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)
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