November 2009, Vol. 10, No. 11

In This Issue:
* Materialism in the Nonmaterial World
* Fire-Resistant Building Material
* Doctors’ Attitudes May Affect Obese Patients’ Health
* Click of the Month: Trends Map
* News for the Futurist Community
* What’s Hot @WFS.org: Futurist of the Year Nominations

MATERIALISM IN THE NONMATERIAL WORLD

How many customers have you served at your café on Facebook, and how many friends have gifted you fertilizer or plants on FarmVille? The growing movement of social activity in the virtual world includes a great deal of very real economic activity, report researchers at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.

While many futurists believe that the growth of virtual worlds would encourage movement away from consumption, materialism is apparently trumping nonmaterialism. As people spend more time online socializing, they are also spending real money, such as making micropurchases of heart or balloon icons to favor their friends, family, or celebrity idols.

The reason is simple: Humans behave as humans whether it is in the corporeal world or online, notes infotech researcher Vili Lehdonvirta. What we buy proclaims our identity and denotes our status, and we want to have status online just as we do in real life.

The advantage that consumption may have in the nonmaterial world is that it permits economic activity with reduced environmental impacts, says Lehdonvirta.

SOURCE: Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

FIRE-RESISTANT BUILDING MATERIAL

A newly developed building material that is fire-resistant and as versatile as concrete, yet does not explode at super-hot temperatures as concrete does, could offer future builders a very safe and flexible option.

Liquid Granite was created by scientists at Sheffield Hallam University in Great Britain and is available from Liquid Granite Ltd. The material includes between 30% and 70% recycled materials and uses less cement than traditional concrete products, thus reducing its carbon footprint.

Use of the new material may be especially promising in buildings at high risk for fires, such as power stations, and in commercial and residential buildings where it could give more time for evacuation, according to developers.

SOURCE: Sheffield Hallam University Centre of Infrastructure Management

DISCOVER NEW IDEAS, METHODS, AND TECHNOLOGIES IN BOSTON NEXT JULY!

Plans are under way for WorldFuture 2010: Sustainable Futures, Strategies, and Technologies, to be held in Boston, July 8-10, at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel.

Join a thousand forward-thinking men and women from around the world to discuss issues like the “other” health-care reform, with futurist Jay Herson, and collective intelligence, featuring Millennium Project participants such as Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, Tikku Mohan, Frank Catanzaro, and Jack Park.

Other recently confirmed speakers include city-planning expert Anthony Flint; educator Gary Marx, president of the Center for Public Outreach; NetLab director Barry Wellman; and consulting futurist David Pearce Snyder. You’ll also hear inventors Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Thaler, health futurist Kevin Fickenscher, and media experts Michael Rogers, Lee Rainie, and Michael R. Nelson.

Panel sessions, workshops, and stimulating keynote presentations will focus on what we mean by “sustainable futures,” what paths may lead us there, and what strategies and technologies we may be able to use to create the futures we aspire to achieve.

DOCTORS' ATTITUDES MAY AFFECT OBESE PATIENTS' HEALTH

Obesity carries its own health risks, but doctors' negative attitudes toward their obese patients may be making matters worse, according to a study by Mary Margaret Huizinga, an assistant professor of general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Huizinga's study found that, with each 10-point increase in patients' body-mass index, the prevalence of doctors' low opinion increased by 14%. Huizinga also observed the effects of this negative bias firsthand in her work at an obesity clinic: "By the end of the visit [my patients] would be in tears, saying 'no other physician talked with me like this before. No one listened to me,'” she reports.

Other studies have shown that doctors who respect their patients tend to provide more information, and that patients who do not feel respected tend to avoid seeking doctors' advice. Huizinga believes the next step in research is to discover how physician attitudes affect obese patient outcomes, and then to incorporate the awareness of that bias into the medical school curriculum.

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

CLICK OF THE MONTH: TRENDS MAP

http://trendsmap.com

Trends Map offers a real-time visual state-of-the-world report on the hot topics being posted on Twitter.

What is the world tweeting about right now? On one day in early October, Manila was talking about “Typhoon Parma,” and Winnipeg was into all things “artificial”: artificial life, artificial organs, etc. Americans on the east coast were saying good morning to the world and talking about reality star Kim Kardashian.

Trends Map is “a little Web startup workshop operating out of Melbourne, Australia,” and owned by Stateless Systems.

The immediate “futures” application of real-time Twitter trends is not yet clear, but consulting futurist Jennifer Jarratt suggests that tracking key words around the globe “might create a map of regional concerns,” and then futurists could track those trends over time.

NEWS FOR THE FUTURIST COMMUNITY

* INNOVATION AWARD FOR KURZWEIL: WorldFuture 2010 speaker Ray Kurzweil has been selected by The Economist magazine to receive the 2009 Economist Innovation Award in the category of Computing and Telecommunication. The citation honors Kurzweil for his optical character recognition and speech recognition technologies. The awards, described as the “Oscars of Innovation,” celebrate individual innovators whose work has had the greatest impact on business and/or society. DETAILS

* SMART GLOBALIZATION REPORT: The Institute for Alternative Futures has released a new report advocating increased emphasis on creating opportunities for the world’s poor and underdeveloped communities. Government, industry, and development foresight activities rarely take into account how social, technological, and environmental trends affect the poor, says IAF Chairman Clement Bezold. “We believe that the application of pro-poor foresight for envisioning the future of human development is crucial for ensuring long-term prosperity and sustainability,” says Bezold. “It is also the right thing to do.” DETAILS

* KEEPING UP WITH FUTURES STUDIES: Enrollment has increased at the University of Houston’s graduate program in futures studies, and the program has added more ways for current students and alumni to stay connected. In addition to a monthly newsletter from program coordinator Peter Bishop are a community timeline added to the Houston Futures site and a program activities timeline and map here:

WHAT'S HOT @WFS.ORG

FUTURIST OF THE YEAR AWARDS: The World Future Society is now accepting nominations for outstanding futurist of the year. The Society is seeking candidates at both the professional and “young futurist” levels, whose work in the past year has advanced the understanding of foresight principles and techniques or demonstrated the successful application of foresight.

The deadline for nominations is December 31. Professional Members of the World Future Society will then be invited to vote on selected nominees, and a total of five finalists in each category will be submitted to the board of directors. The awards will be presented at WorldFuture 2010, the Society’s annual meeting in Boston.

For details or to submit a nomination, visit Futurist of the Year Awards