The Future Reinvented

Reimagining Life, Society, and Business

Talwar Rohit, Wells Steve, Whittington Alexandra

• Publisher: Fast Future Publishing Ltd
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780993295881
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Automatisierung im Maschinenbau

The second book in the Fast Future series, The Future Reinvented, explores how our notions of the future are themselves being reinvented. The authors challenge us to reimagine how life, society, key industries, and the conduct of business could be transformed by a combination of radical technological, scientific, social, and economic developments shaping the decade ahead. The Future Reinvented offers unique snapshots of different aspects of a future in which the very tenets of reality are undergoing deep and vital transformations. The book is organized into three sections covering transformations in life and society, industries, and business, and presents holistic future scenarios that encourage strategic thinking about what lies beyond the hype.Using a futurist perspective, The Future Reinvented offers glimpses of the future across a range of business sectors such as legal, automotive, and sales as well as in different areas of everyday life including retirement, education, and health. Readers are presented with vivid imagery which brings to life a number of different possible futures. These include workplace scenarios of people performing side by side with artificial intelligence or robotic colleagues; humans obtaining physical enhancements to become smarter, stronger, or more psychologically resilient; and strategies for how we might live in a “post-jobs world.” The book provides a powerful foundation for futures thinking and scenario planning in both a personal and organizational context. The authors identify early warning signals and signposts of critical emerging changes and developments on the horizon that could shape the next future.The Fast Future Book SeriesThe Fast Future series is designed to provide clear and rapid insights into the trends, forces, developments, and ideas shaping the future and the possible scenarios that could arise. Each book contains a collection of short, hard-hitting articles that explore different aspects of the emerging future and how we can respond in a manner that best serves humanity. The books are deliberately intended to be a rapid read—providing the key information the reader needs to get up to speed on future relevant issues—explaining what they are and their possible implications for individuals, society, business, and government.

THE FUTURE REINVENTED

First published in United Kingdom and United States of America by

Fast Future Publishing in 2017
http://www.fastfuture.com

For Information contact [email protected]

Copyright © Fast Future Publishing Ltd 2017

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9932958-9-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-9932958-8-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover Designed by Dusan Arsenic

Interior design and typesetting by April Koury

Printed in the UK by the Print Guild
Printed in the USA by Bookmasters

THE FUTURE REINVENTED

Reimagining Life, Society, and Business

Authors

Rohit Talwar
Steve Wells
Alexandra Whittington
April Koury
Maria Romero

Edited by

Rohit Talwar

www.fastfuture.com

About Fast Future

Fast Future is a professional foresight firm specializing in delivering keynote speeches, executive education, research, and consulting on the emerging future and the impacts of change for global clients. We publish books from leading future thinkers around the world, exploring how developments such as AI, robotics, exponential technologies, and disruptive thinking could impact individuals, societies, businesses, and governments and create the trillion-dollar sectors of the future. Fast Future has a particular focus on ensuring these advances are harnessed to unleash individual potential and enable a very human future.

www.fastfuture.com

Twitter @fastfuture @futrbiz

www.facebook.com/FutrBiz/

www.linkedin.com/company/fast-future-publishing/

The Authors

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning keynote speaker, author, and the CEO of Fast Future. His prime focus is on helping clients understand and shape the emerging future by putting people at the center of the agenda. Rohit is the co-author of Designing Your Future, lead editor and a contributing author for The Future of Business and Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, editor of Technology vs. Humanity, and co-editor and contributor for two forthcoming books: Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business, and 50:50 – Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

[email protected]

Twitter @fastfuture

www.facebook.com/RohitKTalwar

www.linkedin.com/in/talwar

Steve Wells is an experienced strategist, keynote speaker, futures analyst, partnership working practitioner, and the COO of Fast Future. He has a particular interest in helping clients anticipate and respond to the disruptive bursts of technological possibility that are shaping the emerging future. Steve is a contributor to Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity and a co-editor of The Future of Business, Technology vs. Humanity, and forthcoming books on Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business and 50:50 – Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

[email protected]

Twitter @informingchoice

www.facebook.com/steve.wells.71619

www.linkedin.com/in/wellssteve/

Alexandra Whittington is a futurist, writer, foresight director of Fast Future, and faculty member on the Futures program at the University of Houston. She has a particular expertise in future visioning and scenario planning. Alexandra is a contributor to The Future of Business and Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, and a co-editor for forthcoming books on Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business and 50:50 – Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

[email protected]

Twitter @alexandra4casts

www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-whittington-86794876

April Koury is a foresight researcher, writer, and the publishing director of Fast Future. She has worked on a range of foresight initiatives including society and media in 2020, emerging economies, and the future of travel, tourism, and transportation. April is a co-editor of The Future of Business, Technology vs. Humanity, and Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity and two forthcoming books on Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business and 50:50 – Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/april-koury-20b04396/

Maria Romero is a futurist and foresight researcher at Fast Future. She has worked on a range of foresight initiatives including a project for NASA’s Langley Research Center and the publication of “The Future of Student Life: Living” in On The Horizon. Maria is a contributor to Unleashing Human Potential – The Future of AI in Business and co-editor of Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity.

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/mgromerom/

Contents

Introduction

REIMAGINING LIFE AND SOCIETY

The Next Future – 40 Key Trends Shaping the Emerging Landscape

Dear Dad: A Letter from a Brighter Future

Dear Mum: A Letter from Another Future

The Future of Work: Retirement in a Post-Work Future

Intelligent, Connected, and Mobile – Scenarios for Smart, Sustainable, Human Cities

Britain 2022: The Future Beyond Brexit

The Gifts that Keep on Giving: 25 Human Transformations for Your 2030 Christmas Shopping List

Digital Literacy in an Age of Exponential ICT Change

REIMAGINING INDUSTRIES

The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Won’t Get Fooled Again: Anticipating Surprises in an Unpredictable Business Environment for Travel, Hospitality, and Business Events

Authenticating the Travel Experience with Blockchain

Exploring the Future of Automotive in a World of Disruption

Follow the Money – The Future Evolution of Automotive Markets

AI and the Legal Sector: Gift Bearing Friend or Havoc-Wreaking Foe?

Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Law: A Distributed Disruption?

Educating the City of the Future: A Lifewide Learning Experience

Food Production in a Hyper-Tech Future: Robochefs, VR Taste Tests, and Lab-Grown Meat?

REIMAGINING BUSINESS

Businesses and Technology – Time for a Code of Ethics?

Staying Relevant – Five Fundamentals of Leading the Future for HR and Training

A Tomorrow Fit for Humans – Ten Priorities for the HR Director

Driving Online Sales Growth – Winning in the Wild World

Building Treasury’s Digital Culture – Harnessing Next Generation Technologies

Conclusion – Critical Shifts Driving the Reinvention

References

Fast Future

Also Available from Fast Future

Available in 2018 from Fast Future

Introduction

By Rohit Talwar and Maria Romero

The Future Reinvented –
Reimagining Life, Society, and Business

The Future Reinvented – Reimagining Life, Society, and Business is an invitation to explore alternative—and sometimes competing—perspectives on how our collective futures may play out. The challenge for all of us is to try and form plausible but sufficiently stretching views of how the next decade could unfold under the influence of an ever-growing array of often exponentially accelerating forces of change.

Humanity today really does sit in the eye of a fast-moving storm that is combining and reinforcing major drivers of change from across the spectrum. These encompass politics, macro-economics, business and commerce, society, demographics, science, technology, energy, the environment, laws and regulations, moral choices, and our ethical frameworks.

When we take a step back to examine this constantly evolving and emerging landscape, it becomes clear that most of us have been, and perhaps still are, basing our planning assumptions on an expected future that is unlikely to materialize. On the contrary, these forces are breaking with tradition and expectation and are developing in unpredictable ways and at a pace few of us can keep up with. In short, we are witnessing a total transformation of the expected future, encompassing every aspect of life on our planet. This is the story we are exploring in The Future Reinvented – Reimagining Life, Society, and Business.

This second book in the...