Smart Economy

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

Is anyone using Marshall McLuhan's tetrad model for technology foresight work? 08-082

Is anyone using Marshall McLuhan's tetrad model for technology foresight work?

Marshal McLuhan was the "master" in predicting the social impacts of new technology (in his case the media) with deadly accuracy. Marshal would ask himself 4 simple questions ( which he called the tetrad), to explore the impacts and consequences of any new technology, that he didn't fully understand yet.

1) What does the technology enhance? 2) What does the technology make obsolete? 3) What does the technology retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? 4) What does the technology flip into when pushed to the extremes?

Using McLuhan's tetrad model to discover the impacts of a new technology, we see that Obama's “internet fundraising” campaign:

1) Enhances: visibility, more time out on the hustings, proximity to the voter

2) Obsolesces; the corporate donor as the sole sponsor, corporate influence, influence peddling,

3) Brings Back or retrieves: the collection plate that gets passed around in a virtual voter congregation

4) Reverses or Flips into: politics for the masses and not just the rich; money from the masses, “a penny for your politics”, distributed decision-making in politics and distributed representation

Walter Derzko

Is technology making your life simpler or more complex or both? Join the debate 08-081

Is technology making your life simpler or more complex or both? 

Debating Freedom and its digital discontents..... In our second debate of this series we address the proposition: "This house believes that if the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, it is failing."

Speaker Pro:Richard Szafranski Partner in Toffler Associates

Speaker Con: John Maeda President Elect of the Rhode Island School of Design

Join the debate on the Economist web page

Predicting the impacts of any new technology

"The telephone is a fantastic invention & I'm sure every city will get one."

The above quote seems funny, even childish in hindsight, but illustrates the difficulty in anticipating the consequences and impacts of a new-to-the-world  technology and its range of applications.

The Swedish Technology Foresight Project  did a "technology hindsight" study looking back at earlier attempts at predicting technology futures called Technisk Baksyn (Technology Hindsight)

From the above study and from some of my own insights with clients, some of the common sources of technology foresight errors and miscalculations include:

• The early hype error. In the stort term, marketers, promoters and eager inventors  seem to overestimate the impacts of any new technology and in the long term underestimate such impacts and consequences (see the Gartner Hype curves)
• The replacement hype error-the belief that new technology will  replace the existing incumbent technology & that this will happen relatively fast. In reality competing technologies often coexist over a long period of time (i.e. Radio & TV)
• The enhancement error-The belief that new technology will only solve old problems & supplement existing technological systems. Instead new technologies, especially platform or core technologies often lay the groundwork for entirely new systems and new resulting systemic problems.  (ie the electric motor for the railway, the car for the roadway infrastructure, the PC for the Internet, nanotech & biotech  for our bodies "intra-structure" (the Human Genome project, the HapMap & SNP's), the impacts of which we do not fully understand yet.
• The panacea error-The mistaken belief that new technology will function as a panacea for various social problems
• The patterning and sense-making error-The difficulty of seeing new important links between seemingly unrelated and different fields of technology, especially in cases where this novel combination of fields is precisely what will offer major accelerated development opportunities
• The social impacts error-Often people who have tried to predict the future have become bogged down in the actual technology and neglected the economic and social aspects.
• The prisoners of our times error-That without realizing it, people tend to be prisoners of the spirit of their times ( Zeitgeist), erroneously believing that the big issues of today will also be the big issues of tomorrow
• The decision criteria error-The belief that only rational economic considerations are the only factors behind that choice of one technology over another. However, for many people, seemingly irrational considerations determine such choices
• The information gap error-The information on which science and technology (S&T) foresight studies are based on is often insufficient. Technology development is not linear, transparent or fully predictable, with surprise development coming out of left field such as the secret work that is done in the military or a new startup working in stealth  mode before it goes public with a breakthrough. Entrepreneurs have to deal with many unknowns -complexity, uncertainty, equivocality, ambiguity, the trap of dichotomous thinking or dichotomy, contradiction or paradox and infoglut.

From the above, the only thing we can predict for sure is that unexected things will happen

Marshal McLuhan was the "master" in predicting the social impacts of new technologogy (in his case the media) with deadly accuracy. Marshal would ask himself 4 simple questions, which he called the tetrad, to explore the impacts and consequences of any new technology, that he didn't fully understand yet. 1) What does the technology enhance?  2) What does the technology make obsolete?  3) What does the technology retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?  4) What does the technology flip into when pushed to extremes? 

Entrepreneurs can learn how to use this 'tetrad" tool and as well as many other tools that help develop entrepreneurial and S&T insight and foresight.

Source: Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Toronto, SCS see here

The Buckminsterfuller Challenge & $100,000 prize

The Buckminsterfuller Challenge - http://challenge.bfi.org/

Each year a distinguished jury will award a single $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a solution that has the potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity.  The Buckminsterfuller Challenge sponsored by the Institute bearing his name seeks submissions of design science solutions within a broad range of human endeavor that will exemplify the “trimtab principle”.  Trimtabs demonstrate how small amounts of energy and resources precisely applied at the right time and place can produce maximum advantageous change.  Entries accepted from September 4 – October 30, 2007.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge seeks submissions of design science solutions within a broad range of human endeavor that exemplify the trimtab principle.  Trimtabs demonstrate how small amounts of energy and resources precisely applied at the right time and place can produce maximum advantageous change.  Solutions should be:

• Comprehensive — a clear demonstration of holistic systems thinking.
• Anticipatory — projectively tracking critical trends and needs; identifying and assessing long term consequences of proposed solutions.
• Ecologically responsible — reflective and supportive of nature's underlying processes, patterns and principles.
• Verifiable — able to withstand rigorous empirical testing.
• Replicable — capable of being readily undertaken by others.
• Achievable — likely to be implemented successfully and broadly adopted. 

For further details, please contact the Buckminsterfuller Institute at [email protected] or by telephone at          718-290-9283       .

Source: FUTUREdition Newsletter; Volume 10, Number 17;  09/17/2007;  Edited by John L. Petersen

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

© 2005-2007

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 "

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 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

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

UK Government publishes Strategic Horizon Scans

The Horizon Scanning Centre has commissioned two complementary scans looking ahead up to 50 years : the Sigma Scan and the Delta Scan.

Initial versions of both scans have been published by the contractors who developed them : Sigma Scan by Outsights - Ipsos MORI and Delta Scan  by the Institute for the Future (IFTF).

The Sigma Scan is a broad synthesis of some of the world's best Horizon Scanning sources. It covers future issues and trends across the full public policy agenda. It is drawn from a range of sources including think tanks, academic publications, mainstream media, corporate foresight, expert/strategic thinkers, government sources, alternative journals, charities/NGOs, blogs, minority communities, and futurists.

The Delta Scan is an overview of future science and technology issues and trends, with contributions by over 200 science and technology experts from the worlds of government, business, academia and communication in the UKand US.

Develeped over 2005 and 2006 by a team of consultants and futurists,  the Scanning Framework has some novel methodologies and catagories. Each main issue is described as an Issue paper.

The main text of the Issue Papers themselves is divided into a number of different sections:


Headline: Headlines provide a brief description of the future eventuality discussed a pithy note on the main themes contained within the paper.


Keywords: Keywords summarise the coverage of the issue and suggest related issues, domains or topics.


Summary: The summary provides first an Abstract of the Issue (delimited by asterisks) for a quick overview of the whole paper, followed by a description of the trend, event or theme and the debates it raises. This is generally a presentation of the data/evidence in this field, linked where necessary to sources (with no fixed view on likely outcomes).


Implications: this contains a range of possible outcomes that could flow from the Issue as described in the Summary. These incorporate a number of factors where appropriate, including social values, habitat/environment, new technologies, knock-on and perverse effects. Early Indicators: This aspect of the Paper suggests possible early warning signs and precursors that should be looked for to indicate that the Issue may indeed be developing as described in the Paper.

Drivers and Inhibitors: Factors, people, institutions or events which will either fuel (Drivers) or act as a barrier (Inhibitors) to the emergence of this Issue.


Parallels and Precedents: Historical, international or cross-cultural examples of
somewhat similar instances which may shed some light either on the evolution of the Issue or the likely success of different strategies in response.


Sources: The list of sources consulted in writing the Paper, with web links, documents and location information where applicable.


Related links: a list of websites that may be of further interest to the reader relating to the topic


Sigma Scan basics: Issue Markers

Each issue has been further labelled with a number of Markers, which provide highly indicative (i.e. not predictive) information about the possible likelihood, impact,
distribution, severity and development time of each Issue:


Impact: This marker is designed to reflect the potential of this issue to create pervasive and/or serious change in the world at large: a development which in cultural, technological, environmental, economic or political terms alters the way we live or perceive the world. Impact is divided into:

• ****Extreme: Intense, deep-seated, pervasive or long-lasting in its effects. An event/development which profoundly affects the planet for example, an asteroid strike.
• ***High: A great event in human history, something that shapes human history and leaves longstanding cultural residues for example, the moon landings, the establishment of the United Nations, a major pandemic.
• **Medium: A defining aspect of a particular generation or nation's experience of the world. An important footnote in world history, such as the implementation of the Euro, the fall of the Berlin Wall.
• *Low: A development whose scope to instigate change is subtle or in some way restrained by conditions, medium, force, locality or likely responses. Something that captures the news agenda for months or years, but eventually fades into the cultural memory for example, the cultural changes of the 1960s.
• ?Unknown: There is no consensus within the literature about how best to interpret this issue.

Likelihood: The likelihood that this issue will evolve to become a central theme/development - in some way - in future society within its projected life span. The likelihood markers are:

• ***High: 75+% confidence that the events discussed will come to pass.
• **Medium: An equivocal 50/50 call.
• *Low: 25% or less probability.
• ?Unknown: No consensus about the likelihood.
  
  

Controversy: The level of consensus amongst experts, commentators and other observers holds that the Issue will unfold in the way described in the Paper and/or assume a greater significance in acting as an instigator of change. The controversy markers are:

• ***High: Very few experts pay the issue serious attention, and there is very little consensus about the extent to which this issue is likely to emerge. There is very little known evidence for this issue, and what there is highly unconventional, or propounded by alternative sources.
• **Medium: Whilst there is some kind of conventional consensus, futurists and/or alternative sources dispute whether this issue is likely to be a central development in future. Evidence is somewhat equivocal or open to scrutiny, even within expert audiences.
• *Low: The majority of experts, as well as a large volume of authoritative evidence, point to this issue emerging as a central theme over the next 50 years.
• ?Unknown: No known consensus on how to apply this marker.

When: The expected timeframe for this issue to influence C.21st life to the degree ascribed to it under "Impact". Divided into:

• 0-2 years: This impact of this issue is already being felt or will be in the immediate future
• 3-10 years: Likely to be under way but perhaps not well distributed. Wider effects felt over the near horizon
• 11-20 years: Mid horizon effects
• 21-50 years: Mid to far horizon effects
• 50+ years: Far horizon effects ?Unknown: High level of uncertainty as to when this impact could be felt

Where: The geographical spread of the Issues impact. Divided into:

• Domestic/national Largely restricted to particular nation states (e.g. UK)
• Regional Largely restricted to major global regions/continental areas (e.g. EU, Latin America)
• Global Potential to be experienced anywhere/everywhere on a global scale
• ?Unknown

How fast: How quickly the events and potential impacts described in the Paper could be
experienced:

• Instant in a matter of moments
• Days over the course of days
• Months over months
• Years over years
• Unknown

Sigma Scan basics: Issue Genres


As well as the markers, each paper is also classified into a number of different Genres. This is identified at the start of the Summary in capital letters and is supplied as an at-a-glance way for users to decide what sort of critical thinking they should apply to their reading of the paper. (e.g. in the same way that we would apply different critical faculties for reading a work of science fiction than we would for reading todays
newspaper).

Weak signal: A primarily descriptive Paper attempting to shed light on a relatively little known, weakly felt or poorly distributed phenomenon a possible baby trend at the relative margins of current knowledge. The Implications of this style of paper tend to be limited to explaining what is already starting to happen, and the Drivers / Inhibitors are important in deciding whether it will grow into a Key Driver or dwindle into nothing. The aim of Weak Signal papers is to inform readers about trends or
potential events that might slip under the radar.

Forecast: An Issue for which there is a relatively high degree of certainty, at least in terms of its likely presence as a force for change, based as it is on robust quantitative data and relatively stable variables. Forecast papers are based upon well-grounded and
authoritative sources, drawing on models or statistics to draw conclusions.

Key driver: These Papers describe a relatively more mainstream and better-known trend or development. Something that would probably on the radar of most policymakers or strategy thinkers. Key Driver papers provide a top-level review of the trend for the uninitiated, and aim to stretch the more informed reader with some wider Implications Parallels / Precedents beyond the usual inferences and certainties.

Scenario: A Paper which takes as its evidence base published scenario work from other sources. It therefore discusses the range of uncertainties and drivers that have been discussed in developing these scenarios and compares the assumptions in them. Rather than describing a possible driver of future change, it therefore examines the feasibility and possible implications of a particular hypothetical future.

Wildcard: An Issue with the potential to emerge unexpectedly but with potentially major impacts. Often, these papers deal with a radical discontinuity, as compared to other, more continuous and/or gradual trends.

Social Impacts of Technology> Violent video game effects linger in brain

Study: Violent video game effects linger in brain


CNN reports that teens who play violent video games show increased activity in areas of the brain linked to emotional arousal and decreased responses in regions that govern self-control, a study released on Tuesday found.

The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to record tiny metabolic changes in
brain activity in 44 adolescents who were asked to perform a series of tasks after playing either a violent or nonviolent video game for 30 minutes, according to Dr. Vincent Mathews, a professor of radiology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis and the study's author.

The children, with no history of behavior problems, ranged in age from 13 to 17. Half
played a T-rated first-person shooter game called "Medal of Honor: Frontline," involving
military combat, while the other group played a nonviolent game called "Need for Speed:
Underground."

Full Story >>[...]