We were pleased to see our Speed of Change Index covered in the new issue of Foreign Policy.

As the magazine says,

How swiftly or slowly life changes in particular countries is the subject of the Speed of Change Index, which measures changes in urbanization, literacy, GDP per capita, civil liberties, and access to a telephone, TV, and the Internet in countries during the last 15 years.... The index reveals where citizens' needs are rapidly changing, new markets are opening, and the risk of instability runs high.

The magazine's graphic shows selected countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia, but the index actually includes nearly every country on Earth, with the exception of some microstates.

Image: Social Technologies

As futurists in Washington DC, we were struck by the Washington Post's article laying out scenarios for the region's future 17 years from now.

The two scenarios might be called "bad" and "worse":

• In the first, people are fearful and isolated, and the culture is deeply split by class.
• In the second, people are even more fearful and security-obsessed.

We don't want to be Tuesday morning quarterbacks, but my colleagues had these observations:

• Think positive. Scenarios give you the chance to lay out both the bad and the good outcomes, and use the latter to seek out desirable pathways. According to these scenarios, the future is bleak indeed.
• Most change is slow. To begin with, most of the buildings and transportation infrastructures of 2025 are already in place. Cities--outside of China at least--are not remade in a generation.
• Changes in values tend to be even slower. Will American values shift drastically in the next 17 years? It seems pretty unlikely, given that the decisionmakers of the 2020s are already in their thirties and forties, if not older. In other words, we already know about their values and attitudes in large part, barring drastic discontinuities. 
• Consider what is inevitable. The author of this article says that the only point of consensus was that "the haves would have more," but that is a social choice, not a law of nature. Other societies have chosen differently, as have Americans in the past, and the pendulum may swing again before too long.
• More broadly, we get to choose the future. In a democratic, capitalist society, people can shift outcomes with votes and purchases. The people in these scenarios seemed beset by outcomes they would not have chosen. We can, I think, do better.

Image: Joey Gannon (Flickr)

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Seven years ago, discussing about the towering cityscapes of the movie Blade Runner, I wrote:

It is not clear what the future of the mega-skyscraper is, in reality. Americans and Europeans may be mostly done with it, and more interested in creating urban landscapes people actually want to live in and around. But there is still a desire to build landmarks and symbolize progress and power in the developing world – witness Malaysia's Petronas towers, the world's tallest buildings. It is there that more extravagances will go up, sometimes amidst squalor.

So I was interested to read this passage in the New York Times last week, about the Japanese architect about to complete another of the world's tallest buildings, in Shanghai:

At a time when urban planners in the West frown on hulking high-rises as forbidding, Mr. Mori presents a new Asian urban sensibility, where architecture reflects soaring economic ambition, leading to mighty projects that dwarf the individual. “Asia is different from the United States and Europe,” Mr. Mori said in an interview in his Roppongi Hills office. “We dream of more vertical cities."

And this belief in the techno-future extends beyond architecture: I happened on an article about flying cars yesterday, and it noted that "interest, and investors, mostly comes from outside the United States -- namely Dubai, a wealthy Middle Eastern country known for its modern skyline."

This is a profound cultural shift -- and it will shape responses to myriad issues in the future, from biotechnology to global warming.

Image courtesy Montrasio International (Flickr)

On Monday, while our compatriots were experiencing the luxury market, our team learned about the realities of the other end of the Indian income spectrum.

• Executives at ITC, a conglomerate with businesses in food, hospitality, and other sectors, briefed us on the company’s innovative efforts to boost rural incomes by eliminating middlemen and getting information direct to farmers. They are equipping contacts in thousands of villages with computers and providing weather forecasts, agricultural advice, and real-time price information. The latter is particularly important, as it gives farmers more power in the marketplace.
• They also discussed their chain of Choupal Sagar stores, which are interesting as a means for formal retail to reach into rural areas. The initiative requires pricing for the bottom of the pyramid—for instance, the stores sell individual candies beginning at half a rupee, or 1.3 cents.
• The Byrraju Foundation impressed us with its rural transformation initiatives, which are underway in hundreds of villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Programs range from in-village call center work to reverse osmosis water plants. Their media efforts were intriguing, including community television (in which unemployed youths get cameras and training, and make documentaries about local issues) and literacy karaoke, using popular songs to teach basic reading.

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We've been working on a system for measuring the speed of change in societies around the world. We thought it might be working pretty well when we plugged in the data, ran the formula, and it spit China out as the world's fastest-changing society. (Among developed nations, Taiwan came out as the fastest-moving, which also seemed about right.)

A recent Washington Post article revealed what this could mean in people's lives.

It told the story of Huang He, who left China in 1996 to study media in the United States. After 10 years, he has returned, and finds himself in an unfamiliar land.

"China is not the same China I remember. People's values have changed," he says. "People think in a more complicated way."

His once-proud father seems to feel that Huang has been left behind: "Many of your peers who did not study overseas, they all seem to be better off. Many of them were not as outstanding as you were in school. But those who didn't leave got caught up in the fast-paced development of China."

Huang sees the results of that pace of development everywhere. Propaganda goals have been replaced by the quest for ratings in Chinese media. Even the buildings have changed: old houses are gone, with "modern brick and tile boxes" in their place.

Facing 10 years of change in one of the world's fastest-moving societies would strain anyone's capacity for newness. For Huang, it may be too much: he is thinking of leaving again.

Image: Point-Shoot-Edit (Flickr)

Love’s yearnings may be eternal, but how we act on them keeps changing. The future promises new ways to connect with that special someone—and we are likely to try every technology that comes to hand in this timeless pursuit. In honor of the holiday, my colleagues here at Social Technologies offer these 10 forecasts for love:

1. Location-based dating—GPS plus dating services plus mobile phones means love may be just around the corner. Combining services such as the massively popular Adultfriendfinder.com family of sites—which includes channels directed at everyone from seniors to Filipinos—with mobiles will allow users to be alerted when someone who matches their profile is within kissing distance.
2. The new infidelity—Or is it? When it comes to playing around in virtual worlds, society will work out the rules couple by couple for what constitutes acceptable behavior for a spouse or partner. What kinds of intimacy cross the line? Is it cheating if you develop a crush on a really cute orc in World of Warcraft?
3. Together apart—For partners who really can’t stand separation, new systems will signal what one’s beloved is up to and what kind of mood he is in. Maps could update in real time to show changing location. Smart systems could convey emotional states based on the changing color of an orb on your desk or the actions of a robotic pet.
4. Virtual therapy—Virtual spaces will increasingly be used for therapeutic treatment of people with relationship and sexual issues. They can provide a low-risk zone for patients to work out problems; for instance, people who are uncomfortable with the opposite sex could use online simulations to build their confidence, perhaps in dedicated therapeutic spaces.
5. Scientific pairings—Relationship matching systems such as those being used by some dating sites will go to the next level: a real, scientific compatibility test between potential mates administered before the courtship even begins. Genetic tests will be applied—and perhaps even more often misapplied—to identify the ideal mate.
6. Remote intimacy—Telerobotics will enable couples to have moments of intimacy via robots they control from another city, or the far side of the planet.
7. Love potions—Science will illuminate the reality behind “chemistry,” and enable its manipulation. The role of pheromones and even genetics in attraction will be increasingly clear. Someday, an unscrupulous lothario might be able to target his intended with a customized biochemical brew made specifically to attract her.
8. Pleasure bots—Sex is  an inevitable application of robotics. Artificially intelligent personal pleasure devices for women are already on the market. Technological improvements will be added to today’s rudimentary sex dolls as fast as affordability allows.
9. Brain sex—Why not cut out the “middle man”—the body? A lot of sex occurs in the brain, and future neurodevices may make it possible to induce a variety of experiences at will. A whole new level of remote or virtual interactions would be possible.
10. People will be people—Many people will ignore the previous nine developments and keep doing things just has we’ve done them for that last 100,000 years or so. With nearly 7 billion of us, and counting, the system seems to be working pretty well.

Image: Sister72 (Flickr)

China's economy just shrank 40%, according to the World Bank. India's did the same.

It's not a catastrophic pan-Asian depression, however. The Bank has recalculated the size of the world's economies based on new and evidently more accurate estimate of the effects of purchasing power, or how much people can actually buy. (Measured by exchange rates, economies in the developing world are typically much smaller, sometimes by a factor of three.)

By the older method, the world looked like this in 2005. China is rapidly closing in on the US, with the rest of the world relegated to secondary orbits around the two giants:

This is how the world looked in 2005 using the new methodology, after the Chinese economy has "lost" about $3.4 trillion (nearly the size of Japan, the world's third-largest economy), and India has been shorn of $1.4 trillion (the whole Brazilian economy):

The US is far more dominant, and Japan and Germany remain near-rivals to China in the size of their economies.

We can take two preliminary conclusions from this:

• The day when China will surpass the United States in economic power -- and the things that flow from it, such as military might -- may just have been pushed back by some years.
• It always pays to remember that models are not reality. They may help to explain it, but are often more about a way of seeing the world than about hard facts.

(Graphics generated with IBM's Many Eyes)

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

GL-2007-75: Cars in Russia
Car ownership in Russia is rising rapidly, increasing mobility and changing consumer behavior. Driving this trend are rising incomes, an expansion of consumer credit, new views on car ownership, and a flood of foreign automakers entering the Russian market. However, a number of obstacles could hinder future growth in the Russian automotive sector.

GL-2007-74: China's Demand for Quality Food
A 2007 US Department of Agriculture report found that China’s demand for quality food has risen significantly. Higher-income urban families are driving this trend: they are seeking convenience, ease, safety, and health in their food, and are willing to pay more for these characteristics. Among lower-income families, changes are less marked, and they must still devote nearly half their incomes to food.

GL-2007-73: Country Profile—South Korea
South Korea is a World 1 economy—the 11th largest in the world—with an urban, rapidly aging, tech-savvy population. Economic growth in South Korea is expected to outpace much of World 1, but war or reunification with North Korea could disrupt this scenario. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

GL-2007-72: Fighting Malnutrition
Malnutrition affects a third of the population in the developing world, with substantial health effects, especially on children. Nonprofit organizations and governments are working to fortify staple foods like salt and flour and to distribute nutritional supplements. An alternative approach would use biofortification to breed micronutrients into crops.

GL-2007-71: Evolving Radio
Digital technologies have created new radio formats including Internet radio, satellite radio, digital terrestrial radio, and podcasts. These formats are meeting peoples’ needs for content diversity, anytime-anywhere access, personalization, and participation.

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

GL-2007-70: Discontinuities—Food
The agriculture and food sectors could experience a variety of discontinuities in the next three decades, ranging from disasters such as massive GM crop contamination or a global drop die-off, to breakthroughs such as health-enhanced crops or a “fat pill” to cure obesity. This is one in a series of briefs exploring discontinuities by industry sector.

GL-2007-69: Retail in Shanghai
Shanghai is one of China’s premier cities and its trends, styles, and habits are often leading indicators of change for the rest of the country. The retail environment in Shanghai is moving from stalls to malls, or from informal to formal arrangements, as wealth grows.

GL-2007-68: The Global Food Supply
Significant debate surrounds the question of whether the world will have enough food to feed itself in coming decades, in the face of potential dangers such as dwindling oil, climate change, and water shortages. However, analysis suggests that the food supply should be adequate to meet global needs to 2030.

GL-2007-67: Country Profile—Germany
Germany is a mature, wealthy World 1 country with a stable but aging population. It has the largest economy in Europe, but growth has been slow, in part due to the reintegration and rebuilding of the East. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

GL-2007-66: Wildcard—Artificial Meat
Artificial meat is produced by extracting cells from animals and stimulating their growth. As World 1 consumers increase their ethical and environmental concerns about traditional meat production, artificial meat could become a viable alternative, if the technology continues to advance and the “yuck factor” is overcome.

GL-2007-65: The Future of Cities
According to a report by the United Nations, the global migration into urban centers currently underway should last through at least 2030. The world’s urban population is projected to increase by around 1.7 billion by that year, with most of the increase concentrated in Worlds 2 and 3.

GL-2007-64: African Immigrants in the US
Africans are a small but fast-growing immigrant community in the United States. Arriving from over 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the roughly 1 million African immigrants are generally finding success, fueled by high educational levels and entrepreneurial drive.

GL-2007-63: Discontinuities—Mobility
New technologies, new business practices, policy changes, or international events could all trigger discontinuities that impact consumer mobility. This brief will explore the impacts of four potential mobility discontinuities: ultra-cheap cars, air taxis, closed borders, and automated driving.

GL-2007-62: European Attitudes
The European Commission report The Future of Europe assesses public attitudes towards the EU. It reveals that Europeans are generally happy with their own nations, yet interested in increased EU decision-making. While Europeans are relatively pro-EU, they remain divided on issues like enlargement—and are generally wary of globalization.

GL-2007-61: Country Profile—Algeria
Algeria is a World 2 Middle Eastern nation with a young and increasingly urban population. Political stability will be the key to Algeria’s economic growth as it emerges from the chaos of the 1990s. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

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

GL-2007-60: Wildcard—Mass Infertility
The current evidence for sperm-count declines around the world is highly ambiguous. Nevertheless, scientists have linked reduced sperm counts to various drivers, including both lifestyles and environmental factors. While the probability is low, the potential exists for drastic declines in male fertility around the world.

GL-2007-59: Mobile Payment in World 1
Consumers have been able to use their mobile phones as e-wallets in Asia since 2004. In the United States and Europe mobile payments have been slower to catch on, but financial institutions and mobile providers are beginning to embrace the technology.

GL-2007-58: Discontinuities—Health
The global health sector could experience a wide variety of discontinuities in coming decades, ranging from disasters, such as a major pandemic or global contamination event, to significant breakthroughs—e.g., a successful campaign to eradicate tropical diseases in Worlds 2 and 3 or even a “cure” for aging.

GL-2007-57: Counterfeit Goods
The global trade in counterfeit goods is already widespread for luxury goods, apparel, and entertainment, and is a growing problem in industries like pharmaceuticals and auto parts. New anti-counterfeiting interventions are likely to focus on three areas: curbing demand through enforcement, responding to growing concerns about safety and security, and deploying new approaches to product authentication.

GL-2007-56: The Future of the Internet
The Pew report The Future of the Internet II summarizes the opinions of 742 international experts about the social, political, and economic future of the Internet out to 2020. The experts were asked to comment on seven scenarios based on foresight reports published by governmental, nongovernmental, and private organizations.

GL-2007-55: Wildcard—Banking in World 0
Financial institutions are considering setting up shop within online realms, potentially bringing the full range of real-world financial offerings (e.g., virtual asset trading, banking, exchange) into virtual worlds.

GL-2007-54: Asian Americans
After large-scale immigration in recent decades, the Asian-American population is growing in number, shifting to English, gaining higher levels of education, and earning higher incomes.

GL-2007-53: Country Profile—Chile
Chile is one of the most successful countries of Latin America. At the upper end of World 2 in its development, Chile has a strong economy, and business conditions are generally good. Relatively wealthy, Chilean consumers are enthusiastic users of mobile phones, and are going online in increasing numbers. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

GL-2007-52: Indian Economic Growth
India’s economy grew rapidly between 1985 and 2007—and this growth is projected to continue at a robust pace through 2025. A forecast by McKinsey & Company explores how this economic boom could radically reshape Indian consumer life by spurring increases in spending and drastically shifting income distribution.

GL-2007-51: Three Scenarios for Virtual Education
Virtual education is a growing trend in World 1 schools. With rising connectivity, virtual learning is likely to play an increasingly important role in the future of education. This brief describes three different evolutionary paths for virtual education.

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

GL-2007-50: Wildcard—Recorded Lives
Lifelogging, the use of infotech to comprehensively record and archive a person’s experiences, could become a mainstream practice, due to declining hardware costs and rising consumer interest. Life recording would build on the trends witnessed in current blog, online photo album, and video journal websites.

GL-2007-49: China's Economic Prospects
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Chinese government’s Development Research Center of the State Council have jointly produced a set of 10 scenarios projecting China’s future economic growth to 2020. All of the scenarios conclude that China’s future growth will be positive and sustained at least until 2020, with different variations along the growth curve.

GL-2007-48: Assistive Clothing
Advances in materials and information technology are giving clothing new assistive roles such as aiding performance in leisure activities, enabling tasks that might otherwise be physically daunting or impossible, and providing medical or physical protection.

GL-2007-47: Reality Travel
Growing numbers of tourists are looking for authentic experiences that immerse them in an issue and allow them to see a society firsthand. This “reality travel” can involve volunteering in a village in South America or visiting a slum in Africa.

GL-2007-46: Country Profile—Vietnam
Vietnam is a poor World 2 country with a rapidly expanding economy. Vietnam’s population is still predominantly rural despite a rising urban population, and wealth remains concentrated in cities. Government restrictions have stunted Internet and mobile growth, but both technologies are spreading. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

GL-2007-45: India's Castes
India’s caste system—the longstanding tradition of social stratification by birth clan—remains entrenched in most of the country. However, educational opportunities, economic development, value shifts, and globalization are all acting to blur the dividing lines between castes and provide more opportunity for upward social mobility.

GL-2007-44: E-Sports
Driven by its ever-growing popularity, computer gaming has become a media spectacle in some markets, This brief examines three possible developments arising from this concept: games as mass-media entertainment, massively multiplayer in-person games, and celebrity gamers.

GL-2007-43: Wildcard—Bye Bye Bees
Colony collapse disorder (CCD)—the disappearance of honeybees from commercial hives—is alarming but probably temporary, most experts say. But what if CCD isn’t temporary? The long-term loss of honeybees could be calamitous for agriculture and the downstream businesses that depend on it. This brief explores the business and consumer impacts of this low-probability wildcard.

GL-2007-42: BOP Markets by Region
Consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)—4 billion low-income people whose collective purchasing power is estimated at $5 trillion—comprise a large majority of the populations in four world regions: Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. A regional analysis is valuable when approaching BOP markets, since they differ widely in wealth distribution, urban/ rural composition, and other variables.

GL-2007-41: Country Profile—Belgium
Belgium is a World 1 European country with a large economy and good business conditions, but slow growth. A rapidly aging population could pose significant challenges for Belgium in the future. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.

Image courtesy United States Air ForceWe've written a bit about helicopter parenting. A recent New York Times article suggests a whole new level of this phenomenon:

Brian Aladesuyi, 17, received a new Jeep in exchange for a promise: he would never drive it outside his hometown, Kennesaw, Ga. His father, Kayode Aladesuyi, chief executive of the security firm EarthSearch Communications, used EarthSearch’s Web site to map Kennesaw’s boundaries into the Jeep’s onboard computer, surrounding the entire city with an electronic fence. But when his father took a business trip to Brazil, Brian decided to try his luck, Mr. Aladesuyi said. Brian drove to Marietta, a neighboring town. Seconds after Brian breached the invisible wall, his father received a text message on his mobile phone. Mr. Aladesuyi sent a message commanding the computer to disable the Jeep’s engine as soon as Brian switched it off. When the Jeep would not restart, Brian had to call his father and confess he had broken their agreement. “I don’t think Brian really understood I could do that from Brazil,” Mr. Aladesuyi said.

Parents have now developed intercontinental capabilities in regulating (or interfering in, depending on your perspective) their kids' lives. Is this the beginning of the end of the debauched spring break in Cancun?

(For those of you who don't remember the cold War, "ICBM" means "inter-continental ballistic missile," though a colleague suggests that in this instance it can stand for "inter-continental brat monitoring.")

A few months ago we wrote about jobs of the future; here's some coverage of our list at CNBC.

One of the future jobs was "geoscaper," someone who makes corporate and private properities look better in Google Earth-style aerial views.

Well, Google users recently spotted this unfortunately shaped building on a Navy base in San Diego:

In the face of the somewhat silly brouhaha that erupted, the Navy announced that it would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the building look less offensive from space. Geoscaping, here we come.

Image: Google.

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

GL-2007-40: Russian Healthcare  
Despite an abundance of doctors, Russian healthcare is struggling: a 2006 US government estimate found that only 20% of Russians had access to quality healthcare. Lack of funding, corruption, outdated technology, and an aging and ill populace have all combined to strain the country’s medical system.  
 
GL-2007-39: Rethinking Obesity 
Health professionals and the general public alike have increasingly challenged conventional wisdom about obesity, as researchers have found that obesity may be heavily shaped by inborn biological factors, its health implications may be overblown, and Americans may be growing more accepting of overweight people. 
 
GL-2007-38: Wildcard—Chipping People 
GPS, RFID, and medical implant technology have advanced to the point that it is technologically feasible to implant advanced microchips in humans. This raises the possibility of widespread use of implants in areas such as child and elder safety, debit and credit payment, and personal medical records.  
 
GL-2007-37: The Bottom-of-the-Pyramid Market 
The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market is made up of a global population of 4 billion low-income consumers whose collective purchasing power is estimated at $5 trillion. Global companies are increasingly targeting this massive group of underserved consumers. This brief examines new data on eight market sectors and the opportunities and challenges they present. 
 
GL-2007-36: Gamer Demographics  
Computer games are now one of the major recreational pastimes in Worlds 1 and 2. As the number of gamers surges, gaming demographics are becoming more balanced, across both age and gender. Older and younger people are playing, as are more girls and women, on consoles, mobile devices, and online.

Image courtesy Woodfighter (Flickr)
 

New briefs are available to Global Lifestyles clients on the project website:

GL-2007-35: Rising Indian Consumerism 
Attitudes among India’s consumers have changed substantially in the last decade. Indians are redirecting their saving toward personal consumption, and acquisition of all kinds of durable goods has risen, according to a study by Ashok Gopal and Rajesh Srinivasan. At the same time, they found, faith in Indian brands is rising. 
 
GL-2007-34: Country Profile—Kuwait 
Kuwait is a small, oil-rich World 2 country in a challenging position at the head of the Persian Gulf between Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Kuwait’s population is divided between wealthy natives and a large population of foreign workers, who make up more than half the inhabitants. This brief is one in a series of graphical profiles of selected markets in all three Worlds.
 
GL-2007-33: The US Healthcare System 
This brief examines three possible scenarios for the US healthcare system to 2020, spanning a range of outcomes from incremental reform to universal healthcare. 
 
GL-2007-32: Indian Mobility 
Indian mobility is increasing, as use of railroads, cars, and aircraft rises, carrying people further, faster. This growth is fueled by the expansion of the middle class, higher incomes, and increased investment in all kinds of transportation infrastructure. 
 
GL-2007-31: Wildcard—Genetically Modified Pets
As genetic modification advances, biotech labs could join kennels and animal shelters as sources for the perfect pet. Biotechnology could produce anything from more functional animals to fantasy creations. However, public acceptance is uncertain.