July 8-10, 2010
The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel
Boston, Massachusetts
Professional Members' Forum  July 11, 2010

Social and Cultural Trends

Luncheon Speaker Men and Women: The Battle for Supremacy The future of men and women and how they deal with each other is complex, but as futurists we have the right tools to examine such a future. I have extrapolated from the major global trends to see how the roles of men and women will change over the next 20–30 years. Three particular scenarios are explored: women returning to the kitchen, men’s and women’s lives bifurcating further into separate organizations and communities, and continuing the long slow road towards equality. The wild cards include mass reduction of female numbers by gender-specific pandemics. My conclusions present a stark picture of continuing discontent between the genders and slow progress, with a reluctance to accept the biological basis of sex differences. There is some good news, though: Technology will help us change our sex more easily, improve our fertility without the need for sex or pregnancy, enjoy virtual sex games, extend our lives, and use recreational hormones to bring pleasurable emotions (although the ethical and legislative frameworks in place to help us navigate these futures are inadequate and will need to be updated and maintained). The battle for supremacy will continue, but with no winners and no losers. Who should attend: Anyone interested in the future of gender relations, behavioral sciences, and social trends. What you’ll learn: The degree to which research is indicating that biology is to blame for inequalities between the sexes, the political implications of taking that view, predictions abut how the two sexes will evolve and the roles played by men and women in the next 20 to 30 years. How this new knowledge can be applied: It can be applied by governments in how and what kind of educational provision they subsidize and how they support families; by businesses in designing working patterns, teams, and careers differently for men and women; and by individuals in the ways in which they understand and communicate with the other gender. Karen Moloney, director, Moloney Minds Ltd.; consultant and writer on the changing nature of work; advises companies on attracting and retaining top talent; London, United Kingdom key words: society, diversity issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, and Technology and Science

Sustainability and Future Human Evolution: Global Perspectives

Some argue that there are finite world resources and numerous interconnected global megacrises (overpopulation, growing food and energy demands, plus increasing environmental pollution, water quality issues, species extinction, and global climate change) creating “limits to growth” and the need for sustainable development, simpler living, and reduced consumption. Others argue that there are “no limits to learning” or to the growth of human creativity, innovation, and new ideas; that technological breakthroughs and revolutions (in info, bio, nano, green, and space tech areas) can solve current global problems; that space exploration opens up new energy, resources, and habitats for the future; and that evolution reveals periods of exponential growth followed by breakdowns and crises and then by breakthroughs to new, larger system levels of organization and complexity. What are the trade-offs as we face both scarcity/sustainability and abundance/growth arguments impacting our human and planetary futures? This panel will present different global and other perspectives on these issues.

Who should attend: Anyone—in business, government, academia, or community organizations—who wants to get a good overview of two diverse scarcity–abundance trends impacting our human and planetary futures and of how people in different countries are dealing with such issues.
What you’ll learn: People will learn diverse arguments supporting more scarcity versus potential for abundance in our human and planetary futures, how they interrelate, and different proposed policies for dealing with these issues, including from different parts of the world.
How this new knowledge can be applied: This panel deals with fundamental issues impacting our human, planetary, organizational, and personal futures. Individuals, organizations, and businesses will all need to make important personal and organizational policy decisions based on their assessment of these issues. This panel should help clarify these issues and the implications for people’s future lives.

Linda Groff, professor, Political Science and Future Studies, and coordinator, Behavioral Science Undergraduate Program, California State University; director, Global Options and Evolutionary Futures Consulting, Playa del Rey, California
Kazuo Mizuta, futurist, professor, Kyoto Sangyo University; works on cultures as well as robotics, Kyoto, Japan
Fabienne Goux-Baudiment, futurist, consultant, Progectiv; former president, WFSF; Paris, France
Rosa Alegria, director, Perspektiva, Sao Paulo, Brazil  
Nadezhda Gaponenko, Russian node of Millennium Project.  Has worked on energy and nanotech issues.

key words: megacrisis, global options, growth, world resource
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Business and Careers, Learning and Eucation

Cultural Shifts among Global Youths

We are in a period of transformation. Our current systems, our current ways of living, our societal norms, and our social groups are all being redefined. This time of profound change is creating a host of cultural shifts among our global youth, and is causing ripples that can be felt in the workplace, in our homes, in our institutions, and in our own lives. A new generation of young people, combined with advancing technologies, will profoundly alter the landscape of the workforce and emerge with different skills, jobs, careers, and ways of organizing work and life. New subcultures of technologically adept young people have not only evolved across the globe, but also represent a new, robust, and powerful market. Witness, for instance, the impact that immersive online communities and virtual worlds have had on the developed, and to some extent the developing, world. This panel will explore and help shed light on the social, demographic, and technological shifts occurring in both today's global youth and future generations.

The implications are vast. Rapidly advancing technologies may propel more young workers into the workforce and more old workers out of it.  Or, it may minimize the need for new workers, causing younger workers to search elsewhere for employment. For companies and organizations, the challenge is to look beyond the moment and forge fresh strategies for the future. Managers must reshape their thinking to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, confront outdated assumptions, and develop actionable strategies to appeal to and attract a new generation of young, global workers. From a marketing perspective, it will become increasingly important to understand the global mass-market opportunities that this new generation presents. From a human resources perspective, global organizations—particularly those with a deep footprint throughout the developed world—are going to have to account for, and hire for, an increasingly nuanced and diversified employee base.

Lastly, our fast-growing understanding of the human brain will help shed tremendous light on what makes this generation tick, what helps to guide their purchasing decisions, what motivates them in the workplace, and what effect technology has on their brains.

Who should attend: Educators, business leaders, consultants, and anyone interested in learning more about how future generations will go about organizing their work and life.
What you’ll learn: Participants will be made aware of changing trends and new strategies for meeting the challenges the changes will create.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Attendees will gain a new understanding of how the today’s global youth and future generations will use technologies to communicate and work, and will be able to plan for these new workers in their own organizations and communities.  

Erica Orange, vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., New York, New York
Jared Weiner, vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., New York, New York
Kira Mooney, student, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts

 key words: global youth, technology, technological shifts, workplace
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Business and Careers, Learning and Education

World Creativity and Innovation Week: Sustaining the Global Human Spirit

Carl Jung wrote that creativity is a human instinct. The purpose of World Creativity and Innovation Week (April 15–21) is to encourage and engage people in using their creativity to make the world a better place and to make their place in the world better, too. This session will provide insight into the ways in which this human attribute, long overlooked, can be actualized annually for the benefit of us all, now and in the future.

Who should attend: Educators, business leaders, consultants, community organizers, and public servants who would like to benefit from celebrating their and their constituents' creativity and innovation. People who are open to beginning and sustaining a new, totally inclusive tradition of welcoming creative thinking and acknowledging innovation annually in alignment with thousands of others all over the world.
What you’ll learn: The history of this growing (now in more than 40 countries) global, totally inclusive phenomenon that began in Canada in 2001; its benefits, outcomes, and examples of past celebrations in business, government, schools, and communities worldwide; future vision for a new annual tradition that honors the human spirit without regard to race, age, gender, religion, vocation, education, economic status, geography, or political affiliation.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Participants will be able to use the content from this session to hold a meaningful World Creativity and Innovation Week event, activity, or program to benefit their milieu and the planet.

Marci Segal, president, Creativityland Inc., and co-founder of World Creativity and Innovation Week (April 15-21), Toronto, Canada
Megan Mitchell, Masters Certification Program in Applied Innovation, Schulich School of Business, Toronto, Canada
Tom McMillian, president, Techtao, LLC, Montville, New Jersey

key words: human spirit, creativity, innovation
issue area: Social and Cultural Trends, Learning and Education, Values and Spirituality

Traditional Social Strata Measurement by Socioeconomic Levels and the Challenges of Sustainability

One of the most important dimensions in the study, planning, development, and evolution of contemporary societies is the socioeconomic aspect. This dimension has traditionally included the capacity of income and consumption within a society. The growing complexity of modern life now demands that additional variables be included as well, such as well-being and quality of life.

However, it is necessary to think about variables that should also be incorporated from a perspective of sustainability—variables that measure such factors as consumption, mass communication, political participation, and long-term decision making.

Who should attend: Business people, government officials, academics and non-profit organizations will all benefit from an expanded approach to socio-economic analysis.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn about the possibilities for better understanding of socio-economic levels and sustainability.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Lessons learned in this arena can be applied to sustainable policy efforts around the world.

Heriberto López Romo, founder and general director, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales SC; member, World Future Society Mexico City Chapter, Mexico City, Mexico

key words: sustainability, society
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Governance and Communities

Measuring Amicability in the World Society

This session will introduce a system for monitoring the local social disposition of people in different countries and regions. It may be viewed as a map of the state of the friendly spirit of the society. The methodology is based on the responses of volunteers to a standard and simple questionnaire. Volunteers will indicate through the Internet or SMS-messages how friendly their interactions are with the people around them, rating responses in five levels from negative to positive.

Processing this information allows a continuous monitoring of quantitative parameters, characterizing levels of good intentions and confrontation within the society and their trends. Such monitoring is important because the level of good intentions largely determines the result of joint activity of people and affects different aspects of a society state. Additionally, the participation of people of different regions and countries in the same project helps unite people’s consciousness and develop more predictable future relations between people.

Who should attend: Representatives of government and international organizations as well as people interested in methodologies for the study of society and spiritual/cultural values and also in the evolutionary development of society.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn about a new method for analyzing society that identifies the level of goodwill, the level of confrontation, and the level of chaos in society. They will also learn that continuous monitoring can provide instant information for authorities, international organizations, and each concerned person regarding society’s reactions to decisions and various world events. Each person becomes a party to the global process of forming the elements of universal values.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Organization managers will develop a reliable tool for making the right decisions based on the reaction of society. Business leaders will receive information about the favorable and unfavorable regions for places for investment and business development. Each person has the possibility to see the trends of developing attitudes and intentions of people in his/her own town or country as well as other countries, and to plan for a more predictable future.

Anvar Idiatullin, founder and member, Moscow Regional Council, Pravdinsky, Russia

key words: monitoring, social harmony, questionnaire, social disposition, good intentions, confrontation, consciousness
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Futures Methodologies, and Governance and Communities

Demonstrating the Sustainable Future Environment through a Global Event

As an emergent global event, World Expo not only demonstrates globalism and cosmopolitanism under the competing international framework, but it also provides creative scenarios for the future.

The speaker will analyze how the sustainable future of cities has been creatively imagined and realized in the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. It will deal with the convergent power of the World Expo in providing a cosmopolitan vision in Shanghai as an Asian city. Then speaker will then discuss how the environmentally sustainable future is imagined through forms related to national cultures and city cultures and how it is materially realized, as well as the new technologies engaged. The speaker will discuss how this compares with current cinematic scenarios of the future, considering different audience’s reflexive reactions toward specific environmental images.

Who should attend: Anyone concerned with environmental education, scenarios of futures cities, and cosmopolitanism.
What you’ll learn: The audience will learn about the future scenario of sustainable environment and cities through the discourses and practices analyzed in the World Expo 2010.
How this new knowledge can be applied: You will be able to apply this new knowledge to research or teaching of futures studies and culture studies.

Chia-Ling Lai, assistant professor, Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University, Taiwan

key words: World Expo, sustainability, city, cosmopolitanism
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Futures Methodologies, and Resources and Environment

Future Paradigms of Poverty and Development

Institute for Alternate Futures senior futurist and vice president Eric Meade will present IAF’s recent work on “foresight for smart globalization,” which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He will then discuss new approaches to international development, such as “Cash on Delivery” and other models, and provide a context—evolutionary, psychological, and geopolitical—for the future paradigms of global poverty and development. The discussion will include the application of various futures methodologies, such as generations theory, evolutionary spiral, causal layered analysis, and others.

Who should attend: Members of the development community and others interested in the future paradigms of global poverty and international development.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about IAF’s recent work on “foresight for smart globalization” and discuss future paradigms of global poverty and international development. This discussion will include forecasts for the future development work, as well as an opportunity for attendees to practice using futures methods.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Attendees can apply this knowledge to their work in the field of international development, or in areas of research where global poverty and development are significant issues. This session will provide a larger context—evolutionary, psychological, geopolitical, etc.—for the global poverty discussion now taking place. 

Eric Meade, vice president and senior futurist, Institute for Alternative Futures; Alexandria, Virginia

key words: poverty, development, international aid
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Resources and Environment, and Governance and Communities

Retirement Trends Overseas: The Next 20 Years

The future of retirement is going to include a growing number of U.S. retirees looking south of the border for affordability and paradoxically, quality of life enhancement. Ernst and Young issued a 2008 report that indicated a severe crisis for baby boomer retirees. Sixty percent will face unprecedented financial challenges and the prospect of outliving their assets. Spending their retirement in the developing world instead is an affordable alternative that many are choosing. The demographic trends clearly show an increasing number of people already making the move, as nearly 500,000 U.S. citizens now pick up a Social Security check at an embassy or consulate outside the United States. Millions more are considering this option.

Who is this subset of retirees? What drives them? What considerations are motivating them to retire overseas? If we understand this demographic group, our ability to forecast their needs will allow service providers to correctly position products and services to serve them well.

Who should attend: Individuals who may want to move and the companies that want to serve those making the move. Basically, anyone who wishes to understand the motivations and drivers for overseas retirement including the benefit and challenges of doing so.
What you’ll learn: Why people are moving and why they will likely to continue to do so. How to avoid critical “assumption” mistakes when buying property overseas, saving time, resources, and frustration.
How this new knowledge can be applied: Fifteen specific examples of common assumptions that North Americans make when buying property overseas. Also a simple test to gauge the likelihood of a happy transition to life overseas.

Michael Cobb, chairman and CEO, ECI Development, Sewickley, Pennsylvania

key words: demographics, retirement, international
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Governance and Communities, and Health and Wellness

 The Future of Terror

Terrorism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is generically different from acts of terror witnessed in different parts of the world in the past. This speaker will examine the shape of contemporary terror within the parameters of post-colonialism, technological change, clash of civilizations, and other asymmetries of power. We will also look into the semantics and pathology of modern terror, and the lack of ethical dimensions in international affairs as a weak linkage against the threat of terror. The session will argue that the threat of terror and the capacity of the terrorist to strike at will is bound to increase with the growth in the new asymmetries. It will further seek to suggest some changes in global architecture as possible ways to contain its lethal power.

Who should attend: Anybody interested in the threat of terrorism as a factor in international security, affecting power structures and social discourse.
What you’ll learn: Participants will be exposed to new perspectives on the forces that shape terror and the shapes that terrorism could acquire in the coming decades.
How this new knowledge can be applied: The threat of terror in the twenty-first century is far too pervasive and far too menacing to leave any area of life—business, government, organization, society, etc.—untouched.

Mohan Tikku, director, Centre for Future Studies; India Node co-chair, The Millennium Project; chapter coordinator, World Future Society; writer, Hindustan Times, Gurgaon, India

key words: civilization, clash, terror, ethics, power
issue areas: Social and Cultural Trends, Governance and Communities, and Technology and Science

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