The Association of Professional Futurists has just published a list of trends to watch in 2009, nominated by members. Eight in all – two on governance, two on geopolitics, two on sustainability, and two others broadly in the area of leisure/entertainment . Not sure about the last one (on the future of the American women’s soccer league: I’d have thought the bursting of the professional sports financial bubble was a more interesting prospect). The list is below the fold,
- Mechanisms to support greater transparency will continue to evolve as a global strategy for combating political and corporate corruption
- The emergence of credible new steps toward the development of new global governance structures with stronger regulatory power for the first time in decades.
- Russia’s changing role in regional and world geopolitics— Are we watching the early days of a new ‘Cold War’?
- Civil unrest within China stemming from displaced workers from a slower growing economy and/or rise of youth culture more demanding of democratic policies.
- We’ll see governments and companies investing in ‘Smart Infrastructure’ for transportation, energy, information. and people
- ‘Peak Production’ of Oil (and possibly other natural resources) might emerge as the mainstream energy policy issue in the next 12 months
- ‘Digital TV’ is going mainstream as new web services reach more audiences through an old platform
- Sports Culture: Will the Women’s Professional Soccer league (The WPS) succeed economically or not?
the next wave
Nick Wray sent me an email which added his trends to the APF’s list. Here they are:
– Rise of the left/right nationally and internationally, mediated through (anti-) social networking (cf globalisation of green politics)
– Investment in nuclear technologies (programme of atomic power rebuilds and greater research/funding into fusion energy)
– Taxation crises following global meltdown, including taxation of internet
– Militarisation grows in China, played out through spats with India
– Growth of decent music again (as happens in recession, cf punk)
– Social networking gets commercial & twitter is rebuilt or collapses under creaking infrastructure – see http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/22/twitter-at-scale-will-it-work/
– The cost of being green becomes a socio-political issue (e.g. being able to afford organic and/or free-range)
– Film & DVD, console/pc game audiences increase (in relation to downturn and less leisure spending money, it’s a cheap night out)
– Crime (robberies and fraud) increase
– Obama fatigue and disillusionment sets in