Biografie als Design – Human Enhancement 2020

October 28, 2009 in bio+chem, disruptive technology, future society, future technology, life style | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

There has been a future conference (Übermorgenkongress) on October 19/20 in Oldenburg. The issue was living in 2020: food, body, luxury, identity in 2020.

I have had the opportunity to go a bit beyond my focus there as a technology analyst and care for my more speculative  side as futurist. Normally I resist the temptation to talk about time horizons like this one, when there is no really deep research before, but in this case it was more like a nice “thought experiment”. See for yourself – sorry, preso is only available in German up to now.

This presentation is “post hoc”, the slides have not been shown at the event, since the event format was delibertely “no powerpoint please”. This is to avoid some disadvantages of powerpoint presentations, but I created this one to share my thoughts with a broader audience.

Human Enhancement Technology – Logical Evolution or Pandora’s Box?

The realm of technologizing the human being is a persistant issue in foresight, let alone science fiction. I guess that I am in a minority position in the Read the rest of this entry »

eGovernment, augmented reality, augmented citizens

September 18, 2009 in future society, ict, social web, society impact, web 3.0 | Tags: , , , , , , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

There has been some Government 2.0 Camp in Berlin. Afterwords I have finished two slideshows of my two sessions. The texts are in German.

Augmented Citizen

There is a public mind map of the session: https://www.mindmeister.com/28097938

more:
If you cannot imagine, waht to do with mobile augmented reality, just watch this video:

Documentation: Layar, worlds first mobile Augmented Reality browser

Citizen Wiki

The mind map of the session: https://www.mindmeister.com/28161082

More: Schroll: Citizen Wiki » Government 2.0 Camp Dokumentation

Update 2009-10-28
  • Embedded videos and listed new links

Future of the Web: Google’s market dominance a case for regulation?

July 13, 2009 in ict, media | Tags: , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

b7-google-evil-scsh-2009

Ever growing power of Google attracts political concerns and criticism.

The blog post of today is my comment I dropped on TechCrunch

Everyone loves TechCrunch. It is a bit grown to an empire by itself. That’s the way of network dynamics: Hubs emerge and alter the graph like a black hole changes the grid of space and time around. But anyway, TechCrunch is still really one of the top five relevant hubs for discussion and insight concerning serious web issues. One post of today made some wave (see the comment count as an indicator) and I commented on this. Comments are not quite dead (but there is a shrinking trend … Comments Dead, Twitter Holds Smoking Gun).

TC: The Time Has Come To Regulate Search Engine Marketing And SEO

Find this interesting article at techcrunch. The headline says it all. Good argumentation. It is really a bit alarming, that the guest author is writing anonymous. For more Google watching just google “googlewatch” :) and find serious places like googlewatch.eweek.com.

Google Watch – Googleopoly – Should Antitrust Laws Be Amended to Consider Google’s Use of Free? http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/googleopoly/should_antitrust_laws_be_amended_to_consider_googles_use_of_free.html

My Comment

(Looking for the source? It is page 2, ca. comment no. 100 techcrunch)

Dear Anonymous,
Google is not as stupid and fierce as the Cosa Nostra, to evidently put harm to people, who say something against them.

But I completely understand your fear. It is the part of the problem!

Google has grown to a superpower with perfect dominance not only in the ecommerce field, but
it is one of the most admired and powerful companies in the world concerning INNOVATION power! And with a reason – I do admire Google too in this respect! Their strategy, vision and great R&D.

BUT ….
Google is acting like a state, making peace around its borders. So even the admiration can be seen as the part of the strategic game.
(1) We geeks got more free tools that we can eat.

Read the rest of this entry »

2010, Mobile Augmented Reality and Ubiquitous Commerce

July 8, 2009 in consumer+commerce, context intelligence, disruptive technology, future economy, future shopping, future technology, ict, life style, mixed reality, web 3.0 | Tags: , , , , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

One year ago I blogged that post: iPhone 2010: Bet on mixed reality apps as a standard - and I felt the risk to fail with my prediction. Today I have found some news concerning that speculations:

Augmented reality startups want iPhone to open up

More than a dozen augmented reality companies have asked Apple to open up the iPhone 3GS’ live video feature for their apps. (mobile-ent.biz)

So wait and see. And iPhone will not stay alone – “Mobile Augmented Reality” could be one of the most exciting trends and disruptive innovations in the next years. Google that phrase and see Nokia on top of the listing … And there is that Layar video from June 2009 (“Browse the world!”).

The World-as-a-Store – uPOS, the “Ubiquitous Point of Sale”

New buzzwords for 2010 might be: MARcommerce. ARcommerce, the long tail of “reality shopping” … Scenario as shown in the clip: See something, get info, get price, (call the owner with the next click if you want), buy it. Hmm, actually a wellknown usage scenario to the futurist – but now it is knocking on your door, no longer a “vision”.


Augmented reality startups want iPhone to open up | Mobile Content | News by Mobile Entertainment http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/33644/Augmented-reality-startups-want-iPhone-to-open-up

21st century business and a change of ethics – the MBA oath

July 5, 2009 in future management, future society, global change, new thinking, research+science, society impact | Tags: , , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

b07_ethics_will_be__oath

.

MBA oath – a social innovation at Harvard Business School

The MBA Oath is a voluntary student-led pledge that asks graduating MBAs to commit towards the creation of value “responsibly and ethically.” The grassroots effort was launched in late May 2009 by a group of thirty graduating Harvard Business School (HBS) students in Boston, Massachusetts.

Source: Wikipedia

The principles (short)

Therefore I promise:

  • I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.
  • I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.
  • I will manage my enterprise in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.
  • I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise.
  • I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
  • I will develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society.
  • I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide.
  • I will be accountable to my peers and they will be accountable to me for living by this oath.

Source: Wikipedia

Read the rest of this entry »

Wozu Banken? Geld und Vertrauen im 21. Jahrhundert (German post)

June 23, 2009 in business impact, finance+insurance, future economy, future society, global change, ict, media, new thinking, social web, society impact | Tags: , , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

Wozu Banken? Geld und Vertrauen im 21. Jahrhundert (Keynote Presentation)

Kontext: next banking -conference- 2009 Berlin http://next-banking.de

Ort: The Hub Berlin http://berlin.the-hub.net

Datum: 2009-06-16

Related: Preview Text: http://www.next-banking.de/2009/06/wozu-banken-geld-und-vertrauen-im-21-jahrhundert/

Why twitter matters and how (UXCamp 2009)

May 25, 2009 in ict, media, society impact, web 3.0 | Tags: , , , , , | by futurefacts | 1 comment

Why twitter matters and how (UXCamp Berlin 2009) http://www.slideshare.net/willi/uxcamp-berlin-2009

Why twitter matters and how (UXCamp Berlin 2009) – the slideshow at slideshare.net

Shift to “nano conversations” and “micro user experience”

Why talk about microblogging in the context of a thematic barcamp (UXCamp Berlin 2009) about user experience, information architecture and interface design? Since I have written my thesis in information science (FU Berlin), I always have been interested in trends and innovation waves in the realm of media and information. We should not confuse the different trends in the mediasphere around microblogging, microformats and microcontents – but there is a metatrend to a more finegrained web and more finegrained and realtime interaction patterns. For example the twittersphere is the best environment for pandemic meme dynamics hopping from tweet to retweet. Users can discover other users sharing around the same tag / interest – reatlime, nearly without investing “search interaction”.

Twitter as a living search engine versus Google, the cold machine

In the googlesphere Google as the search engine has it’s merits, but it is always a starting point again and again – to put some query, select an item in the listing and so on. In the twitterverse the people are the living search engine – or still better: the discovery engine. So the user experience will change significantly in the next years.

From blogging as online diary to Emergent Sociality of microblogging

Microblogging is a really fascinating phonomenon, since it has a potential going far away from the root metaphor of blogging – the diary. In a sense it is the final deconstruction of writing a diary as a lonly, contemplative activity (with its special dignity) and opens up the possibilities of Emergent Sociality. In the twitterverse we see an unprcedented acceleration of adhoc “cloud building” of hypernetworked human beings around an issue, symbolized and glued together with a little word. That hashtag prefix # is as important as the identifier of the person as sender/receiver, follower/followee and her prefix @.

If you have not started to twitter up to now, don’t be afraid. Test it. It only makes sense to follow people of your interest – else your test will definitely fail. Just follow – you can unfollow someone at any time with no argument needed. My twitter name is @wschroll. Read the rest of this entry »

Digital Natives – hype, riot, revolution?

May 18, 2009 in business impact, future economy, ict, society impact | Tags: , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

digitalnatives2
Some weeks ago I reached some conclusions about the demographic/technographic wave of the Digital Natives. I foresee deep impact, if not cultural clash. For a CEO or manager there are narrow options for sustainable strategic response to this challenge.

So my pro-active imperative was: Time to transform your company into an academy

Today some other fruit of analyzing the wave and emerging power of Digital Natives / Millenials dropped. Manager Magazin online published the article  about the emerging issue:

“Digital Natives”: Die Revolution der Web-Eingeborenen – manager-magazin.de http://www.manager-magazin.de/it/artikel/0,2828,625126,00.html

“Digital Natives”: Die Revolution der Web-Eingeborenen – manager-magazin.de
(Andreas Neef, Willi Schroll, Björn Theis)

Just enjoy the insights.

    Coming soon – Strategic Labs (service announcement)

    May 11, 2009 in future technology, media, society impact, web 3.0 | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

    Strategic Labs

    See my business mind map


    Dear reader, you realized my low blogging frequency. I am so busy with projects and my own business development of <Strategic Labs> in these days of exciting developments in the media and communication industry.

    Just follow @willischroll and watch my tweets about emerging trends and the future at twitter.com/willischroll.

    Will microblogging kill the blogs, will it kill my blog? No way, don’t worry. Social micro and macro media are in great symbiosis! 140 letters is just too short for complex knowledge communication. But I see a bright future for twitter and other microcommunication stuff. As I twttered: It could be some stem cell (with pluripotent applications) in the coming realtime – social – semantic – sensing – paraphysical Web 3.0. Just think about a mashup like this, found at mashable:

    ++ Twitter Meets Google Street View: Stweet! http://mashable.com/2009/05/09/twitter-street-view/

    2009 vs. 1789 – Will the crisis end in a revolution?

    March 30, 2009 in business impact, finance+insurance, future economy, future politics, future society, future technology, global change, ict, rethinking, society impact | Tags: , , , | by futurefacts | Leave a comment

    Prof. Knight is angry (source: thisislondon.co.uk)

    Prof. Knight is angry – but does this help to recover and transform? (source: thisislondon.co.uk)

    G20 summit under immense pressure

    Radical measures must be decided at the G20 summit or it could become the “fateful moment” when the global recession lurches into an outright slump, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said today. (guardian.co.uk, 2009-03-30)

    The crisis and the consequences for business and politics are still in the focus of mass media and the blogosphere. When I check the stats of future facts blog I find a lot of phrases containing “financial crisis” still on the top of the most used search terms. Surprisingly most of the visitors checked in here on the post of Oct. 2008 Global financial crisis may end 2009 – which is not really a typical post in a blog concerned with long-term trends. The news seemed significant at that time because

    1. it had been expressed by an insider, Michel Camdessus, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and
    2. it was extraordinarily optmistic.

    Let us contrast this sunny quote of last year with doomsday news like this of March 25th 2009: “Russia Expects New Financial System Crisis Outburst”. Russia’s Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said:

    “We were standing on the brink of the financial collapse, but we prevented it, and I must here thank the Central Bank and the State Duma for giving us an opportunity to take decisions quickly,” (my emphasis, www.marketoracle.co.uk)

    The coincidence of some news urges me to come back to the issue of the spreading crisis. In these days we read Read the rest of this entry »

    Willi Schroll

    Technology analyst, experienced future researcher (>15y) and senior consultant in corporate foresight – Berlin, Germany. Watch my new site just starting strategiclabs.de Follow me at twitter.com/wschroll or just get the new blog posts at twitter.com/futurefacts

    More about me

    Connect + share

    XING View Willi Schroll's profile on LinkedIn Add to Technorati Favorites Bookmark and Share

    Click to see my twitter tímeline and follow @wschroll

    Get the blog as newsletter

    Subscribe to this blog by Email

    Subcribe to the feed

     Subscribe in a reader

    Add to netvibes

    facebook networkedblogs