Dr. James Canton

Dr. Canton Appears in Mini-Documentary on New SciFi Film Surrogates

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'Surrogates' Mini-Documentary Explores How Close The Film's Tech Is To Real Life
By Brian Warmoth

Rob Venditti's sci-fi graphic novel "Surrogates" makes its transition into theaters as a Jonathan Mostow film starring Bruce Willis on September 25. The technology to make Venditti's story a reality, however, might already be percolating around the world, according to a new documentary featurette.

Posted on Wired.com, "The Science-Fact Behind 'Surrogates" includes a few new cutscenes from the movie, as well as commentary from the director and robotics experts painting a picture of how close humans are to controlling lifelike versions of themselves from safe, remote locations.

"'Surrogates' is not that far off the mark of what kind of technologies are emerging today," said Dr. James Canton, a global futurist. "We're laying the foundation for this based on current sciences."

With factories already employing robotic substitutes for laborers in certain environments, companies exist now to fill simpler examples of the needs depicted in "Surrogates."

"You can be virtually present through a robot," explained Trevor Blackwell, CEO of the robotics company Anybots Inc. "We can already do that, and from there it's just a matter of making those robots more sophisticated and more lifelike."

The countdown to realizing a world populated by lifelike robo-surrogates may be ticking, if the sources in the mini-documentary are accurate. And by the estimations of at least one, that countdown will be short.

"In the near future, robots are going to start to look like humans," Canton predicted. "I think within 10 years we are going to have the world of the Surrogates."

[Full Article]

Keynote Presentations

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Dr. Canton's Streaming Demonstration, Keynote & Media Videos

Four Key Benefits you will take away from Dr. Canton's keynote presentations

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The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Shape the 21st Century
Based on Dr. Canton's acclaimed new book, The Extreme Future, this informative keynote provides a strategic overview of the top trends that will shape the future of business and society. Constantly updated with fresh research and forecasts, this keynote is a strategic briefing on what disruptions and opportunities are coming fast that will impact your world. Future trends covered include: Climate, energy, technology, the workforce, security, the economy, health care, demographics, entertainment, and lifestyles. Find out what's next and how to prepare today via this overview of the most recent forecasts that will shape the future marketplace, society and your life.

Technofutures: The Top Innovation Trends That Will Shape The 21st Century
The global innovation economy is the central driver of business change in this century. This keynote is a sweeping overview of the top innovations and technologies that will transform the future—many that are emerging now. Based on his CNN special and book, Dr. Canton identifies the top innovations--from the Internet 3.0 to next generation genomics, virtual reality media, anywhere wireless, longevity medicine, quantum computing and nanotech to robotics that will drive future change in business and society. This keynote is an entertaining overview about the future of innovation what is coming fast—and how you can prepare for the extreme change.

Navigating the Extreme Economy - New Keynote!
The current economic crisis offers companies and leaders a unique opportunity to rethink their business. It is no longer "Business as Usual". Complext new challenges brought by the customer, technology, competitors and the marketplace will make being successful in business tougher than ever. Welcome to the Extreme Economy. In this keynote, best-selling author, futurist and business visionary, Dr. James Canton identifies the key trends, risks and strategies that will enable you to effectively deal with the Extreme Economy.

Future Smart: Managing Extreme Change - New Keynote!
Managing change has become recognized as one of the key drivers of competitive advantage, growth and success for any business. Many of the challenges facing business can be overcome by better managing change. Being a faster, smarter change manager will be a vital competency for the 21st Century Leader. How leaders understand change and use change differently than the competition may become a secret weapon for building future growth and sustainability into their business. This keynote will teach leaders how to manage change for innovation to get the authentic benefits.

The Innovator's Mindset
Innovation is central competitive force of the 21st century organization. This keynote is a strategic overview of what leading innovators think and do to succeed. . Business cases where innovative leaders and companies are using strategies to grow market share, establish competitive advantage, better deliver customer experiences and enhance quality will be demonstrated.

Eco-Business: Towards a Sustainable Future
Sustainability is a powerful new trend affecting markets, business and consumers. Changes in climate, oil, energy, security, pollution and eco-hazards create new risks and opportunities for business. This keynote shows how to develop an Eco-Business strategy that is clean and green.

Web 2.0: The Future of the Internet
Radical evolution of the Internet will continue to transform business, communications and society in fundamental ways. This keynote forecasts the key trends that will shape the Inernet--starting with Web 2.0 and going deep into the future--telepresence, social advertising, virtual reality, social networking, pervasive mobility, sensing and the impact on consumers.

The Extreme Future Of Health Care
A series of radical trends and disruptions are reshaping health care. This profound transformation will change business models, standards of care, the management of disease and redefine the health care model. What will happen next will affect the future of business, science, the workforce and society. The transition from health care as disease care to prevention will transform human beings. Few organizations are prepared for the trends that are coming and what will be required to effectively navigate this future.

The Future of Financial Services In A High Tech World
New innovations from wireless, to Internet 2 and virtualization, are reshaping the competitive landscape of financial services.  From digital TV to wireless connectivity in cars and public kiosks, new tech innovations will drive competition. Shifting customer segments and globalization are creating change. This keynote identifies the top tech trends that will reshape financial service companies impacting on customers, industries and markets.

Help Wanted: The Future of the Workforce
This keynote identifies the top trends that will shape the future of the workforce. Access to smart and skilled talent will define the winners and the losers in the 21st century economy. This presentation reviews the emerging workforce trends and challenges that will impact organizations worldwide. These forecasts will bring to light the future risks and shifting demographics, skills, tech, needs and values of the future workforce.

The 21st Century Leader
Leadership is being redefined in the global economy where challenges from technology, the workforce, customers, and the competition are changing the very nature of organizations. Learn how to develop the Future-Ready Leadership Strategy, to anticipate the business-critical trends that will shape tomorrow. Find out how leaders can better prepare for the future.

Consumer Trends 2015
Get in synch with the mind of the consumer. Where are future consumers headed and why? This keynote reviews the top consumer trends that will shape the marketplace of today and the future. Emerging trends such as the Blended Reality, Social Networking, Click-Stream, Green & Clean, and Health Enhancement will redefine markets and products. Find out what the key consumer trends are that will determine competitive advantage in the near future and how they will affect you.

The Future of Globalization
What are the ways to leverage globalization for competitive advantage? What is happening offshore in regarding innovation, population, economics that you need to know about NOW? This keynote forecasts the opportunities, trends and challenges of globalization. Find out what’s next for the future of globalization including: the war for talent, real-time trade, supply chains, technology, security, emerging markets, new consumers and the Innovation Economy. Explore new forecasts from China, India, Latin America, the US and Europe. Discover how your organization can better navigate the future.

The Future of mBusiness and the Wireless Information Society
This keynote reviews the top trends, innovations, opportunities and risks that will shape the future of mobile business and its impact on society. From the customer-centric world to pervasive mobility—a new wireless future is emerging.

The Click-Stream Consumer
There is a powerful and dynamic new consumer who is fast emerging in the global marketplace. A new report by the Institute for Global Futures focuses on the power of the Click-Stream Consumer. Who is this consumer? How do you sell to them? How can you reach them? What do they need? The Click-Stream Consumer will redefine markets, industries and competition in the near future. Companies will have to retool their enterprise to attract them. Find out how.

The Future of MegaCities
A transformation in cities is going on. Over 80% of the 6 billion people on the planet today are living in cities. By 2040, there will be over 8 billion. Over 100 new cities will be created within 25 years in China alone. Over 20 new MegaCities will redefine the consumer marketplace and society. Most of these cities of over 8 million people each will be in the developing world. With the huge migration to cities of the global population, what challenges will these cities face? What are the opportunities and risks? How should global organizations prepare for the future of cities?

The Real-Time Enterprise: Creating Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy
New and complex changes are emerging that will force enterprises to operate in entirely new ways. The interconnected linkage of supply chains, markets and businesses represents a new challenge for all companies. The key strategy for creating competitive advantage lies in understanding the trends that will shape the networked marketplace. RealTime is the pass code for the 21st century enterprise.

The Future of Security in a High Tech World
This presentation examines the future of security in a high tech world. Dr. Canton will identify the top trends, developments and emerging technologies that may determine your economic survival in the future. Technology is a key weapon used by terrorists for attack as well as a powerful deterrent for prevention and protection. This presentation demystifies the technologies, describes in a non-technical way the future issues and maps the landscape of challenges that will face every organization as it learns to navigate the future.

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Institute for Global Futures Overview

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The Future of Collaborative Supply Chains and Global Business 2005-2010

1 By Dr. James Canton
CEO & Chairman
Institute for Global Futures
Copyright 2002

Overview
This summary is from an ongoing research report and advisory service provided by the Institute for Global Futures on the future of supply chains and global business. For over twenty-five years the Institute for Global Futures has been conducting an analysis of key trends that will shape the future of business, the economy and society.

Overall we are headed toward an era of greater complexity, more competition, and faster change. Innovations will come sooner and cut deeper. Technology will continue to be a prime enabler of market share growth, profitability and competitive advantage. Information technology (IT), in this new era will become even more mission-critical to the survival of the enterprise. A new generation of power tools led by the Internet is just now emerging. The exponential growth of technology-from super smart computers to super fast networks will demand an enterprise and supply chain transformation. We are at the beginning of this era.

Supply chains are being reshaped by the Internet and the new efficiencies of e-business but there maybe something larger that is emerging. Do supply chains point to the evolution of a future economy? We think so. The movement of goods and services from manufacturer to supplier through distribution channels into the marketplace and eventually delivered to the customer is being transformed by information technology at a rapid pace. This is as true for knowledge-based products financial services) as well as manufactured goods. But this is just the beginning. Supply chains as a fundamental component of an economy, may give us insight into the larger economic shifts yet to come in the future. As next generation of supply chains are deployed---no longer reactive to commerce but being proactive, predictive and anticipatory emerge, so shall the next global economy.

The key trend that will enable the future of supply chains is electronic collaboration. Electronic collaboration between all the players of the supply chain, once collaboratively enabled, from the DNA of the products' inception to the customers' digestion-will be the sea change. This cannot occur without the embrace of new business models (e.g. JIT production) and shifts essential especially to the enterprise, (e.g. workflow engineering, eProcurement, eLogistics). These forces and the associated shifts described here will provide the transformation of the next global economy.

Collaborative supply chains will become prevalent in the future as fierce competitive forces use information technology as a weapon to differentiate their value. We are just at the beginning of this shift. Web-centric end to end solutions, today seemingly innovative will become tomorrows' EDI. As a new generation of tools and applications and networks emerge, smarter and faster solutions will prevail. Radical innovation is the only competitive advantage. Customers and their logistics partners who invest in flexible organic and scalable innovations that can fast adapt with the markets needs will be the winners. Real-time will be a key differentiator until it becomes the standard for all supply chain optimization. The capacity of the 21st century organization will continually be updating it's IT, this will be the norm. They must learn to be able to move faster and provide a smarter solution set so their customers can thrive in the extreme future.

As corporations become increasingly dependent on global trade to offset local maturing markets, the borderless transnational enterprise will require a streamlined new generation of supply chains. Innovations today will seem less so in the future. This report considers the leading trends that may indicate what's next for supply and chains and how these changes will both drive industry, economics and global markets in the near future.

Future Collaborative Supply Chain Paradigm Shifts

Seven paradigm shifts will define the next generation supply chains. Some of these shifts are emerging now; others are yet to reveal their role. Some can be seen in parallel economic and business environment, not associated with supply chains as yet-but together will become a change driver. What is interesting is that the traditional supply chain thinkers are holding hard to the infrastructure of the past even as the new infrastructure is growing up around them. Those leaders that have discovered the Web think that it is the end game. It is not. This is just the beginning where the new channel, the Web is an accelerator of dramatic changes to come. Everyone will be using end to end, Web-centric technology to accelerate their supply chains. This is not the innovative breakthrough. This is the new commodity. By cultivating a capacity for continual radical innovation, anticipating future opportunity and customer demand, leaders will be able to better navigate the challenges of the near future.

As we move beyond, into 2005 and further On-Demand Supply Chains will provide more speed, business intelligence and transparency for growing business opportunities. Seven key paradigm shifts point the way to the future of supply chains:

1. Real-time Predictive Forecasting
The ability of an enterprise to be able to anticipate and forecast future customer demand, identify profitable niche markets, turn that into products and services and then turn that information into a business asset will be essential to the competitive advantage of the enterprise.

2. Business Intelligence
Critical information about competitors, customers, and the industry that can be used to accelerate the development of profitable opportunities will be the key driver of the 21st century enterprise. Customer and supplier data will become a weapon for competitive advantage if tied to the IT infrastructure.

3. On-Demand Service
This is a shift in thinking, designing and implementing supply chain resources not shaped just by cost or efficiency but by speed smart software, and system optimization. The ability of a company to have access to a flexible, transparent and interoperable Knowledge Network that can accelerate business opportunity, is the central paradigm forecasted here.

4. Pervasive Networking
The use of the next generation of intelligent devices-from chips in packaging, to network sniffers that monitor to mobile devices that are pervasive, intelligent, fully integrated into the products being moved in the supply chain, will provide efficiency, speed and knowledge that can be monitized...

5. Electronic Markets
Electronic markets will emerge providing AI optimized trade, where price, speed and feature transparency will dominate those players that can function in the new environment. These markets, tied to banks and manufacturing and logistics will present vast new opportunities as new technologies tied to the Web such as interactive TV and wireless commerce become widespread in use throughout the world.

6. Smarter Software
Software that can automate human functions with less error and chance will enable more efficient and more cost-effective supply chains. Many functions today could be automated around rule-based AI systems providing faster efficiencies.

7. Next Generation Collaborative IT Infrastructure
Not much can or will be done if companies don't spend the resources to design the nextgen IT infrastructures. Deep collaboration offering transaction, communications, clearing, confirmation, validation, and decision-support with customers, suppliers, partner's even competitors is what the future holds. It is the agility and intelligence of the collaboration that will determine success. Delivery channel architectures tied to customers, data warehouses linked to the desktop or wireless web, offering real-time, on-demand streaming data-this is what's next.

Ten Key Drivers of Future Collaborative Supply Chain Scenarios

The following are the prime enablers that will shape the future of supply chains based on research conducted by the Institute for Global Futures. Much of this is an evolutionary shift, inevitable yet hard to definitively predict a timeline. With so many companies offering third party web-centric end to end solutions, it is probable that one standard electronic infrastructure will emerge. In addition, the enablers, and the systems will eventually become commodities, like many of the products they will move via their logistical systems. No supply chains will exist by 2010 that are not electronically enabled, collaborative or are on-demand. The following are the key drivers of this emerging Collaborative Supply Chain future:

1. Artificial Intelligence, AI-embedded decision-support for predicative modeling and automatic logistics management
2. Innovations such the next generation Internet 2, 3, 4; broadband; peer-to-peer; nanotechnology; Grid computing; the Semantic Web and VoIP will provide voice and data integration with wireless, satellite, interactive TV for max logistics coordination.
3. On-Demand supply chain components that get created and then become invisible until when needed, Lego Supply Chains
4. Banking and telecom infrastructure Web unification tied invisibly to the enterprise and to logistics systems
5. Just in Time Production, tied to predicative analysis of customer demands and logistical systems availability
6. Real-time data mining to drive the best logistical utilization of supply chain resources, systems and costs
7. Customer supply chain hosting, to re-purpose underutilized infrastructure within and outside the customer's systems
8. Supply chain optimization objects built into the system with DEPS, digitally engineered personalities that automatically monitor and configure customer, logistic and supplier needs
9. "What if "scenarios with forward placed digital cash commitments to determine buyers interest before manufacturing starts.
10. Customer Relationship Forecasting, to determine buying interests and business to business competitive-advantages that the "aware supply chain" can use to improve "itself"; to become real-time self-aware of the need to enhance the functionality of 'its' network architecture.

Preparing Business for the 21st Century

The challenge before business leaders today is how to prepare to meet the challenges of this emerging future. Collaborative Supply Chains will shape the future success, even the future survival of the enterprise. Investing in infrastructure, technology, or human resources alone is not the answer. More radical technologies are coming that will change the supply chains; even quite fantastic. Wireless packages will communicate their location and arrivals to a global customers waiting for them. Nanotechnology, using enhanced self-organizing materials that reassemble themselves from components into finished products are coming. Molecular models for network chips that mimic natural processes like DNA to hydrogen fuel cells for trucks and planes are coming.

A forward looking strategic plan that incorporates a cohesive strategy designed to take into consideration, both core competencies and future business objectives, that is in step with the customer and the changing marketspace is the right direction. This is a learning process that is a formula for long term profitability and success.

We must also remember as we look forward to look back. Even though billions have been spent on the intermodal system today, the raising of the tunnel clearances alone was quite expensive to accommodate double-stacked trains in the US; this system is still not used as efficiently today as it could be. Newer technologies may breathe new life into older solutions.

The era of the supply chain that reacts to customer needs alone is over. Leaders both in the logistics industry and those customers who understand this vital paradigm shift will prosper given this new reality. Collaborative Supply Chains will both be shaped by the next economy and be shaped by the forces of change.

LOMA Interviews Dr. Canton in Emerging Technology: Shaping the Future

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Futurist Dr. James Canton discusses the emerging trends and  technologies  that will shape the future of the insurance industry.  

By Tammy J. McInturff  

Resource recently talked with leading futurist, author and keynote speaker Dr. James Canton, CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, www.GlobalFuturist.com, to get his insight on emerging technologies and how they will affect the industry and our future.

Canton is a renowned global futurist, social scientist and business advisor.  He is the author of The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10 and 20 Years and Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations Will Transform Business in the 21st Century.  An authority on future trends in innovation, Canton has been insightfully predicting future technology and business trends for over 30 years.  

The Economy

The economy is on everyone’s mind right now.  Many companies are tightening their belts and cutting their IT budgets while pondering how bad it is going to get.  Resource asked Canton about his assessment of the current business environment and how the economy might affect emerging technologies.  Surprisingly, Canton seemed optimistic about the economy and the potential for economic growth.

Resource:  What is your assessment of the current business environment?

Canton:  I think the current business environment may look challenging but there is much upside as well; especially for those who thrive in changing times. You cannot have opportunity without risk as we are experiencing today. U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is still growing at 3.3 percent.  Global GDP is stronger than ever, over seven percent and much of that is due to the growth of the emerging market economies. This is very positive for the future. Growth is outstanding given all of the changes in the financial sector.  In terms of globalization for the business sector there is tremendous new opportunity for expanding new markets, finding new customers and opening up new channels.  For U.S. businesses the strength of the developing markets for globalization has outstanding growth potential—led by innovations that the U.S. has invented first. This presents a competitive advantage—of course it should—for business.

New technologies such as Web 2.0, new Internet and wireless technologies certainly are making for a global connected world.  New technologies are also creating more efficiencies and productivities for businesses whether they are selling domestically or internationally.  Over a third of real GDP is being driven by innovation industries and there are entirely new innovation industries that are creating new value as never before such as nanotechnology, biotech and certainly the next stages of wireless, business process transformation and IT innovations like cloud computing, pervasive connectivity and virtualization.  

However, there are clearly challenges that we are facing in the financial sector in terms of the credit crunch but I don’t view these as cataclysmic.  I view these as somewhat of the natural messy evolution of market capitalism and something that gets out of hand and gets corrected every five or seven years.  Just think about it, you can go back as far as junk bonds, then you can look at the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, then we had the dot-com crisis and then the real estate bubble and now you’ve got what we have now which is of course the credit crisis.  Every few years there seems to be a certain crisis that has a upside and a downside.

We call it a crisis but it is really the natural messy evolution of capitalism and now particularly global market capitalism. Experimentation and global innovation in market capitalism has led to massive wealth, growth, strong global GDP as well as dislocations in the global economy. Market capitalism, now embraced by most of the globe is not a precise science; it is a economic platform that is self-organizing and that requires innovative experimentation. The results have been mostly positive but not without some problems as we are facing now. This too will pass.  So I think the prospects for long term are great, but in the short term we need to work out some of these clear challenges in the financial markets that create more risk than opportunity.  

Resource: How do you think the current slowdown in the U.S. economy will impact emerging technologies and new
technology adoption?

Canton: The U.S. economy is fundamentally strong and resilient. There may be a recession and an uptrend in unemployment but growth will continue. I don’t think there is a massive slowdown in the U.S. economy right now as much as a perception of greater risk and fear.  GDP is growing at 3.3 percent on a $14 trillion dollar economy.  Germany’s GDP is about one percent; all of Europe has GDP that is lower than the U.S.  The measure of the economy’s strength and robustness is growth.  Our growth is at 3.3 percent; it is a full point plus over the Euro zone.  Now when you compare us to China or India there is slowdown in growth that is going on and has and will affect us to a certain extent.  But I don’t view it as a deep dislocation in the U.S. economy.  There have been concerns that we are going to slip into a recession—this may occur but it will not be deep and certainly the Fed has signaled that.  Recent actions by the U.S. and other nations globally to invest in the banking system is very smart and the right thing to do to inspire confidence.  

Emerging IT Trends

Future technology trends and innovations will enable insurance companies to become more efficient and cost effective.  IT is one of the driving forces behind competitive advantage in the marketplace.  Resource asked Canton to identify the IT trends he sees coming in the near future and how these trends will affect the life insurance industry.

Resource: What global IT trends do you see coming in the next five years?

Canton:  The most important trend I see coming in the next few years is the expansion of the global marketplace in terms of outsourced services.  For U.S. Companies the expansion of Web 2.0, Internet connectivity, the addition of another half a billion to a billion people that will come online being connected to the global economy will be significant.  Also, the fusion of globalization and technology will result in more efficient, cost effective supply chains as well as new markets driven by pervasive mobility and global connectivity of the Internet which will create a lot more seamless integration of markets, partner relationships, logistics, and a much more transparent exchange of trading.  

Resource:  What idea or product in terms of technology do you think is going to most impact the life
insurance industry?  

Canton:  The life insurance industry is obviously facing a lot of challenges in the current market environment.  One of the future opportunities and key drivers for the life insurance industry is going to be life extension.  We are fast approaching the time when we can begin to accurately predict and enhance people’s longevity through a combination of pharmaceuticals, life style management and eventually even medical devices.  Personalized medicine is emerging. The consumer genomics marketplace is emerging. We are living in the emerging Post-Genomic society, where genomic information will be used to predict and promote health and life. We are living in an era where people will be living dramatically longer than ever before and the quality of their life will be much better.  So we are going to see a redefinition of aging and life extension. We will use medicine and life insurance to reshape society for
enhanced human beings.

The second key change I see has to do with cancer.  Predominately the two big risk factors that lead to mortality are cancer and cardiovascular disease.  We have already begun to chip away at cardiovascular disease, although not enough people are taking advantage of cardiovascular therapy such as statins but that will begin to increase.  In the future we are going to see more personalized medicine that will begin to help people manage cancer.  Cancer will be a manageable disease as opposed to a killer in the near future.  We will, with massive supercomputing and synthetic biology, better understand how to prevent and cure some cancers in our lifetime.

The third key driver of change for the life insurance industry is the mapping of an individual’s personal human genomes.  Now companies like 23andMe are offering to sequence your personal genome and analyze it against the known 1,500 tests genetic tests for disease.  When people begin to start taking advantage of this technology you are going to be able to map that to different kinds of new insurance products.  So I think there will be tremendous new life and health insurance policies and products that can be structured based on these key drivers that will give value both to consumers and the life insurance industry; that leverage off of personal genomics.

Security Trends

Security remains a top concern for business and IT executives alike.  It only takes one bad security breach to ruin a company’s reputation.  Although, security remains high on most insurance companies’ lists of top priorities, Canton said that most insurance companies still aren’t doing enough to keep their data secure.

Resource: What new trends do you see coming in the future around security?

Canton:  For security in a world where all data bases, networks, telecom banking, business databases will all be connected increasingly over wireless Internet platforms the challenges are going to be to balance privacy and confidentiality of data with proper legal transparency.   Technology innovations are coming faster than security innovations.  And the innovations that are available for security are not being adopted.  So in the area of cyber hacking, for instance, identity theft is growing over 1,000 percent a year, which is just unacceptable.  As more things get connected there will be more security breaches.  So overall we have not done as well in business with adopting the technologies that can protect and secure our data as we should.  Also, the innovations that are available in the area of security have not really delivered on protecting privacy and data.

The other areas in terms of security other than cyber are issues related to terrorism, crime and global risk.  Often the new face of risk is the global criminal organizations that hijack data and sell it using all of he latest Internet innovations like auctions, video conferencing and even online payments. Companies are, for the most part, easy targets for this threat. Companies need to expand their ideas to create a more holistic risk landscape.  Risk factors such as climate change, disasters and terrorism are risks that up until recently most businesses didn’t consider were part of their security profile but today they should be.  We are going to see greater emphasis on business continuity planning.  Most companies have some kind of a business continuity plan but quite frankly it is not really developed enough to be able to deal with potential issues such as climate changes, disasters or even emerging terrorism and crime.  The areas of crime, particularly cybercrime, are going to require deeper collaboration between companies and authorities so that we can together work on dealing with these problems.

Resource:  Do you think Insurance companies are doing enough to right now to meet security requirements?

Canton:  No, I think the insurance industry as a whole could do more to take a lead in innovating in the area of security.  There are a lot of new developments in security such as quantum encryption and quantum computing.   There are individual insurance companies that are doing outstanding things to protect their data and secure their enterprise but too many more are not as actively investing in building threat scenarios and building the kind of firewalls and technology that they will need.  Insurance companies need to be implementing security policies that will take into consideration asymmetric risks, like climate change, disasters and pandemics.  We have one insurance client that has been very interested in the impact of pandemics because of the potential impact in their key markets.   There is a lot more that companies could be doing to become more aware of and be able to actually even prevent security issues in the future.

Avoiding Pitfalls

What can you do to ensure that your company’s future is safe?  In this tough economic environment that is a question that many companies are trying to answer.  Canton discussed some of the biggest threats that companies are facing today and some of the biggest mistakes they are making.   

Resource: In general, what do you see as the biggest threat right now to a company’s future?

Canton:  There are three or four key threats.  One of them is to not move fast enough at embracing new technologies that will make your operations both cost effective and more future ready.  Companies need to be ready to meet the challenges of a vastly more hyper competitive environment where consumers have very high level expectations of companies innovating.  So the first threat is not investing and leveraging innovative technologies such as Web 2.0, data mining, business intelligence or knowledge management.  These are critical ways for companies to stay
competitive and to also be sustainable.

The second thing I don’t see that I would like to see more of is better appreciation for talent management.
The insurance industry, as in most industries worldwide, is global and the biggest issue is whether we will have the necessary people to be able to grow our enterprise at the key levels that we need.  We are already suffering for depopulation.  How we are going to acquire the talent we need to grow is an issue that every company should be planning for today whether it is succession management, mentoring, procurement or retention.  These are critical issues because we are in a talent war.

The third threat to a company’s future has to do with being able to create products that are in sync with the changing demographics and financial needs of the population.  There is a lot more room for creativity in this area.  People will be living longer and therefore insurance companies should be providing more structured investments that
can address both long term health needs as well as investment needs for an aging population. The largest concen-tration of wealth on
the planet is with the baby boomers.  We are going to have 78 million boomers potentially living an extra 10 to 15 years so they are going to need a whole range of new kinds of insurance products.  These products are not really on the market today and they could be. 

Resource:  What is one of the biggest mistakes that you see companies making right now?

Canton:  One of the biggest mistakes I see companies making right now is not listening enough to the customer in terms of how their world is changing and how to get in sync with their future vision of their world.  The second mistake I see companies making is not paying enough attention to innovation.  Innovation is not just the latest and greatest technology.  Innovation is about the practical technologies that will help you become more agile, more on demand and be able to be out front in terms of competition.

Looking to the Future

If there is one constant in business it is change.  Today, due to changing demographics and emerging technologies change in the marketplace is happening faster than ever before.  Being agile is more critical than ever. 

Canton discussed some of the changes we will be seeing in the next few years as well as how the CIO’s role will change.

Resource:  Do you see the way we do business changing in the next five years?  How?

Canton:  I think the ways it will change is we will get smarter, more productive and more effective. We will be outsourcing more.  Everything that is not core is going to get outsourced.  And even the definition of what a core competency is for business will change.  The smart businesses will be able to offer more value on pricing and more value in terms of service because they will be using outsourcing capabilities around the world.  Also, products will be better designed to really fit the markets that you are going after.  

Imagine an insurance company thinking and acting like Apple Inc. when it comes to designing products.  It would be an interesting strategy for an insurance company to think about the implications for how it introduces design into its services and products the way Apple introduces them.  There are ways the insurance industry could learn from other industries and best of breed leaders.  There is actually a new kind of branding opportunity that may emerge.  Also, I think that decisions that consumers are going to make are going to be made much more on which companies are both green and sustainable.

We are going to see a shift of consumers and how they buy.  In a world where insurance products look like commodities to consumers increasingly they are going to want to know about the values of the companies that they are buying their products from.  Today there is not as much visibility in the U.S. as there has been in Europe.  I forecast that with over 95 percent of consumers viewing themselves as environmentalists the insurance sector particularly will have to start to embrace green strategies.  Companies will have to embrace strategies that will send out a message that not only are they going to help insure you but they are also giving something back to make the planet a better place.  We are beginning to see this with green IT in the tech center.  Certainly consumer companies are concerned about this, such as the automobile industry, we are going to see this hit the financial service companies next.  

Resource: Will the CIO’s role change over the next five years or 10 years?

Canton:  I believe that more CIOs will out of necessity have to become more business justified in terms of their strategies.  CIOs are going to have to understand the business in fundamental ways and make a case for technology investments that will drive value.  In other words, they will be focusing on investments that will be able to drive growth, drive new value and find new markets.  The CIO will have to become more market driven not just innovation driven.  In fact I think we are at the edge of a major revolution in the way CIOs are going to operate.  I don’t think there is a CIO today that can get his or her budget passed without a strong business strategy justification of what that technology is going to do to drive the enterprise.

Emerging Technologies

The insurance industry has a reputation for being slow to embrace new technologies.  Whether you are an early-adopter or a laggard, knowing which technologies to watch is essential to staying competitive.  Canton provided some insight into which emerging technologies will be changing the way the insurance industry does business in the future.

Resource:  Have you been surprised by the lack of growth or resilience in any areas of technology?

Canton:  I am surprised by the lack of innovative technology adoption by some companies.  I have also been surprised by the decisions of some companies to pull back on their investments in technology which I think is mistake.  When you cut back on technology investments you are creating a vacuum for your competitors to step in and grow their market on the back of your missed opportunity.  So companies that are kind of looking at the potential slowdown of the economy, which I don’t think is wise, are holding back on technology investments such as business process transformation or upgrading from legacy to more Web centric platforms.  I am surprised that there are some companies that still don’t understand that innovative, adaptive technologies are what is driving business value and what customers and consumers are expecting.

Resource: What is the biggest technology change or trend that you see coming for 2009?

Canton:  For 2009, the biggest trend is going to be social networking, Web 2.0 and the explosive convergence of the multimedia Web.  This convergence is actually going to emerge in 2009.  We are going to have very fast networks that are tied to mobile platforms, rich media and video and this is going to become a very potent platform for companies to advertise and for people to share ideas.  All of that is going to start happening and driving opportunities for globalization.  This will open up entirely new marketplaces particularly in the developing world where business will be able to expand.  And in the U.S. and developed nations this convergence of media will lead to entirely new products that just really don’t exist today.

Beyond 2009 I am tracking a major technological innovation called the Singularity and that is the time when supercomputing, artificial intelligence, biology and the future Internet referred to as the Metaverse may create a kind of artificial intelligence that may become even aware of itself.  I am tracking the implications of this Singularity with a group of scientists from NASA, Google, Microsoft and IBM.  We have all collectively decided that we need to track the emergence of super intelligence because of the potential implications it may have for our world.

Resource: What products or innovations will drive competitive advantage in the future?

Canton:  In general,  I think smart products that can be upgraded and adapted for more niches will drive competitive advantage in the future.  Innovative companies will be focusing on smaller niches and have smaller production runs of products that can serve specific niches in the marketplace.  It could also be products that are designed by the consumer.  The consumer is going to have choices and maybe even design their own kinds of products whether they are financial service products, insurance products or even consumer products. I believe in a world where you are going to have things like nanotechnology which can basically make products on demand you are going to have a vast new kind of supply chain that is going to be much more on demand, agile, responsive and cost effective for making limited runs of products that consumers will also have a fundamental role in creating.

Resource: Do you think the cut backs in IT budgets will affect investments in green computing?

Canton:  I don’t think they should.  The message to insurance companies should be that you need to continue to invest in green technology but that may mean that you don’t need to do it by yourself, you just need to have better partners or vendors to outsource to.  The issue with green computing is a different strategic issue.  It is an issue of both increased productivity, cost effectiveness, being able to not sacrifice customer service and product quality while incorporating more green practices.  It is a new holistic way of thinking and operating.  We need both investments in innovation and we need green computing in order to meet the needs of both the future organization as well as the future needs of consumers.

Resource: Do you think social networking Web sites will play a role in how we do business in the future?
Will social networking Web sites change how we do business?

Canton:  Social networking sites already play a role in how we do business.  In the future they will be a fundamental part of the new reality.  Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Flickr will play a part and particularly Wikis will play a part.  I could foresee an insurance Wiki where I’m bartering, trading and auctioning different features of my policy with other people’s policies and actually I’m able to trade on my policy.  There is a fantastic new future of opportunity for insurance companies by leveraging off of social networks.  These sites will enable insurance companies to understand better how to serve the consumer and also put into the hands of consumers different kinds of mechanisms that can allow them to increase the value of their own insurance assets.

Resource: What role do you see robots playing in our future?  What area or industry will they have the
most impact?

Canton:  Robots will play an important role both in the home and in the industry. We are going to see domestic robots that play a variety of roles.  Today we have robots like the Roomba that clean up the house.  Tomorrow we will have robots that are companions for people and that take care of people with certain disabilities.  Robots will help with everything in the home from security to cooking.  In the industrial sector we are going to have robots building just about every consumer device.  There are over 50,000 robots today that are building everything from cars to refrigerators around the world, tomorrow robots will be building robots.  We are going to see more mobile, autonomous intelligence that will both be fighting wars, taking care of the aged, as well as being companions for people that are interested in the companionship of a form of a robot called an android that will look, feel and maybe even smell like human beings.

Advice for IT Professionals

Today, being an IT professional in the life insurance industry is more challenging than ever before.  Innovations and new technologies are coming faster than ever, while IT budgets are getting cut.  Trying to find the best solutions to help the business run more effectively and efficiently is no easy task.  Canton offered some advice for the IT professional in the life insurance industry.

Resource:  Do you have any advice for the IT professional in the life insurance industry?

Canton:  I would suggest that the IT professionals in the insurance industry take into consideration how to articulate what the key technologies are that will drive business value.  First, IT professionals need to have a good understanding of what the current business strategy of the company is and really get clear on that.  Many companies themselves are getting clear on that.  Then IT executives need to think about how they can bring new value from championing investments in IT.  Some of those investments may be outsourced solutions and some may be in house developments but the whole notion of driving future business value is the critical challenge facing IT professionals today.  In order for IT professionals to convince the business it needs a new solution they first have to understand what the business strategy is and how it relates to the products and services.

IT professionals need to be asking how do we create an organization that is future ready?  How do we create an organization that will speak to the needs of the consumer not just today but tomorrow?  What can IT do today to drive those opportunities to create and sustain that future value?   I think that is the ticket for IT.  I see IT professionals needing to be at the table, actually crafting business strategy with a much longer view towards the future rather than just having short term responsiveness to internal customers.

 

The Extreme Future: The Top Trends that Will Shape the 21st Century

Keynote Presentations

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Will you be ready to navigate the changes in the Extreme Future? Welcome to the Extreme Future where complex and disruptive change is coming fast. Are you ready to navigate the changes of the future? Are you ready for the Post-Genomic society? Where people trade their DNA on eBay? Where corporations conduct talent wars? Where health enhancement is a trillion dollar market? Where virtual supply chains and on-demand products rule? Where real-time collaborative organizations thrive?

The 21st century will be driven by lightening fast, complex and disruptive changes that will re-define risk and opportunity for every business, government and individual worldwide. Will you be prepared? This keynote will help you better manage change in the Extreme Future. The unique understanding of the next convergent forces in technology, the workforce, security, the economy, life sciences, demographics, entertainment, environment and lifestyles will together shape the future.

This presentation by a noted futurist and author provides a strategic overview of the top changes that will shape tomorrow’s leaders, business and the economy. Discover what future-readiness strategies you can use to achieve success in the Extreme Future.

Dr. James Canton
CEO
Institute for Global Futures

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Ten Key Trends of The Extreme Future

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