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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 »
There is this political meme spreading all over the world: “Go green = rescue the economy, create jobs and save the planet!”. Politicians and CEOs alike have a high demand for simple messages like this, especially in times of economic recession. It is no surprise, that lobbyism and political gutlessness is diluting some measurements. But don’t lose faith in the green turnaround, – thanks to the new “State of Green Business” report you have reasons for optimism. There are some nice facts and forecasts in Joel Makover’s (GreenBiz.com) report. Here are just some of them.
Green design
Just have look at the steep curve with certification as an indicator ( State of Green Business, p59 ). More stuff: greenerdesign.com
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
Green investments
- Venture capital investment in green technologies soared to a record $7.6 billion
- There were about 350 “funding events” in 2008 ( State of Green Business, p28 )
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
"We have no killer app, but a killer motivation"
500 changemakers meeting
Yesterday Utopia, the biggest online community for strategic consumption in Germany, celebrated the first birthday, holding a conference in Berlin. At first sight the issues were quite clear:
- sustainability, eco efficiency, green investment, new products, processes, innovative materials …
- the role/responsibility of the political system
- the role/responsibility of big economical players, last but not least
- the role/responsibility of “we, the people”, you and me, for the necessary transformation.
But transformation from here to where? What are the goals and by which means should we try to reach them? Are there different goals and means for different world regions, even countries? The speakers would not be in consent about answers to that questions. But debate and inspiration, yes irritation, is it, why we meet at conferences like this one. Take the example of Prof. Michael Braungart (Cradle to Cradle, you should know). His points sometimes sounded really polemical in a good sense, e.g. attacking (for some years) the core concepts of “efficiency” or “sustainability”, so whitespread in the green discourse. Read the rest of this entry »
Early switchers at earth2tech.com
Fears and hopes
Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.
Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.
One last look back
Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists.
Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation
This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, Read the rest of this entry »
Picture 1: Global Solar Market 2005-2020, McKinsey Quarterly, The economics of solar power, June 2008; picture 2: DESERTEC Concept, TREC
SIGNAL: NEW SOLAR POWER REPORT
The economics of solar power, June 2008 (McKinsey Quarterly)
“By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times higher than its current level.”
FORECAST: Gartner Says More than 1 Billion PCs In Use Worldwide and Headed to 2 Billion Units by 2014 Two billion PCs sounds a lot, but think about the billions of embedded chips, the consumer electronics and the mobile devices esp. the mobile phones.
FORECAST: IDC’s new whitepaper offers updated growth projections and new findings expected to impact business and society based on new data and analysis that indicate:
- At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10% bigger than originally estimated
- With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%, the digital universe is growing faster and is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years
- Your “Digital Shadow” – that is, all the digital information generated about the average person on a daily basis – now surpasses the amount of digital information individuals actively create themselves
- … eWaste … Electronic waste is accumulating at more than 1 billion units a year (emc.com)
Amazing data, not to mention the standard and new sources of spam and distraction, email, im, microblogging etc.
RELEVANCE: There is a physical ecological aspect of the exploding it universe – energy consumption of the billions of devices and mountains of electronic waste, mostly containing some toxic components.
There is a social / cultural / psychological ecological aspect too. The stream of data and growing speed and complexity.
It is time to think more seriously about this avalanche of technology and the resulting environmental and “psycho-ecological” effects. Ecology in IT is ment as a holistic term and means more than “greener chips”.
