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The Fifth Scenario

At this very moment, the economy, the environment, science and technology, and the global balance of power are undergoing massive shifts: some are calling it cataclysmic change, a shift so radical we now have to think the unthinkable as a matter of course.

The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism by Viktor Ramos at Rice University. The project explores how new forms of habitable infrastructure might be used as solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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Clockwise from above : Seawater Vertical Farm concept, Dubai, by studiomobile, uses seawater to cool, humidify and irrigate crops in a series of stacked greenhouses; The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism by Viktor Ramos at Rice University, explores how new forms of habitable infrastructure might be used to connect fragmented Palestinian enclaves and Israeli settlements; Masterplan for a carbon-neutral resort and residential development on Zira Island in the Caspian Sea by Bjarke Ingels Group

Extreme improbable events are the norm rather than the exception. They dominate the world.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Extreme improbable events are the norm rather than the exception, Taleb says. They dominate the world. He first postulated this in his 2007 book, Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, but few until now have really listened. Black Swans are rare in nature, he says, but they appear, and there are generally more than one in the same generation. The banking crisis, then, is not the only shake up hes expecting. And hes not alone. Adam Gordon, author of Future Savvy, cannot deny the momentum either: Obamas election, the cracking of the human genome project, the end of fossil fuels the list goes on. There are a whole range of indicators around us today that point to the sudden, massive change ahead.

Here, mediocrity and replication have no place, and products, concepts and outlook will take their lead from the unprecedented. In a world where everything is changing, businesses that cant or wont change are set to wither and die, according to cataclysmic change experts such as Nassim Nicholas Taleb. His previous predictions about the collapse of the worlds financial markets were ridiculed by global corporates the same corporates who would later sit glumly at this years Davos summit, listening to Taleb admit that, yes, he had been wrong his predictions werent severe enough!

From left : Norton Symantec security software advertisement, reading I am in danger. You are in danger. Japan is in danger. Protect yourself with yellow; The single-molecule nanocar, by the James M. Tour Group of nanotechnologists at Rice University, is the smallest car in the world; NH2 hydrogen-powered tractor and energy-independent farm concept by New Holland Agriculture

Trend Drivers
The Great Disruption This change has been dubbed The Great Disruption by the Australian environmental business expert Paul Gilding, referring to a time when Mother Nature and Father Greed hit the wall simultaneously. We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder, Gilding says. No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply. Salim Ismail, executive director of Singularity University, which opens in San Francisco this summer, agrees. There are very few people who think the amount of disruption we are going through now is going to decrease over time most people think its going to increase. Combining the knowledge of NASA and Google, and the vision of futurologist Ray Kurzweil, the school will prepare scientists and technologists to dream up solutions for the cataclysmic times ahead solutions, Ismail points out, to problems we dont yet know we have. Academics dont really know where the new equilibrium will find itself, but we do know some of the ingredients of this new world a new existence were calling the Fifth Scenario. While scenario planners traditionally dismiss unthinkable portraits such as these for being grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre and unbelievable GUBUs, that is GUBUs are, increasingly, our future.

We are witnessing changes that will see new hybrid plant species that we use to develop and replicate vaccines; hybrid humans called Homo Evolutis; a biotech boom more advanced and culturally challenging than the dot-com boom of the 90s; new growth sectors such as bioinfomatics, nanotech, stemtech, and cloud computing and cloud corporations; whealthcare as a new economic and lifestyle model that sees our health being managed as a wealth-related resource; the anti-ageing industry surpassing the youth sector as a premium income earner; socio-capitalism as the new default model for Ingenuity Gap author Thomas Homer-Dixon has been trading in the West; the rise of the Caliphate, and Muslim another lone voice in the battle to make governments and values, trading models and mindsets as a new business global corporates understand that the future isnt about and social model in the East; China as a capitalist power; evolutionary change, but revolutionary challenge. This America as a socialist state; carbon values, communities sense that a lot of people have, that something very big and trading as the new black! is happening, is correct, he says. A lot of people are just beginning to recognise the magnitude of the change. A new world order will emerge that is no longer based on the global governance of the UN. We will have new The point these key thinkers are making is that economic systems that accommodate the move to the cataclysmic change is going to occur as the result of free and open source, and that arent about growth and wealth accumulation. With our select panel of economic, environmental, societal, biological, political interviewees including Taleb, Homer-Dixon, and scientific stresses because they are happening simultaneously and theyre happening now. The global Baroness Susan Greenfield, Salim Ismail, and the economic, political and environmental system is in philosopher Theodore Zeldin, LS:N Global talks you collapse, our biological and business systems are through the trends you need to note, and the processes mutating, and new life forms are emerging. These are you need to embrace to anticipate and ride out these changing our world in profound ways. changes effectively.

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Brands, businesses and corporations need to embrace the new and the next. We must place preparedness as a live strategy at the heart of our organisational values.
Trend Impact
The interlocking world The world has never been so connected, both physically and virtually, and its the rate at which news or shock travels that makes this intimate system now so prone to collapse. Globalisation creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability, Taleb says. He explains that when a company cancels its Christmas order in the USA, this could well lead to the factory going bust in China, in turn leading to a host of repercussions that would ensue locally from such an event. The message: Its this interconnectivity that means that change spreads fast. It is no longer contained in microsystems and diverse ecologies, but instead travels quickly to what Taleb refers to as the increasingly homogeneous framework defining todays global systems. It is important, then, to understand your position in this ever-growing global network he believes in; to understand it, map it, pace it, and to at least be able to envision the consequences of even the smallest and most seemingly inconsequential decision. The environmental countdown The pressure of climate change on the world is the catalyst for the systematic breakdown of globalisation, economy, politics and society, Homer-Dixon believes. Over the past 20 years, warming of the Arctic Ocean has been eight times faster than it was over the past 100 years. According to the Global Carbon Project, the quantity of carbon dioxide emissions has grown four times faster since 2000 than during the 90s. Oil and gas demand will exceed supply within the next seven years. Even constants such as the buzz of a bumblebee are under threat: the number of honeybees in the US has halved since the early 70s. The message: Change happens, but we tend to resist it until it is too late to reverse its impact, as Homer-Dixon reveals in The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilisation. Brands, businesses and corporations need to pay attention to and embrace the new and the next, he says; we need to learn rather than challenge, and we must place preparedness as a live strategy at the heart of our organisational values.

From left : Landed, a mobile, free-standing unit by Eric Degenhardt and Richard Lampert, contains only the absolute minimum structure for living, offering flexibility and freedom from a fixed locale; Gardens by the Bay, Singapore, by Grant Associates

Racing discoveries In science and technology, too, there is evidence of exponential growth. Processing speed and memory power are more than doubling every two years. The human genome project is a good example: when the project, to discover all the estimated 20,000 to 25,000 human genes and make them accessible for further biological study, formally began in 1990, many thought they would never see it solved in their lifetime. Thirteen years later, it had been mapped in its entirety. There are more scientists alive today than at any point in our history, says Juan Enriquez, CEO of life sciences research and investment firm Biotechonomy and founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project. Its no wonder discoveries are happening at an accelerated rate. Its easy to see how these advances will change our societies forever. Step changes such as the human genome project werent predicted and now massive empires will be built on the back of them. Nanotechnology, robotics, genetics and artificial intelligence are just some sectors experiencing exponential growth, Ismail confirms. He believes his university is the only hope experts have of staying ahead of the racing developments in those industries. Its essential to be in touch with the most progressive within science in order to harness the knowledge and transform it into solutions for the demanding times ahead, he saysThe message: We must think the unthinkable, develop systems and scenario-planning mechanisms, and create ways of playing with, engaging with and envisioning a world that defies our limited span of knowledge. We must embrace panels or teams of Dreamtellengineers whose sole command is to consider the unusual suspects, and to know the unknowable. As the committee reporting back on the 9/11 Twin Towers terrorist attack put it, this didnt happen because of terrorism alone, but because of a catastrophic failure of imagination. We can no longer enjoy the luxury of failure again.

Full of surprises The consequences of this racing technology and change are unimaginable, says author and philosopher Theodore Zeldin. One can think of very few technological advances that havent sprung surprises, he says, offering as examples the motorcar or the aeroplane, both of which, in their time, were marvelled at for the benefits they would bring to society. He warns, however, that technology might make us more comfy, but theres always an adverse effect. In the case of his examples, pollution or traffic congestion resulting from motorcar and aeroplane use qualify. Zeldin goes onto explain, however, that the scientist or engineer who comes up with something will never be able to predict exactly how that innovation will be adopted. Those who invented the internet never imagined its main use would be for pornography, he says. The message: In a changing universe, always ask the questions nobody else is asking. Indeed, assume the benefits being promoted are the ones least likely to eventually be adopted for peoples own needs. Conversely, look to abstractions to deliver the concrete, or indeed a possible way forward. Consider social networks, which were established to allow people to hook up, share music tracks, photos and club flyers right? Wrong. Social networks have now become the default media of the 21st century, a way of sharing, defining and creating everything from news to new and powerful retail models. Rather than stewing over the answer to the question, make sure, instead, youre asking the right question in the first place.

From left : Lilypad, A Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees concept by Vincent Callebaut Architects is a self-sufficient amphibious city designed for a future world defined by rising seawater levels; Mutated Slabs proposal for Ansan, South Korea, by Minsuk Cho at Mass Studies, offers architectural responses to contemporary urban society

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When the crisis comes along, the system will make a giant leap. The real breakthrough comes when you stop thinking about trying to control it.
Management consultant Stuart Morgan
Looking down, not up Despite the racing progress emerging from the science labs, it has taken a global financial crisis to get people to look up and listen to change ambassadors such as Taleb, Homer-Dixon, Enriquez and Ismail. Why? Because its easier to just look down and keep doing what youve always done. Foresight and trend work are still something that most people arent interested in, because its not relevant to the everyday world, Gordon says. Most people are not creatively orientated. They have a stake in the status quo and in keeping things the way they are, and they dont want to change. In our cataclysmic change scenario, we will no longer have the luxury to make that choice. We will change, adapt or die. Non-linear futures Human nature is also wired to think that progress happens in a linear fashion and is therefore fantastically manageable. In fact, chaos is a much more natural state, says management consultant Stuart Morgan, who helps companies adapt to dramatic transitions. Complexity theory explores the idea that human and biological systems are not goal-oriented and linear but instead very chaotic. Its just like in the natural world, Morgan says. When the crisis comes along, there is a struggle via a series of incremental steps to keep things functioning, but when that no longer works, the system will make a giant leap. According to Morgan, the secret is to understand this process and not fight against it. The real breakthrough comes when you stop thinking about trying to control it, he says. The current economic recovery policies being put forward by Europe and the US are classic examples of this. They are anxious to get their economies back to the status quo, but, as Homer-Dixon explains, Weve moved way beyond that and theres no going back.

Crisis in creativity The systematic failure has been building up gradually at every level. Business in the more developed markets has been run in a way that is not conducive to adapting quickly and thinking innovatively. Instead, it has been about adding layers of bureaucracy and making the structure increasingly complex. Its a rigidity that Taleb and Homer-Dixon also see in the biological world and its a precursor to collapse. Complex layers have come in the form of meeting shareholder needs, watching over the pension fund and reporting rises on a quarterly basis. The prevailing business culture of the last decade of ber competition and benchmarking efficiency has created little room for risk, edginess and creativity, says Jonathan Star, a consultant at Peter Schwartzs management consulting firm Global Business Network. The economy has developed along those lines and its dampened some peoples perception of what it means to be creative and adaptive, he adds. When hitting targets every quarter is the top priority, taking a chance on an offbeat new idea is less likely. As a consequence, employees learn that getting ahead is not about risky thinking but about repeating tried-and-tested methods that lead to success. But what companies need to change-manage is diversity. Unfortunately, wrote Jeffrey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach and Gus Vlak of executive search consulting firm Spencer Stuart in a recent Harvard Business Review article, Most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark.

Opposite from left : Dune, Anti-desertification Architecture project for Sokoto, Nigeria, by Magnus Larsson investigates climate-conscious strategies to making extreme environments habitable; King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture, Saudi Arabia, by Snhetta This page from above : South African Paralympian athlete Oscar Pistorius, known as the fastest man on no legs, won three gold medals at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing; Third Hand artificial hand by Stelarc, which grasps, releases, turns and features a tactile feedback system for a rudimentary sense of touch, is meant as an addition rather than a prosthetic replacement

Generational breakdown and collapse Advances in science and technology are also introducing destabilising variables to the status quo. Forces are unfolding very rapidly, which are taking us to a Fifth Scenario that will be different on all counts from today. The three great technologies information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology are blurring the boundaries that have been with humankind for hundreds of thousands of years, says Baroness Susan Greenfield, Over the past five years, Spencer Stuart has documented a scientist and the director of the Royal Institution of the innovation strategies of 25 organisations in Great Britain. Greenfield is anxious that we are entering multiple industries and countries. Researchers found this fast-changing world with a sense of complacency that companies are an incubator for staff who simply and an abstract belief that these transitions will replicate those above them rather than innovating. happen smoothly. Rising stars realise that to be promoted, they need to mirror incumbent leaders, Cohn, Katzenbach and Vlak One crucial boundary that these developments are wrote. Even when stellar external talent comes in, it is blurring is the one that exists between the generations. frequently drawn into the same anti-innovation culture In every society since weve been alive, weve been that has been squelching internal talent. a baby, then grown to be parents ourselves, then grandparents and sometimes great-grandparents, This unwillingness to take a risk is a natural human Greenfield says. Now, biotechnology is putting that under instinct it feels uncomfortable. But the Fifth Scenario threat. The point is that generational divides are dictated is about embracing ideas that destabilise your sense by how healthy we are, our reproductive status, how of place and priority. It shouldnt feel cosy or familiar; we look and whether or not we are able to work. These it should be thrilling and disturbing. If you want to be fundamentals of humanity are now being manipulated original, says Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, who by advances in science that promise us eternally blazed the trail for adventurous animation, you have to healthy bodies. That natural progression is being accept the uncertainty, even when its uncomfortable. thrown out of order.

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Sudden behavioural change One of Greenfields primary objectives is to encourage our leaders to take more of an interest in these transformative developments. In her March 2009 speech to the UK House of Lords, she urged them to focus on the irreversible changes that are happening to the human brain. The fallout from the introduction of bio- and nanotechnology, and likewise of the collapse in global systems, is unimaginable because the human mind is currently changing rapidly as a result of its interaction with this shifting environment. The human brain is exquisitely sensitive to the outside world, Greenfield says. Tests on the memory part of a London cabbies brain or that of a musicians show that the areas needed for their skills are enlarged. So if the inputs are entirely new, the mind will develop accordingly. Its simple, Greenfield says. The brain changes in accordance with the environment. The environment is changing in unprecedented ways; therefore the brain is changing in unprecedented ways.

Human vs. non-human collapse Other cornerstones of how we define what it is to be human are also being eroded. The current debate about transhumanism that is, upgrading the human with technological enhancements that allow for better sensory perception or neural skills is not new. Cochlear implants are advancing at an impressive rate because they are governed by the evolution in machine generations, not human generations. The incremental steps that have been occurring have now reached breaking point. Olympic runner Oscar Pistoriuss case is the most telling example: after a series of court battles, this South African double amputee is now legally allowed to compete against able-bodied contestants if he qualifies for the next Olympics. When will his prosthetic legs start to be seen as an advantage? If we look at machine generations, it wont be long before he will be fitted with a new, upgraded model. Soon, Pistorius may be able to spring to inhuman heights or run as fast as a cheetah. Enriquez describes how this kind of transition is also happening with cochlear implants and will eventually be seen across the entire medical industry. In two or three years, after the cochlear implants allow the hearing impaired to hear as well as the non-impaired, theyll be able to hear even better, hearing how bats or whales communicate, Enriquez says. With these implants, theyll be able to do a series of things that others cant do. Enriquez goes on to speak of the development that is happening with the bionic eye. Firstly, it will restore sight so light and dark can be detected, then it allow for discerning shape and colour. Once the technology allows for whole sight, it will advance to being able to detect ultraviolet and infrared light. Just as with the Oscar Pistorius case, technologically enhanced beings will demand similar changes in attitudes, law, ethics, governments, religions and business, Enriquez says.

From left : The Immaculate prosthetic arm by Hans Alexander Huseklepp draws on futuristic robotics aesthetics rather than trying to look lifelike; The EyeBorg Project by Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis involves a video camera and transmitter embedded in a filmmakers prosthetic eye

Trend Consequences
Localise it In the world of cataclysmic change, the global flow of goods, services and energy will be forced to restructure. Homer-Dixon predicts increased sustainability closer to home. We simply wont be able to continue transporting goods when fuel prices have risen so dramatically that it makes the cost of shipment greater than the value of the product. And that could happen suddenly and very soon. Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest producer of oil, has pumped a total of 46bn barrels of oil in the past 17 years, without any decrease in its stated reserve figure of about 260bn barrels. The world is likely to get no warning before Saudi output peaks. Production will have to come closer to consumption, Homer-Dixon says. Local communities will need to grow and process much more of the food they consume. Today, buying locally sourced products is a lifestyle choice. Tomorrow, it will be a necessity. Luckily, we have 3-D printing technology, which is advancing at a phenomenal rate. This will turn our local convenience stores into mini domestic factories. Printing out toys and simple plastic objects will be standard in a few years, says Anders Sandberg, a researcher at Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute. It will be about downloading the pattern for new chairs and then fetching them from the local corner store because most of us will be in reach of a store that has one of these machines in the back room. Business will be forced to adapt rapidly to selling blueprints rather than products, and those that dont will simply fail. Dont buy shares in Mattel or Lego, Sandberg jokes. Political tipping points But for many, this will be no laughing matter. If we no longer rely on distant producers for our energy, goods and services, this will have a profound effect on economies around the world. Economic crisis is usually associated with political instability, says HomerDixon, who sees potential crises developing in Pakistan, Ukraine, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, Argentina, the Baltic states and, further down the line, China. Severe instability in these countries could really tip the balance for their regions and the rest of the world, Homer-Dixon says. Somewhere like Pakistan, for example, does have a uranium enrichment programme and could well flex its nuclear power on its neighbours. So this isnt just a question of middle-class families trading their visits to IKEA with an afternoon lugging furniture from the local store. The Fifth Scenario in our cataclysmic change model is about the societal collapse that will emerge as a consequence of the end of global trading.

Below : Design Probe, Food Creation project by Philips Design conceives of a food printer that would combine various edible ingredients and then print them in the desired shape and consistency

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From left : No Reference installation by Christophe Coppens, a temporary, open-to-the-public studio in which the designer worked on his new couture collection (photography Javier Barcala); Tissue-engineering was but a nascent field in the mid-1990s, when Dr Charles Vacanti at the University of Massachusetts Medical School created a human ear out of polymer and cartilage cells, and implanted it on the back of a laboratory mouse

The Fifth Scenario is about the new space the breakdown of known global systems will create.

To the extreme The Fifth Scenario will be characterised by a surge in unemployment, unrest and the newly emerging political radicalisation. Just as in the 30s, people will respond to the destabilisation with extremism, Homer-Dixon says. Minority groups will become the brunt of violence for populations looking for answers to the crisis. Its a standard reaction, he says. Groups such as Muslims, Jews and other minorities will get targeted by those looking for someone to hold responsible.

Throwaway parts In this open space, new industries will emerge, such This extremism will take a religious form and there will be as one that allows the human body to stay healthy a rise in religious fundamentalism. But even in countries throughout its life. Late last year, the Massachusetts such as China, where religion is banned, nationalism Institute of Technologys (MIT) International Genetically will take centre stage. Elsewhere, ethnic extremism and Engineered Machine competition brought together 84 violence, which is already taking place, will also increase. teams from 21 countries to tackle, among others, the The extremism will develop in different forms in different question of whether simple biological systems can be places, Homer-Dixon says, but in all, it will be defined by built from standard interchangeable parts to operate intolerance, the identification of an enemy and a simple inside living cells. The winners of the competition have creed around which the group can orient itself to find an shown that it can biological systems really can be explanation for the crazy changes they are faced with. engineered from scratch. One winning entry in particular was able to engineer bacteria in such a way that they The reset would act in the same way as a kidney. Being able to The challenge in our Fifth Scenario will be to prevent grow a kidney in this way is one such development that this extremism from taking control of the political and blurs the generational divide. In the Fifth Scenario, our psychological terrain. Homer-Dixon and other leading ailing bodies can be fit for life, and people will treat them thinkers, such as writer and economist Noreena Hertz, so. We simply wont need to adhere to biological checks suggest a reset. Instead of the current policies that are to measure our behaviour. Why stop smoking when you can grow a new lung? Why cut the booze when a new being put forward to return our economies to the status quo, and thus exacerbate the impending doom, the liver can be created from bacteria? The way we view our Fifth Scenario is about the new space that this bodies will very quickly change. The body will be like breakdown will create. a tool a vehicle for hedonistic living, perhaps.

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Left : Venus natural crystal chair by Tokujin Yoshioka was grown in a self-built tank

Petri dish checkout These advances are already under way. At Dr Anthony Atalas laboratory at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, researchers have successfully engineered muscle, bone and blood vessels. Now, they have combined them to grow both a human finger and a single ear in a Petri dish. The technology started by growing mouse teeth before it moved on to growing human molars. Now this technology, where the stem cells (in this case, molar stem cells) are put on a biodegradable mould, re-grown and then simply implanted, is being used to re-grow all kinds of crucial matter, from bladders to trachea. In Boston, nine women are lucky enough to be walking around with replacement bladders much more comfortable than a colostomy bag grown in this way. Similarly, a woman in Mexico had stem cells taken from her sick trachea re-grown in this fashion, and within 72 hours was able to be fitted with a new, healthy one.

Not only do these advances in stem cell treatment keep people looking young, they will also allow them to manipulate the reproductive process. It is now possible to produce artificial sperm cells from bone marrow; this research has already led to pregnancies in mice. In a sense, whats not to like? Greenfield says, playing devils advocate. You can reproduce with anyone at any age, no matter what age they are or your sexual persuasion it has its uses.

But Greenfield stresses the destabilising effect this will have on our societies societies that have functioned By taking stem cells and spraying them onto cartilage, along generational divides since they began. In fact, it those stem cells start to organise, Enriquez says. He poses a lot of challenges, she says, because we quite describes a project in which mouse stem cells were like that sense of narrative in our lives. The Fifth sprayed on to the cartilage of a human heart: the stem Scenario will be a place where culture will have lost cells organised themselves, and the heart started to beat. that sense of progression, and the fallout will occur Life happens, he says. in unimaginable ways.

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We will have to start creating again. Homes will start to be rebuilt.

Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilisation Trend Futures
Homo Infanz As the external environment changes, it will affect how the human mind functions, which will, in turn, affect the decisions it makes, which will then influence the environment change will start to occur as a rapidly accelerating feedback loop. In the same way that the incremental shifts in the other systems that surround us are now starting to accelerate, so too is the minds development. Soon, the profile of human behaviour will be vastly different from what we assume it to be today. The new profile will be defined by the stimulus that surrounds it. Greenfield talks of how the screen and digital technology alone are affecting the human mind. Humans will crave a more instant world; a literal world that is laden with senses, that is process-driven rather than content-driven, focused on the experience rather than the meaning; [a world that is] about the thrill of the moment, where there are no consequences because you can just go back and do it again. These qualities define human behaviour in the Fifth Scenario. Here, people will have shorter attention spans and perhaps higher IQs; they will have a shaky sense of identity; they may be more hedonistic and less reflective, and will take more risks. These are not altogether bad characteristics, they are simply different from the behaviour that guides society today. Homo Evolutis Like Greenfield, Enriquez is predicting these changes to be irreversible at a biological level as well. The brain of a deaf or blind person is different to that of someone who is able-bodied, he says. Now if you give them implants, therell be different adoptions and that change will occur over a single lifetime. Now if you keep reinforcing that again and again and selecting for that, changes are going to start to happen really quickly. Enriquez describes this next species as Homo Evolutis one that we ourselves are coding through our ability to engineer cells, tissues and robots. Through these manipulations of the natural world, we are adding the final touches that will lay the template for this next species.

From left : Sinthesya solar-powered light by Darc Studio; No Mans Land island complex project in the Dead Sea, by Phu Hoang Office, relocates tourist resorts to a network of artificial islands that would provide renewable energy production and fresh water collection



The new inventory Collectively, what these forces show is that we are going to a new place and we will have to manage the change using the tools we have long since been suspicious of: imagination, creativity, dreaming, storytelling, fantasy. We dont want to be in denial and try to take things back to the way they were, Homer-Dixon warns, because that world has gone. For a certain period, we will consume the backlog of products that have been produced. But once that global inventory has dried up, it will be time to start producing once more.

We will have to start creating again, Homer-Dixon says. Homes will start to be rebuilt. Homes and brands, and services, and inventions, and societal mores will answer a whole new set of personal, societal, global, political, economic and environmental needs and desires. The only way that we will be able to survive the cataclysmic shifts is if we start to think differently. And its only through the codes of Dreamtelligence and bold innovation that we have a chance of meeting the vastly different needs of a world that has been torn down, mutated and rebuilt to a different agenda.

Below left and right : Seed archive by Brittany Bell at Victoria University School of Design, New Zealand, mimics the architecture of a plant

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Left : The Cloud concept, Dubai, by Nadim Karam at Atelier Hapsitus, proposes a resort built 300 metres above land

The new breed of designer will be a synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.
What This Means to Your Brand
The art of the CEO A reboot to this degree clearly requires new skills to cope. Carry on the way we have been, and businesses will go bust. Luckily, the art of the CEO is being redefined: a more lateral approach to business savvy is already being adopted in management programmes that are increasingly looking to design and Dreamtelligence skills and processes to come up with innovative solutions to business problems.

Be the change Its not only artists who are approaching a problem with fewer inhibitions. Bold new inventions from the emerging economies demonstrate how to break from convention, too. Until the Tata Nano peoples car was launched earlier this year in India, no one imagined a new car BusinessWeek now publishes an annual list of top could retail for $2,500 (1,790, 1,940). Likewise with schools that offer this convergence. This list of leading Lebanese architect Nadim Karams Cloud resort-in-thenames includes Stanford Universitys Hasso Plattner sky concept, presented at the International Design Forum Institute of Design and its product design engineering (IDF) in Dubai in 2007: until this plan was unveiled, no programme, which covers art, business and engineering one imagined it could be possible to house a resort 300 modules. At The Future Laboratory, we have likewise metres up in the air, in what looks like a cloud supported developed a Fifth Scenario model and process for brands by long beams resembling sheets of rain. keen to place cataclysmic change as a trend and a way forward at the heart of their enterprise. The Fifth Scenario is not only about trying to deduce how the world will transform, its about actually being Cultivating a new breed of designer is at the heart that transformation. You dont predict the future, of Bruce Maus Institute without Boundaries in Toronto, Gordon reminds us. You build it you change it. too. As the research centres charter explains, its aim is to produce a new breed of designer who is, in the Gordon sees this possibility as a thinking problem, one words of R. Buckminster Fuller, a synthesis of artist, that should be hatched in the liminal zone at the edge inventor, mechanic, objective economist and of plausibility. Its about thinking to the margins of what evolutionary strategist. can be done, he explains, and even if that future doesnt transpire, whatever will have been adapted will still be Graduates of these institutions will be the free-thinking useful. In a period of cataclysmic change, this is where CEOs of tomorrow. Its an obvious move, says Wired companies will operate. The product will be dramatic. UK editor David Rowan. Look at Jonathan Ive [senior Beyond the structural cataclysmic shifts of our time, vice president of industrial design at Apple, and father these bold products alone will be sufficient to destabilise of the iPod and iPhone]. Its that kind of thinking that global systems. The Tata Nano has had repercussions has delivered consistent success for Apple. far beyond its roots in Indias Gujarat province.



From left : BYD Auto F3 sedan, by Chinas first hybrid car manufacturer; Ultra cheap mini car Tata Nano Europa is an upgraded version of the $2,500 peoples car soon to go into production in India

Stay static you die In a world that is constantly changing, the brand needs to play chameleon as well. The next generation of consumers who have been surrounded by all this change will expect their brands to keep up, too, says Michael Johnson, DesignWeek columnist and founder of design firm Johnson Banks. A lot of brands philosophy is not to mess with it, but in this new world you have to adapt, change and morph when required, he says. Johnson mentions More Than insurance, which changes its design and tone every two years. The secret, he says, is to keep your eye on the brand at all times. Brands such as Russian Standard vodka are vanguards of this new approach. Founder Roustam Tariko is all about rejuvenating his brand. When I have a success on my hands, I wont be complacent, he says. Instead, Ill go ahead and recreate it. Thats the exciting bit. If its broke, fix it Not only are the emerging economies good at coming up with ideas that recalibrate the barometer of possibility, they are also good at radically shifting their business if the market no longer exists. In February 2009, amidst Shanghais housing price slump and rising unemployment, property developers at Shanghai Sanxiang Co. found themselves with excess apartments in the city and little hope of shifting them. Their solution was simple: promise prospective homeowners not only a flat, but a job as well. The move was an innovative, can-do approach to dealing with the problem.

Similarly, Chinese battery maker BYD realised that making cars might bring higher returns. Almost overnight, BYD Auto turned into Chinas first hybrid car manufacturer. Little wonder, then, that BYD is now referred to as Build Your Dreams. Just as Yamaha switched from pianos to motorbikes in the 80s, brands today need to have the same loose attachment to core product. The business may be old and venerable, Gordon says, but in a modern changing world, if it isnt prepared to take a new angle, it will go under. Linens n Things, Woolworths and Wedgwood are just some examples whos next? Leap, dont creep In the Fifth Scenario, small incremental changes are not sufficient. Brands need to engage in wild-skies thinking that allows them to accelerate exponentially from today. Incremental change is backward change, says Martin Raymond, co-founder of The Future Laboratory. Its through appropriating a design and art approach to problems that new products and brands will be launched, creating new categories and redefining or retiring old ones. The shift will be revolutionary, not evolutionary. LS:N Global warns you now to disengage with what you know and engage with the Fifth Scenario.

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www.biotechonomy.com www.businessweek.com www.byd.com designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/summer/dubaisinternational-design-forum.html www.designweek.co.uk www.fhi.ox.ac.uk www.fooledbyrandomness.com www.futuresavvy.net www.gbn.com www.globalcarbonproject.org www.hapsitus.com www.hbs.edu www.homerdixon.com/ingenuitygap www.institutewithoutboundaries.com www.johnsonbanks.co.uk www.jonathanive.com www.kurzweilai.net www.nasa.gov paulgilding.com www.pixar.com www.russianstandard.com salimismail.com www.spencerstuart.com www.stanford.edu/group/dschool tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com web.mit.edu www.wedgwood.com www1.wfubmc.edu www.wired.com www.yamaha.com

Further Reading
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Allen Lane, 2007) Future Savvy: Identifying Trends to Make Better Decisions, Manage Uncertainty, and Profit from Change Adam Gordon (Amacom, 2008) The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable Future Thomas Homer-Dixon (Vintage Books USA, 2002) The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilisation Thomas Homer-Dixon (Souvenir Press, 2007) An Intimate History of Humanity Theodore Zeldin (Vintage, 1995) IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It Noreena Hertz (HarperPerennial, 2005)

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The Future Laboratory is one of Europes leading trend, brand and futures consultancies. Through bespoke client reports, quarterly insight reports, and LS:N Global, The Future Laboratorys consumer insight network, we connect over 300 clients with all aspects of culture and consumer change. LS:N Global hunts down the latest and most inspirational ideas in design, retail, technology and culture. thefuturelaboratory.com LSNglobal.com This document has been produced as an internal research document and is not intended for public distribution or use. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of copy and to secure approval and accreditation for all images used. 2009

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