Planning for the future

[escapeplan]

The industrial age is over. If you step away from thoughts of passive income and internet easy-money, what are the businesses of the future?

Are you creating money making ideas based on a knee jerk reaction that seems good now but will be gone in 5-10 years?

What needs will society have 10 years from now and how can you start planning for them now to be ahead of the game?

Can information really "sell" in the information age?

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by escapeplan

The industrial age is over. If you step away from thoughts of passive income and internet easy-money, what are the businesses of the future?

You are basically saying "if you step away from future business models, what are the future business models?"

It makes no sense to say ignore the internet, then ask about the future. The internet is probably the single biggest change in lifestyle and economics/business that will happen for the next 25 years or more.

Originally Posted by escapeplan

Can information really "sell" in the information age?

Yes, it can. Plenty of people are already selling it. What's important is that the information itself isn't usually what people are buying. They are buying the means to achieve some goal they have. So, people don't buy a fitness ebook to learn about fitness, they buy it because it will help them get fit themselves.

Education and information can help us achieve our goals more quickly. This is generally why people are willing to pay for information in the form of information products (ebooks, videos, teleconferences, etc.).

[WarrenG]

escapeplan,

I agree with your general point that you should look ahead. And that for a business and finance forum, there is too much focus on blogging (but you can expect that given the site we're on).

The people that make really good money with blogging are the ones that got in on it early. I'd love to see real data on this - take the top 100, or even top 1000 blogs in terms of traffic, and take out any that:

• Started in 2006 or earlier (maybe 2007)
• Had funding or investment of some kind
• Are part of a larger company, brand or online network (i.e., didn't make it on it's own steam)
• Were started by a group of people rather than individuals

... And see how many are left.

Steve Pavlina for instance, caught the blogging fad at just the right time. It's a fantastic thing to get on a wave early, and if you can catch one that's building up or on the way, you'll be in a relative position to Steve 5-6 years from now. Theoretically.

The question is, what waves are coming that are worth catching?

Personally I'm looking into personal informatics. With more of our computer activities moving to mobile technology seems like a good possibility. You can even buy crude EEG devices and play simple games with your brain (no controller). This technology will get smaller and cheaper. A great PD resource would be things like this, tracking bioinformatics and other data. Pretty niche, but that's OK.

Broadly though, mobile technology is where we should be looking. It'll soon integrate with our clothes, and maybe even our bodies. You can already get sunglasses that you can check your email on, bring up GPS etc.

The thing that appeals with the information age, escapeplan, is that information is easy to produce. That's why people get excited about content sites - all you need is an opinion and a keyboard to make a content site. Maybe not a good one, but it gets people interested. A lot of new technologies will represent an opportunity in this way for most people, unless they can acquire the technological know-how, or people that have it. A little creativity will be needed at least.

So the other opportunity is to work out where the information products are going, and go there. Again I think it's going to be mobile technology, but more local, with GPS and things. So instead of googling "nightlife in New York", it just brings up a map with where you are, where you can go, linking in review sites; things like this. Existing information packaged and presented in a different way, just like with social media.

Anyway I don't really know anything, just some thoughts.

Beyond the 10 year mark, this is my plan.

[SatvikBeri]

Originally Posted by escapeplan

The industrial age is over. If you step away from thoughts of passive income and internet easy-money, what are the businesses of the future?

Are you creating money making ideas based on a knee jerk reaction that seems good now but will be gone in 5-10 years?

What needs will society have 10 years from now and how can you start planning for them now to be ahead of the game?

Can information really "sell" in the information age?

Regarding information: it's true that pretty much everything is out there for free, but gathering it all and sorting the good from the bad is hard. That's why credibility has now become extremely valuable. This is true not just for information but for other industries. For example, Virtual Assistants are very popular now, but most of them suck. So a firm that has a great reputation can charge premium fees. Credibility and reputation are now more valuable than ever.

Also as Warren said, personalization is becoming bigger. People place an enormous value on time nowadays. An App that can automatically prioritize my e-mail effectively is valuable. An App that can quickly find entertainment near me that I'll like is valuable. A program that can find music or movies based on things that I enjoy is enormously valuable-this is one of the reasons why I can't imagine giving up my Netflix membership.

Right now personalization is pretty crappy-look at how terrible Pandora is-but I imagine it'll be huge in the next 10 years. There's no reason why we shouldn't have devices that prioritize incoming communications and can find music, books, television, and restaurants that we like and are near us based on our preferences. It infuriates me that Yelp can't find restaurants that *I* would like based on *my* ratings-because I find that I hate a lot of 5 star restaurants and love some 3 star places! And they already have the data-it would be such an enormously useful service, and it would cause the # of reviews on Yelp to skyrocket as people had more motivation to actually give a review.

Hell, there's no reason why every review-based site shouldn't have the exact same thing. Amazon, I'm looking at you.

The science exists. The methods exist. We just need to get to work on actually implementing them.

(Yes, personalization is highly related to what I work on right now )

[LostMyMap]

Originally Posted by SatvikBeri

Regarding information: it's true that pretty much everything is out there for free, but gathering it all and sorting the good from the bad is hard.

I totally agree, and would add, presenting it in a way that is friendly and useful is not that easy, and those that can do that well can get ahead.

Oh, and to answer some of the questions, at least in my opinion, good businesses of the near term future are going to be energy (clean), medical/biotech.

In ten years, maybe alternative transporation, and if I had my wishes, commercial space (tourism/logistics).

[secrets0stolen]

Originally Posted by escapeplan

The industrial age is over. If you step away from thoughts of passive income and internet easy-money, what are the businesses of the future?

Are you creating money making ideas based on a knee jerk reaction that seems good now but will be gone in 5-10 years?

Alternative food production. Of all the "green innovations" that desperately need to happen over the next few decades this may be the most fundamental. Agriculture is falling apart--with topsoil erosion, demineralization, the massive consumption of fossil fuels and pesticides: it's not only extremely inefficient, wasteful, and expensive (farms need to be subsidized because otherwise they would lose money! this is particularly true of the mass monoculture crops like soy, wheat, corn, and canola--in addition to the animal foods industry which relies on these so heavily), it simply won't feed people for long!

Other green technologies like alternative energy are of course in the focus as well. Almost every thing we interact with on a daily basis can (and may need to be) redesigned for the coming social and planetary conditions.

What needs will society have 10 years from now and how can you start planning for them now to be ahead of the game?

Get a custom major degree from Brown so I can renovate properties and technologies for self-sufficiency and hyperlocalization (my own term).
And buy some damn land.

Can information really "sell" in the information age?

Not for long. The copyright system will collapse relatively soon. You can pirate just about anything these days and soon we'll all have access to it because people will redistribute it. Plus, a lot of information out there is redundant. This ultimately be a good thing imo, but will be temporarily bad for those making they're money primarily from information. Unless of course they have a loyal fanbase that is loyal to the person and not just the information.

[Mounds]

My response would be alternative energy and agriculture. I view agriculture as something that is relatively stable while alternative energy will be more like riding some big waves.
I'm always keeping an eye on alternative energy (specifically biomass) and at the moment, Europe is way ahead of North America. In fact, out of all the pellets (basically very compressed wood) that are processed in Canada, 85% is going to Europe. If the local market was bigger, you could do some good with this.
As for agriculture, people will always need to eat. It seems that the two ways you make a lot of money in agriculture is by being enormous or by being in a niche. The niche could mean growing a specialty crop (greenhouse tomatoes for example) or growing a number of things to support a local market. There are people in my area who basically lead a farmer's market life. Grow your crop, sell it off within a few months and either get a job or do something else until next season. Either way works, although I would sooner bank on the farmer's market life. People love fresh and cheap.
Anyhow, I say think renewable. What is always going to be needed? Food and fuel.

[secrets0stolen]

We also need to keep an eye on developing countries--humanistically of course but also economically. India will be the new China, but who will be the new India?

[st33med]

Originally Posted by secrets0stolen

We also need to keep an eye on developing countries--humanistically of course but also economically. India will be the new China, but who will be the new India?

Actually, China is the number two economy on the planet right now with a high GDP (not GDP per capita) and may pass the US within two or three decades. We do not have a high GDP growth rate now. It's almost stagnant.

India is not an economic powerhouse right now. It is possible for it to become very rich within the next few years because of recent US business interest. India of course, is already in the information business.

[secrets0stolen]

Originally Posted by st33med

Actually, China is the number two economy on the planet right now with a high GDP (not GDP per capita) and may pass the US within two or three decades. We do not have a high GDP growth rate now. It's almost stagnant.

India is not an economic powerhouse right now. It is possible for it to become very rich within the next few years because of recent US business interest. India of course, is already in the information business.

Ah my original comment was worded wrong--a "will likely become" would have been a lot more appropriate. It's a rough comparison but a fairly obvious one I would think: countries experiencing a huge economic boost because of U.S. business interest.

I'm not sure GDP will be as central in the future--we're really reaching the threshold of producing too much for our own good. We can't grow that forever.

[st33med]

Originally Posted by secrets0stolen

Ah my original comment was worded wrong--a "will likely become" would have been a lot more appropriate. It's a rough comparison but a fairly obvious one I would think: countries experiencing a huge economic boost because of U.S. business interest.

I'm not sure GDP will be as central in the future--we're really reaching the threshold of producing too much for our own good. We can't grow that forever.

Yeah. I've heard of other ratings for countries that tell about how the country is, like the UN's humanitarian ratings that factors a lot of things. GDP per capita is more accurate than the GDP. For example, Equatorial Guinea has a pretty high GDP but extremely low GDP per capita because the @sshole of a leader has all the money.

There's even and overall happiness scale for countries that rates based on average happiness.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Mounds

My response would be alternative energy and agriculture. I view agriculture as something that is relatively stable while alternative energy will be more like riding some big waves.
I'm always keeping an eye on alternative energy (specifically biomass) and at the moment, Europe is way ahead of North America. In fact, out of all the pellets (basically very compressed wood) that are processed in Canada, 85% is going to Europe. If the local market was bigger, you could do some good with this.
As for agriculture, people will always need to eat. It seems that the two ways you make a lot of money in agriculture is by being enormous or by being in a niche. The niche could mean growing a specialty crop (greenhouse tomatoes for example) or growing a number of things to support a local market. There are people in my area who basically lead a farmer's market life. Grow your crop, sell it off within a few months and either get a job or do something else until next season. Either way works, although I would sooner bank on the farmer's market life. People love fresh and cheap.
Anyhow, I say think renewable. What is always going to be needed? Food and fuel.

Good answer. Wind energy is already a mature market, not an innovative one anymore. But solar (both photovoltaic and thermal) is still growing and making lots of money right now. But you have to look at the really powerful leaders of that growth, and that's mostly China. They are the ones leading technological innovation because no one else has the potential of a large enough market to drive the costs down and free enough ressources for research.

As for food, it is interesting, but it remains (and I believe, increasingly becomes) a local market, a niche. So to get rich that way you'd have to target luxury markets... which definitely has potential. People are paying more and more attention to what they eat.

Originally Posted by secrets0stolen

We also need to keep an eye on developing countries--humanistically of course but also economically. India will be the new China, but who will be the new India?

The rest of South East Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia) is booming in its industrial development right now. The older generation of Indian and Chinese engineers have been transferring their knowledge to local staff for some time now.

[escapeplan]

I personally believe that secrets and mounds have seen what is likely to be needed in the future and I was just curious as to how many others of us here are looking that far ahead?

Again, and this is only a personal opinion, there seems to be a lot of emphasis generally around here on internet businesses and content websites. For what it's worth I think this era has already been and gone.

I was just wondering what effect a bit of forward thinking might have on the types of businesses we think of setting up or buying today?

[st33med]

Originally Posted by escapeplan

I personally believe that secrets and mounds have seen what is likely to be needed in the future and I was just curious as to how many others of us here are looking that far ahead?

Again, and this is only a personal opinion, there seems to be a lot of emphasis generally around here on internet businesses and content websites. For what it's worth I think this era has already been and gone.

I was just wondering what effect a bit of forward thinking might have on the types of businesses we think of setting up or buying today?

I disagree with the notion that the information age is gone. It's still booming. If it were not, then Google would not be earning as much as it is right now and have incredibly high stocks, Microsoft wouldn't be so concerned about making 'the Cloud', and Wikipedia wouldn't be read as much. The Internet would probably not used widely. Information specialists in companies would be out of the job.

I'm not sure what type of forward thinking you are asking about.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

You are basically saying "if you step away from future business models, what are the future business models?"

Hate to break it to you, but a bunch of people sitting at home selling e-books to each other is not a viable economy. Realistically it probably can't constitute more than 2-3% of a viable economy. So there's nothing wrong with thinking about what the other 97% is going to look like.

[st33med]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Hate to break it to you, but a bunch of people sitting at home selling e-books to each other is not a viable economy. Realistically it probably can't constitute more than 2-3% of a viable economy. So there's nothing wrong with thinking about what the other 97% is going to look like.

Can you explain how the Kindle sells like fresh hotcakes, then? Why Apple decided to sell ebooks as well? How a lot of companies jumped on the e-ink and ebook train after the Kindle came on?

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by st33med

Can you explain how the Kindle sells like fresh hotcakes, then? Why Apple decided to sell ebooks as well? How a lot of companies jumped on the e-ink and ebook train after the Kindle came on?

That's easy: it's like jumping from VHS to DVD. You're going from clunky, non-eco-friendly books to sleek and sexy e-books. It's also a privacy thing. Imagine you are sitting on the train reading a book of "special interest". That might be a bit embarrassing. This way, no one even knows what you are reading. That's a monstrous market for a company that didn't sell books before.
The other side of the coin is that book stores are going broke. We had a local chain kick the bucket early last year, combined with the recession of course. Hell, try selling a used book. No one wants them!! I can't sell my used paperbacks for $1 a piece.
The information age is not dead but I don't think it's booming either. It's a wave and 99% of people are swimming behind it, with the belief that they are riding it. Google, for example, is riding the wave. Someone who spends 200 hours creating an e-book and sells 50 copies is swimming behind it. Most bloggers are swimming behind it (some are beached, lol).
Want to know what has a "real" future? Boxes. Cardboard boxes. There will be a demand for cardboard boxes until the world blows up. We pack everything into boxes. Order something online, it comes in a box. Buy something processed at the grocery store, it comes in a box. Of course, most people don't pay any attention to it because it's not sexy and new.

-Tim

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by st33med

Can you explain how the Kindle sells like fresh hotcakes, then?

Compared to food? Construction? Transportation? Energy? Financial products and services? Medical care?

Ebooks are a tiny fraction of a small segment of the economy. In 2009 ebook sales amounted to about $170M in the US. Paper books were over 30 times bigger. The US GDP was over $14T. In other words, ebooks are an infinitesimal fraction of 1% of the economic activity in the US. All books and educational websites put together are well less than 1%. Suggesting it could rise as high as even a percent, let alone 3%, was actually pretty bold on my part and would represent a new golden age of literacy.

Point being, if ebook sales are your mental picture of what the future of the economy looks like, you're wearing blinders. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with ebook sales. Just don't get huffy when people want to talk about the other 99.999.... percent of the economy.

[SnerpGoodWord]

To answer OP's original question, I think the most likely economic scenario for the next decade is a lost decade in the US and Europe punctuated by sovereign debt and banking crises. I think there will be minor changes in energy as the US substitutes coal for oil, and Europe substitutes coal and nuclear for oil. Battery production is going to be a big deal as a result.

Truth be told, the 00's were the first decade since WWII where there's really no evidence of economic change or progress in the first world. I would not be at all surprised to have the 10's play out the same way.

[LostMyMap]

Originally Posted by Mounds

That's easy: it's like jumping from VHS to DVD. You're going from clunky, non-eco-friendly books to sleek and sexy e-books. It's also a privacy thing. Imagine you are sitting on the train reading a book of "special interest". That might be a bit embarrassing. This way, no one even knows what you are reading. That's a monstrous market for a company that didn't sell books before.
The other side of the coin is that book stores are going broke. We had a local chain kick the bucket early last year, combined with the recession of course. Hell, try selling a used book. No one wants them!! I can't sell my used paperbacks for $1 a piece.
The information age is not dead but I don't think it's booming either. It's a wave and 99% of people are swimming behind it, with the belief that they are riding it. Google, for example, is riding the wave. Someone who spends 200 hours creating an e-book and sells 50 copies is swimming behind it. Most bloggers are swimming behind it (some are beached, lol).
Want to know what has a "real" future? Boxes. Cardboard boxes. There will be a demand for cardboard boxes until the world blows up. We pack everything into boxes. Order something online, it comes in a box. Buy something processed at the grocery store, it comes in a box. Of course, most people don't pay any attention to it because it's not sexy and new.

-Tim

Oh come on Mounds. Didn't anyone teach you to rip the covers off of your 'special interest' books and glue on a Isaac Asimov paperback cover?

Keep in mind that the information industry goes waaaay beyond what you see on the Internet. A lot of people would be shocked at how much information is known about them and their lives and is sold for tidy profits to corporations that want your business. And I know tons of people making their living in Information Technology (myself included).

Energy, transportation, medical, communication, food. Humans are always going to need those things. And there are always more of us.