This finding, which many parents who seek tech support from their fifth-grader already knows well, seems to be borne out by a new study on kids in digital environments being conducted by University of Southern California and University of California at Berkeley researchers with funding from the MacArthur Foundation. In an preliminary presentation of findings from extensive ethnographic work led by well-known academics such as Mimi Ito and danah boyd the researchers, indications emerged that the immediacy of creativity, accomplishment and peer respect that come with creating digitally in a social environment with other youth is more compelling to kids today than the long-term payoff that comes (hopefully) with formal education. In short, school delivers over 12 or 16 years, but kids can create within an online game, make a video and upload it, blog or write their own code at their own speed, often with more collaboration that they get in a curriculum which teaches to the test and then moves on.

The good news is that these students aren't waiting around to be given the tools to be creative. The better news is that some ingenious self-sufficiency is emerging from this dynamic. Most of the gamechanging digital innovations of recent years have come from bored, somewhat isolated, young individuals who had time on their hands, an idea, and probably a global audience and/or workshop of co-conspirators. The bad news is that most education systems are falling farther behind in harnessing this desire to create and collaborate, and have little or nothing to say about which direction it develops.

This morning BBC World Service's Business Daily featured an interview with Richard Parry-Jones, CTO of Ford, discussing the future of the consumer vehicle--the word "car" hardly seems to suit all of the definitions he put forward. Among other things, Parry-Jones discussed the changing nature of the vehicles we use, and where they may be in the future.

His practical, engineering-driven vision is shaped around a fitness-for-purpose model where urban commuting is marked by increasing use of small, lightweight, probably electric, vehicles perhaps "rented" on an as-needed basis for one or two passengers, resembling a Smart more than today's heavy SUVs and big sedans favored in the West. Think Zipcar meets Tata Nano for the masses, designed to meet the requirements of driving in the world's expanding megacities. He implied that such vehicles would probably not venture far outside the city boundaries due to their lack of power vis-a-vis longer range vehicles.

For mid-range travel from city to city, lighter weight frames and components will allow this class of vehicle to look roughly similar as today's vehicles, but be powered by a more efficient engine, probably a mix between conventional and hybrid, to take account for the mixed usage patterns of in-city and longer distance travel (hybrid engines are less useful for the latter). Lastly, Parry-Jones points to diesel power as the engine of choice for long distance vehicles, potentially biofuel-based, because of their efficiency. What he doesn't say, but is clearer from the way these vehicles are used to carry more passengers and cargo, is that the form will likely remain similar to today's trucks, vans and SUVs, but like their mid-range peers, use lighter weight components as well to lessen fuel demand.

One implication of this vision is that we are now moving from a model where consumers are presented with a range of style and functionalities in vehicles, which they can somewhat freely choose to fit the stylistic and functional requirements of their lifestyles, to one where economics become far more important, and choice is more directed by frequent usage patterns. Up till now, it has cost relatively little to choose a long-range vehicle for short-range use, i.e. the SUV for short, in-town trips to the grocery store and school runs, and likewise one could choose to run a hybrid for long-range commutes where it is less efficient. However, fuel costs, regulation and other external factors are forcing more attention to this "fitness-for-purpose" criteria, something certainly American consumers have had to grapple with very little in the past 50 years.

So, we potentially face a substantial period where function regains prominence over form in vehicle design. Car makers will argue that the two can be balanced carefully, and economical function can be balanced with beautiful form today. A look at the current examples would contradict that assertion in many cases.  Further out, however, this will stimulate a new emphasis on marrying attractive design to efficient construction and function. I, for one, can't wait.

Chipchase and his colleagues at Nokia, some of whom I have had the pleasure of working with, do a fantastic job of bringing these two critical streams--emerging behaviors and emerging technology--together at just the right time, or you might say just in time. His anthropologist, designer and ethnographer peers in many similar companies are also working diligently to better understand this process, people, and methods to create the future as and when it's needed, not simply to build their own version and push it out the door, hoping consumers' behaviors can be force fit to a design. Fortunately, these ideas and practices are spreading, and the benefits are beginning to be measurable in better lives, better opportunities, and success for the companies who see the light, as the article describes.

Now it's common to see people with their own personal Blackberries or smartphones who aren't road warriors but simply frequent communicators. It's also somewhat common to see two-smartphone owners--with one for work, and one for personal use--as prices fall and older models become easily available.

One growth area within this set is the domestic head-of-household, moms in particular. Today's Washington Post highlights the growing use of texting by parents to keep up with their kids and communicate with other text-addicted family members. This only touches on the tail end of the trend--in fact, more moms (and dads) are using these devices to communicate with their own  smartphone wielding kids and relations, using the personal information management applications onboard to keep track of family needs and events just the same as they would use these application for work.

What is interesting is how slowly device manufacturers and operators have caught on to what was happening under their noses. RIM took some of the first steps to address it with the Blackberry Pearl, which Palm followed by dressing up the Treo and now offering the Centro. Most operators have taken the view that Roger Entner of IAG Research offered in the article: that texting is perfect for busy moms because it doesn't require costly data packages or high-end devices. For some that's true, but we are already seeing evidence of rapid migration onto smartphones due to falling device costs, ease of use, and growth of this segment from the teen and sub-teen side. The smartphone family pack is right around the corner.

Presidential candidates take notice: forget Soccer Moms or even Nascar Moms, it's time to target the Crackberry Family: overpressured, constantly connected with little face-to-face family time, struggling to manage fragmented lives and stay in touch. (Image: edans/Flickr)

As one can see from the pictures in the Core77 gallery, the future of aircraft interiors--and one could argue the airports we use to get to and from them--looks more and more like a tranquil mix between a high-tech funeral home and a very sleek nightclub. This brings to mind an episode of "This American Life" from several years ago discussing the use of modern marketing tools to design a new religion and its church: the outcome of a straw poll was something that looked and felt like a first-class airport lounge, replete with soft music, minimalist interiors, obsequious service and time for silent meditation before the big journey.

The soft white lighting, nearly vertical walls, shell-like enclosures in the higher classes, and increased soundproofing are intended to remove the passenger as much as possible from the reality of flight, particularly on long-haul trips. Some cues are being taken from automotive interior design, but just as much seems to come from doctor's offices, churches, hotels and other places where we wait quietly.  

Perhaps a lot of this is down to designers' attempts to neutralize and sterilize what on it's face is quite a scary operation--scanning people in a heavily guarded space, then bundling them tightly into a fuel-filled canister and launching them into the air at high speed. The look and feel of these images and designs are equal parts "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Gattaca" with a little Ian Schrager on top for sex appeal.

With all of the increased attention drawn to the risks of modern aviation--fear of increasingly ghastly forms of air-based terrorism, the rapid growth in complexity of modern aviation equipment and operations, demand to hold the line or grow revenue from exorbitantly expensive services, and the very nature of our borderless world--it is no wonder that design elements for death, flight and distraction are all converging. As Laurent Haug wistfully remarked to me recently, flying used to be glamorous and romantic, now it's a misery. I think the airline industry is telling us something by its designs for the future.

While official figures aren't kept on a month-to-month basis, anecdotal evidence among practitioners and customers alike collected recently by journalists suggests that the desire to achieve the perfect manufactured body through easy access to retail plastic surgery has suffered a noticable decline in recent months. This downturn reverses some of the white-hot growth rates the sector had been experiencing, just as many doctors had made the investment to add cosmetic treatments to their menu of services. According to reports, many potential patients are opting for botox and other temporary non-invasive treatments over under-the-knife procedures like liposuction, breast augmentation and facelifts.

The implications for this shift are manifold. American, and global, aesthetics for beauty have been changing for some time, and have recently taken a steep turn toward artificial over natural, with media coverage of cosmetic surgery acting as an echo chamber, encouraging less wealthy, younger consumers to slice their way to this new definition of beauty. For the digital set, we even suspect there has been a sort of aesthetic merger with the look, feel and ease of creating virtual selves--making themselves into personalized avatars online and off. Harder times may mean this crowd sticks more to shaping second lives than reshaping real ones. Secondarily, a turn to other, less expensive means of reshaping and resurfacing may be on the cards as well. The market for cheaper chemical peels, microdermabrasion, cosmeceuticals, and injectable treatments will certainly benefit. Also, unregulated, black- and grey-market products will probably benefit as well, many trafficked in from Asia.

Lastly, as Slate points out, doctors may have to seek other forms of business, perhaps returning attention and investment to some of the basic services that lost attention as these new revenue streams in casual cosmetic services emerged. The loss of qualified doctors and other medical professionals to less critical but more profitable areas of treatment has undoubtedly had an impact on availability of services (it's doubtful that many new casual cosmetic treatment services subsidized core medical practices in any significant way). This bad news for dealers of sports cars and interior designers may be good news not only for drug stores but for sick patients as well. (Image: kowitz/Flicr)

The overall goal was to help attendees take the mass of information, ideas and concepts they'd been exposed to during the event and find both a reason and way to look at the future, imagining four possible but provocative worlds that examined bottom-up vs. top-down control of media in worlds where either the medium (technology) or the message (content) was most important. Asked to vote, the audience believed by a slight margin that a user-driven world where content is king was the scenario for 2018 that sounded most probable, which is interesting considering much of the audience is currently engaged in creating content for users rather than carrying content by users. The urge to embrace democratic creativity seems strong, or the current power of Web 2.0 holds everyone enthralled. At any rate, to sustain and grow the power of user-generated content in the overall interactive economy will require forethought and clear vision, which is what we were hoping to spark through this roundtable.

Here's looking forward to checking in on everyone's progress at ICE09! Anyone interested in the presentation from the event can contact me and I'll send them along. 

Whether it's exact directions to a location, an answer to a trivia question debated by friends, or a phone number someone else is searching for, the RND victim is able to grab the sought-after nugget of information with a few quick touches of an interface, popping his or her head into the global information sphere just long enough to be the know-it-all on the spot, trumping everyone else with not just the information but the physical (ok, digital) proof in hand as well. "Jenny wasn't at the party, you say? Oh, I beg to differ--let's check Flickr and I'll show you," or "No, Cafe Savant moved three months ago, to the place across from the mall!" The innovations of mobile broadband, pocket Internet access and the Web let you find out anything, just about anywhere you have access. Growth of the semantic and geographic layers of the Web have increased the power of access by orders of magnitude.

Why is the person with the technology at the disadvantage? In part because of the social stratification that information access increases. Not everyone wants to have the Internet at their finger tips all of the time, as the LA Times article points out:

Daniel Bernstein had one when he arranged to meet friends at a bowling alley in Daly City, near San Francisco. The lanes were booked. Bernstein used his iPhone to locate another bowling alley 10 miles away, find out how long the wait for a lane was and get driving directions.

Bernstein, director of business development at an Internet company, said his friends seemed more irked than appreciative. "They said, 'Thank you, iPhone,' " and not very nicely.

Having real-time access to information reveals several contrasts between those who do and those who don't: economic (I can afford it, you can't), social (knowledge is power) and technological (I can navigate things you can't). While it seems humorous now, this is an issue that bears tracking in the future: mastery of information has always been a social differentiator, but the speed of access, and the volume of information available, will exacerbate the differences.

To find out more about this topic and how Changeist can help your organization understand its impact and the opportunities it presents, contact us at + 1 919 373 4360, or at info @ changeist.com.  

Every month, the ONS examines the existing basket of goods and services to see if the items it includes properly reflects the economic lives of average consumers. About once a year, out-of-date items get tossed out in favor of those that better reflect the zeitgeist. For example, this year, the cost of fruit smoothies and muffins are now counted in the index, in favor of "stubbies" or short bottles of beer. Britons, surrounded in most high streets by newish cafes, are grabbing more bottled smoothies on the go, and picking up fewer packs of small beer bottles to drink in front of the television. Where does technology come into this picture? In a number of places: in the case of microwave ovens, their cost has fallen so much as to make them less valuable as indicators. Likewise, TV repair no longer counts because fewer people are taking their sets, mostly digital, in for a fix: with the decline of analog devices, repair services decline as well. It's cheaper to buy a TV one than get one fixed, an increasingly common situation with a lot of household technology.

Among the other casualties have been 35mm film cameras, which are being replaced by digital point-and-shoot devices and digital SLRs. Manual steering locks for cars are out, having been sidelined by automatic car locking devices. Also, thankfully, CD singles are out, reflecting the current hegemony of downloaded MP3s. One relic remains, though. CDs of so-called classic albums are still in. Some parts of the past we are reluctant to shed, sadly.

My own personal household technology revelation came when I purchased a replacement heart monitor watch last week: I realized not only was it my third in four years, it was the fourth in the household, and the 4th GPS-capable device I own (only one of which I actually use for location-finding). I am a reasonably early adopter, but not to the point of pathology. However, this moment of realization reminded me of a similar mental inventories in the past several years when I realized I had four or five devices capable of playing MP3s (now that's up to eight or nine, counting retired mobile phones), and before that realizing I had six or seven camera-bearing objects and five or six items capable of playing CDs.

The point is these technological functions creep into the household, sneaking in onboard products in which they may not be the main function. The cost of adding MP3, cameras, GPS, wireless heart monitoring, etc. has fallen to such a point with each of these "new" technologies that they just come as afterthoughts. And almost as quickly, they end up in desk drawers, ziplock bags, old briefcases, etc. Their cheapness creates a small scrapyard in my house of dormant technology, so cheap in fact I can afford to give it to the kids or just toss it out.

So, while we still cling to models that show a fairly linear conveyor belt of products hitting early adopters, then fast followers, then laggards, then the dollar store, we may need to reconsider the dynamics of technology penetration into homes. It may not be a question of convergence or fragmentation of functions, products and services, but a fairly steady rainfall of low-level tech into our lives, often riding along like a parasite on some other purchase. 

To find out more about this topic and how Changeist can help your organization understand its impact and the opportunities it presents, contact us at + 1 919 373 4360, or at info @ changeist.com.  

The issue specifically in question in a recent issue of Nature was the discussion by two academics of their colleagues' use of such drugs to further their working capacities. It is only controversial because use by academics themselves has been called out in public, while behind the scenes statistics mount daily about high school and college students' use of friends' prescriptions to cram for exams and otherwise extend study ability. Like alcohol, this use of so-called "smart drugs" is also finding its way into social and other professional situations, but instead of a drink to wind down after work, they are being used to enhance personality and performance in more important situations such as job interviews, presentations and such.

One analog to watch is the advance in enhancement in athletics. In the past decade, the line of acceptable assistance has moved from a good breakfast and some Gatorade to running with shorts interlaced by supportive bands of material that assist in muscle retraction for sprinters, as featured in the Adidas Techfit line of products. Today, no one complains about athletes wearing assistive clothing. So, after society moves beyond a few high profile "test cases" mulling the ethics of dosing the brain with smart drugs before a critical event (performing surgery, delivering the State of the Union address), we will all move on to find our breakfast cereal or morning juice will contain a hint of DMAE in a few years.

Of course, we could just stick to drinking tap water.

To find out more about this topic and how Changeist can help your organization understand its impact and the opportunities it presents, contact us at + 1 919 373 4360, or at info @ changeist.com.