Klaus Schwab
it is not about short term disaster relief and recovery. there are many who are already engaged in this. this is about the long term reconstruction.
Bill Clinton
this will be a collaboration between private sector and CGI/WEF. there is a call for those present to consider how to contribute as the companies wish. he described the situation on the ground. need:
1. safe sanitary shelter
2. more food
3. more water
4. better system of healthcare organization
5. reestablish schools
6. reestablish govt
7. reestablish functional infrastructure services
8. distribution network [100 trucks]
UN is setting up work for cash programs in order to get things back to normal.
10,000 NGOs operating in Haiti. Haiti lost 15% of its GDP in 2008 due to four hurricanes. This is horrible for the people of Haiti not just for the tragedy which occurred, but for the fact that they were on the way to rebuild their county and this has been a huge slap back.
the others then spoke passionately about the opportunity that Haiti presents.
]]>energy security depends upon diversification. natural gas should not be overlooked. HORMATS talked about the key role that shale and gasification will play. he calls this a natural gas bridge to supply a bridge. energy governance is also an issue that needs to be encouraged globally as 'new reserves' in 'new countries' [ie Papua New Guinea, Ghana] come on-line. this will help them get it right so that. the link between energy and water as well as energy, water and food is critical to understand. water security issues will soon be recognized as important as energy security. they need to be considered together.
SHARMA. we cannot neglect to recognize that there is avast difference between the current and near term needs of developed and developing countries. the responses, thus must be differentiated to the national differences. energy security cannot be spoken about without including food security. universal access to energy, so that every citizen has access to a minimum must be guaranteed. so for him, energy security is really about getting energy to the millions of poor citizens who are desperate for it.
LEAPE - we have to be careful to ensure that we are not forgetting that the climate is struggling. we need to ensure that renewables are at the heart of the transition. most important on policy front; we need to stop subsidizing oil and coal production and finding a way to put a price on carbon, transportation needs to go electric as soon as possible. many of these things can happen at a national level. developing nations need to get on a low carbon development path.
do we need an E20? the energy twenty?
we will see a gas glut within the next year.
only 30 countries have petrochemical reserves. 170 have to import it.
]]>Back to the Future: the next global crisis
this had a really slow start and was a very weak session. moderator was a poor facilitator and the sound was challenging...ie feedback and too soft..
Barney Frank opened with the need for a military reduction and no concern for US debt. He is a one liner. and wants to downsize the military and downsize the expectations. he also plans to cancel the manned spaceship to mars and the agricultural subsidies.
we need to focus on the next war. we have to focus on security. especially the relationship between China and the US. this will become more significant and will create a problem for hard and soft power.
the idea that we can grow our way out of this situation is simply Vodoo economics. the public is not ready for the reality of the economics.
]]>panel:
Dennis Naly
Arif Naqvi
Raghuram Rajan
Nouriel Roubini - very interesting and intelligent. look up his writing.
David Rubenstein - very pragmatic and intelligent. look up his writing.
Heizo Takenaka
employment issue remains a global problem, not enough jobs were created. issue of near term inflation is very real. also a problem with fiscal responsibility of sovereign funds of all nations. there will be a risk of withdrawing funds, but they must.
:
belief that the professional investors have survived a 'heart attack'. lots of bargain hunting. lots of opportunities in the US. emerging markets will remain robust; far more robust than the developed nations who will have a continued slow growth rate. energy, both green and black, will remain robust. healthcare will also be a great place to invest based on the boomer investment. financial services were most likely also be attractive. the US government will not shrink its size and is investing in certain areas. the current congress has not figured out if it is going to work to beat up bug business or to go more centrist. in summary, a good time to invest and the risk of systemic failure is now gone.
one has to differentiate between optimism and realism. we shall see a few more shocks to the global financial system and we will see more bankruptcies in this year....big ones. emerging markets are a great place to be right now. this is because there is so much to do there. the past perception of risk there has been rally internal. in MENASA half the population is under the age of 25. this is huge. the world cannot do without oil. 60% of the reserves sit in the GCC. 30% of annual production comes from the GCC. the GCC share will continue to rise. there is a new feeling of attention to
this year Shanghi production will surpass HK for first time. there will be a robust recovery in the entire region of Asia. most will have 10% growth recovery. the Chinese GDP is really pushing much of this. there is also a large-scale fiscal expansion. four groups in the region. the emerging markets. the second group are those who can leverage the first. ie Korea. the third is country like Australia who have growth targets thru population growth. the fourth category......[not sure what he was on about]. he then went onto deflation. Japan has been suffering from deflation for the past 15 years.
move from a time of great fiscal uncertainty to one of political uncertainty. we could see an increased move to poplularism and protectionism. there will be a huge growth in India. it is a young population with a huge need for improvement across the board. that said, the jobs needs to be created thru better infrastructure. India need to convert the large number of rural jobs to other kinds of jobs.
The BRIC nations are an interesting case. Brazil still needs structural reform even though the country is doing quite well. Russia has big problems due to is single sided economy and the health issues as well as falling birth rates. India is doing well as is China.
There is an issue of overreaction that cannot be understated. We need to remember that economists cannot really predict anything beyond a few months.
How has the intellectual climate changed over the past year?
There seems to allot of fear for market forces. In the UK, the case of Iceland is a good case. There is a feeling that there is a 'monster' that needs to be moderated. In the US it is more about outrage at the excess of the financial sector. There is also an increasing feeling of the irrelevance of the financial sector....they are not lending or helping out, so curb or eliminate it. One big problem is that the emerging markets will take a lead from the developed markets and this could curb their growth.
So, fear is driving policy in the US, outrage in the US. Populist headline making seems to be the driver for fiscal policy in most of the rest. The concern is that these actions will not really deal with the fundamental problems. It is far more complicated than just compensation....it is really about transparency.
The US has a huge problem. the 3Ds: Debt, Deficit, Dollar. 230,000 deficit per person. The Dollar will sink unless there are actions. This is an even larger problem then the other things that the US Congress is concerned with.
Populism is being addressed, not sentiment. For example in the US the companies are doing well, but people are not. The bid question is who is THE consumer that is of the most important.
Tough years change behavior. No economist model can account for sentiment or emotion. And we have seen a few tough years.
Politicians do not understand finance.
asset bubbles are not dealt with by governments and regulation.
in all of this talk, one forgets the shareholders. many bankers are now saying that 'we did not feel enough pain' because the shareholders are not holding the leaders accountable. there is a need for regaining this accountability.
the US will certainly inflate the currency so that the debt can be dealt with. [this is an important issue...we can anticipate that this will begin this year].
the digital and tech economy is doing really really well. there is a dearth of high tech employees. jobs are being designed out of this economy. there is a HUGE difference between innovation and employment. there is a fundamental imbalance between the new economy, the green economy, and the challenge of employment. [[[[I wonder if this is not just another way of saying that the REAL problem is overpopulation]]]]
big crisis tend to be around time so big technology change. there is always a period of turmoil until the technology integrates into the society.
this is all fine, but we cannot forget, nor ignore, the emotive part of this. there is a fear to invest, but a need to invest.
the last three bubbles have been from real estate. not technology.
]]>http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/william-bostwick/architecture-design/safer-bike-lanes-come-down-earth
]]>Every now and then, a novel idea enters the public domain. At first, that idea sounds a bit off-beat - almost revolutionary. Eventually the idea is taken up by more and more people so that it manages to reach the mainstream. Beyond that, if the idea gains traction, it becomes part of a new conventional wisdom. Once there, anyone who questions the idea is seen as something of a crank. The ideas behind the rise of China fall into this path. Originally, at the turn of the century, the notion that China would be a rising super-power was seen as fanciful. The then conventional wisdom of the Washington Consensus had no place for China.
Goldman Sachs questioned that conventional wisdom when they developed the notion of the BRIC economies. Over the course of the decade, as the BRIC economies grew relative to the OECD economies, so the notion took hold. It has now reached the point where it has become the conventional wisdom. I attend a number of futurist meetings each year and at each one I am greeted by the mantra that China will have the largest economy in the world by the 2020s. Personally, I very much doubt this.
My cause for scepticism is threefold. First, there is the question of demographics. The 'One Child Policy' has served China well to date but, at some point in the coming decade, it will go into reverse, giving rise to a sharply growing dependency ratio (the ratio of working population to non-working population). Unless China experiences a very high level of labour productivity growth to compensate, as the size of the working population falls, so GDP growth will come off the boil. The decade may witness the reduction of GDP growth in China to the 5% to 8% band.
At this point the second cause for scepticism assumes importance. As time goes on, the law of large numbers will start to act as a constraining factor to the Chinese economy. High growth rates are easier to achieve when the economy is relatively small, but much harder for a large economy to maintain. This is why the growth rates of the BRIC economies are much higher than those of the OECD economies. For example, the raw materials that are needed to run the Chinese economy at it's present levels have caused most markets for raw materials to tighten. At some point during the next decade or two the demand for those raw materials is likely to exceed the capacity to supply them, acting as a limiting factor to further growth.
Third, to close the feedback loop, China has a very high savings ratio - mainly in response to the absence of a welfare safety net, as most Europeans would understand it. The private sector is saving through bank deposits, which are, in turn, being lent to fuel property and stock market bubbles. Usually, the creation of such bubbles suggests a lack of productive investment opportunities and foreshadows a financial crisis as and when those bubbles burst. Any slight disruption to the Chinese economy could lead savers to ask for their money back, precipitating something of a financial crisis. Given that the Government of China has deposited its surplus funds in US Treasury Bills, there are grounds to suspect that financial contagion could spread quite quickly. If that were to happen, then the overtly nationalistic policy of the Chinese Government could well hamper a co-ordinated global monetary response to contain the contagion.
This is not to say that we are predicting the financial collapse of China. What we are saying is that the development of the Chinese economy is a lot more fragile than it appears, and that an uncritical view of the conventional wisdom does not encourage a balanced review of future prospects. It is correct for futurists to point to a trend of China becoming a greater economic force in the world. However, good futurists would also point out that for every trend, there is also a an important counter-trend that could well turn into a new conventional wisdom. Over the past few months, I have noticed the growth in the China-sceptics. More and more articles that question the conventional wisdom are being published (I have included the links to a couple below), which suggests that we might be seeing the start of a turning point.
Only time will tell if the case for China has been over-made. However, given its importance, I think that it is an issue to which we will return from time to time.
Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China (New York Times 07/01/2010)
Think Again: Asia's Rise (Foreign Policy, July 2009)
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
Director of Research
European Futures Observatory
6 Greenways Close
Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 3RB
United Kingdom
Work: 44 (0) 1473 402302
Email: stephena@eufo.org
© The European Futures Observatory 2010
]]>future of marketing = connected consumer + agent-based modeling + behavioural science + data fusion + cognitive science
notes from a meeting from the previous day in which marketing and social media individuals came together to talk about the impact of the evolution/revolution of the new media is having, and will have, on the world of consumers.
there was a conversation about the variable belief in the impact of real behaviour. seemed that B2B were far more interested in listening to consumers than the consumer focused companies. the readiness to accept the change in the dealing with social media.
it is not generational. it was sector dependent. companies who thought that they needed to convene their consumers and step out the way and listen is quite different from those who want to moderate the conversation.
also a difference between those who can simply alter their product vs those who need to spend 10 years on research. it seems that the FMCP companies have a patronizing attitude to/with their consumers.
also a notion that the entire realm of marketing is in for a big change. there is a clear sense that this sector was not really ready for this change. lack of understanding to know what to do about this. should this function be more centralized or not? the openness might or might now fit with the culture of a company. it was interesting to observe that there was a great ability to
Jim - marketing means bring to market. it is about convincing people to buy
in Whyville, Dell has just built a pavilion in Whyville to design the new portable computer.
Wal-Mart is now going to push out a line of cloths designed by kids. the apparel people do not like, nor can deal with this very well, while the IT folks do. it is really about the consumer being able to create.
great recession or global civil war?
the g7 accounted for 75% of GDP in 2000, this will only be 32% by 2050
industrialization technology was developed in Great Britain and the US was the first society that was developed in which this was native.
information technology was developed in the US, but who will be the societies that are developing with this native? INDIA, BRAZIL, CHINA
capitalism's new environment?
high growth
low income per capita
globally connected
digitally native
mixed social priorities
how will the world be different in 2012?
or
identify something that will surprisingly remain the same.
- another bubble deflates and bursts
- decreasing globalization and increasing connectivity
- no progress on reducing carbon emissions
- companies will watch more than they listen
- africa will surprise on the upside
- america's leadership role will have dissipated
- china hits speedbumps on road to superpower position
- book-tablet will exist
- USA citizens will have two-jobs as a norm
- primacy of media over brand
- organizational discontinuity across the board in major companies
- carbon reduction will be bigger than information technology
- greenhouse gas emissions will still be 'on the agenda'
- reintegration of electrons and atoms.
- 1 million wyvillians will be able to vote, but Chaney and Palin will be elected anyway
- schools will become increasingly irrelevant to education
- increased focus on the porosity of organization
- make it yourself will start to make markets
- individuals will be increasingly placing focus on meaning
- increased fear of data tracking
boiled down into clusters around issues which it looks like Chris Meyer had in mind to begin with to talk about.
marketing, media, world order, value, manufacturing, corporate evolution, systems information,
i led a group on the future of urban information systems. i threw it out as a theme to see who would be interested. Peter Hirshberg was the most interesting person in the group. we talked about the imagination gap and the needs of individuals in the urban environment.
consilient economy. individuals are both the producers and consumers at the same time. we dont want to own things, we want to participate.
information is free. the real place to monitize is the professionalization of the information, the coaching and guidance thru the use of information. there is a fascinating differentiation/tension between narrative and data sets. these are two directions of thought that are being talked about by lev manovitch [http://www.manovich.net/] LOOK HIM UP
you can own narratives, but can only rent data. thus, the economic systems will be related to this new language. one issue will be the legitimacy of the data. the path thru the storyboard will be simulation in education will be a mix between push of the student and garden of the data.
when will data sets be copyrighted?
every book a talmud - it contains the stories of the owners.
]]>Sustainable Construction GAC
question of how to get beyond GDP to evaluate economies?
moving status from ownership to happiness.
how to design happy lives that use 1 Ton of carbon and only 5 Tonnes of non-renewable resources.
how to create inspiration from a different aspiration.
people should be inspired by the consequence of the choices. Mohkena
'creating need drives greed'
Biodiversity/Oceans
needed a pubic information campaign
they really needed a communication design package
potentially a sustainability index that an individual understands
Humanitarian GAC
design a system to coordinate an international NGO /National etc for humanitarian disasters
Cities GAC
they want a typology of cities
cities are very similar, so there needs to be a mechanism for them to get together more.
Catastrophic Risks
creae a Intergovernmental panel for CR similar to the IPCC
Urban Mobility
cites are now more congested and lots of CO2 is emitted from traffic.
would like for us to create design briefs for transport interfaces
design brief for designers to design streets for all modes of transportation
transit depends alot on gov't policy. these need to be made more transparent so that citizens understand the implications better.
Innovation GAC
they did nothing last year. now they are working on their identity and their tasks.
experiments yet to be determined.
Ageing society
if you can contribute to society, then you will live longer. need to find a way to enhance the participation of the elderly in society longer. need to design a continued contribution to society that is value adding. ACTIVE AGING
the pension system is not longer viable.
Chronic Disease
75% of all chronic disease is caused by smoking, eating not exercising. thus, anything the Design GAC can do to help with this area.
population growth
since it is 'manifest' there is a huge debate as to what to do. there is a need for a global system of growth management.
met and had a really interesting long chat with Larry Brilliant who was sitting with Lawrence Bloom from London. Discovered that Larry lives in MV! will get together when back.
opening session
full house opened by Andre Shhneider. Klaus is in Switzerland with a chest infection.
Lord Malloch-Brown is responsible for making sure that the GRI will be successful
Rick Samans will be leading this from the Forum side.
LM-B. This is a story of two platforms. one is the opportunity to discuss amoungst ourselves. the other platform is the burning platform outside of these walls around the world. he rambled quite a bit about the global challenges and the opportunity that this places.
RS. described the process which is expected to take place over the next 48 hours. there are supposed to be a series of two-page drafts of the real big issues which should be engaged by the GACs. these two pagers will be collected in a book that will be given out at Davos. there is a specific request for proposals for how to improve international organizations. these should be ready by mid december. Determine your own agenda. we expect to see concrete ideas coming forward. the world is in a crazy idea period. 5% of GDP was spent to bail out the global financial systems, now double digit deficit spending is also becoming the norm. there is a new normal being defined. what are the new structures that are appropriate?
Mohammed Alabbar joined with his words of welcome. 'the most powerful brainstorming session in the world' thinking about the issues that are of such vital nature to the future of the world. last year we sat here during the eye of the storm. we hope that we have learned a bit more. the past twelve months ahve been quite painful. many have tried to get to the bottom of the issues. we tried our best, but there was a lot of pain. some feel that we are thru it, but others not. we are certain that we will be able to give better advice now. we now know that debt is in the trillions, unemployment increasing, banks in difficult times......with all the intelligence in the world, how could this happen????? is this not a baffling question?
if we look at the Middle East. of course, we have been imp[acted. we are used to war and conflict, but not financial crises. this is really the fist time that this has happened to us. due to the lack of experience we are also learning. this brings me to Dubai. it has been in the news as the darling with fantastic stories. during the GFC the city has also been in the news. in the end, it all comes down to leadership and the stability of the leadership. he has shown this and we believe in it. Dubai is the hub of 350 million people in the middle east. The population continues to grow as does the Airport and infrastructure.
He is very upbeat and positive. and, mindful of the responsibility which those in this room share. three questions to think about:
1. if you were a citizen of another country, would your decision/recommendation be the same?
2. if you were out of work, poor and uneducated...would your decision be just?
3. will your ideas and recommendations truly improved the state of the world?
i have read quite a few books and my tolerance for poorly written fiction is very low. this future sci-fi work was surprisingly fresh. it makes you really think. i like that.
a good read if you need something that does not take your whole attention, but you want something that you do need to follow.
]]>it really is a must read. it is from another time. another vision of what our world could have become. at some point you know the ending but it is still incredibly moving as it draws to it's logical conclusion.
if you see it in a library, check it out.
]]>