Re*Move: Five Trends for the Tens

There are some really important changes going on that will shape the process of designing cities, and how we move and interact in them, over the next decade. Here's Mark's shortlist:

1. Huge cuts and a focus on the essential

Everyone - from entrepreneurs to public administrators, needs to adapt to a world where innovation "culture" is no longer focused around the bleeding edge, the piece of the economy that is the "growth" market. Instead, the most important innovation will focus on achieving dramatic cost savings or improvements in the usefulness of essential services - stuff that absolutely has to happen, rather than 'nice to haves'. In other words, the target market will be the "decline" market. Don't be scared. This is surprisingly good news, because we'll focus on solving big problems, instead of peripheral ones.

2. The gulf between skills and jobs

While today's corporates and governments meet at "Cloud Computing" conferences to debate how to put their boring, dated processes online in new ways, a new generation of digitally-empowered workers is approaching over the hill. These people need jobs, and already have, on their own laptops, far more flexible, powerful, communicative tools than almost anything that exists in the firms they're applying to work for. The result is going to be a crisis - new skills and new tools that many firms will resist adopting until it's too late. Young people will be hired into environments, start using 'enterprise' systems, and conclude that everything is lame. Successful firms (and governments) will attract the talent, harness these people and embrace the constantly evolving set of tools these people bring for themselves.

3. Big office space becomes obsolete

We all need somewhere to work - but what most organisations don't need is large buildings with big reception areas and "working" floors packed with desks and computer workstations. Yet today, the office is the definition of modern business and modern cities. This is about to change. Expect great confusion as developers and property owners resist the change (and the resulting fall in building values), while others see the opportunity to create larger, more flexible living and working spaces, possibly made available in completely new ways. You'll also see networks of people who came together digitally move into physical environments for the first time, in a big way. This will be exciting. Remember, New York lofts used to be warehouses and factories. Throughout history, new communication networks, from ships to railways to cars, have always led to the creation of new physical communities built because of them.

4. Consumerism in crisis

This one deserves two paragraphs. A couple of questions will dominate debate over the next few years. Will we expand or reduce the gap between rich and poor? Is a society whose wealth is measured based on the production and consumption of things, or the manipulation of their on-paper value, actually sustainable (economically, not just in terms of resources).

The dramatically changing ability of people to share what they do and think has the potential to reshape the way we decide what to buy, and how we articulate the experience of using those things. We're not saying you won't buy stuff - it just won't be the same hierarchy as it's been for decades. As the ripples from the financial crisis continue, fundamental questions about what wealth is, what it means, and how it should be demonstrated, will make for an interesting era. Notions of ownership have been in flux ever since most people stopped buying music, as an object to own. In an era when an iPhone is now a more useful, cheaper, social vehicle than a Ford Fiesta for many (especially young) people, an "Apps" culture means we are likely to buy lots more virtual stuff, rooted in software, where the emphasis is on doing rather than just having. The authenticity of objects, and the connections and associations they imply, is also likely to become ever more important.

5. Open versus closed

London's teenagers are likely all by themselves to generate and organise far more data than London's public authorities will over the next ten years. As the power of open source collaboration stretches beyond software, as the masses rush to share updates, pictures, and video of what they're doing and what they think, we're going to hit some nasty issues. These might be about security, privacy, lifestyle, even thought. But a lot of them will be about people defending existing approaches, who seek to undermine and discredit those who believe that by sharing ideas, knowledge and resources, we can create more wealth and better cities. Watch this space.

Joe and I would love to talk to people who have views on any of this. Bounce us a note, leave a comment, or please share this with others who may be interested. If you're in London, drop by and we'll film your comments. Or if you want to write a nice guest blog, we'll post it.

Mark Charmer is a researcher at The Movement Design Bureau. He's also a co-founder of Akvo.

Comments

Like that a lot. Here is another one for you.

6. Governments even further behind the mobile worker

I work for an open source foundation, based in one European country. I live and pay taxes in another European country. I spend 1/6 of the working year in an Asia country. The EU is supposed to allow freedom of movement for workers, but this is so last century's model it is laughable. If you are supposed to benefit from any of this freedom of movement you are supposed to actually move, physically.

They really don't have any way to deal with workers who move around at will. Production is assumed to be attached to the production line or the office. But with the internet offering more and more freedom for the best paid workers, the knowledge worker, the knowledge worker is slowly slipping through the fingers of the government.

Europe, Japan, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, do not allow freedom of movement of workers, but they all allow anyone to travel as a tourist between these countries. To what gain do they stop workers moving freely? It inhibits innovation. It stops the most interesting entrepreneurs to move about and do the interesting jobs where they are best done. At the same time they can't stop this from happening totally. I have lived in the USA, whilst being employed in the UK and paying tax there. I live in Sweden, being employed in the Netherlands and working in India. If we got rid of the stupid barriers for knowledge workers we would have more innovation and more business started across borders. And everybody would gain. But no. Visa requirements and idiotic border policies.

Oh well. I am off to hang out in Bengaluru this weeked. In between the Skype conferences, stretching over five countries and ten locations... for free*.

* Well, the marginal cost is free. I have to have a laptop and internet connection, but I couldn't do my job without and the cost of these are easily offset against earnings.

Posted by: Thomas | December 18, 2009 at 06:17 PM

great post and i'm particularly interested in point 5. openness isn't absolute, nor necessarily always +ve but it's an inevitability

Posted by: Rolandharwood | December 22, 2009 at 09:04 AM

Having been a part of the Online Universal Work Marketing team for 4 months now, I’m thankful for my fellow team members who have patiently shown me the ropes along the way and made me feel welcome

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Posted by: kiramatalishah | January 12, 2010 at 07:32 AM

. The Center for Media Research has released a study by Vertical Response that shows just where many of these ‘Main Street’ players are going with their online dollars. The big winners: e-mail and social media. With only 3.8% of small business folks NOT planning on using e-mail marketing and with social media carrying the perception of being free (which they so rudely discover it is far from free) this should make some in the banner and search crowd a little wary

Posted by: kiramatali shah | January 12, 2010 at 04:01 PM