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Reporter David Villano tackled a tough topic in an article for Miller-McCune magazine, "The Future of Less: How the government can help curb America's seemingly endless appetite for more."

He interviewed Social Technologies' senior futurist Andy Hines about the reality of Americans being willing to sign up for the "less is more club."

"Conscripts of the work-and-spend-less army--more popularly termed the Voluntary Simplicity Movement--may seem likely to appear within blue state pockets of aging hippies but in reality are more likely to arrive from the ranks of the uber-indulged Generation Y crowd," Hines explained. "For them, raised with plenty of security, money is not the key. They want a cool job with interesting people, and they want to be doing something that will make a difference in the world. They collect experiences, not material possessions. And yes, for them, choosing a less-demanding, less-consumptive lifestyle is not unthinkable." 

Image: Wm Jas (Flickr)

The release of "The Dark Knight" this summer was part of a growing trend to bring the stories of comic book to the big screen, explains reporter Bob Keefe of the Cox News Service in his July 28 article, "Comics-to-movies craze continues."

He writes: "At least 22 comics-based movies are scheduled to debut by the end of this year. Another 29 are planned for release next year. And at least 26 more are already in the works for 2010."

Keefe spoke to Social Technologies futurist Christopher Kent, who explained that war, economic woes, and the aging of nostalgic baby boomers are some of the things fueling the trend. And some of it is just good--or sometimes relentless--marketing by movie studios.

"Basing a movie on a comic broadens the marketing approach to bookstores, libraries and even schools--places where traditional movie marketing might not necessarily reach," Kent says.

Image: Speculando (Flickr)

After his chart on the Speed of Change Index was published in the July / August issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Forbes magazine reporter Matthew Swibel picked up on story for his piece on "The World's Fastest Changing Markets."

"Where in the world is life changing the fastest?" he asked in his July 16 article. "That's what Social Technologies, a Washington DC consulting firm tries to measure in its new Speed of Change Index. The index features changes in urbanization, literacy, civil liberties, gross domestic product per capita and access to a telephone, TV and the Internet in the past 10 to 15 years, compared with present day."

Josh Calder explained in the article: "It's a measure of fundamental change in people's lives. It is not about the smaller shifts in the lives of the world's wealthy consumers--transitioning from a regular cell phone to a smart phone. That is nothing like the seismic shift of going from having to take a bus across Kinshasa [in Congo] to having to a cheap mobile in your hand."

Learn more about the Speed of Change Index here.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Association CEO Summit--held earlier this summer in beautiful Playa Del Carmen, Mexico--Social Technologies' futurist Andy Hines was part of an all-star panel that included Brett Bonthron of Microsoft, Michael Tchong of Ubercool, and Jennifer Wong of Muse.

The topic of this year's annual meeting, which drew CEOs from many Top US firms, was "Trend Watching: The Scene on the Streets and Predictions for Tomorrow."

The event drew attention from TWICE magazine's Steve Smith, who wrote:

In giving an overview of the subject, Bonthron said there is an "opportunity in improving the customer experience" for retailers and manufacturers. "Consumers are looking for a more personal experience, a human face on your operation." He noted, "Retailers can certainly do it," and manufacturers can do it with "a personal conversation" via aspects of the Web, with social-networking sites, blogs on their own sites and other means. "There is tremendous customer experience that consumers really crave."

Hines noted the need for personalization that Bonthron discussed has evolved over the years beginning with "the Woodstock experience of self-expression." Back then it was in the fringe, but now it is mainstream with consumers seeking "self-expression via products and services they buy." That attitude, and the way they use devices and the Web, is "driving a lot of the changes towards meaning and self-expression" in the marketplace.

Image: Steve Smith

Republican Eagle reporter Barbara Ballinger interviewed Social Technologies' futurist and Global Lifestyles leader, Kristin Nauth, about "The Looming Boom"--when millions of baby boomers will retire and housing markets will need to adjust accordingly.

Ballinger wanted to know: How will single women living on their own impact the trend?

Nauth explained that the trend is due to multiple factors, from the overall tendency of more women to live alone to the high rate of divorce and the longevity gap between men and women. "But an emerging trend is slightly altering this solo arrangement, as more women are residing--or planning to reside--in co-housing arrangements for camaraderie and cost," Nauth added.

Image: (c) 2008 JupiterImages Corporation

Since releasing the offiicial report on The Future of Men with Spike TV, Social Technologies' Director of Programs, Chris Carbone, has been quoted in several publications, including a recent mention in Washington State's "The Olympian" on August 15.

The study found that there are five segments of guys: young carefrees, good ol' boys, above average joes, mac daddies, and worry warriors.

"While there are differences across the segments, some interesting overall conclusions can be drawn about guys today," Carbone told reporter Fred Gonzalez. "For one thing, this research with Spike shows that guys are still deciphering what it means to be a man in the post-feminist world."

"Life is complex," Carbone added, "and just like women, guys have more options for identity than ever before. In the past, a guy's life path was clear, but today there is no set model or path and men's identities have become fragmented. More than ever, guys are creating their own milestones and measures for success."

Social Technologies' futurist Andy Hines is featured in Escape from Corporate America, a new book by a reformed corporate ladder-climber, Pam Skillings:

"If your corporate career is leaving you stressed out, burned out, or just plain bummed out, you're not alone.You don't have to choose between paying the bills and enjoying a fulfilling career." With humor and personal accounts, she offers a seven-step approach to breaking free: assess your job's "suck" factor, identify your true calling, develop your escape plan, find jobs that don't bite, be your own boss, follow your creative dreams, and overcome any obstacle.

Skillings, a career coach who made the leap in 2005, estimates that 80% of the working population fantasizes about leaving their jobs for something better. She admits that making the leap isn't easy, but it is worthwhile:

It took me years of trial and error to escape corporate America. Once I left, I was amazed at how many people were dying to know how I did it and whether they could do it, too.

Skillings found a compatriot in Hines, who worked in trends and ideation for multinational food and chemical companies before joining Social Technologies in 2006 as director of custom projects. In Skillings' book, he is quoted in chapter seven: "Swim in a Smaller Pond."

"No offense against corporate places, but they are not always the most interesting," says Hines. "A lot of the attraction of my current company was the ability to work for people who are really interesting. Who else would work as a professional futurist? You have to be a little nuts, and I like that."

"You're about to be playing in an entirely new ballgame if you've been marketing exclusively to baby boomers – unless you have a timeless product or service," writes syndicated columnist Mildred Culp in a June 29 article, "Expand Your Marketing from Boomers to Gen Y."

The piece ran in the Dallas Morning News, among other papers, and Culp interviewed Social Technologies' futurist Andy Hines about how to connect with Millennials via their interest in environmentalism and sustainability, community, social responsibility (including humanitarian issues), and the Internet.

Appealing to those things is essential, said Andy Hines, a futurist in the Houston office of Social Technologies LLC. Mr. Hines said that Gen Y's questions are geared toward obtaining tangible results, such as "How do we make the community a better place, the environment safer? What do we do to translate into people getting more food?"

His advice to business leaders: "Bring in a Gen Y intern to mentor you."

For more information on what appeals to Millennials, read a study that Hines and his team at Social Techonologies conducted last year for MTV on the "Future of Youth Happiness: What makes 12-24-year-olds happy?" Or, view the entire presentation.

At a very man-friendly bar called the Black Sheep Pub and Restaurant in Philadelphia, CBS Early Show anchor Maggie Rodriguez talked to five men who each represented one of the personas outlined in the study.

From the plaza of the GM building in New York City, she introduced the piece with this:

Let's talk about men. The guy network Spike TV teamed up with Social Technologies and discovered there are basically five different types of guys, as I've mentioned: young carefrees, worry warriors, good ol' boys, mac daddies, and above-average Joes. And lucky me, I got to spend time with each type earlier this week at the Black Sheep Bar in Philadelphia.

She then cut to the segment in which she interviewed each guy--as well as Chris Carbone, Social Technologies' Director of Programs and author of the study, and Kimberly Maxwell, the senior director of brand and consumer research for Spike TV. Some excerpts:

Click to Read More ...

Hot off the presses is the July-August issue of The Futurist magazine, featuring an article by Social Technologies' futurist Andy Hines.

Entitled "Consumer Trends in Three Different 'Worlds," it is the first in a two-part series in which Hines looks at the big trends in demography, money, and consumerism that will shape the world in the next decade.

From the second chapter of "Thinking about the Future," a book co-edited by Social Technologies' Andy Hines and futurist Peter Bishop, comes this entry: ADOPT A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Here's why: Strategic foresight needs to consider what is happening in other parts of the world. No situation or system is immune to events and forces elsewhere. Consider changes around the world and how they relate to the client’s overall business as well as to the issue under study. Thinking about the rest of the world should be prominent in research, analysis, or discussion--literally in all aspects of an activity. Modeling this thinking approach will influence colleagues and collaborators to think this way as well.

Key steps: There is no single way to embrace a global perspective. But it is critical to build one into processes specific both to the work and to the larger organizational culture. Ways to do this include:

Click to Read More ...

"Technology has changed the way families stay in touch, profoundly influencing not only how often we communicate, but also what we share with each other," writes Miami Herald reporter Ana Veciana-Suarez  in a May 24 article.

"But does more mean better?" she asks.

Some she interviewed said yes, such as Pam Haldeman, a professor of sociology at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles. "I didn't always feel this way, but now I think it's great," Haldeman said. "It certainly has increased interaction between family members, and we can reach far and wide to people who would've been lost to us a generation ago. It's a win-win situation."

Veciana-Suarez got a different reaction from Social Technologies futurist Kevin Osborn:

Kevin Osborn, author of several parenting books and a futurist for the research and consulting firm Social Technologies isn't as enthusiastic. While cellphones, webcams and computers allow us to correspond from faraway places and at unusual times, the information exchanged tends to be simplistic.

''Because we communicate more often it doesn't mean it's more meaningful communication,'' he says. ``Technology is great for people separated by long distances, but that same technology is used to avoid communication with people in the same room. Now you have Dad watching TV, Mom on the cellphone, Sister IMing on the computer and Brother playing video games -- all in the same house.''

Read the entire article.

Image: moriza (flickr)

"Want your shot at videogame fame?" asks Pioneer Press reporter Julio Ojeda-Zapata in a May 17 article entitled "Gamers of the World, Unite -- and take the stage for a night." "You don't have to be a hardcore 'Halo III' or 'World of Warcraft' wunderkind anymore. Average gamers can now aspire to stardom, too," he writes.

Ojeda-Zapata interviewed Social Technologies' Matthew Sollenberger about the fact that videogaming has recently been transformed by "casual" gaming options:

"[These are] typified by the family-friendly Wii along with music titles like 'Guitar Hero' and 'Rock Band' that nearly anyone could pick up and play. This means the latest videogame tournaments have grown less elitist and more accessible to players of all ages and skill levels."

Sollenberger explains: 

"It's an easy way to hang out and meet people in the same way people play pub trivia or join kickball leagues," said analyst Matthew Sollenberger, of the Washington, D.C.-based Social Technologies research and consulting company. The Wii and its ilk are "a social lubricant."

Read the entire article.

Image: MNgilen (Flickr)

Friendships centered around e-mail were the focus of a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on May 13 by reporter Tim Barker.

Entitled, "Internet enables faceless friendships," the article describes two women who met online and talk daily via e-mail -- but have never actually met in person. He quotes one of the women as saying: "In some ways, [our friendship] is probably deeper because of the anonymity."

But not everyone has a great experience socializing virtually, warns Barker, who interviewed Social Technologies' Simeon Spearman about the security risks associated with online-only friendships.

Generally speaking, those cyber friends should be treated with more skepticism than the ones you meet in the real world, said Simeon Spearman, an analyst for Social Technologies, a futurist research and consulting firm based in Washington. If you do find someone you hit it off with, it never hurts to invest a little effort into confirming your new friend's honesty. "Get them to talk to you on the phone or in video chat," Spearman said. "I wouldn't recommend hiring a private investigator or anything like that."

Read the entire article.

Image: by Chaparral Kendra (Flickr)

"When I was writing this book, countless people asked me which job I thought was the coolest," explains author Alexandra Levit in her new book, How'd You Score That Gig? -- A Guide to the Coolest Jobs, and How To Get Them. "And while I certainly tried hard not to play favorites, I couldn't help being especially intrigued by this one."

She's talking about the job described starting on page 224: futurist. It's one of 65 gigs she lists in the eight-chapter book, which offers career advice based on seven personality types: adventurer, creator, data head, entrepreneur, investigator, networker, and nurturer.

A futurist, Levit says, is a job for an investigator -- "the ones always the asking the teacher questions, and the ones you wanted to get on your team for group projects because they were so darn smart and motivated."

She starts off the section with a quote from Social Technologies'  futurist Josh Calder.

 A futurist must be inquisitive and open to diverse viewpoints. If you think the world is black-and-white, you will not do very well understanding it, because it isn't. The future is not found in one ideology or one book. You need to be ready to listen, because getting more viewpoints will always improve your grasp of future possibilities. You should be optimistic on some level, so that you can help people prepare for and shape better futures, while not being blind to real problems.

Levit writes:

As a futurist for Washington-based firm Social Technologies ... Josh spends his days trying to discover what is changing in the world and what that means for the future. "I devote part of each day to learning: looking at that day's flow of scan hits to see what they might hint about the future," Josh says. .... "I feel that it is a privilege to know a little bit about the future--with only the slight downside that we sometimes have to wait a while for things we know are coming."

Buy the book.

Since 2007, we've been publishing segments from the first chapter on FRAMING from "Thinking about the Future," a book co-edited by Social Technologies' Andy Hines and futurist Peter Bishop.

May 6 marked the final entry from that chapter, and today begins the next section of the book on SCANNING, which Hines defines as “Breadth + Depth = Foresight with Insight.” 

Hines explains the concept ike this:

Once the team is clear about the boundaries and scope of an activity, it begins to scan the internal and external environments for information and trends relating to the issue at hand. Internally, the team wants to learn the organization’s experience with the issue. Externally, the team immerses itself in what’s going on regarding the issue. The goal is to come up with a mix of basic driving forces that suggest the most likely future, and some insight into potential change-drivers that may lead to alternative future outcomes. In scanning parlance, this involves identifying the macro-trends that will form the basis of the baseline forecast (or “most likely future”) and the weak signals that may portend discontinuities that drive alternative futures.

Recent advances in the art of environmental scanning have emphasized the need to go beyond the strictly empirical and incorporate more intuitive sources of information. Related to this is an emphasis on expanding the breadth and depth of the scanning activity to include a wider range of sources and to probe more deeply into their potential implications for the activity. It’s less about finding a piece of information that no one else can find--since information is so freely available--and more about understanding and acting upon that information more quickly and creatively than competitors.

Click to Read More ...

In the April issue of CASE Currents, a publication by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, reporter John Pulley interviewed Social Technologies' analyst Gail Siegel about the future of virtual education.

The article, entitled "Now You See Them, Now You Do: Students in the Virtual Classroom Still Become Real Alumni," Pulley focuses on the fact that university and college development officers are now recognizing the philanthropic potential of alumni who have completed online programs. He writes:

"They realize, as well, that the educational experiences of those graduates are substantially different from the experiences of traditional students at brick-and-mortar campuses. Therefore, they are seeing to recast nostalgia-themed appeals that try to pull at the heartstrings connecting alumni with their alma maters."

Click to Read More ...

From Andy Hines and Peter Bishop's book, Thinking About the Future, comes this advice: focus on outcomes, not outputs.

Every organization has a mission to reach certain outcomes--for which society, through its external stakeholders, provides resources and holds it accountable. In fulfilling its mission, the organization engages in activities that produce outputs or results.

Outcomes can be clearly and obviously good in themselves. In the case of schools, this would be student learning. With such outcomes, no one has to ask, “What is that good for?” These are the ultimate purpose of the organization.

Outputs, on the other hand, are the tangible results of the organization’s activities, but they require justification in terms of a higher purpose (the outcomes). They are not intrinsically understood as goals in themselves. An output for schools would be the number of students graduated. While graduation is clearly good, it is a result of the students having learned enough to earn the graduation and be prepared for the next step in their lives.

Analysts need to keep the higher purpose--the outcomes--firmly in mind throughout the activity, to ensure relevant and actionable outputs that truly benefit the client.

Key steps: One approach to focusing on outcomes is to take a step back and question the very existence of the organization. Most people take the value of their organization for granted; for them, it is such an obviously good thing that no one can question it. But question it they should: “Just why are we here?”

Click to Read More ...

"Television today is in a state of flux," writes TelevisionWeek correspondent Allison J. Waldman in the May 11 issue of the magazine. "New technologies, multiple platforms, decreasing audience share for the major networks, emerging digital interactivity--how will the industry adapt to the changes and make them television viable and thriving in the decade ahead?"

For a glimpse of the future, Walden interviewed Social Technologies' futurist Christopher Kent. Here's a bit of what he had to say:

TelevisionWeek: Where is TV going to be in the next 15 years?

Christopher Kent: Your question of where really hits on it, because the really big thing in the next 15 years is going to be moving away from the traditional television set itself, with programming being in a number of different places. We're already starting to see this a bit today with iPods and Apple TV, but the emergence of mobile TV on any number of platforms--be it your phone, a media player, even in your car--the where is the big thing with mobile standards now being finalized. It was in Europe last year, and the U.S. is still working on it. The future of television is going to be mobile. It's going to be less sitting in front of the TV and more taking your TV with you.

Read the entire article.

Image: (c) 2008 JupiterImages Corp.