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November 2009

FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

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FUTURE Perspective is a quarterly newsletter written by Elaine Cameron, head of Strategic Research & Trend Analysis at Burson-Marsteller EMEA. The newsletter focuses on trends that have concrete communication takeouts.

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Page 1: FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

November 2009

Page 2: FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

HEALTHCARE:Incentivised WellnessPush may come to shove and soon your employercould be influencing what you eat,whether yousmoke and howmuch you exercise.

Obesity = Public Health Enemy Number One

➔ Globally, there are more than 1 billion overweight adults;at least 300 million of them are obese.

➔ Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for chronicdiseases, including type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease,hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer.

➔ The key causes are increased consumption of energy-densefoods high in saturated fats and sugars, and reducedphysical activity.

➔ A recent study estimated that 63% of heart attacks inWestern Europe and 28% of heart attacks in Central andEastern Europe are due to abdominal obesity (a high waistto hip ratio), and those with abdominal obesity are at overtwice the risk of a heart attack compared to those without.

➔ In the UK alone, it is claimed that seven million people havepre-diabetes, an under-diagnosed condition that makesthem up to 15 times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.But pre-diabetes can often be reversed by losing a moderateamount of weight, adopting a healthy, balanced diet andincreasing physical activity levels.

➔ It is such a huge problem that governments fear theywill no longer have the funds to deal with it.

Companies NowWeighing into the Debate

➔ The checklist is growing for what is deemed unhealthy andincreasing numbers of people are being flagged as potentialhazards in regards to health insurance coverage andworkplace health.

➔ This is just the beginning. Employers started with smokers.Now if you like doughnuts or have a guilty pleasure fora Big Mac you will most likely find yourself in the futurebattling high levels of scrutiny from your employer andhealth insurance company.

➔ The trend of paying employees to lose weight or quitsmoking is growing fast. According to one source, 80% ofbig companies now offer financial incentives for participatingin wellness programmes, up from 40% three years ago.

➔ Some US companies have been rewarding employeesfor losing weight for about five years already and savingthemselves an average 10% of health care costs year on year.

CSR/CONSUMER:Plastic’s not FantasticPlastic exists in multiple forms and has becomeubiquitous in our daily lives. However, a growingmovement against plastic will unite a largesegment of values-based consumers concernedabout the impact on the environment and thehealth of their families. Are we moving towardsa Post-Plastic Society?

Drowning in an Ocean of Bags

➔ In spite of a trend towards encouraging recycling andreusable canvas bags, plastic bags are still omnipresent inour daily lives and have a harsh environmental impact onour ecosystems.

➔ Every year, approximately 500 billion plastic bags are usedworldwide and billions of those are dumped into the oceans.Countless wildlife, including sea-lions, whales, birds andturtles ingest the plastic bags and die every year. Graphicimages of polluted oceans and affected wildlife arousestrong emotions & allow activists to put their argumentsacross in powerful fashion.

➔ From Australia to the UK & across the USA, politiciansand corporations are actively pondering banning or taxingplastic bags. One of the most profound signals of this shiftis the decision by the Chinese government to ban plasticbags in China, shutting down a $300 million dollarplastic-bag manufacturer overnight.

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Page 3: FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

Consumer Shifts

➔ Despite the numerous negative consequences of theglobal economic downturn, recession makes everybody –consumers included – more efficient and it is this necessitythat can boost green behaviour and lead to less waste.While sustainable packaging is not yet the main reasonfor purchasing a product, it is increasingly becoming aconsumer expectation.

➔ Sustainability is one of a growing number of issues -including ethics, economics and environmentalism -that is driving consumer choice.

➔ Many consumers claim to have altered purchasing patternsin response to packaging concerns. Boycotting productscould be the next – more successful – tactic deployed.

The Human Cost

➔ Plastic bags are more of a danger to wildlife than humansbut a ubiquitous compound in plastics - Bisphenol A (BPA) -is of increasing concern to consumers. This chemical hasbecome a key building block of plastics from polycarbonateto polyester. To give an idea of scale, the U.S. alonemanufactures more than 2.3 billion pounds (1.04 millionmetric tonnes) annually.

➔ BPA is routinely used to line cans to prevent corrosion andfood contamination; it also makes plastic cups and babyand other bottles transparent and shatterproof.

➔ BPA has been linked to human health impacts, such as heartdisease, as well as developmental and reproductivedisorders in animals.

➔ A new E.U. law (Registration, Evaluation, Authorizationand Restriction of Chemical Substances, or REACH), requiresthat chemicals, such as BPA, be proved safe. Currently itcontinues to be used in Europe, although certain Statesin the US have managed to ban it.

TECHNOLOGY:Polyglot InternetWill the potential shift from a predominantlyAnglo-Saxon web have a dramatic effect on the wayglobal issues are perceived and communicated?And how soon until it becomes unnecessary to learnanother language other than your mother tongue?

Technology at the Forefront

➔ This is not science fiction - by 2013 a supercomputer willbe built that exceeds the computational capabilities ofthe human brain. Google already claims "automatic andcorrect" translation in 10,664 language pairs. Microsoftallows you to integrate its translation technology intoOffice 2007 to translate whole documents.

➔ The value of the language industry within the EU wasrecently estimated at 8.4 billion € for 2008. This comprisesthe industry sectors of translation, interpreting, softwarelocalisation & website globalisation, language technologytool development, language teaching, consultancy inlinguistic issues and organisation of internationalconferences with multilingual requirements. This entireindustry is, however, at risk from technological progress.

➔ Although a British keypad cannot transform into a Russianone, a touch screen keypad can, rendering the process ofswitching from one language to another all the more easy.

➔ Voice recognition software is advancing in leaps andbounds and there is the real possibility of a scenario wherewe will no longer need to take language classes or employtranslators. There are already multilingual Text-to-Speechtranslators on the market.

➔ The polyglot internet is a rapidly developing animal and -as more and more tools and systems are built to bridgethe gap between languages - we can expect to see amassive change in the function of language on the net.

➔ That in itself will probably also have a pervasive effect ofchanging language itself (as has already happened with SMS).

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Page 4: FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

Anglo-Saxon Dominance May End Soon

➔ The globalisation of the Internet has brought connectivityto almost 1.3 billion people thus rendering it profoundlypolyglot. Wikipedia is now available in more than 210languages. Weblog search engine Technorati sees at leastas many blog posts in Japanese as in English, and somescholars speculate that there may be as much Chinesecontent created on sites like Sina and QQ as on allEnglish-language blogs combined.

➔ In one of the biggest changes since the internet becamepopularized in the early 1990s, the Internet Corporation forAssigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, has very recentlyopted to allow 17 other scripts to be used for Web addresses.The new alphabets include Chinese (both traditional andsimplified), Hebrew, Tamil and Amharic.

➔ There is conflicting evidence as to what percentage of theInternet is in English. Latest research suggest 80% but thisdata needs to be updated and made freely available in orderto monitor any tipping point from one language to another.

➔ The Internet is the medium through which informationis found, communicated and combined into knowledge.And if we assume that knowledge feeds policy decisionsand politics, then it is not a stretch to say that the currentEnglish dominance on the Internet favours Anglo-Saxonways of looking at the world, at global politics and at globalculture. But for how much longer and, if it does not stay thatway, is there a risk of fragmentation?

Do You Speak My Language?

➔ Crucially, 52% of consumers will only buy something froma Web site in their own language, according to a survey ofmore than 2,400 consumers in eight countries. In France andJapan, that figure increased to more than 60%. Consumerswho did not speak any English were six times more likelyto avoid English Web sites altogether.

HR/ORGANISATION:Work 2.0The working environment is undergoing profoundchange, driven both by automation, connectivityand also by a shift in personal values away frompresenteeism towards flexibility and public service.

Freedom for theWorkers

➔ Currently millions of workers freelance around the globe.While the recession is driving these numbers ever upwards,it is not the only reason for this rise. There is a definite movetowards a better work-life balance and the opportunity tofreelance allows greater scope to work non-standard hoursthan most workplaces have traditionally envisaged.

➔ However, smart companies are instituting shorterworking weeks and highly flexible schedules and haveactually seen increases in productivity as a result. Thiscan be explained in part by advances in technology anda degree of constant connectivity that enables us to beworking even whilst participating in family activities.Significant advances such as cloud computing enableaccess to data that was historically only available on alocal server. And less workplace-related stress makes fora happier, healthier workforce.

➔ Of course, some types of work such as those in themanufacturing industry necessitate much more regimentedworking hours and worker presence. But it cannot be longbefore increasing automation reduces this need too.

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Page 5: FUTURE perspective #2 trends newsletter

Influence of Millennials

➔ The workplace has also started to be highly influenced byMillennials. This generation is not motivated by the samevalues as previous ones; they want to be successful butoften in ways driven by the chance to make a difference.In the UK, public sector jobs are the top choice for graduatesand there is a notable turning away from some big-moneysectors. Millennials are also highly interested in a looser,more flexible attitude to working lifestyles.

Jobs of the Future

➔ A glance into the not-so-distant future throws light on atotally new set of careers that do not even exist today. It isnot hard to imagine - given the addictive nature of Twitter -that we might eventually need a Social Network Worker tohelp those marginalized or traumatized by social media?We can equally easily see the need for a Virtual ClutterOrganiser to help us manage our increasingly complexelectronic lives. Waste & privacy are concerns for all andthere is sure to be a pressing need for Waste Data Handlerswho specialise in secure data disposal.

➔ As the threats and impacts of climate change increase, anew breed of Climate Change Reversal Engineer-Scientistswill be required to help reduce or reverse the effects ofclimate change on particular locations. This in turn couldnecessitate the role of Weather Modification Police willneed to control and monitor who is allowed to shootrockets containing silver iodine into the air - a way toprovoke rainfall from passing clouds.

➔ As the world’s population grows older, Old Age WellnessSpecialists will emerge, drawing on a range of medical,pharmaceutical, prosthetic, psychiatric, natural and fitnesssolutions to help manage the various health and personalneeds of the aging population. Memory AugmentationSurgeons will be needed to add extra memory to peoplewho want to increase their memory capacity and to help

those who have been over exposed to information in thecourse of their life and simply can no longer take on anymore information. Due to the huge advances being made inbio-tissues, robotics and plastics, the creation of body parts -from organs to limbs - will soon be possible, requiring BodyPart Makers, Body Part Stores and Body Part Repair Shops.

➔ And, to regulate all of the above, Virtual Lawyers will berequired to resolve legal disputes which could involvecitizens resident in different legal jurisdictions.

CONTACT:To request further information, give feedbackor suggest a future topic for the newsletter,please contact:

Elaine Cameron

Strategic Research & Innovation Group, EMEA

[email protected]

And don’t forget to follow on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/FUTUREPersp

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