top trends

Digital Death
January 20th, 2010

Regular readers might (just) remember that one of my top 10 trends for 2009 (i.e. last year) was ‘Digital Diets’. It didn’t happen. But wait…it’s happening now!

This is just in from Sean Boyle at JWT in New York. Rock star John Mayer has blogged* that his fans should join him for a weekly ‘digital cleanse.’ Meanwhile, if things really get too much you can now use something called the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.

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No, this isn’t anything physically nasty. Just a way of getting rid of your digital friends. Once you nominate a social network you relinquish your login details to the machine and it proceeds to change your password so that you can no longer access your account. It then systematically deletes every one of your friends from that particular platform and frees you from the shackles of social media.Facebook has blocked the application but Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn have yet to do so.

* I know, the irony of doing this on a blog!

Posted in Predictions, 2010 Trends | No Comments »
Newspaper Statistics (not what you think)
January 19th, 2010

Newspapers are dying right? Wrong. Newspaper circulation grew by 1.3% worldwide in 2008 to almost 540m daily sales. Adding the free daily papers, the circulation increase was 1.62% - or 13% over the previous 5 years. Overall, 1.9 billion people read a daily newspaper and newspapers reach 41% more people than the internet. OK, in 2008 in the US there was a fall of 3.7% , whilst in Europe the fall was 1.8% but so what? The model isn’t broken. It’s just that some titles are badly run, have too much debt and are in the wrong regions.

Posted in Stats, Newspapers | No Comments »
2010 Trends - coming true already
January 18th, 2010

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Remember Unsupervised Adults? (Trend #4 - January 7).

Posted in Travel & Tourism, 2010 Trends | 2 Comments »
Scenarios for the End of America
January 18th, 2010

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Nice article on Slate a while back titled How Is America Going To End? by Josh Levin. Essentially a brief look at the ways in which the US could come to a sticky end over the next 100 years. Overall it’s highly unlikely that the US will ‘end’ but a low probability/high impact event could have some really significant consequences.

Here are a just two of the ideas:

Radical War
What happens when a large group of young, unemployed and disillusioned Hispanics comes up against a small population of relatively affluent whites? This reminds me of China where there is a huge imbalance of young males. This is OK if the economy is booming, not so OK if it tanks.

Human 2.0
What happens when the ordinary people encounter a group of synthetically engineered and biologically enhanced supermen and women? Sounds crazy but it isn’t. Income inequality is increasing significantly and we already have a group of transnational executives that can afford the best schools, the best healthcare (which includes body modification and brain training) and the best transport and security.

Posted in Scenarios, Wildcards | No Comments »
Quote of the Week
January 17th, 2010

“Copenhagen showed us the new normal…the US has lost influence, China plays spoiler and tiny nations veto anything they don’t like.”

- Leslie Geld, the Daily Beast.

Posted in Quotes | No Comments »
Food trends for 2010
January 16th, 2010

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IN OUT
Butchers Mixologists

Lamb Pork

Immunity foods Omega 3

Homebrew Mad science cocktails

Potlucks Formal dining

Chicken Wagu beef

Locally grown Faraway foods

GMO * Overpriced organics

Source: Epicurious & some others

* Way too early actually. But wait and see.

Posted in Food & Drink, 2010 Trends | No Comments »
2000 AD
January 15th, 2010

Nothing dates quite like the future. 2000 AD is a weekly science fiction comic that was first published in Britain in 1977. So, of course, it’s good fun to look back at a few old issues to see what has come to pass.
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What, in short, did the comic get right?

Well there are no utopian futures in AD 2000. People live in mega-cities and there is an absence of work. Cameras are everywhere. So a bit like Britain in 2010 really. There is also cloning and genetic engineering.

One of the key characters in the comic was (is) Judge Dredd, an almost faceless lawman that is empowered as both judge and jury. Another character was Torquemada, a dictator with the slogan “be pure, be vigilant, behave.” The future of policing? Let’s hope not. One thing that the comic didn’t see coming was the demise of comics themselves. It seems that the market is in decline, knocked off the shelf by PSPs, Facebook and MySpace.

Posted in Predictions | No Comments »
Population Estimates for the year 2050
January 14th, 2010

Australia 35m
Saudi Arabia 54m
Iraq 54m
UK 56m
Afghanistan 61m
Germany 73m
Turkey 100m
Iran 114m
Philippines 130m
Mexico 146m
Indonesia 311m
Pakistan 345m
US 349m
China 1,477m
India 1,528m

Ref: World Mapper.org

Posted in Stats | No Comments »
The Ageing Opportunity
January 13th, 2010

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I’m often asked what you can practically do with some of these long-term trends like ageing. Well it’s not rocket science. It’s as simple as a good rocket salad. Here’s a great example of leveraging the ageing demographic from the UK. Link to site in comments.

Posted in Ageing | 1 Comment »
How to be a Futurist (Part 2)
January 12th, 2010

1. Cultivate the look of an expert (glasses are always good)
2. Sound really certain about things (people love precision)
3. Go against any traditional wisdom (always pick the opposite position)
4. Say things that are very difficult to substantiate
5. Be hazy about when things will happen
6. Never reveal your sources
7. If any prediction ever comes true make a lot of noise about it
8. If anything doesn’t come true come true keep really quiet about it
9. Take a big position on big issues…then wait until you are right
10. Steal things from all over the place*

* For example, most of this is adapted from The Evil Futurists’ Guide to World Domination, but I’ve already made the mistake of telling you that!