingly minor changes will have profound effects as revenue streams change course and build momentum around alternative forms of education.

2.) Courses – Our existing semester and quarter-based college schedules are a poor match for today’s plugged-in, hyper-jacked students. Passed down from generations past, the current timetables for courses spread out over 8-12 weeks only works for an increasingly small segment of society, leaving most working adults to fend for themselves.

With courses being so narrowly defined, colleges are leaving massive opportunities up for grabs, and the vultures are beginning to circle.

Courses are on the verge of being fragmented into smaller, faster learning units. The goal will be to turn individual courses into bite-sized morsels of learning that fit into virtually anyone’s schedule.

Similar to the way Wikipedia and iTunes have evolved future courseware authoring systems will be rooted in a templated process that allows topical experts to turn their expertise into quick learning modules. With the proper monetization system where money is parceled out to course authors as well as other critical elements in the delivery system, the resulting structure will become an organic explosion of easily digestible knowledge.

Courses will be available on-demand, anywhere, anytime, to satisfy virtually any need, desire, or interest. They will be easily affordable, universally available, and presented to the students in a fashion most comprehendible to their style of learning.

3.) Teachers – As new economic realities hits college campuses, their first impulse will be to cut staff. Some will attempt to limit the damage to wage freezes and curtailed hiring, but others will begin to roll out the pink slips.

Research institutions will focus heavily on grants and corporate alliances to rebuild the revenue streams of the past.

As prospects for a long-term future inside academia grow dim, corporations will take notice of the fertile talent base and begin offering “greener pastures” for professors and teachers.

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter once described entrepreneurial innovation as a “perennial gale of creative destruction,” forcing existing companies to adapt or fail. “Economic progress in capitalist society,” he declared, “means turmoil” and that will be particularly true for colleges.

4.) Classrooms – There has long been the pervasive notion that learning can only take place in a classroom. Even though schools use field trips and outdoor experiences to enhance education, the classroom remains a dominant central fixture in education today.

Classrooms are designed to focus attention, close off the rest of the world, and create a controllable environment where learning can take place. The person or education system that controls the classroom also controls the time when learning can take place, the students who will participate, the lighting, the sounds, the media used, the tools, the pace, the subject matter, and in many cases, the results.

However, classroom-centric education is not necessary for learning. Our need to physically “gather at the feet of the master” will be replaced with faster, easier systems for connecting thoughts and ideas. If the objective is simply to get credit for a course, the convenience of an anytime, anyplace delivery mechanism will be the most salable feature. For students who want to truly understand the material, a more apprentice-like approach will serve as the primary attractor.

In the future, the cost and overhead burden of maintaining classroom space will be closely scrutinized as financial pressures force colleges to get creative. Each change will feel like a grand experiment, but the advantage will swing towards the virtual classroom where the overhead costs of facilities, classroom schedules, and alarm clocks no longer matter.

5.) Credits – What types of learning are credit-worthy?

In the future, this question will be at the heart of new course offerings as they work their way into the marketplace.

Learning takes place from the moment a person wakes up in the morning until they fall asleep at night. In fact, most of the time, learning continues even when a person is sleeping. Yet only a small subset of the learning that takes place has been dubbed “credit worthy.”

College credits are a rare form of currency assigned to the value to what a student learns. As credits accumulate, they are used to “buy” a diploma.

Credit granting authority has been relegated to accredited institutions and is protected with laws and systems that are closely guarded by people inside the system. There is no one central authority for determining credit-worthiness. Rather, each institution, once accredited, decides for itself.

Credit-granting authority will be the most difficult area for outsiders to penetrate. But rest assured, when the economic foundation of colleges begins to feel shaky, the creative opportunists will begin to emerge.

Things like co-branded courses, experience-based credits, and alignment with professional society certifications will begin to emerge to provide much-needed revenue streams for colleges. Each opportunity will be a challenging decision, but every change will dilute the sanctity of the credit system, creating precedent for others to follow.

6.) Status – Academic elites have long been drinking the Kool-Aid, espousing the gospel of superior standing in one’s community that can only be achieved through diplomas and scholarly achievement. With a record numbers of college graduates now unemployed and under-employed, the bragging rights have begun to tarnish.

Academic accomplishments do not always translate into “functional member of society,” and society has been inventing hundreds, if not thousands, of new “status” markers. Professional certifications, individual accomplishments, note-worthy projects, association memberships, achievement awards, and even being employed by a pedigree corporation will often carry far more weight than the status gained through a college degree.

So what kind of status will be used to open doors in the future? Look for marketing messages to appear as “more valuable than a degree at Harvard” or “a better entrepreneurial experience than attending Stanford or MIT.”

A college’s ability to sell its elite status will increasingly be met with resistance as we move into an era of austere frugality.  Our claims of accomplishment, self-worth, confidence, and respect are destined to shift along with the changing face of the institution.

Rest assured the coming war on colleges is not being waged by societal misfits or some rouge band of college haters. Instead, it will come from some of our most admired companies and people with every bit as good of intentions as people working inside colleges.

PREDICTION:

• Within the next ten years 10% of all colleges in the U.S. will fail.

OPPORTUNITIES:

We are entering a grand age of experimentation. The biggest opportunities for colleges and universities lie in the unchartered territory outside of their current domain. They can be found in the disruptive thinking and disruptive technologies described here and here.

Colleges will need to position themselves on the bleeding edge of what comes next.

For college professors and teachers, their biggest opportunity will lie in their ability to syndicate their work and reach the widest possible audience.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

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

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.

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.

Books have long created an impressive backdrop
for library activities, but those days are numbered

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.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

4.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Personal Mobility Explosion
6.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Turing Test for Avatars

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.”

To be sure, starting a business during a recession is not a bad thing. In fact more than half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded during a recession or bear market.

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 the 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 ever to 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.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

2.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Coming Legal Marijuana Era
4.) Trends to Watch in 2010 – The Personal Mobility Explosion

With the hippie generation moving into the seat of power, many of the hard-line arguments for keeping marijuana on the same banned substance lists as heroine and cocaine are fading into the history books.

The challenge all along for those wishing for outright legalization of pot has been that it doesn’t exactly fall into the “good for you” category, parents raising small kids are afraid of it, and it would remove a substantial income stream from the very powerful justice system.

With local, state, and federal governments at odds over how to classify it, marijuana has become a rather confusing issue on many levels. Even though marijuana remains banned federally, the Obama administration has decided to end federal raids on pot-sellers in states that have legalized medical marijuana.

Indicators clearly point to an outright legalization of marijuana in the near future, but there will be some interesting twists and turns along the way.

Consider the following data points that are now forming clear signposts towards legalization:

• 13 states now allow for the legal use of medical marijuana with a doctor’s prescription and several others are considering it.
• Attitudes are changing. A recent Gallup poll showed 44% of the population supports legalizing marijuana, up from 25% in 1995.
• With groups collecting over 200,000 signatures for upcoming ballot issues in 2010, California will be voting on marijuana becoming a taxed and regulated substance similar to cigarettes and alcohol.
• On July 22, 2009, Oakland, CA became the first city in the US to approve a tax on marijuana.

Pro-legalization groups such as NORML argue that the U.S. has been squandering vast amounts of money and manpower chasing and locking up marijuana users, both of which could be used for more important things.

Many other consumer groups have begun to side with legalization. In 1997 Consumer Reports issued a statement saying that, “for patients with advanced AIDS and terminal cancer, the apparent benefits some derive from smoking marijuana outweigh any substantiated or even suspected risks.”

Marijuana is an industry with proven demand waiting to spring to life. However, the vast majority of people cannot envision it as a respectable industry with most conjuring up images of raucous teen parties, dealing with unsavory drug dealers, and smoking reefers.

The fact is that most stoners are terrible writers, so the biggest advocates are the worst communicators.

For marijuana to become legal on all levels, the fledgling industry will have to go through an extensive makeover with professional advertising and PR people entering the mix. One person will need to emerge as the voice of the industry, the rock star of pot, a credible authority who makes it onto the TV talk shows and leads the movement.

In the end, it will be less about the legalization and much more about the framework established to unleash the opportunity.

PREDICTIONS:

• Within ten years marijuana will emerge as a staple at most night clubs and parties.
• As part of a rebranding effort it will no longer be called marijuana, but some other name invented by Madison Avenue.
• After all the hype wears down, it will prove to be a much smaller industry than most have feared or anticipated. While still a lucrative field, the majority of money will be made on ancillary services.

OPPORTUNITIES:

The early-stage opportunity will be to reinvent the industry. The people who shape the industry will also help define the kinds of opportunities that it creates.

With a growing aversion to “smoking,” the style and form of marijuana will need to be shifted into edible and drinkable products.

The resulting industry will create thousands of new jobs in agriculture, processing plants, transportation, distribution, marketing, advertising, training, certification, regulators, and more.