Smart Economy

Peer pressure's influence calculated by mathematician

A mathematician has calculated how peer pressure influences society.

Professor Ernesto Estrada, of the University of Strathclyde's Department of
Mathematics and Statistics, examined the effect of direct and indirect social
influences – otherwise known as peer pressure – on how decisions are reached on
important issues. Using mathematical models, he analysed data taken from 15
networks – including US school superintendents and Brazilian farmers – to
outline peer pressure's crucial role in society.

Professor Estrada said: "Our modern society is a highly-interconnected one –
and social groups have become ever-more interconnected as time has progressed,
with the evolution from the cavemen to today's technology-driven society.

"Reaching consensus about vital topics – such as global warming, the cost of
health care and insurance systems, and healthy habits – is crucial for the
evolution of our society.

"That is why the study of consensus has attracted the attention of scholars
in a variety of disciplines, ranging from social to natural sciences, who have
documented examples of peer pressure's influence on popular cultural styles –
such as changing fashions over time and the behavior of crowds at football
matches – as well as collective decision-making, and even pedestrians' walking
behavior."

Professor Estrada's research into how decisions are reached found that the
process begins when individuals directly connected to each other first reach
agreement, then – under the influence of peers not directly connected to them –
the entire social group eventually tips into a collective consensus. He said:
"Consider a teenager who is pressed by her friends into binge-drinking on a
Saturday night – this corresponds to the direct pressure exerted by the peers
connected to that individual.

"However, she is also under indirect pressure, by seeing that many teenagers
are doing the same every Saturday. Thus, this indirect pressure could make the
difference in that individual to copy a given attitude."

Professor Estrada's study, being published today in the Nature journal
"Scientific Reports", also examined the extent to which a small number of
leaders can guide and dictate the behavior – and decisions – of an entire social
group.

He said: "Think about the existence of groups in different organisations,
such as industries. Every organisation has one or more leaders who might, for
example, be trying to convince the group to go to – or indeed not attend – a
demonstration about a contentious issue.

"The group can reach a consensus about the topic only by considering the
direct pressure exerted by the members of the group and that of the leaders.
However, if the individuals in the group observe that many other workers from
external places have joined the demonstration, they can take a decision to join
– regardless of the pressure exerted by their leaders."

In social groups in which indirect peer pressure is largely absent, the
extent to which its leaders share the same views plays a critical role in the
length of time it takes to reach agreement on issues. However, when there is
strong indirect peer pressure, the role of the local leaders vanishes and
individuals with no important positions in their networks can become the leaders
of the group.

Professor Estrada said: "Think about, for instance, the change of attitudes
in respect to the smoking habit. In the 70s, it was very cool to smoke and you
would see actors lighting cigarettes all the time on TV – and movie stars were
always smoking at decisive moments in films.

"Back then, individuals were not only directly pressed by their colleagues
and friends to smoke but they also saw that people of the same social class, age
and gender were doing the same. In this way, the combination of both direct and
indirect peer pressure influenced the individuals to take up smoking.

"What is happening right now is the reverse. Many people have stopped smoking
and they apply some direct pressure to their relatives and friends to quit
too.

"However, in addition – and probably more importantly – individuals feel a
lot of indirect pressure from the wider society to avoid smoking in public
places. Smoking is not cool anymore – the combined action of direct and indirect
peer pressure is winning the battle against tobacco use."

 

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Wedded bliss or blues? Scientists link DNA to marital satisfaction

By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | October 7, 2013

BERKELEY —  What makes some people more prone to wedded bliss or sorrow than others? Researchers at UC Berkeley and Northwestern University have found a major clue in our DNA. A gene involved in the regulation of serotonin can predict how much our emotions affect our relationships, according to a new study that may be the first to link genetics, emotions, and marital satisfaction. The study was conducted at UC Berkeley.

New study links gene variant to our level of marital satisfaction (IStockphoto)

“An enduring mystery is, what makes one spouse so attuned to the emotional climate in a marriage, and another so oblivious?” said UC Berkeley psychologist Robert W. Levenson, senior author of the study published online today (Oct. 7)  in the journal Emotion. “With these new genetic findings, we now understand much more about what determines just how important emotions are for different people.”

Specifically, researchers found a link between relationship fulfillment and a gene variant, or “allele,” known as 5-HTTLPR. All humans inherit a copy of this gene variant from each parent. Study participants with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles were found to be most unhappy in their marriages when there was a lot of negative emotion, such as anger and contempt, and most happy when there was positive emotion, such as humor and affection. By contrast, those with one or two long alleles were far less bothered by the emotional tenor of their marriages.

“We are always trying to understand the recipe for a good relationship, and emotion keeps coming up as an important ingredient,” said Levenson, who heads up a longitudinal study that has tracked over 150 married couples for more than 20 years.

The new findings don’t mean that couples with different variations of 5-HTTLPR are incompatible, the researchers note. Instead, it suggests that those with two short alleles are likelier to thrive in a good relationship and suffer in a bad one. The results of the study, which looked at the genotypes of more than 100 spouses and observed how they interacted with their partners over time, bore this out, they said.

“Individuals with two short alleles of the gene variant may be like hothouse flowers, blossoming in a marriage when the emotional climate is good and withering when it is bad,” said Claudia M. Haase, assistant professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University and lead author of the study, which she conducted as a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley. “Conversely, people with one or two long alleles are less sensitive to the emotional climate.”

“Neither of these genetic variants is inherently good or bad,” Haase added. “Each has its advantages and disadvantages.”

Researchers found that those with one type of gene variant were more vulnerable to the emotional tenor of their marriage (iStockphoto)

Participants in the study belong to a group of 156 middle-aged and older couples whose relationships Levenson and fellow researchers have followed since 1989. Every five years, the couples have come to UC Berkeley to report on their marital satisfaction and interact with one another in a lab setting while researchers code their conversations based on facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and topic of discussion.

More recently, 125 of the study participants provided DNA samples, and researchers matched their genotypes with their levels of marital satisfaction and the emotional tenor of their interactions in the lab setting.

For spouses with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles, who made up 17 percent of the spouses studied, researchers found a strong correlation between the emotional tone of their conversations and how they felt about their marriage. For the 83 percent of spouses with one or two long alleles, on the other hand, the emotional quality of their discussions bore little or no relation to their marital satisfaction over the next decade.

The link between genes, emotion and marital satisfaction was particularly pronounced for older adults. “One explanation for this latter finding is that in late life – just as in early childhood – we are maximally susceptible to the influences of our genes,” Levenson said.

Categories: Health & medicine, News, Press Release, Science, Social science
Tags: genes, marriage, psychology, relationships

Finding the next leader or For power and status, dominance and skill trump likability

Finding the next Barack Obama or Warren Buffett might be as simple as looking at who attracts the most eyes in a crowd, a new University of British Columbia study finds.

For the study, which used eye-tracking technology, participants who observed groups of strangers were able to accurately predict who would emerge as leader of the group in 120 seconds or less.

According to the study – to appear in the forthcoming Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – two sets of behaviours will accurately predict future leadership and catch people's attention. The first is prestige – the appearance of skill and competency. The second is dominance, which includes the ability to impose ideas on others through bullying and intimidation.

"Our findings suggest there are really two ways to top the social ladder and gain leadership – impressing people with your skills or powering your way through old-fashioned dominance," says lead author Joey Cheng, a PhD candidate in UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "By measuring levels of influence and visual attention, we find that people defer to and readily spot the prestigious and dominant leaders."

Surprisingly, the study finds that one's likeability – long considered essential for modern leaders – does not consistently predict the attainment of greater status. While participants preferred leaders with prestige, they were surprisingly likely to choose dominant leaders. They were also more forgiving of dominant behaviour than outside observers, the researchers say.

The findings might explain the ongoing prevalence of aggressive leaders in business and politics, such as Donald Trump or Toronto mayor Rob Ford. According to the researchers, today's dominant behaviour has evolved from resource and power battles from our evolutionary past. Prestige's viability as means of attaining status, has increased with the rise of meritocracy in society.

Backgrounder

The study had two parts. First, 200 participants completed a problem-solving task in small groups while being videotaped. Group members rated participants' dominance, prestige and influence during the task, including their own. Participants who were more dominant or prestigious had a greater influence on the task and were perceived as more influential by group members.

In the second part of the study, 60 additional participants watched a total of 120 seconds of short videos of the initial group interactions while wearing an eye-tracking device. These participants paid significantly greater attention to individuals in the clips who appeared more dominant or prestigious, indicating their higher levels of influence.

 

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Study co-authors include Jessica Tracy, Alan Kingstone, Joseph Henrich (UBC psychology) and Tom Foulsham (formerly UBC, now University of Essex).

 

Technology, Control, Happiness and Depression: Is technology controlling you and your life or vise a versa?

(Graphic from New Scientist)  Just sit back and think for a moment: how long has it been since you read your last email? Scanned your last last Twitter?  Dispatched you previous text message? Updated Facebook or Linked In?

With the annual homage to the  Mecca of consumer materialism -the consumer electronics show  (CES) in  Vegas this month ,it may be appropriate to ask the bigger social question

Is technology controlling you and your life or vise a versa?  

Yair Amichai-Hamburger offers  a provocative opinion piece on this month’s issue of New Scientist (Dec 27, 2009 volume 2739) titled “Shiny unhappy People” in the print version or “Free yourself from oppression by technology.” In  the online version

From his Tetrad model, Marshall McLuhan reminds us that technology has four simultaneous impacts on society...and in this case, here's my take on the social impacts and secondary consequences of communication technologies

 

1)Something gets enhanced?  (materialism, consumption, depression, a stecato culture of information, continuous interruption, a middle class that's under the influence of mass cultural and perpetual distraction, fragmentation of reactive efforts, sense of being overwhelmed and not knowing were to turn, public passivity, digital version of divide to conquer etc )

2) something gets obsolesced or lost?  (social relationships, happiness, tenacity & longevity of thought, thoroughness,  propensity for societal action, coordinated social response)

3) something gets brought back or retrieved? (digital-slavery, time enslavement ) and

4) something gets flipped or reversed?  (from ease of communication to communication stress &Info overload or what I call pauperization of communication & information, debasted or watered-down wisdom)

 

Amichai-Hamburger touches on  all 4 of these social impacts- enhancement, retrieval, obsolescence, and reversal.

 

Here’s a recap and summary of his key points

• "Are we being served by these technological wonders or have we become enslaved by them?"
• We living in an"age of melancholy" coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman to describe our era. "People today experience more depression than previous generations, despite the technological wonders that help us every day. It might be because of them."
• "Our lifestyles are increasingly driven by technology. Phones, computers and the internet pervade our days. There is a constant, nagging need to check for texts and email, to update Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn profiles, to acquire the latest notebook or 3G cellphone. "
• "For many of us it is becoming increasingly difficult to control the impulse to check our inbox yet again or see whether the headlines have changed since we last looked. [...] In many homes, the computer has become the centre of attention; it is the medium through which we work and play."
• "How did this arise, and what is it doing to us? In this era of mass consumption, we are surrounded by advertising that urges us to find fulfillment through the acquisition of material goods. As a result, adults and children increasingly believe that in order to belong and feel good about themselves, they must own the latest model or gadget."
• "Yet research has shown that people who place a high value on material goals are unhappier than those who are less materialistic. Materialism is also associated with lower self-esteem, greater narcissism, greater tendency to compare oneself unfavorably with other people, less empathy and more conflict in relationships."
• "People who place a high value on material goals are unhappier than those who are less materialistic "--N.B. this is supported by other studies that show consumers value "experiential events" over "material goods"--Walter Derzko
• "Our culture also constantly reminds us that time is money. This implies a need for total efficiency, which is why we are allowing laptop computers and mobile phones to blur the separation between work and home. As one unhappy human-resource manager in a high-tech company put it: "They gave me a mobile phone so they can own me 24 hours a day, and a portable computer, so my office is now with me all the time - I cannot break out of this pressure." Sound familiar?"
• "Psychologists generally believe that the lack of a clear separation between work and home significantly damages our relationships with loved ones. It also predisposes us to focus on the here and now at the expense of long-term goals."
• "By imposing these twin pressures, modern society is in danger of swapping standard of living for quality of life. We need ways to help recover those increasingly large parts of our lives that we have ceded to technology, to regain mastery over technology and learn to use it in a healthy and positive way."
• Amichai-Hamburger offers a 4 point  prescription to reagin self-control based on  self-determination theory, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan of the University of Rochester in New York state. It identifies three vital elements of healthy personal development and functioning that  can be used to recalibrate our relationship with technology. Amichai-Hamburger  thenadds a 4th point below.

1) "The first is autonomy - the feeling that our activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed. When we feel in control, we are able to organize our priorities and place effective boundaries around them. But when we feel we have insufficient control, it leaves us vulnerable to our impulses and causes us to abdicate decisions to other people. It is easy to see how technology undermines autonomy, but also how to regain it. This may be as simple as switching off mobile phones during meals and family time, setting aside specific times to answer emails, and being available only when we choose to be."

2) "We also need a sense of competence, a belief that our actions are effective. In this respect our relationship with technology is complex, because many of us feel competent when we deal with an email, when we have the newest BlackBerry, or because 50 people enjoyed the holiday snaps we posted on Facebook. "

3) "Relatedness:our need to feel close to other people. Technology is a threat to this. Devices like the iPod can be used to create a bubble that disconnects us from normal human interactions, and while some virtual relationships may be truly meaningful, in many cases they come at the expense of real-world connections. Psychologists have found that the pivotal difference between happy and unhappy people is the presence or absence of rich and satisfying social relationships. Spending meaningful time with friends, family and partners is necessary for happiness."

Many North American's have lost this, which is why seemingly poorer nations tend to be happier --Walter Derzko.

4) "Critical thinking. In today's world, where we are potentially available 24/7 to absorb messages from well-honed advertisements, it is vital that we know how to analyze and evaluate their validity - and to neutralize them where necessary."

Autonomy, competence, relatedness and critical thinking are the best ways to establish a balanced approach to technology, and so enhance our well-being.

Intersting question to ponder...will Eastern & Asian cultures (India, China etc) turn to North American ideals of materialism & consumption to find fullfillment in life as they develop economically or to something else?--Walter Derzko

N.B Yair Amichai-Hamburger is director of the Research Center for Internet Psychology at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

Full story here

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

 

Author of the soon-to-be published book- Opportunity 45 Scenarios to Drive Your Business in Challenging Times, published by J. Wiley and Sons

ISBN13: 978-0-470-73761-3

ISBN10: 0-470-73761-1

Communication technologies eventually flip and lead to disconnected staccato lifestyle

Technology is not just a double edged sword-paradoxical good and bad effects. It’s far more complex-it’s a quadruple blade or four-edged blade sword.

McLuhan predicted and warned us that every technology or human invented construct has 4 simultaneous effects on culture and society, which strategists and marketers often ignore to their peril. One of them is "reversal or flip". What happens at the extreme when everyone is using technology X? There is a flip or reversal. Cars, which were supposed to be the ultimate transportation devise,  in time have created  gridlock, delays, frustration and pollution, as the system scales up. Sometimes its faster to walk then wait in traffic.

The same subtle "flip" effects are happening in the communication world.

People often ask: what’s the social impact of communication technology X? In fact, that’s the wrong question to ask. They should be asking: what are the social and cultural impacts of the entire family or cluster the technologies that technology X belongs to?  

I’ve coined the term “staccato effect” or “staccato lifestyle”—from the musical definition of staccato

[Music. Cut short crisply; detached: staccato octaves.  or marked by or composed of abrupt, disconnected parts or sounds: staccato applause.]

…because that's what my work day sometimes feels like. 

Communication technologies, which were suppose to help us connect, are starting to have the reverse effect on society. They are disconnecting us by our constant connectedness.--the staccato effect.

We never stay focused long enough on a task, problem or opportunity window to make sense of it, but shift our attention to the next immediate crisis, largely facilitated or accelerated by our range of communication devices. It all started with the photocopy Xerox machine, and has progressed to iphones, email and twitter We are loosing our ability to reflect and our reflection time to make sense of new information….

Think of the last time you had lunch or coffee with someone, who would be constantly interrupting the flow of the conversation by turning to their cell phone calls, email alerts, or twitter text messages.

Our life and job can now be characterizeded as a constantt string of distractions, punctuations or interruptions.

There is an interesting article in the Boston Globe this morning, describing some of the McLuhanesque-like social impacts of communication technology and Information overload and anxiety called: The End of Alone?  At our desk, on the road, or on a remote beach, the world is a tap away. It's so cool. And yet it's not. What we lose with our constant connectedness [Hat tip to Peter Montgomery]. 

 

The author notes:

 

"If you can't remember the last time you were truly unplugged, you've got company".

 

....but later  makes the point about the benefits of solitude:

"Descartes, Newton, Locke, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard -- they share the distinction of having been some of the greatest thinkers the world has known. They also share this: None of them ever married or had their own families, and most of them spent the bulk of their lives living alone.

In his provocative 1989 book Solitude: A Return to the Self, British writer and psychiatrist Anthony Storr made a persuasive case for the value of deep, uninterrupted alone time. He found it in ample supply in the lives of not just philosophers and physicists, but also some of the greatest poets, novelists, painters, and composers."

but warns that many people now can't deal with being unplugged, (exhibiting classic with-drawl symptoms), which leads me to ask: What would happen to people if the Internet ever crashed for an extended period of time? Could it? Next big solar corona flare? Well remember that they said that the Titanic was unsinkable too.

University of Toronto researcher Rhonda McEwen tracked the communication behavior of students across their freshmen year…[…]… McEwen found in her University of Toronto study that college students are constantly connected to the point of having no concept of a truly unplugged life. There's a time-honored tradition in Canada of "going to the cottage," usually in the summertime, and being blissfully disconnected from the rest of the world. "The participants in my study had real discomfort going to the cottage,"McEwen says. "If there's no cellphone reception, no Internet access, they think, 'What the hell am I doing out there?' "

  

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto and Canada

From: Walter Derzko

Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 12:19 AM

To: undisclosed list

Subject: re Smart Sustainability ShowCase for Toronto and Canada.

Importance: High

Dear Colleagues

I’d like to plant an idea with you – after speaking with a number of designers and vendors, I’m exploring the idea for a sustainability showcase that would feature theme based exhibits with smart technologies from Canadian and international sources-the best from Ontario, nationally and from around the world.

The launch would be 2010, The timing for this seems right.  The target audience would be Canadian business, consumers and school children

I’m writing a book on smart technologies and this would be a logical extension of the concept.

Two years ago I talked to Samantha Sannella and Poala Polletto at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto and with several people at the Ont Science Center.  Both groups expressed interest but said that we would need to find sponsors for the project

My business model for this would be three pronged -vendor based revenue, corporate based sponsor revenue and municipality based sponsorship ie city of Toronto or Mississauga and possibly the province of Ontario who may wish to promote sustainable manufacturing.

This concept would be a Canadian, in fact a North American first.

I have a list of 150 potential vendors, and designers from around the world who are working on smart technologies that we can start to approach.

The exhibits would be theme based, --the sustainable kitchen, the sustainable office, the sustainable retail shelf, the sustainable workspace, the sustainable community, the sustainable city etc and would be updated with new technologies every 3-5 years and have a 1-5 year forward focus. (what's commercially available now or in the very near future.

For other exhibits, there can be a regional or national focus ie smart sustainable technology from the UK, Finland, Germany (Fraunhofer Inst), China, Ukraine, Russia, or Singapore, Hong Kong etc

Corporate sponsors might include: Walmart, Rona, Home Deport, Canadian Tire, Loblaws, Sears, Imperial Oil, the banks (RBC, TD, RBC BMO) etc.

The Sustainability Showcase could be housed in a physical location, or it could tour from location to location around the city or province or be mobile ( on a bus the way the Japanese and Korean do- a display bus turned into a demo center that tours from school to school or to fairs and exhibitions.

OCAD students and staff and Beal senior fellows could play a hand in designing exhibit spaces and sourcing new vendors and sustainable technologies.

Several other revenue opportunities could spin off from this as well

Here’s just a few examples of what can be showcased

1) Environmentally sensible packaging such as Mercury-Absorbant NanoSponge packaging for broken compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2008/06/mercury-absorba.html

2) Concrete Wood (from the example I mentioned June 2 at OCAD, when Bob Logan was bemoaning the lack of durability of pressboard shelving from Ikea.  See Concrete Wood from lodgepole pine trees destroyed by pine beetles (kills two birds with one stone) http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2007/11/concrete-wood.html

3) End of Traditional Heating and Air conditioning Thin-film version of Active Building Envelope (ABE) systems could make conventional air conditioning and heating equipment obsolete http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/07/thinfilm_versio.html

4) OLEDs New High efficiency flat light source OLEDs > Almost any surface in a home, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets, shelves or tables.  Http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2006/04/new_high_effici.html

Lots more like these

For anyone who is interested in exploring the idea of a Smart Sustainability Showcase for Toronto, we are having a meeting on Tuesday July 22 at 11 am at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, room 600, 6th floor , 100 McCaul St, Toronto just south of the Ont Art Gallery.

Please RSVP, so we know how many people are coming

I have had some positive feedback from several organizations, & I’d like to push the concept forward

I'm sending this nationally and internationally in  case you are aware of any designers, vendors, manufacturers or research centers who have interesting cutting edge smart sustainable technology to showcase.

Contact me by email

----Walter  Derzko; Senior Fellow Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, OCAD 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Carbon fasting for Lent and Easter 08-089

Social innovations are often needed to speed up the adoption of technological innovations

Want to give up something for Easter and Lent?

How about Carbon fasting? Some people give up chocolate, smoking, or alcohol but one N.C. parish, the United Church of Chapel Hill. is conserving energy. see ABC News today

Making Sense of Social Media 08-077

I ran across another interesting report from VTT in Finland called Making Sense of Social Media; Interviews and Narratives by Sirkka Heinonen and Minna Halonen (eds) Espoo 2007 SOMED Foresight Report 2

Get pdf report here

Millennium development goals: radically reducing extreme poverty and hunger. Are we on track? 07-200

One year ago in my presentaion at the World Futures Society on Smart Technologies I was reflecting on how smart technologies, namely nanotech and biotech converging technologies could be used to address the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In April 2007, the General Assembly of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations convened to discuss progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Professor Patrick Webb,  dean for academic affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at  Tufts University, presented on the status of the Millennium Development Goal One (MDG1): radically reducing extreme poverty and hunger.

The MDGs were developed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to set measurable goals and targets for a range of pressing global problems, including poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

MDG1 has a twofold objective: reduce the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day, and reduce the proportion of people suffering hunger by half. In order to meet these goals, Webb highlighted recent successes that can guide future efforts.

There are three priority issues to be tackled in seeking to address the second objective (on hunger)

• removing the ‘invisibility’ of hunger by better measuring and highlighting areas making limited progress,
• promoting innovations in programming, and
• integrating mainstream lessons from successful action in humanitarian settings (saving lives and reducing acute malnutrition) into development interventions.

Development efforts can address these issues by improving protocols and products for treating malnutrition, and preventing malnutrition by enhancing behaviors and choices that lead to improved nutrition throughout the lifecycle.

Poverty and hunger are multidimensional problems requiring multidimensional solutions. (see related post on Sensmaking Redux 2006)

To address the multidimensional nature of these problems, the first MDG addresses five distinct goals: reducing poverty, narrowing the poverty gap (between richest and poorest), increasing the share of income enjoyed by the poorest families, reducing the share of preschool children who are underweight, and lowering the share of each country’s population that has too little to eat.

“Progress in one target area does not guarantee progress in the other areas,” says Webb. “Focusing on just one aspect of the problem, or just one of the target risks, is missing the point…and risks compromising the success of the entire agenda.”

Speaking on behalf of the three Rome-based agencies of the United Nations (the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)), Webb argued that governments should engage more seriously in measuring their own progress towards agreed goals. Solutions to hunger are known, and novel approaches to the treatment and prevention of malnutrition in emergencies have shown that quick gains are possible. Making such gains sustainable means scaling up innovations across developing country settings, and targeting resources towards such key priorities.

This meeting of Member States, UN System Organizations, other major institutional stakeholders, as well as non-governmental organizations, academics and foundations concentrated on the theme “Eradicating poverty and hunger – Joining forces to make it happen.” The conference explored the issues and set the groundwork for the ECOSOC’s first Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) this summer in Switzerland.

Webb concluded by stating that “…in order to successfully impact malnutrition it takes complementary inputs delivered through complementary partnerships. It is not only about food, and it is not only about cash in the pocket. Many different elements are needed to achieve the five goals, and many institutions have to bring their resources to bear. In order to tackle the problem it is not possible to focus on just agriculture or just health; in order to be successful the many facets of the problem must all be addressed.”

Webb will continue to work with the many stakeholders involved in assessing progress and further advancing the important human goals that are the MDGs.

Source: Tufts Univ press release

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Nanotech promises big things for poor?...but will promises be kept? Asks Peter A. Singer 07-069

Health care in developing countries could be greatly improved by the smart use of intelligent nanotechnology

"Nanotechnology has the potential to generate enormous health benefits for the more than five billion people living in the developing world," according to Dr. Peter A. Singer, senior scientist at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health and Professor of Medicine at University of Toronto.

"Nanotechnology might provide less-industrialized countries with powerful new tools for diagnosing and treating disease, and might increase the availability of clean water."

"But it remains to be seen whether novel applications of nanotechnology will deliver on their promise. 

A fundamental problem is that people are not engaged and are not talking to each other.  Business has little incentive as shown by the lack of new drugs for malaria, dengue fever and other diseases that disproportionately affect people in developing countries to invest in the appropriate nanotechnology research targeted at the developing world. 

Government foreign assistance agencies do not often focus, or focus adequately, on science and technology.  With scant public awareness of nanotechnology in any country, there are few efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community groups to examine how nanotechnology could be directed toward, for example, improving public health in the developing world."

Dr. Singer's group in Toronto published a study in 2005 identifying and ranking the ten nanotechnologies most likely to benefit the developing world in the near future.  (See the end of my Smart Economy Keynote address at the wfs.org 2006 )

Nanotechnology applications related to energy storage, production, and conversion; agricultural productivity enhancement; water treatment and remediation; and diagnosis and treatment of diseases topped the list. 

Dr. Singer's group has also shown that there is a surprising amount of nanotechnology R&D activity in several developing countries, and that these nations are directing their nanotechnology innovation systems to address their more pressing needs.

"Countries like Brazil, India, China and South Africa have significant nanotechnology research initiatives that could be directed toward the particular needs of the poor.  But there is still a danger if market forces are the only dynamic that small minorities of people in wealthy nations will benefit from nanotechnology breakthroughs in the health sector, while large majorities, mainly in the developing world, will not," noted Dr. Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.  "Responsible development of nanotechnology must include benefits for people in both rich and poor nations and at relatively low cost.  This also requires that careful attention be paid to possible risks nanotechnology poses for human health and the environment."

Dr. Piotr Grodzinski, director of the Nanotechnology Alliance for Cancer at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH) discussed the impact of nanotechnology on diagnostics and therapies for cancer. 

He said, "It is my belief that nanomaterials and nanomedical devices will play increasingly critical and beneficial roles in improving the way we diagnose, treat, and ultimately prevent cancer and other diseases.  But we face challenges; the complexity of clinical implementation and the treatment cost may cause gradual, rather than immediate, distribution of these novel yet effective approaches."

"For example, in the future, it may be possible for citizens in Bangladesh to place contaminated water in inexpensive transparent bottles that will disinfect the water when placed in direct sunlight, or for doctors in Mexico to give patients inhalable vaccines that do not need refrigeration," Dr. Maynard noted.  "Nanotechnologies could revolutionize health care in developing countries and make treatments more readily available for diseases that claim millions of lives around the world each year."

The discussion took place at a program entitled "Using Nanotechnology to Improve Health Care in Developing Countries," held at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  The event was organized by the Wilson Center?s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and Global Health Initiative.  It was moderated by Dr. Jeff Spieler, chief of research, technology and utilization for the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

international experts on addressing possible nanotechnology risks and developing safe nanotechnologies, and brings a much-needed science perspective to a field fraught with uncertainty.

Source: News Release Release No.  15-07 Embargoed 12:01 a.m. February 27, 2007

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Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

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