February 2010
44 posts
Favela Chic Printing →
Bruce Sterling note 1) that The Economist is giving POD (Print On Demand) development some attention and 2) that they see it top down - i e from the perspective of the companies and not from the bottom-up where many millions of people now gets the possibility to print a book…
Futures Thinking: Writing Scenarios | Open The... →
This time Jamais Cascio picks up a thread and actually shows what scenarios might look like and present a scenario he wrote for Mozilla.
The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless...
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/OJPAJYEk-Ks/ff_futureofmoney This “re-innovates” the payment systems in an interesting way. If you add the micro lending mechanisms and the rapid growth of mobile based banking systems in Africa, I referred to yesterday, this could be the beginning of the end of the hegemony of the large banks and credit card systems. Posted via email ...
Mobile phones become pocket banks in poor... →
There are 18,000 new mobile banking users per day in Uganda, 15,000 in Tanzania and 11,000 in Kenya, he said.
Really interesting bottom-up development!
(via @vidujagoss)
Superman does scenario planning
via theoccasionalceo.blogspot.com Why not use Superman to explain scenario planning? Eric Schultz did it in this blog post some time ago! Posted via web from futuramb’s posterous | Comment »
The importance of scenario planning for brand...
As turbulence and change define the socio-economic landscape that brands play in, scenario planning is an increasingly valuable tool for brand mangers to embrace. Scenario planning provided one of the foundations for respected marketing academic Philip Kotler’s recent book, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence, which he co-authored with business...
China overtakes Germany as world top exporter
Last month, China’s customs reported that total 2009 exports were more than $1.2 trillion, well ahead of the 803.2 billion euro ($1.1 trillion) that Germany reported Tuesday. For Germany, the figure was a drop of 18.4 percent from 2008, although exports returned to year-on-year growth in December. “The crisis has accelerated the shift in power in world trade toward the emerging...
Iran showing fastest scientific growth of any...
Scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that growth in the Middle East – mostly in Turkey and Iran – is nearly four times faster than the world average. via newscientist.com Posted via web from futuramb’s...
Books Are Becoming Fringe Media →
infoneer-pulse:
I just finished a book — Richard Price’s excellent “Lush Life” — hardly a noteworthy feat except it’s the first book I’ve read cover to cover in several months. It languished for years on my reading list, which has itself grown longer by the week. In fact, of all the books I’ve read in my life, a shockingly small percentage have been read in the past several years.
This...
Could 2010 Be the Year of the Censor? →
A relevant question since free speech in a world without Internet and free speech with Internet is a very different thing.
Car 2.0 – How a Community Builds a Car →
An interesting example of bottom-up organizing. This car was the result of a mass collaboration process by 2.900 community members from over 100 countries!
Another step towards the home kit: "Little God:...
Genetic code 2.0: Life gets a new operating system
A new way of using the genetic code has been created, allowing proteins to be made with properties that have never been seen in the natural world. The breakthrough could eventually lead to the creation of new or “improved” life forms incorporating these new materials into their tissue.[…]
“It’s a very impressive...
Why Outsiders Are Better in Turnarounds
When a business is in the midst of crisis or collapse, it’s not uncommon for shareholders to replace failed leaders with insiders who are familiar with the organization’s culture, problems, and history of bad decisions. But this paper finds that when new decision makers share even a loose psychological connection with the old boss, they are likely to support their predecessor’s decisions by...
“Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is...”
– Douglas Adams (via nickdouglas) (via stens)
Three levels of open innovation maturity →
Could potentially be a valuable tool for explaining and assessing levels of Open Innovation Maturity in companies…?
WatchJane McGonigal at TED 2010 | Institute For The Future
WatchWonderful visual presentation on Twitter
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The design philosophy of the AK-47
via flickr.com
Don’t design for a perfect world, because the world isn’t perfect. Design simple things that are rugged, reliable, simple and easy to use; things that work even when conditions are chaotic; things that work even when they are mostly broken.
Good design point - ethical aspects aside…
Posted via web from futuramb’s posterous | Comment »
Chrome beta for Mac have problems with Tumblr - At...
OK, this is a post of a bit different nature than I use to write. I have recently discovered Chrome as a really good browser… Yes, even if you have a Mac! OK, it is a beta and it isn’t ready for launch yet.
When plugins became supported in the beta for Mac the other day another amazing tool came to my knowledge: Feedly - a Chrome plugin newsreader which created a new reading...
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Distinguishing Climate “Deniers” From “Skeptics”
For the most part, those calling themselves “skeptics” are nothing of the kind. More often than not, they are fully-imbibed, Koolaid-drinking Deniers, who wallow in isolated anecdotes and faux-partyline talking points, egotistically assuming that their fact-poor, pre-spun, group-think opinion entitles them to howl “corrupt fools!” at 100% of the brilliant men and women who have actually studied...
An Online Debate: Do School Libraries Need Books? →
An interesting question in the short term (and the answer is “yes” since the concept of library still tightly connected to books). In the slightly longer perspective it is a completely irrelevant questions… The relevant question in the future would rather be if learning needs books and the answer to that is most likely no. More interesting questions might be
if learning in the...
YouTube Will Kill Flat-rate Mobile Broadband... →
Video is driving the projected increase in both mobile and wired broadband — but it’s not the proliferation of video that’s the problem for mobile operators so much as the relative ease with which consumers can now access it. Indeed, while mobile operators have long faced traffic congestion at cell sites thanks to peer-to-peer traffic, the widespread availability of video in formats that the...
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The psychology of power - Absolutely →
An interesting article in The Economist about research around why people in power seems to behave worse and yet doesn’t be ashamed about it.
They argue, therefore, that people with power that they think is justified break rules not only because they can get away with it, but also because they feel at some intuitive level that they are entitled to take what they want. This sense of...
WatchAn interesting essay around George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century which puts the finger on several issues. Recommended read!
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The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change - A War on... →
David Brin analyzes Climate Change Unbeliever’s real reason for argue as they do. His first observations is that:
[…]science itself is the main issue: its relevance and utility as a decision-making tool
which is a really interesting an tough issue. Unfortunately the answer doesn’t seem to stay there but goes more like:
As part of a more general assault on the very notion of...
WatchA 2 min TED prez with a wonderful reminder that whatever we think it is based on assumptions and the opposite might also be true.
Generation XX - Women Rising To Greater Power and... →
Women are rising to power! There is much that speaks for that… Are the statements about why this is happening true?
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Book Review: This Book Is Overdue! - WSJ.com →
A bit critical book review of Marilyn Johnsons book “This Book Is Overdue!”.
Ms. Johnson succeeds in making us like librarians, but she avoids digging too deeply into the controversies roiling around the future of books and their keepers. Something seismic is happening when a culture casts off old words (“librarian”) for new ones (“information scientist”) and...
Bernard-Henri Lévy a laughing stock for quoting... →
An interesting but probably personally catastrophic story, which can remind us all to Google and research things that we write about first!
When France’s most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him “raving mad” and a “fake”, his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy — a showman-penseur known simply...
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Serious Games for a Better Future - EnerCities out... →
Games, simulations and broad participation are important components when working with the future and changing how we perceive the world and where we are heading. And where would be a better place to do this than on Facebook - one of the most crowded application platforms on the Internet.
EnerCities is now out of beta! Read more about it.
Gartner Reveals Five Social Software Predictions... →
It seems like Gartner sees that the socially defined structures will have a huge impact on the way IT is used within companies and institutions…
By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.
By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but...
Gangs Use Of Twitter, Facebook On The Rise →
infoneer-pulse:
When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.
They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.
Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators,...
iPad: Overhyped Flop or a case of Great Design...
via emergentbydesign.com
Vanessa Miemis have written the best analysis about Apple’s recently announced iPad so far. She is referring to many others along the way, so if you are going to read just one article about the iPad today I would argue that this is the one!
Posted via web from futuramb’s posterous | Comment »
“[Chinese] mobile phone users sending text messages to large groups of people at...”
– Goodbye, flashmobs? | Net Effect
A new and more subtle way by the Chinese government of limiting swarming…
