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For the past 10 years, one of the key indicators Hollywood has used to indicate a story is taking place in the future (or at least not in our ‘universe’) is the African-American president.

Movies like Deep Impact and The Fifth Element featured black Presidents, and the television show ’24’ had not one but two black Presidents (and if spoilers are to be believed, a female President this season). So with the election of Barack Obama, what will be the indicators of fictional futures? Will we have to continue to make do with overly-lit, white interiors and odd looking road vehicles that emit an electric whine? I once more call on our readers: What will replace the black President as Hollywood’s shorthand for the future?

Image: ColinEdwards99, Flickr

My colleague John Cashman's recent post here on ChangeWaves about South Korea's efforts to make English its lingua franca strikes an interesting counterpoint to my own current experience. I'm staying with German friends in Portugal for a few weeks, and although they speak excellent English, my American puns and word plays can fall pitifully flat at the dinner table.

What I'm confronting in the real world was elegantly summarized in a piece titled "English Die Soon" (originally published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian on April 2, 2008, and reprinted in this week's Utne Reader). The author, Annalee Newitz, observes the steady erosion of "National Public Radio English" by both Internet shorthand and the new English dialects emerging among non-native speakers around the world. While English will continue to spread--as John's post from South Korea testifies--the proportion of native English speakers will continue to shrink. Both John and Newitz mention the language researcher David Graddol, who has predicted that by 2010, English will be spoken by 2 billion people but that only 350 million of them will be native speakers.

A recent Washington Post article on technology and the family suggested--as evidence that technology has had little negative impact on family closeness--the outbreak of a new "family phenomenon": the family huddling around a screen to watch YouTube videos together.

Give me a break.

I don't know whose living-room windows this reporter was peeking through, but it sure wasn't mine. Yes, our family does occasionally gather together around the PC or laptop to watch a video of extended family members or one that one of us has found particularly funny. But more often, multiple screens are in use at the same time: me checking emails or working (yes, working even after dinner--it's called "blurred boundaries"), my wife watching network or cable TV, my son watching YouTube or playing a videogame on his laptop, and my daughter on Facebook.

Now, I like to think of my family as very close-knit. We pride ourselves, for example, on sharing a family dinner every night--although not everyone is there every night. But it certainly isn't video technology that has brought us together. When I was a kid, I remember my dad, my mom, and all of us kids sitting down in the family room on Saturday night to watch All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and The Bob Newhart Show together. Today, the sheer multiplicity of screen options has sharply curtailed that kind of regular, communal viewing experience.

Image: Jerine (Flickr)

As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, Google has provided a link to its search engine from 2001. When you search, you can see what results would pop up in 2001, and then you are able to look up the archived web pages of those results. It's a blast.

Futurists look at the past... a lot. It helps us understand how we got to where we are, and allows us to project where we might be going. So I decided to see how we've changed since 2001 by comparing search results on popular subjects, then and now.

• Paris Hilton: 1,400 hits in 2001; 52 million hits in 2008
• Lindsay Lohan: 3,200 hits in 2001; 32 million hits in 2008
• George W. Bush: 700,000 hits in 2001; 52 million hits in 2008
• Peak oil future: 615 hits in 2001; 1.74 million hits in 2008
• Energy independence: 5,080 hits in 2001; 1.99 million hits in 2008
• Hybrid engine: 1,980 hits in 2001; 256,000 hits in 2008
• Prius: 48,000 hits in 2001; 18 million hits in 2008
• Blog: 76,000 hits in 2001; 3.2 billion hits in 2008
• Google: 3 million hits in 2001; 3.1 billion in 2008
• Global warming: 390,000 hits in 2001; 53 million hits in 2008
• Barack Obama: 670 hits in 2001; 74 million hits in 2008
• Sarah Palin: 0 hits in 2001; 19 million hits in 2008
• Starbucks: 166,000 hits in 2001; 34 million hits in 2008
• Subprime mortgage: 2,000 hits in 2001;2.4 million hits in 2008

This is not a complete list, but still representative of today's interests and concerns. And, of course, some of the growth in hits is partially due to the explosion in the amount of information on the Internet. Still, our challenge as futurists is to look around today and determine what items that get less than 10,000 Google hits today will return 74 million hits in 2016. I open up this discussion to you, dear reader. Feel free to hit the comments section below with your ideas.

A recent story on social networks surpassing porn as a leading Internet search term sparked some mildly salacious conversations around the office last week, but also some deeper examination of what the researcher in the article was trying to articulate. Bill Tancer, in his new book Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters, looks at aggregate Internet search terms and mines interesting data from them. One example I found interesting was that searches for anti-depression medication spike after Thanksgiving, seemingly validating long held ideas that the arrival of the year-end holidays upsets many people.

But it was his search results on pornography that grabbed headline writers and got our tongues wagging here at S)T. Tancer found that search for porn sites has dropped to 10% of web searches, down from 20% of all searches a decade ago. He posits that this is due to interest in social networking, which leads all search terms today. And then Tancer says this:

As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased. My theory is that young users spend so much time on social networks that they don't have time to look at adult sites.

Wait, what?

The other day, Miss Manners fielded a question in her newspaper column about the ethics and etiquette of posting pictures of past boyfriends on Facebook.

Congrats Facebook, you've arrived!

Image: luckywhitegirl (Flickr)

The music industry's latest attempts to get a handle on digital music and media seem a little off. For those who choose not to hit the link, four music labels are teaming up with memory card maker SanDisk to offer music albums on SanDisk's MicroSD cards for people to load on their portable MP3 devices.

This strikes me again as "not quite getting it."

Those people who like music on CD will still be buying their music on CD (and burning it to their computer if they want.) Those people who want mobile music don't want to have to physically buy and then transfer music to their players, while also trying to find some way to store the discs after the music has been transferred--they want all of their music on their portable device, easlily downloaded and available with a few clicks of the scroll wheel or button. The last thing I need is 10 SanDisk cards with all my U2 tracks on them loose in the bottom of my messenger bag. If I wanted my music like that, I'd dust off my portable CD player.

The music industry needs to stop equating rights with control. I know the two issues are linked, but they are focusing too much on the control idea, and not enough on how to protect rights.

One possible solution for the industry is the looming shift to cloud computing, where everyone's data is stored on servers (not local hard drives) and is available anywhere, anytime there is an Internet connection. The cloud could be what finally makes music services like Napster or Rhapsody--where you pay a fee for access to music, rather than buying a song and downloading it to your computer--the standard model. If the music is going to be stored remotely anyway, what does it matter if you own it or rent it? A shift to the cloud would be a tremendous relief to music labels as it would allow them to still control the rights and earn their share, while making their entire library open for any user who wishes to listen.

Image: Håkan Dahlström (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)

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."

How fast is life changing for consumers around the world?

That's the focus of Social Technologies' Speed of Change Index, which was recently featured in Foreign Policy and Forbes.

More information on the index and our methodology can now be found on our website.

The changing nature of television, including how new platforms and content delivery methods are being developed, is something I've been working on for a while. A great example of the changes afoot is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a new project of writer-producer Joss Whedon. Bored during the television writers’ strike, Whedon—the mastermind behind cult fave Buffy the Vampire Slayer—along with his brothers devised a short-form musical story to be broadcast over the Internet. The result is a perfect example of what we mean when we talk about power shifting to content producers with the advent of these new delivery platforms. Following the "airing" of the first (of three parts), the show racked up more than 300,000 Google hits and more than 100 Google News hits, and is the top selling video on iTunes. (That people are paying $1.99 for something they can watch for free is the subject of an entirely different blog post.)

Granted, the popularity and seeming success of this is due in part to Whedon’s large and enthusiastic fan base, but nevertheless, television programming execs should be nervous. You can hit the link at the top to watch but hurry, it is only online for a limited time.

Iron Man? Incredible Hulk? Hellboy? What do they all have in common? Besides opening number one at the box office this summer, they are all characters or properties that began as comic books. There has been a veritable invasion of page-to-screen in the past five years, and with The Dark Knight, set to open Friday ahead of rave reviews, I was asked by a reporter about the proliferation of comic-based movies.

I believe there are a number of reasons for this comic book invasion of movieland:

Technology: New filming techniques, digital cameras, and computer designed and executed special effects make it easier to translate the fantastic from page to screen. James McAvoy dodging bullets in Wanted could not have happened pre-CGI (or pre-Matrix, which really set the bar for what could be done).

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We recently finished some research for Spike TV, and unlike most of our work (which tends to be client-confidential), this is something we can actually share a bit. It was a project in support of Spike’s Guy’s State of the Union 2008—in which they take stock of the state of American guys.

Social Technologies handled the qualitative portion of the project. We mined our trendbase, did expert interviews, and created a set of hypotheses about the current and future state of American men. The polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB) tested the hypotheses through an online quantitative survey, and we worked in parallel doing focus groups in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Minneapolis to hear from guys in their own words.

Using a segmentation provided by PSB we created a set of composite personas to help bring the survey and focus group findings to life. We also used the personas as a way to talk about where these segments might be headed in the future.

Five types of American guys

The segmentation revealed 5 types of American guys aged 18-49:

1. Young Carefrees (23%)—friend-focused digital natives enjoying their post-college years
2. The Above Average Joes (29%)—modern guys, thriving in their role as fathers and husbands
3. The Good Ol’ Boys (13%)—traditional guys with traditional views; rugged, stoic, and pragmatic
4. The Mac Daddies (20%)—the alpha guys…intense, successful, and in love with their gadgets
5. The Worry Warriors (15%)—hard working, well-off…but totally stressed

See the public version of the Spike TV report here, with detailed descriptions of the segments and the personas we used to bring them to life.

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)

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."

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In a May 8 BusinessWeek article entitled "The Slump: It's a Guy Thing," Social Technologies' Andy Hines was interviewed by reporter Peter Coy about the fact that women and men are "operating in two different economies."

Writes Coy:

From last November through this April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300,000 jobs, according to the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). At the same time, American men lost nearly 700,000 jobs. You might even say American men are in recession, and American women are not. What's going on?

The trouble, Coy suggests, is that male-dominated sectors such as manufacturing and construction are in decline, while women are better-prepared for new kinds of work, with higher rates of college graduation.

Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. "Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power," says Andy Hines, a futurist at the Washington (D.C.) consulting firm Social Technologies, who previously worked for Kellogg (K) and Dow Chemical (DOW).

Read the entire article.  

We recently sent some of our clients an autographed copy of Daniel Pink's new book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need.

The book is being reported as the first US business title written in the manga style, and as such, we thought it was a nice little artifact that shows how cultural flows work. We've talked before about cultural flows, first as part of our Top 20 Trends series and more recently on the blog with posts like this one on the opening of Guatemalan chicken joints in Shanghai. We've also specifically discussed manga as a cultural flow.

We view cultural flows as important indicators of the emerging future. The case of the Johnny Bunko book shows how manga has grown in popularity, spread to different parts of the world, and now even infiltrated the world of American business books. What's next for the future? Classic literature? No, wait...the BBC reports they've already done that.

In any case, we thought ChangeWaves readers might also enjoy seeing what it looks like when manga mixes with Pink's unique take on "six essential lessons for thriving in the world of work," so check out some sample pages and the books' entertaining ad on YouTube above.

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Color me old--though I get made fun of here at Social Technologies because I’m the youngest employee--but I was shocked to see this recent Pew Internet and American Life survey that shows Internet-speak is creeping into teens’ school assignments.

The survey revealed that in school assignments:

• 64% of teens have used “informal” chat-style writing
• 50% of teens don’t use proper capitalization and punctuation
• 38% use common Internet-speak abbreviations such as “LOL” and “OMG”
• 25% have used emoticons--yes, emoticons, those annoying symbols to denote mood :(
  

What?! In school assignments? These statistics do seem ridiculous. But, assuming they’re relatively accurate, imagine what the future of writing, grammar, and communication will be. What scares me is that the majority of my generation seem to find it acceptable to write "formally" in this manner. Will correct spelling and grammar vanish, replaced by LOLCat speak?

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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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A superhero Vishnu fighting bad guys on city streets? Monkey god Hanuman reincarnated as a soccer playing, evil-fighting youngster? It’s the latest craze in Indian entertainment: “mytho-cartoons,” cartoons that borrow from Hindu mythology to entertain as well as teach Indian youth about Hinduism.

There is an unusual cultural exchange present in Indian mytho-cartoons: Indian animators are borrowing from Western entertainment to tell centuries old Hindu myths in a new and innovative way. Many popular mytho-cartoons use the concept of the modern comic book superhero to portray Hindu gods to Indian kids. Mytho-cartoons are becoming so popular that production companies, such as Percept Picture Company, which produces the popular “Hanuman” films, have plans to release their films and TV shows in the US and Europe, completing a cyclical cultural exchange of ideas and beliefs.

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