In the global talent economy over 50% will be mobile workers

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[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

Research firm IDC has forecast that there will be 1.3 billion ‘mobile workers’ in the world by 2015, representing 37.2% of the global workforce. This points to the massive explosion of what I call the ‘global talent economy’, in which talent can be and will be anywhere.

The forecasts suggest that the bulk of the growth will be in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), which will see 838 million mobile workers in 2015, up 237 million from 2010, representing well over half the global mobile workforce.
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Why luxury defines our society and what to expect in 2012

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There are many themes and ideas threaded through our rich and complex times, so when I choose concepts to represent the heart of the year ahead, there is a lot to sort through and select. There were many dozens of ideas competing for the 12 themes I chose to represent what awaits us in 2012 (see slides below).

One of the most important themes of today that made the cut is ‘The New Luxury’ (Theme 8). I thought it would be worth expanding a little on what I wrote in the 2012 Themes on why this is important and what is unfolding in this space, following up on my post earlier this year on How is the culture of luxury changing?

2012: 12 Themes – What to expect in the year ahead

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12 Themes for 2012: what we can expect in the year ahead

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Towards the end of each year I share some thoughts on what awaits in the year ahead.

It is actually a lot easier to look years into the future than just a single year, as while we can readily discern broad trends, the major events in a year are usually unforeseeable, though they may express the longer-term directions. However as the pace of change accelerates, it is becoming a little easier to see the themes, if not the specifics, of the year ahead. My Map of the Decade shows the 14 ExaTrends that are shaping this 10-year period. Today I launch my 12 Themes for 2012, in conjunction with Future Exploration Network.

2012: 12 Themes

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Below is the text for the 12 themes, though they are better viewed in the slides above, as the images used are an intrinsic part of the themes. Alternatively download the pdf of 12 Themes for 2012 (10.6MB)
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How governments research and communicate about the future

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Governments around the world are increasingly recognizing that they have a responsibility for structured thought and research about the future, both to shape their own initiatives, and to assist companies and institutions in the nation to survive and thrive in times of change.

Examples of government futures groups include:
Egypt: Center for Futures Studies
France: Centre d’Analyse Stratégique
India: Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council
Indonesia: Badan Perencanaan dan Pembangunan Nasional
Mexico: 2030 Vision
Singapore: Futures Group
Sweden: Institute for Futures Studies
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Australia’s continued rise as a global hub for crowdsourcing

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Over just the last few years, Australia has established itself as a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms. Early last year I wrote about the phenomenon, pointing to leading service marketplace Freelancer.com, which is now based out of Sydney (see my interview of its CEO Matt Barrie on Channel 7 last week), 99designs, which recently raised $35 million as the top graphic design competition platform in the world, and DesignCrowd, another top player in the space. I followed up with a post about the innovative ideas broker Ideas While You Sleep.

Now late last week, further news pointing to Australia’s rise as a global crowdsourcing hub. DesignCrowd has raised $3 million to grow the business globally, including shortly hiring 10 new people. CEO Alec Lynch says:
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The global polarization of work: what we can do about it

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Today I gave the keynote at an invitation-only meeting of senior executives looking at the future of their industry. My role was to bring perspectives on the broader drivers of change in business.

One of the central themes of my keynote was the future of work and organizations. There are of course many facets to this, but one of the fundamentally important ones in considering the future of business and society is in how work is being polarized.

On the one hand, the elites who have outstanding talents or expertise, combined with the ability to collaborate effectively, have extraordinary choices. They can choose the employers who give them the most flexibility, the highest pay, or the greatest work satisfaction, depending on their priorities. They can work freelance for companies anywhere in the world, usually working from the comfort of their own home or local co-working space. They can live and work pretty much wherever they want in the world. As connectivity reaches deeper and broader into developing countries, a far broader pool of talented people can reasonably aspire to this lifestyle.
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Why reputation, influence, and attention are becoming central to economies but are not currencies

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This morning I gave the opening keynote for an internal future strategy session at a large insurance company. A group of 40 executives from across the organization, as part of a six month program, are spending two days immersing themselves in thinking about how the structure of the economy could change in the years and decades ahead, and the implications for their business.

My presentation gave a very big picture view of selected elements of the economic landscape that could result in a substantially different business environment.

One of the topics I covered was alternative currencies, including virtual currencies, Bitcoin and other anonymous currencies (more on that another time), and the idea of attention, reputation, and other intangibles as currencies.

Over the last years I have certainly frequently discussed the reputation economy, influence economy, and also the economics of attention.

However the idea of intangibles such as these acting as currencies is a step further, suggesting they can replace financial transactions. Is this a valid idea?
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US equities: zero gains over the last 12 years, how about the next 12 years?

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In my misspent youth I worked in international equities sales for Merrill Lynch. That was when I was first introduced to the Capital Asset Pricing Model that still underpins investment analysis today. Aong other things the model suggests that the return on an investment needs to be commensurate with its risk to attract investors.

Through the last century the empirical evidence on equity market investment was that its returns relative to other asset classes was broadly in line with its volatility.

As shown in the chart below, for the last 12 years, since 1998 or 1999 depending on the index, there have been zero gains in US equity markets. It is important to note that this does not account for dividends, which currently yield approximately 2% annually for S&P 500. However there is an important psychological issue in zero gains in the index. And it is clear that dividend yields do not justify the exceptional volatility of equity markets over the last decade or so.


Click on the image for full size
Source: Google Finance
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How Arthur C. Clarke almost 50 years ago accurately predicted our world of global distributed work

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Arthur C. Clarke was certainly one of the most prescient people of the last century, anticipating many developments and in fact inventing the geo-stationary satellite on which much of the early media and communication revolution was based.

In this fantastic segment from a BBC broadcast in 1964 he confidently makes two predictions, one absolutely accurate, one completely wrong.

He says (from 1:45 to 3:13):
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Crowdsourcing goes mainstream, shaping organizations and the future of work

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Crowdsourcing is rapidly gaining visibility as a mainstream business topic. The current issue of Outsource magazine has a good article titled The Road of the Crowd. It was written by Steve Bynghall, who produced the recent IBF24 event run by Intranet Benchmarking Forum, and who is collaborating with me on some projects.

It’s a good article providing a nice overview of the field, and well worth reading in full. Here are some of my quotes used in the piece.
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