Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 13.

09 - May 3, 2014 ISSN: 1712-9834

David Forrest is a
Canadian writer and
strategy consultant.
His Integral Strategy
process has been
widely used to increase
collaboration in
communities, build
social capital, deepen
commitment to action,
and develop creative
strategies to deal with
complex challenges.
David advises
organizations on
emerging trends. He
uses the term
Enterprise Ecology to
describe how ecological
principles can be
applied to competition,
innovation, and
strategy in business.
Highlights from the last two weeks...
scientists edit adult genes to cure diseases... metabolic processes
appear spontaneously outside of cells... Chinese company 3D
prints 10 houses a day... Watson supercomputer may soon be the
best doctor in the world... Jeremy Rifkin expects the economy and
society to re-orient itself around collaborative commons... crowd-
funding is set to boom in the next few years... the American
middle class is no longer the richest in the world... Brazil passes
an 'Internet Constitution'... wealthy Chinese couples are seeking
surrogates in the United States... China ships products on new
rail networks following the 2000-year-old Silk Road trade route...
China strengthens its environmental laws... cooperatives are
entering the renewable energy sector... artificial intelligence
research is progressing rapidly... 25 trends that will make people
billions of dollars...
More resources ...
a new book by Zaid Hassan, The Social Labs Revolution: A new
Approach to Solving Our Most Complex Challenges... a link to the
Future Show website... video of a TED talk by Gavin Schmidt on
emergent patterns of climate change... a blog post by Nafeez
Ahmed on a new NASA-backed project to model the risks of
civilizational collapse...
David is the founder
and president of Global
Vision Consulting Ltd.,
a strategy advisory
firm. He is a member
of the Professional
Writers Association of
Canada, the World
Future Society, and the
Advisory Committee of
the Institute for
Science, Society and
Policy at the University
of Ottawa.
David Forrest
Innovation Watch


SCIENCE TRENDS
Top Stories:
Revealed: Scientists 'Edit' DNA to Correct Adult Genes and
Cure Diseases (Independent) - A genetic disease has been
cured in living, adult animals for the first time using a
revolutionary genome-editing technique that can make the
smallest changes to the vast database of the DNA molecule with
pinpoint accuracy. Scientists have used the genome-editing
technology to cure adult laboratory mice of an inherited liver
disease by correcting a single "letter" of the genetic alphabet
which had been mutated in a vital gene involved in liver
metabolism.
Spark of Life: Metabolism Appears in Lab Without Cells (New
Scientist) - Metabolic processes that underpin life on Earth have
arisen spontaneously outside of cells. The serendipitous finding
that metabolism -- the cascade of reactions in all cells that
provides them with the raw materials they need to survive -- can
happen in such simple conditions provides fresh insights into how
the first life formed. It also suggests that the complex processes
needed for life may have surprisingly humble origins.
More science trends...
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
Top Stories:
How A Chinese Company 3-D Printed 10 Houses In A Day
(Business Insider) - A Chinese company 3-D printed 10 houses

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in 24 hours in Shanghai's Qingpu district using recycled
construction materials. The WinSun Decoration Design Engineering
Co. (link in Chinese) designed the printer that made the walls. The
buildings' roofs weren't printed because of technological
limitations.
IBM's Watson Supercomputer May Soon Be the Best Doctor
in the World (Business Insider) - Watson is already capable of
storing far more medical information than doctors, and unlike
humans, its decisions are all evidence-based and free of cognitive
biases and overconfidence. It's also capable of understanding
natural language, generating hypotheses, evaluating the strength
of those hypotheses, and learning -- not just storing data, but
finding meaning in it. As IBM scientists continue to train Watson to
apply its vast stores of knowledge to actual medical decision-
making, it's likely just a matter of time before its diagnostic
performance surpasses that of even the sharpest doctors.
More technology trends...
BUSINESS TRENDS
Top Stories:
Beyond Jeremy Rifkin: How Will the Phase Transition to a
Commons Economy Actually Occur? (Huffington Post) - In
his new book, Jeremy Rifkin focuses on the value crisis of
contemporary capitalism based on the revolution in marginal costs
which destroys the profit rate. He concludes that this will mean
that the economy and society will re-orient itself around
collaborative commons, with a more peripheric role for the market
dynamics. In this, Jeremy Rifkin joins the founding charter of the
P2P Foundation, which was precisely created in 2005 to observe,
study and promote this transition.
Why Crowd-Funding is Set to Explode in Size Over the Next
Few Years (Quartz) - Peer-to-peer lenders may be in for boom
times. The type of social-driven lending that helped fund flashy
startups such as virtual-reality goggles maker Oculus VR could
more than double over the next few years, according to research
from the Tabb Group. Oculus was scooped up by Facebook for a
cool $2 billion less than a month ago after receiving its original
funding through the crowd-funding company Kickstarter. Tabb, in
a recent report, estimates that the crowdsourcing market could hit
around $17 billion globally by 2015, with more than 1,000 funding
organizations formed to raise money. That would represent an
eye-popping 200% increase in crowd-funding and an 88%
increase in the number of lending venues throughout the world,
Tabb says.
More business trends...


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SOCIAL TRENDS
Top Stories:
The American Middle Class is No Longer the World's Richest
(New York Times) - The American middle class, long the most
affluent in the world, has lost that distinction. While the wealthiest
Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York
Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income
tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received
considerably larger raises over the last three decades. After-tax
middle-class incomes in Canada -- substantially behind in 2000 --
now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in
much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.
Brazil Passes 'Internet Constitution' (Wired UK) - Brazil's
Senate has unanimously adopted a bill enshrining the right to
online privacy and equal access to the internet dubbed the
"Internet Constitution." The bill was adopted only a day before the
start of the international NETmundial conference, due to kick off in
Sao Paulo today. Now the Senate has passed the bill, all that is
left is for Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff to sign it into law.
More social trends...
GLOBAL TRENDS
Top Stories:
Wealthy Chinese are Turning to American Surrogates to
Birth Their Children (Quartz) - The familiar image of
international surrogacy until now has mainly involved Americans
and Europeans crossing the world to find women to birth their
children. Now, wealthy Chinese couples are seeking surrogates in
the US. The practice -- a new version of Chinese "birth tourism" --
offers a solution to rising infertility in China, a way around Chinese
population controls, and even the added bonus of US citizenship
for babies born in the States.
Your Next iPhone Might Be Delivered from China via a
2,000-Year-Old Trade Route (Quartz) - The electronic gizmos
churned out by China's factories have long been delivered to
western consumers by giant seagoing vessels filled with shipping
containers or, in the case of particularly high-value products, by
air. But new rail networks that stretch across Kazakhstan, Russia,
and Belarus -- in essence, the Silk Road trading route that dates
back millennia -- let Foxconn ship products for its customers,

which include Apple, Sony, and Nokia, along a 10,000 kilometer
(6200 mile) land route to Europe. This journey takes about 15
days, roughly half the travel time by sea.
More global trends...
ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS
Top Stories:
The Rise of Solar Co-ops (Rocky Mountain Institute) - While
many people associate cooperatives with a place for hippies to buy
organic food, the cooperative movement has actually grown far
and wide, creating sustainable enterprises that generate jobs and
strengthen local economies. Today, there are nearly 30,000
cooperatives in the United States, with more than 100 million
members. From day care centers to hardware stores, cooperatives
seem to be permeating every sector of society. So it's no surprise
that cooperatives are making their way into the renewable energy
field as well.
China Strengthens Environmental Laws (Guardian) - Since
China's environmental protection law was passed in 1989, the
country has become the world's second-largest economy and its
biggest carbon emitter; decades of breakneck economic growth
have left many of its rivers desiccated and its cities perennially
shrouded in smog. Over the past year, the Chinese government
has begun to emphasise environmental protection in its official
rhetoric. The new law "sets environmental protection as the
countrys basic policy," state news agency Xinhua reported. At an
annual parliamentary meeting in March, premier Li Keqiang said
that the government will "resolutely declare war against pollution
as we declared war against poverty."
More environmental trends...
FUTURE TRENDS
Top Stories:
Transcending Complacency on Superintelligent Machines
(Huffington Post) - Artificial intelligence (AI) research is now
progressing rapidly. Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars, a
computer winning at Jeopardy!, and the digital personal assistants
Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms
race fueled by unprecedented investments and building on an
increasingly mature theoretical foundation. Such achievements will
probably pale against what the coming decades will bring.
25 Huge Trends That Will Make People Billions Of Dollars
(Business Insider) - Recently, investing gadfly James Altucher
posted a "cheat sheet" for what you should be doing with your
money that spotlighted a handful of "demographic trends" that
investors could get behind. We wanted to expand on that handful
to a full-blown list of all the technologies out there that are poised
to make people billions. This may not make you a billion dollars.
But it shows where things are going.
More future trends...
From the publisher...
The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving Our
Most Complex Challenges
By Zaid Hassan
Read more...
A Web Resource... The Future Show - TFS aims to become the leading web-TV show that
explains the fast-paced world of technology to a general audience in an irreverent and
critical yet engaging and exciting way. TFSs approach is to uniquely show how technology's
exponential advancements will radically alter and re-design the way in which we experience
the world and interact with each other, in the next 5-7 years. TFS episodes are between 4-7
minutes in length and cover topics that are timely and relevant, impactful and of strong
interest to the general public as well as to the global business community.
Multimedia... Gavin Schmidt: The Emergent Patterns of Climate Change (TED) - You
cant understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. Its the
whole, or its nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of
climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of
small-scale environmental events. (12m 10s)
The Blogosphere... The Global Transition Tipping Point Has Arrived Vive la
Rvolution (Guardian) - Nafeez Ahmed "Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about
a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental
Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of
the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations. Doom is not the import of
this study, nor of my own original research on these issues as encapsulated in my book, A
Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It. Rather what we are seeing, as
Ive argued in detail before, are escalating, interconnected symptoms of the unsustainability
of the global system in its current form. While the available evidence suggests that business-
as-usual is likely to guarantee worst-case scenarios, simultaneously humanity faces an
unprecedented opportunity to create a civilisational form that is in harmony with our
environment, and ourselves."

Email: future@innovationwatch.com