Set to go live July 2009, Amsterdam’s CityCargo is about to liberate the inner city streets of heavy traffic. Goods destined for shops & offices will be loaded onto a specially equipped tram via loading platforms at the edge of the city. In town, small electric cars will unload them from the tram at specific drop off points and run the last mile to their destinations.

Similar initiaves are already operative in cities around Europe and others are bound to follow (Belgian cities: take note and catch up, please). The CargoTram for example runs in Dresden and delivers parts to the Volkswagen factory, the GüterBim already runs through Vienna, etc.

What if these trams would also carry waste out of town? Or filter/clean city air while running?

We could have easily called this post the future of money, yet in a more profound sense the current financial climate and the questions it is raising are provoking us to rethink value and the systems we devise to organize processes related to it.

Heather Moore, User Experience Manager at Vodafone, recently launched the lovely public domain initiative KashKlash aimed at an open discussion to co-create our future value systems. The sharing economy, the reputation economy, the gift economy, the free economy, alternative economies, shifting balances between production and consumption, ways to replace money, etc. are all themes up for debate over at the website.

 

“We are envisioning a new world where today’s aging, less useful and even dangerous financial systems

are replaced by or mixed with more disruptive innovations and exchanges. Imagine yourself deprived of all of today’s financial resources. Maybe you’re a refugee or stateless. Yet you still have your handset and laptop and Internet and a broadband cellphone connection….”

 

Bruce Sterling proposes to explore 4 future scenarios, set up around 2 key variables: the degree of stability in exchange systems (ranging from a ‘confusing mess’ to ‘massive change’) & the state of communication technology (ranging from ‘old and broken’ to ‘the new cloud’).

Check out the stories of the scenarios’ main characters Big Mama, Greifswald, Rebel kids and Brixels.

… or rather major challenges for the years to come, of which we can already see weak (and even strong) signals. Geert Noels, chief economist at the financial intelligence group Petercam, recently published a book entitled “Econoshock: how six economic shocks will fundamentally change your life”.

In an insightful wake-up call, he describes 6 megatrends to take into account as we move ahead. We highlight them in a few words:

• demoshock: demographically speaking, ageing is not the only challenge society faces, also population increase, megacities & their consequences for food, infrastructure, resources, lifestyles etc. pose tremendous challenges
• Chinashock: shifting economic & geopolitical balances, the East moves & shakes, poses threats and opportunities …
• ict-shock: developments in ICT are about to play a central role in the makeover of the new generations of the world’s energy infrastructures
• oilshock: the search for alternative sources of energy goes on and puts pressure on our systems & societies in general …
• financeshock: greed, irresponsible behaviour, no precautionary measures, no checks … just a few of the causes behind the financial collapse we are living these days. The solution lies in a reversal of these causes. hebzucht, onverantwoordelijkheid, géén voorzorgsmaatregelen, géén controles. De remedies liggen voor de hand: het omgekeerde.
• ecoshock: ecological challenges such as climate change push for major societal changes. do we need an IMF for climate? the financial crisis already cost an estimated 250bn$ (and counting), the climate shock will require at least 600bn$ 

Across the Atlantic, the Ten Year Forecast Team of the IFTF recently published a future map laying out the various developments related to sustainability in view of the coming decade, for their client, the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI). Think: slums as centres of innovation, rogue eco-states, collaborative eco-mapping, bioteaming, biohacking, biocommons, environmental defense forces, deep localism, distributed energy, etc.

Get the map and dive right in. There’s a wealth of information up for inspiration, interpretation and innovation for all.

For those of you who have not heard yet: Superstruct is live! Our colleagues over at the Institute For The Future have launched the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. 

“By playing the game, you’ll help us chronicle the world of 2019–and imagine how we might solve the problems we’ll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.”

Superstruct is developed by the IFTF’s Ten-Year-Forecast team led by Kathi Vian. Jamais (Cascio) is scenario director. Jane McGonigal (cf. iLoveBees) watches over the gaming aspects. Game interaction is a perfect match to the ‘what if?’ question central to futures studies: people are presented with challenges, they make choices which have consequences leading to new challenges. Several have advocated tapping into the opportunities that games offer to explore, learn about, envision and prepare for futures and future-oriented action (e.g. Eliane Alhadeff at Future-Making Serious Games ).

While gaming in general is getting more serious attention, especially so called serious games are on the rise within educational, corporate and policy contexts (e.g., see here). As such, the timing of Superstruct probably could not be better. In a recent blogpost Jamais notes how once again we are ‘flirting with the boundaries of the participatory decepticon’, as also Superstruct uses the fakes-as-real strategy (e.g. news items, commercials, blog posts, etc.) to bring the future to life. Yet again, these ‘alternative realities’, even infused in real reality (e.g. ARG‘s), are exactly what attracts people as well. Considering its massive size as well as its develop-as-we-go approach, as a learning tool – not only for the IFTF – but also for their player audience, Superstruct offers lots of potential.

Stay tuned for more reflections …

For about two years already we have been a core partner in setting up “Plan C”, a transition management experiment in Flanders, aimed at catalyzing the societal shift to a world in which materials are managed in a sustainable way.

In a long term oriented participatory process seeded by OVAM (the Flemish Public Waste Agency) and guided by Pantopicon, Resource Analysis & the Center for Organizational and Personnel Psychology a possible future for sustainable materials management in Flanders was envisioned. Smart, creative, entrepreneurial minds from knowledge institutions, business and industry, ngo’s, government agencies etc. formed new alliances and have been smashing heads and hands together to come up with opportunities for radical innovation and structural change. 5 transition teams self-organized into 5 themes:

• closing the loop: cradle2cradle & beyond
• waking up society: towards a behavioral change
• at your service: from products to services
• tailored materials: making ‘making’ different
• sustainable plastics: towards a new basis

Each of these teams has defined a series of experiments they wish to set up and conduct in view of catalyzing structural change in the way deal with materials.

On October 15th, the current Plan C network members (60-80 heads strong) launches its vision, presents its experiments and invites fellow smart, creative and daring heads and hands to join in at a network-mindsstorm event in Mechelen (Belgium) (note: meeting will be in Dutch).

Spread the word and do join in!

Forget microfilm, here is the nanobook. Together with the Nano Imaging Facility of Simon Fraser University , artist Robert Chaplin created the world’s first nanobook “Teeny Ted from Turnip Town”, measuring a mere 69 x 97 microns. And yes, the book has an ISBN number.

Nanotechnology is not only inspiring many artists and designers, also the scientists and technologists are starting to see the potential of art and design to catalyze dialogue between the labworld and society at large. In similar fashion, the belgian nanotech player IMEC teamed up with our friends over at AddictLab a while ago. The project, named “in.tangible/scape.s” aims to bring the fascinating yet often obscure world of nanotechnology to life through art and design, a wonderful way to breathe life into yet nonexisting futures. An inspiration book on the results of the joint research project is under publication.

Together, both partners also set up NanoDesignAwards, of which the first edition will take place in 2009.

Microsoft moves to patent technological means to enhance or enforce good manners on people with respect to their ways of using technological devices. Think of it as the digital ‘service’ equivalent of the no-smoking sign. 

First it was the family, the home where children received their basic education in terms of norms, values, good and bad manners. Then it became the school’s job. Now technology steps into the equation as well …

Let us hope that people find more poetic ways and means of getting the message of good manners across than showing a dialog box message on the screen of your electronic gadget. Will your cell phone whisper to you “don’t shout”? or increase the volume on the other end so you don’t start screaming in the first place? Context awareness of technology is one of the – if not the – primary prerequisite for smart behaviour. Linking social values to the concept of smart is one way to enhance user experience not merely for the user but also his/her surroundings (human/natural/physical. It is important to note however that these values are often culturally defined or biased.

For those interested in more experimental/poetic ways to influence people’s behaviour when using for example mobile phones, check out IDEO’s Social Mobile Phones ’shock-therapy’ project by Crispin Jones & Graham Pullin.

Via ArsTechnica

Honda already came up with its Puyo, begging to be touched, featuring soft curves & soft materials. BMW’s design guru Chris Bangle takes it a step further and developed Gina (Light Visionary Model), a smooth concept car covered in stretchable fabric (on top of a metal wireframe) able to shapeshift on demand. Headlights appear in a smooth motion when needed, doors open like curtains being pulled back/draped, …

“the Gina consists of a flexible ‘skin’ stretched over a metal wire structure enforced with carbon fibre. It allows the driver to change the shape of the car ‘on the fly’ – the rear spoiler can be raised, for example, while the rocker panels can effectively be bodykitted out.

It’s a similar story on the inside, where the steering wheel and instrumentation sit within the centre console and slide into position when the driver pushes the start button.”

The blob meets the car. Seamlessness, smooth morphing/shapeshifting … imagine being able to decide not only the shape of your car and change it yourself, but also its shapeshifting behavior or the characteristics (e.g. stiffness, colour, ) of the material itself. Could smart cars – as body and skin become ever more flexible in design – anticipate upon impact when a collision becomes unavoidable and shapeshift into a form optimized to minimize damage? Fascinating.

Via TopGear & Dezeen

On the basis of co-creation and open innovation ideas the Dutch Favelafabric launched the “Future of entertainment” initiative. Aimed primarily at young digital natives, they decided to set up a three-stage system to involve the core user group of their yet to be designed online music service in the conceptualization of it.

Stage 1: How do you experience (finding & getting, playing & experiencing, organizing & sharing,  creating & promoting music)?

Stage 2: What are your ideas on … ?

Stage 3: Best ideas

An incentive system dubbed Sharepoints, allows the top 100 most (pro)active contributors to take part in the profit of the new service (total of 5% of profit generated in first 12months after launch or 1m € max. to be distributed proportionally among top 100). New ideas/experiences, voting other ideas, giving feedback each allow contributors to earn Sharepoints.

$100.000-$60.000 today (in 4 weeks time), maybe $5.000 (in 24h) by the end of the year, possibly $100 or less by 2012. That is how much it will cost to sequence your full genome.

Low price means high accessibility. Full genome sequencing will be the 21st century’s blood & urine sample. Your ‘personal map’, your ‘personal risk profile’, your ‘personal manual’ for the price of 10 music albums on iTunes. It takes no genius to see the far reaching consequences of such a development in terms of both possibilities as well as responsibilities.

Complete Genomics and BioNanoMatrix joined up to make it happen … fast!

The method and technology developed by BioNanoMatrix is able to sequence long strands of DNA, up to 2.000.000 letters in length currently and rising, and looks at physical location as well as sequence information at the same time, saving loads of computational time as well. The method and technology is being enhanced now to allow for much longer strands of DNA.

“Further speeding up the process with novel chemistry and advances in nanofabrication, the companies will develop a device that can simultaneously read the sequence of multiple genomes on a single chip.”

Via NextBigFuture

The European association of plastics manufacturers, Plastics Europe, … commissioned UK futurist Ray Hammond to write a book about the world in 2030, with a special focus on the challenges for plastics.

Changing demographics, extreme weather conditions, peak-oil, resource-conflicts, surveillance society, hyperreal leisure time, robots, sustainable globalisation, healthcare revolution, virtual companions, biodigital interfaces, the global brain, new retailing, …

A summary of the book including a first response of the plastics industry on the challenges ahead, can be found here.

The Bank of America teams up MIT’s MediaLab to set up a Center for Future Banking. The new center will operate with a $3-5m annual budget for a period of five years and

“… explore new ideas in banking by inventing technologies that reveal and leverage insights across a wide range of physical and social scales, from one-on-one customer interactions to global transactions. Researchers will address such questions as: ‘How can every customer be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of their financial futures?’ ‘How will banking interactions evolve as a customer’s physical and virtual worlds become completely intertwined?’ and ‘How will social networks and mobile platforms transform customers’ banking experiences, making it easier, more convenient, and better integrated with their daily lives?’.”

Prof. Deb Roy, Chair of MIT’s academic program in media arts & sciences who will lead the project, says:

“We will create a focus of intellectual energy that brings together researchers with radically different perspectives, including behavioral economists, social scientists, computer scientists, psychologists, designers, and others who share a passion for invention. It’s a recipe for producing unexpected new ideas that will trigger significant innovations in the world of banking.”

The world of banking is changing drastically, not only from within, but in major ways also under influence of external developments, which pose new challenges for existing players in the field as well as opportunities for new ones. For example, on the ‘cheap end of innovation’, discount banks popping up everywhere are forcing many players to change their businesses and offer added value in new innovative ways. Worldwide, local and networked communities are stepping up to fill gaps left by the business players and open new markets, introduce new (or redress old) models also in the banking sector. While still marginal now, initiatives such as Zopa, a p2p online loan bank, or community bank Umpqua (experience-designed by Ziba), but also initiatives such as the Grameen Foundation‘s microfinancing model (see also a previous post), the Children’s Development Bank by Butterflies in India, investing in kidpreneurs show the changing face of banking and the mechanisms behind it. As customers become pickier and more demanding, technology offers new possibilities and banks realize customer-centred reasoning pas off, many future-oriented initiatives of existing banks are focusing on improving the overall customer experience through better, more human-centred design of their spaces and products. See for example Deutsche Bank’s Q110 bank of the future. They also aim to enhance simplicity, flexibility and customer enjoyment.

Feel free also to check out this (slightly dated) IBM podcast on the future of banking (or read the transcript).

Mid-January Italian comedian Luciana Littizzeto commented on the underlying problems of the Naples’ waste problem, saying: “We are the only species that shits more than it eats!”.

Naples’ problems are far from solved, yet as in many difficult situations, the local community found ways to turn the situation’s threats into opportunities or in this case: trash into cash. Among other things, they organized a ‘trash market‘ selling reusable trash items. In a sense their scavenge hunt selections were not based upon material value of the found objects per se, but on the added value they might represent for their ‘customers’, i.e. their neighbours. What is worthless to one, can still be of high value to another.

Cradle to cradle design teaches us that waste is food. It signifies changes the starting position of our design endeavours. In this period of transition, we are of course required to deal with the waste that is present and unfortunately still continues to be produced. A series of initiatives is now now looking how to turn trash into cash or rather how to make the most, the best of the leftovers of our consumption society.

In the US, in Colorado, Professor of Architecture Julee Herdt is aiming to turn the state’s landfills into harvesting areas for new, environmental friendly construction materials. In New Zealand, ScionResearch runs the Waste2Gold Project, trying to accomplish three goals: a) using waste as a bio-processing feedstock,
b) combining waste with other materials for added value products and c) recovering energy and chemicals from wastes and residues. Examples Scion is working on include bacteria to turn waste into biodegradable polymers, new composite mixes (e.g. controlled-release fertilisers, biodegradable plant pots, panels, and other moulded plastic products), biomass energy sources (e.g. biogas, liquid biofuels, wood pellets etc.)

A nice trip through the history of ‘waste & wealth’ can be found at WasteAge.

Change often starts with a ripple before it turns into a wave washing over us. Spotting signals of change early – when they are still murmur on the sideline – often means a strategic advantage, if one can interpret the signal correctly, anticipate and act upon it successfully.

We dive into the world of weak signals together with Elina Hiltunen, a Finnish weak signals hunter and discuss both theory and practice in this fascinating realm of futures studies.

Elina was also one of the keynote speakers at the European Futurists Conference in Lucerne last October. (more…)