Communities of the future

Anticipating Market Targets in the future of communities

ANTICIPATING MARKET TARGETS IN THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITIES
Anticipating Market Targets in the future of communities


by Rick Smyre, President, Center for Communities of the Future

OVERVIEW AND RATIONALE

During this time of historical disruption, the concept of economic development in communities is in churn, often shifting from industrial recruitment to creating a culture of innovation.

However, few communities are taking bold action to transform their economies and remain wedded to the traditional search for industrial plants that can provide hundreds of jobs at one time. This opens a great opportunity for creative companies of all types.

For those companies, especially start-ups, that develop a new type of collaboration with networks of communities during this time of transition, an innovative business model will evolve. This new approach will build demand for new products and services at the same time that communities learn how to shift their focus and methodology for a different type of economic development associated with the emerging idea of a Creative Molecular Economy.

Looking at key trends and weak signals important to the future of communities, businesses will learn how their involvement with interlocking community networks in different areas of the country can offer opportunities to identify new needs for innovative products and services.

At the same time, these businesses that develop creative relationships with community networks leading to the innovative idea of “community product R&D,” will develop a reputation for caring about the sustainability of communities.

As identified by IBM’s recent Report, “the Enterprise of the Future goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and reflects genuine concern for society in all actions and decisions.”

Businesses need to realize that it is to their self-interest to help communities shift their thinking and action into new paradigms.

Only in so doing will communities become sustainable and vital in a time while fundamental principles, concepts, methods and techniques are transforming from an 20th century Industrial Age society to a 21st century Connected/Organic Society. This is focused on “for-benefit” corporations.

These “for-benefit” businesses will begin to increase in number and will begin to see opportunities to work with local communities in new ways to help prepare them for a different kind of future.

The leaders of these businesses will see their role as not only ensuring profit for their firms, they will see the road to sustained profitability as consistent with helping local communities develop a culture that is open to new ideas as well as help support what the Center for Communities of the Future calls “creative transformational processes.”

Local communities are caught in a time warp in which the demands of the times
are increasing exponentially while the capacities for it leaders and citizens barely change.

Until the leadership and population of local communities begin to realize the need to develop new “capacities for transformation” that will help their communities shift from concepts such as hierarchies, standard answers and predictability to the use of networks, multiple answers and ease with ambiguity and uncertainty, local areas will not be able to adapt to constant change that is the hallmark of the future.

This is where the intersection of the needs of business and the needs of local communities intersect. Businesses, especially start-ups with exciting new services, products or ideas, but without a trusted brand, need to have multiple networks of people become involved with them to develop a demand for the new idea, product or service.

Communities, especially in rural areas, need the involvement of the talents, knowledge and resources of business, especially if the business in not located in their area.

One of the major reasons for this need is because the very nature of economic development is transforming as the economy shifts from traditional manufacturing through a time of transition from 2000 to 2020 some call the Knowledge Economy to the type of economy the COTF Center calls the Creative Molecular Economy, The Creative Molecular Economy is just beginning to emerge as a weak signal and will be based on the principles of biology. Products such as bioplastics and nanomonitors will be produced using the principles of genetic engineering.

As a result of this ongoing shift from one type of economy to another, there needs to be three complementary methods of economic development for local communities. The traditional concept of recruiting industrial plants and businesses will continue, although increasingly limited in the future.

The Knowledge Economy requires a culture that will attract creative people and be open to new ideas. The economic development focus here is increasing creativity in the workforce through innovative workforce development methods and techniques.

However, the Creative Molecular Economy will require a totally different kind of economic development that is based on seeding economic resiliency in local communities by building “capacities for continuous innovation” and “transformational thinking,” that is the basis for continuous innovation.

In the future, all individuals of a community will become economic developers as there is a shift to global innovation networks of creative people connecting with each other searching for new ideas and collaborating to develop new income opportunities.

There will emerge in communities economic databases with which individuals will then connect to new ideas, products and services wherever they begin to appear.

As individuals find weak signals and emerging concepts, they will connect this information to the community data base as an economic development tool so that all those interested can find value and link their own creativity to those found elsewhere. In so doing, the concept of “distributed intelligence” will become a major tool of community economic development.

INTERLOCKING COMMUNITY MARKETING NETWORKS

In this time of economic transition, businesses that recognize the potential to create collaborative partnerships with networks of individuals in different communities in different states will find themselves at the cutting edge of building new brands, especially if they are start-ups or firms with no previous local presence.

Many firms are focusing on the advent and growth of social networking sites, especially if their target market is the Millennials from 11 to 32.

What is being missed is that the social networking sites can be combined with the active creation of networks of people in different communities in different states to help businesses in one or all of three ways: 1) getting feedback on new ideas, products or services (traditional product research and development, 2) finding and connecting interested citizens into networks of “prosumers” who would like to operate as a hybrid “crowd sourcing” to help develop and utilize products and services that need to establish a brand, and 3) create interlocking networks of people who help build a demand for the new idea, product or service, both in local communities and because they are involved in social networks and virtual reality platforms.

It is in this intersection of physical community and virtual community that businesses, especially start-ups can find the greatest leverage in the use of “interlocking community marketing networks.”

By helping to create a demand for a new business or a new product or services, local citizens can provide value in multiple ways. In addition, new products and services increasingly will be designed and promoted as meeting the emerging needs of a society in constant change.

Unless there is a symbiotic relationship between new businesses and how a community evolves it culture to be open to new ideas and supportive of constant creativity, there will be limits to the growth of the number of community entrepreneurs and the acceptance of a new brand.

A key counterintuitive idea connected to the concept of “interlocking community marketing networks” is that any business that would like to participate in a "community marketing network” can be located anywhere in the country or world because of the use of virtual networks and communications.

Therefore, the idea of a new type of business-community collaboration becomes a key part of a community’s economic development strategy.

The incentive to participate in an “interlocking community marketing network” among communities in different states would lead not only to the increase in individual entrepreneurs, but also to support in funding “creative transformational processes” that would lead to increased development of “capacities for transformation” ... thus increasing the potential for a culture in support of continuous innovation ... thus increasing demand for innovative products, services and ideas that are a part of such a new system.

In return, any business that became involved in “interlocking community marketing networks” would increase its potential to build its brand more quickly and to receive the positive pr value in the media of helping local areas prepare for a different kind of future.

WEAK SIGNALS AND EMERGING TRENDS

To be able to anticipate new products, services and ideas that can become a part of Interlocking Community Marketing Networks, it is important to scan the horizon of weak signals and emerging trends.

The following list provides a limited array of those ideas that will impact local communities, and, in so doing, create new markets for business.

Increasingly businesses will create a new concept of the “green economy,” one in which the focus is not only finding alternative energies to replace oil, but using alternative human energies to replace the traditional thinking that is still the bedrock of local communities economic life.

• Mobile technologies will reshape governance and the way
• social interaction occurs.
• New leadership development efforts will focus on building “capacities for transformation” in communities for the longer run at the same time that concrete outcomes are met in the short-run.
• There are three types of economies in churn for the first time in history: 1) the last stages of the Industrial Age, 2) a transition Knowledge Economy between 2000 and 2025, and 3) the emergence of a Creative Molecular Economy or Organic Economy. As a result the concept of  economic development is morphing to three parallel efforts: 1) continuation of industrial and business recruitment, 2) integrating creativity into the workforce, and 3) developing a culture that supports continuous innovation and spreading distributive intelligence into the community.
• Interlocking networks will be the way economies and societies are structured in the future with “master capacity builders” facilitating the design and implementation of innovation networks.
• As a result of the emergence of a Creative Molecular Economy, a new concept of workforce development will be needed the COTF Center calls a Future Forward Workforce. The participants in this workforce will need to be able to connect and disconnect continuously in constant innovation.
• The Millennials will create an environment in which “trust marketing” will open up opportunities for companies that build virtual “collaboratories” with their age group to help communities prepare for a different kind of future that is constantly changing, interconnected and increasingly complex.
• Foundations will need to rethink how they allocate their funds in communities to respond to existing needs at the same time that they begin to fund “processes of creation” by bringing together diverse leaders and citizens in “futures generative dialogue” to conceive innovative ideas and transformational projects to prepare for a different kind of future.
• Learning concepts, methods and incentives will transform as communities begin to realize that they need to create a “passion” for learning within all their leadership and citizenry. Transformational Learning that emphasizes the integration of broad and deep content of multiple knowledge, the capacity to ask appropriate questions, and the ability to make connections among totally disparate ideas, will become the norm
• Systems of preventive health-care will emerge that integrate multiple methods of physical fitness, an emphasis on effective nutrition, and DNA profiling for identifying predisposition of diseases.
• Real time data bases whose information comes from ubiquitous computing in materials, people, appliances, clothing and equipment, will be needed that provide the foundation for multiple decision making as more complex systems and interconnected problems are created.
• The need for clean water, clean and distributed energy and access to broadband will create great potential for business markets.

The following are ten “market targets” for businesses that will come to exist as a result of the impact of the emerging trends:

1. Communities increasingly will see the need for access to adequate quantities and qualities of clean water as imperative to their economic and social future. Alliances of businesses will emerge to provide new concepts for communities to be able to have water whether it is creating “water tunnels” from both coasts to inland communities using the technology of desalinization, to the new technology of accessing moisture from the air for arid regions.
2. Local communities, especially in rural areas, will begin to utilize micro and nanosensors and processors in older homebound adults to test them constantly for infection and disease. Within the last year, MIT has developed new biochips that can analyze five million molecules of DNA, proteins and bacteria, to see what condition exists. This will lead to beside diagnostics as wireless technology transfers the data to data central data bases. This will open up many different sectors for business opportunities.
3. The need for broadband that will deliver a minimum of 100 megabits to the home and 1 Gigabit to the business will create many business opportunities for services to the community to help them become adept at searching for income opportunities and developing “distributed intelligence” as community economic development is redefined.
4. Local areas will begin to see the market potential in creating a new system that will shift healthcare from intervention to prevention. Such a system will develop community networks that will integrate physical fitness, nutrition and organic foods, and DNA profiling to determine genetic predisposition.
5. New market demand will emerge for innovation in workforce development as the challenges of a Creative Molecular Economy requires new methods, techniques and activities to help develop new abilities such as a) identifying weak signals, b) asking appropriate questions, and c) seeing connections among totally disparate ideas…all the basis for innovation.
6. New market opportunities will emerge as mobile technologies with GPS and location based applications are combined with access to the knowledge of the Internet and new data analysis software that can identify emerging patterns as the information first hits the computer data base. This will develop the potential for “mobile governance” when connected to new forms of leadership that help build capacities for transformation in the thinking and activities of a community.
7. Transformational learning will emerge outside the bounds of traditional education and create multiple opportunities for “learning guides” and community learning networks. These learning networks will be connected to the economic development of a community as a part of developing community economic resiliency through distributed intelligence.
8. Physical infrastructure based on “smart” materials and “ubiquitous computing” will become a key to the needs of administering a community’s assets as compared to traditional annual capital audits. Constant information fed into a central database will open market opportunities to insure effective and efficient low cost capital repair.
9. The opportunity to create “downtowns of creation” will expand as access more and more Millennials move to be involved socially as well as to connect with each other in creative activities. This will open many market opportunities from smart products to collaborative services, both physical and virtual.
10. Rural areas will begin to find an influx of diverse people opening market opportunities for biopharming, support of new food systems as communities within a hundred mile radius prepare for economic disaster, and “individualize economies” emerge as individuals utilize broadband and sell their creativity to those involved with “instant manufacturing.”

CONCLUSION

The advent and development of “interlocking community marketing networks” will become one of the core ideas of a transformation to a Creative Molecular Economy.

As businesses begin to see the potential of collaborating with communities to help develop and fund (or help communities connect to funding sources) “processes of creative transformation” as a part of seeding and evolving their brands and expanding their markets, they will recruit and facilitate networks of communities that, in turn, see their economic future tied to building a context of continuous innovation.

The ability to collaborate and form business-community “interlocking community marketing networks” will be at the core of community transformation  business branding for new opportunities.