When we talk to clients and prospects, it's inevitable that this question is going to come up: "So, how accurate have your forecasts been in the past?"

We note that, even though we're futurists, we aren't in the business of making single-point predictions about the future. We believe that it is neither possible nor useful to declare that one particular future is the only possible outcome. That is rarely the case. Instead, we help our clients prepare for a range of futures, and pursue the one they desire.

Still, that doesn't mean we don't make forecasts about probable trend outcomes or likely changes. And we pay attention to how our forecasts pan out, as we want to know what we get right, and what we missed. Of course, being futurists, our focus in on the medium to long term, and so it takes a while for an assessment.

Lately we've been reviewing some materials from the early years of our Global Lifestyles project, and we seem to have done all right. Here are some of the changes that we anticipated: 

Exergaming

In 2002 we wrote:

Games could be used to make exercise more entertaining, with game-like systems added to in-home and gym exercise equipment such as treadmills and stationary bikes. Systems to induce children to exercise could find favor, particularly if the anti-obesity movement builds.

Games such as Dance Dance Revolution began to be used in schools as of 2007, to combat obesity. Wii Fit came out in 2008 and has been topping the gaming charts for the Nintendo platform, with six million units sold in the US already.

Virtual entrepreneurship

In 2002 we said:

As more virtual economies grow, some [users] will also support themselves in virtual environments, selling virtual goods and services for real-world money.

Large numbers of people are beginning to make a living this way, for instance designing and selling virtual clothing within Second Life.

Genetic diets

In 2001 we wrote:

New kinds of nutraceuticals and other products will appear for people based on their genomes. Much of this will be science based, but there will also be a large market for semi-scientific and pseudo-scientific genetics products.

So-called genetics-based diets appeared in the mid-2000s, but most are still only loosely based on hard science and are of "limited use". 

Social tracking

In 2002 we said:

Kids and teens might value the ability to enable their friends to find and track them, for social purposes. This capability could enhance the "dial-a-herd" culture that mobile phones and instant messaging are creating among teens, who use them to summon impromptu groups or find each other in public spaces.

These kinds of services began to roll out in 2007; companies such as Plazes and Loopt are dedicated to this kind of "geosocial networking."

(road image courtesy kwerfeldein, Flickr)

New briefs are available to subscribers to Social Technologies' Global Lifestyles project:

Multimedia Feature--Mobile Leapfrogging
The spread of mobile phones in Worlds 2 and 3 is allowing consumers to "leapfrog" over fixed-line, computer-based Internet to mobile Internet services. The changes that mobile Internet is bringing to consumer lifestyles in these regions are far-reaching: helping consumers expand communications, participate in formal banking, become entrepreneurs, improve their health and safety, participate in politics, enjoy new social freedoms, and increase their access to broadcast media.

12 Emerging Issues for the Next 12 Years: Post-Materialist Business Models
A new kind of consumer is emerging: one skeptical of the link between material acquisition and happiness. These consumers tend to be well-off, well-educated, and desirous of experiences as opposed to things. Marketing to this emerging segment, which is spread across World 1 and affluent pockets of World 2, will prove a challenge for many businesses, which will need to shift their tactics to appeal to new values.

12 Emerging Issues for the Next 12 Years: Global Bankruptcy
The economies of most nations in World 1 face hard demographic and fiscal facts: their rapidly graying populations and soaring entitlement costs are a recipe for economic disaster. Unless changes are made in social welfare and healthcare programs for older workers and retirees, World 1 economies could slow over the medium term and, eventually, stall out.

12 Emerging Issues for the Next 12 Years: De-Globalization
Globalization's continuing advance is not assured. Emerging economic, political, and environmental trends could undermine the incentives for doing business globally, potentially slowing--or even reversing--the pace of globalization.

12 Emerging Issues for the Next 12 Years: The Future of Truth
Infotech is changing the way people consume, exchange, and gather information. As more people turn to new media, such as social networks and blogs, for their information, how people determine the value and truth of information is changing. Companies and consumers alike are learning to adapt to the blurring line between fact and fiction, and its implications for the future of truth.

Images: Indian with mobile -- Social Technologies; elderly Japanese man -- malias (Flickr)

People have often joked that Apple enthusiasts (particularly Mac users) sound like cultists as they spin tales of the wonderfullness of Mac and Apple. The email I received today makes me think these jokes were not too far off:

Your kids could talk about what they did this summer--or just press Play. At Apple Camp, kids ages 8-12 learn how to do cool stuff on a Mac: make a movie, show off photos like a pro, write and record a song, or create a multimedia presentation. You can sign up for as many three-hour workshops as you like. But space is limited, so do it soon. Then get ready for an adventure.

Hats off to Apple for trying to get at the next generation of users/customers as early as possible. But I have to wonder, given the "cool" factor of Apple products these days, why does Cupertino believe it has to make this kind of pre-emptive move?

Image: Mario Sanchez Bueno (Flickr)

New briefs are available to subscribers to Social Technologies' Global Lifestyles project:

China and Recession
Three Scenarios to 2015
When the global recession began in 2008, China was better prepared than most other economies. Still, all sectors of Chinese society have felt the impacts of the downturn. Ultimately the recession's impacts on China will depend on the length and severity of the downturn: in a moderate or severe global recession, Chinese consumers will see hardship but little permanent harm, while a global depression would likely push China itself into recession and trigger serious societal instability.

Country Profile -- Switzerland
Demography, Business Conditions, and Consumer Life
A rich World 1 country, Switzerland is home to some of the world's wealthiest consumers. It is demographically stable but has a high and rising median age, and its mature economy is growing only slowly. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

Crowdsourced Government
Three Tools for Open-Source Government
World 1 governments are experimenting with crowdsourcing to elicit direct input from citizens, while citizens are using crowdsourcing tools to boost their civic engagement and better influence governance. This brief discusses three knowledge tools--wikis and participatory mapping, idea percolators, and data mashups and linked data--and how they could enable citizens to interact more directly with governments.

American Generations -- Baby Boomers
Factors Shaping Boomers' Lives and Choices
America's baby boomers have lived through great change in their lives, often redefining lifestages as they have passed through them. Boomers will keep innovating as they enter their "third age" at a time that will likely include an eclectic mix of work, leisure, education, and semi-retirement. This brief presents 16 factors that will shape boomers' lives and choices in the coming decade. It is part of a series on the future of four US generations.

Images: Chinese -- ernop (Flickr); woman -- jo-h (Flickr)

A reporter on National Public Radio asked this morning why there seemed to be a lot more social media use on the House side of Congress than on the Senate side.

Here's a theory:

• Average age in the Senate (as of the 110th Congress): 62. Average age in the House: 57. Those 5 years may make a lot of difference in tech use. In the Senate, the youngest member is 42, making her an older member of Gen X, and a digital immigrant. The House, meanwhile, has a 27-year-old, a clear digital native.
• Social networking is about drawing on the ideas and strength of others; social media are more naturally tools of the powerless than the powerful. In the Washington scheme of things, senators are pretty powerful, while your run-of-the-mill representative needs all the help he can get.

Image courtesy kimberlyfaye (Flickr) 

New briefs are available to subscribers to Social Technologies' Global Lifestyles project:

Multimedia Feature -- The Future of Truth

The embrace of virtual information - particularly online social networking - and changes in the media world are blurring truth and making deception both easier to accomplish and more far-reaching. As these trends advance, the very definition of truth could shift.

The Top 20 Trends and Recession -- Part II: Culture, Infrastructure, and Values Trends

This brief is the second in a two-part series examining the impacts on the Top 20 trends of three levels of economic downturn: moderate recession, severe recession, and a depression. Economic downturn will tend to affect these trends' expression more than their direction, though a number of the trends could actually reverse in the event of a depression.

The Top 20 Trends and Recession - Part I: Demography and Wealth Trends
Though the Top 20 trends are durable and deep-rooted, they are now subject to a powerful force: global recession. While it would take severe disruption to reverse them over the medium and long terms, most will shift under these new economic pressures. This brief examines the impacts of three levels of economic downturn: moderate recession, severe recession, and a depression.

Country Profile -- Lebanon
Lebanon is a small World 2 country situated between Israel and Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. It has had a difficult past filled with bloody civil conflicts, but is reemerging as a center of commerce. The country will face continued stability threats from both internal and external forces.

Fractional Lifestyles: Sharing in Luxuries

The growing practice of fractional ownership, or owning shares of luxury assets, allows high-end consumers - and, increasingly, middle-income consumers with high-end tastes - to indulge in luxuries without having to pay the full cost. Driven by such factors as affordability, convenience, value shifts, middle-income aspirations, and mitigation of risk, fractional ownership could expand to a wider range of products and services as well as to additional consumer markets.

Latin American Mobiles
Mobile phones have become the main means of communication for Latin American consumers and will continue to grow in importance as they offer more advanced and varied services to subscribers. In the coming decade, Latin Americans will use mobiles as their main access point for the Internet, financial services, and to some extent media and  entertainment, including music and television content.

Wired editor Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail is arguably one of the more influential business texts of the past five years. For those not familiar with his premise, he argues that the Internet plus just-in-time manufacturing (or printing, or publishing) helps foster demand in niche markets. In other words, while there will always be blockbusters, demand for singles, one-offs, and more obscure products will grow -- and as a result present a viable source of revenue. (The long tail is in reference to how this demand is graphically charted.) This idea is a boon for content producers and owners as it posits long-term demand for products, rather than just one-time sales, and. because production is so cheap, makes it cost-effective to produce in batches as small as a single item.

Warner Bros. is about to exploit the long tail in a big way, with its new initiative to make the titles in its vast movie library available on a made-to-order basis. Rather than run the risk of printing thousands of DVDs for sale, Warner is allowing customers to purchase single copies of movies, allowing the company to monetize its back catalog at very low cost. With a library of 6,800 films, Warner Bros. has not come close to releasing all of these on DVD, with only about 1,200 titles out via conventional processes. As Tom Adams of Adams Media Research commented, "I think ultimately the odds are very good that every film ever made will be available on this kind of basis, because why not?"

Initially, 150 titles will be available, with 20 more added per month. In another nod to the times, Warner will offer the option of having the film burned to disc or as a digital download.

This demonstrates some forward thinking, not always evident these days as the movie industry wrestles with how to survive and thrive in the digital age. The long tail presupposes there is a customer, perhaps only a single customer, for any product. By opening its library, Warner Bros. takes a step toward finding buyers for each of its films.

(Image: Gareth Simpson, Flickr)

About a year ago I gave an interview to Television Week magazine on the future of television in which I stated:

To keep the attention and interest of the viewers in the ever-fracturing media landscape, I believe that television is going to have to move with them as well ...They're doing short runs as well to better package them as discrete units of entertainment content. Eventually, that's going to be what the TV networks as they exist now are going to have to do.

So it was with some interest that I read this story in Entertainment Weekly, claiming that television executives are starting to mull the idea of launching certain kinds of shows (mainly serial dramas) with an end date in mind. This would allow for a number of creative and financial benefits:

• It gives creators a finite time to tell their story and eliminates the need for wheel-spinning episodes.
• It gives viewers reassurance that the story is going somewhere; it opens more slots in broadcast schedules for new programs (no more Law & Order clogging up the schedules).
• More programs mean networks can truly program a 52 week season.
• It could allow for more big-name actors to commit to a series if they know it will only be for two years.

Cable outlets such as AMC and FX are finding success with such fare as Mad Men and The Shield. Each season is self-contained (though building on events of previous seasons) so that if the network decides to pull the plug, viewers get a whole story and are not left wondering what happens next.

One of the first experiments in limited run series on network television will be CBS' upcoming murder mystery Harper's Island, scheduled to run for 13 episodes this spring. If successful, the show could return later with a new cast and new story.

So what say you readers, would you be willing to re-commit to television if you knew that you only had to pay attention for a season or two?

(Image: Social Technologies)

A couple years back in our Technology Values series we analysed the role of user creativity and how this developing mindset would impact businesses. Two points we made:

• Companies will harness user-led innovation as a low-cost way to boost R&D and give lead users a role in the design and creation of new products, services, and content.
• Beyond the creative and content benefits, supporting user creativity could yield valuable public relations and marketing benefits.

When I saw mention of Getty Images' Flickr Collection on AppScout it struck me as a great example of both of these things. Getty editors are scanning  Flickr for great photographs and inviting the Flickr members who took them to have their images in Getty's collection for commercial licensing. Getty gets to troll an ever-growing collection of pics for new commercially viable content. They also get to show the world that they aren't just an old-school stock photo company with a nice website, but instead understand and value user-generated content. Good play Getty. 

This story from the Washington Post is a few tweaks and a prominent reference to Axe body spray away from being full-on Onion story. Purportedly a look at dating during the economic downturn, and trying to be one of those zeitgeist-y pieces that today's news organizations hope will catch fire with the pop culture commentariat, this piece is in fact a shining example of what we at S)T call "a reporter trend."

The story is chock-a-block full of quotes from young men bemoaning how they can no longer can spend "$600 to $700 a month" on dating and young women saying, "I guess I'm kind of traditional. So if a guy can't really take you out or doesn't have the money or the state of mind to take girls out, then it's not going to go anywhere."

So it is understandable to think that this is a snapshot of romance derailed by the crashing of the gravy train, until you get to the relevatory sentence: "Formal studies on the matter are hard to find, and Washington area employment rates are still higher than those of many other metropolitan areas."(emphasis added).

Aha! This is not a trend study of changing twentysomething dating patterns at all, but rather appears to be based on the reporter talking to a group of people who happen to be at the same bar on the same night.

As stated, this type of article is bait for pop culture navel-gazing, but for those who follow consumer trends more seriously, it is a lesson in reading sources carefully. Is the economic downturn contracting date-related spending? Who knows? Possibly. But it would be irresponsible for anyone to make that claim based on this article alone, which contains no facts or data beyond the anecdotal $600-$700 a month cited above. One of the first lessons we teach new futurists is "Just because a 'trend' is in the newspaper doesn't mean it is actually occurring." It's a lesson that would serve any critical reader well.

Also, $600 a month on dating? No wonder it took me so long to get married.

Image: CarbonNYC (Flickr)