Futuristic Forecasts for 2005 and Beyond The following thought-provoking forecasts were published in The Futurist magazine, November-December 2004 issue. Business and Economics • Ten percent of America’s Generation Y (born between 1977 and 1997) are considered clinically compulsive spenders. Researchers blame the early and widespread use of credit cards. • The Big Three Detroit carmakers will lose market share to non-U.S. manufacturers, but those foreign competitors will build plants and hire workers within the U.S. • Corporations will become more ethical. Greater scrutiny from the public and other stakeholders and communications technologies will force companies to behave themselves financially, environmentally, and socially. Health • Obesity will soar among young people. Already, adolescents are becoming obese at a faster rate worldwide than are middle aged people. • “Bioclothes” will monitor and maintain your health. Micro-technology merging with biology will create tiny sensory cells capable of being incorporated into fabrics. Clothing equipped with an array of microsensors and communications devices will serve as an interface between the outside world and the body within. Education • By 2008, distance learning (via the Internet, e-mail, or other technologies) will become the main method used in 30% of training programs. • Americans may lose their musical heritage as folk music is increasingly pushed aside by pop music – even in the classrooms. Eventually, children will fail to comprehend the meaning behind the songs of work, history, and patriotic sentiment. Environment • The mass movement of people into cities has set up the potential for disaster as mega-cities become targets for terrorists and expose more people to hazards. Satellites and other telecommunications technologies could help us reverse the urbanization trend by replacing mega-cites with tele-cities. Information Society • Determined to get consumers’ attention, advertisers are putting ads on the doors of restrooms, using dogs as billboards, and training cab drivers to promote products at stores where they drop off riders. As more ads clutter the environment, advertisers will make commercial messages harder to avoid. • Fully one-third of the world’s population will be online within a decade. We will be living in a global village by 2010. • Automatic law enforcement may emerge as authorities download laws into computer-enhanced objects. For instance, permits and licenses may be embedded in smart cars, trains, buildings, doors, and devices. If your driver’s license hasn’t been renewed, your car won’t budge. Resources • “Water” wars could prevent real wars. Working our their conflicts over water may help countries and regions resolve other conflicts. • New technologies such as fuel cells could lead to a distributed power system that replaces the centralized energy paradigm of power utilities and grids. • Tomorrow’s cars may be super efficient – if you drive super slowly. Experimental cars have been able to go thousands of miles on a single gallon of gasoline, thanks to creative engineering, deft driving and extremely slow speeds – under ten miles per hour. Science and Technology • From toaster to supercomputer, you could one day manufacture everything you need in your own kitchen using nanoassemblers that build products molecule by molecule. Once the first nanofactory is build that can duplicate itself, as many as a million could be built within just a few months. • Future television programs could become more realistic with three-dimensional high-definition displays. A multiple-projection system developed in Germany automatically calibrates high-resolution digital images, fitting them together precisely to add more realism to television. Values and Lifestyles • Greed and a “me first” attitude may be fading in Western culture. A growing segment of society known as “cultural creatives” state they are disenchanted with owning more stuff and are eschewing hedonism for spirituality, cynicism for caring, and hours at work for time with family. • Health conscious and high tech loving consumers are grabbing more powerful snacks. A new superfood industry is emerging that caters to customers’ desires for convenient, highly efficient foods that have the best formula of calories, caffeine, sodium, vitamins, and minerals to meet their diet and lifestyle needs. Work • A steadily growing cadre of older workers could expand the productive working days of businesses. Older people – whose numbers are rising rapidly, tend to be early risers and at their sharpest in the morning. An early riser work shift could expand commerce in cities as more businesses offer services for early birds. • Strains on public and private pension schemes and insufficient personal savings will force more workers to work longer than they had planned. As mandatory retirement policies and other forms of age discrimination disappear, look for employers to develop more flexible work schedules to keep older workers effective and not feeling exploited. |
||
|
© Copyright 2003-2006 The Brimeyer Group, Inc |
