Services 2020

Beyond the Tipping Point?' is a documentary film about climate, action and the future. It is a free resource for groups to provoke discussion and open up debate. ..Imagining the Future, Acting in the Present: a day of debate and reflection on climate change, ethics and belief for students 

"People sense the world is passing through a Technology Revolution but they lack good information. We pool the knowledge of 100 experts to forecast breakthroughs for corporations, governments and others in real time. TechCast was cited by the National Academies, featured in Newsweek and the Washington Post, and recognized as possibly the best forecasting system in the world. "

Future generator from London underground -

"Increasingly, the energy we consume to heat and power our communities, will be produced locally. Unfortunately, many of the strategies we use to produce energy are vulnerable due to specialization. We are too dependent on specific forms of energy and the dedicated equipment used to utilize it. "

"Another perspective that I believe is missing from Bruce Nussbaum's critique of the design thinking movement is a deeper analysis of why design thinking was believed to be a compelling process in the first place. If we think about its popularity as a design solution to a societal problem, we can critique it as we would a prototype. I believe design thinking attempts to respond to a series of current societal aspirations. This week's blog will look at aspirations on a collective basis and part two will look at those on an individual basis. "

" Verbalizing visceral feelings about technology, whether attraction or repulsion, Kelly explores the "technium," his term for the globalized, interconnected stage of technological development. Arguing that the processes creating the technium are akin to those of biological evolution, Kelly devotes the opening sections of his exposition to that analogy, maintaining that the technium exhibits a similar tendency toward self-organizing complexity. Having defined the technium, Kelly addresses its discontents, as expressed by the Unabomber (although Kelly admits to trepidation in taking seriously the antitechnology screeds of a murderer) and then as lived by the allegedly technophobic Amish. From his observations and discussions with some Amish people, Kelly extracts some precepts of their attitudes toward gadgets, suggesting folk in the secular world can benefit from the Amish approach of treating tools as servants of self and society rather than as out-of-control masters. Exploring ramifications of technology on human welfare and achievement, Kelly arrives at an optimistic outlook that will interest many, coming, as it does, from the former editor of Wired magazine. --Gilbert Taylor "

"Marianne Maeckelbergh: "In this brief article I would like to summarise some alternative approaches to 'knowing' that I have encountered through activism and anthropological fieldwork within the alterglobalization movement. Specifically I will address four assumptions about knowledge found within the alterglobalization movement that diverge considerably from 'standard' assumptions. First, the idea that knowledge is collectively constructed. Second, that knowledge is context specific, partial and provisional. Third, that a distinction must be made between knowing something and knowing better. Finally, I describe the idea that ignorance is useful. First, however, it is necessary to briefly describe the context within which these alternatives are emerging and the type of knowledge that they resist."

"Approval of Bolivia's revolutionary 'Mother Earth' law is an historic step by social movements in a long struggle for real ecological transformation of their economy and society."

"The digital peasants are getting restless. The first signs of unrest are evident in the stirrings of the bloggers filing a suit against the Huffington Post and its parent AOL, which acquired the publication in February for $315 million. The same writers who were happy to contribute for free before the sale are now accusing the publication of turning them into "modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington's plantation." The suit claims that about 9,000 people wrote for the Huffington Post on an unpaid basis, and it argues that their writings helped contribute about a third of the sale value of the site. These bloggers weren't paid a single penny in the sale-the money went mostly to Huffington and a few investors. "

"The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity."

"The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. It enables a select set of leading intellects to bring careful thinking to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. The Institute belongs to the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School."

Maybe this is a kind of thing we should think about...

"The phenomenon of consumer co-creation is often framed in terms of whether either economic market forces or socio-cultural non-market forces ultimately dominate. We propose an alternate model of consumer co-creation in terms of co-evolution between markets and non-markets. Our model is based on a recent ethnographic study of a massively multiplayer online game through its development, release and ultimate failure, and is cast in terms of two explanatory models: multiple games and social network markets. We conclude that consumer co-creation is indeed complex, but in ways that relate to both emergent market expectations and the evolution of markets, not to the transcendence of markets. "

"The Metaverse Assembled issue features the best papers from the SLACTIONS 2009 conference, as well as, peer reviewed articles sumbitted directly to the Journal. The metaverse is emerging, through the increasing use of virtual world technologies that act as platforms for end-users to create, develop, and interact, expanding the realm of human cooperation, interaction, and creativity. This issue focuses on applications and developments of metaverse platforms, including: Second Life, OpenSim, Open Croquet, Activeworlds, Open Source Metaverse, Project Wonderland, among others., and seeks the best papers examining the integration of metaverse platforms with external systems, integration of platforms, GIS/metaverse mash-ups, and using metaverse platforms for cooperation. "

Someone else doing crowd foresight... "Strong demand for Ross's expertise has seen him deliver keynote speeches across six continents and consult to leading organizations worldwide such as Ernst & Young, Macquarie Bank, Microsoft, News Corporation, Procter & Gamble and many others."

"Foundation For the Future launches its fifteenth year of operation with exciting plans for an extension of emphasis on the study of the relationship between the human genome and society. Our mission of increasing and diffusing knowledge will also mean sponsoring lecturers to bring to the public, free-of-charge, direct access to expert information on topics that impact humanity. And a "Humanity 3000" seminar will again bring together a roster of leading thinkers from multiple disciplines to discuss the critical issues that have emerged in recent years for our species and Planet Earth."

" More than half the people on Earth now live in cities, so they'll be where we have to face our changing weather patterns. The most prepared cities are finding ways to keep citizens safe--and make them money. "

"At the 2010 AAM Annual Meeting, the Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) invited the Pinky Show to interview attendees about their visions of the future. This video presents clips from those interviews, edited by CFM. Stay tuned for an official Pinky Show presentation! Visit www.PinkyShow.org to read the cats' report on their expedition to museums of the future."

What were current consumer confidence readings? It would take weeks or months to find out, and even then only selected countries would be reported on.I kept asking myself, what is the point of having a forward indicator when it takes so long to get the data?Remember that consumer confidence is not drawn from government data that needs to be tallied in highly secure data rooms.It is just an aggregation of our views Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/crowdsourcing-the-future-introducing-global-real-time-consumer-confidence-tracking-2011-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29#ixzz1NtezvKXE