A piece of thought leadership from Geoffrey Colon, Vice President of Social@Ogilvy and editor of The Futurist Lab on Tumblr. This piece published in the World Trends & Forecast section of The Futurist Magazine in July/August of 2012 is courtesy of the World Future Society, www.wfs.org To read, watch or listen to additional thought leadership follow Colon on Twitter @djgeoffe

1. © 2012 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • www.wfs.org • All rights reserved.
World Trends & Forecasts
Management
Energy
Resources
Conservation
Management | Commerce
Medicine
Shakeups in the “C Suite”:
Hail to the New Chiefs
How technology is altering corporate jobs and creating new community relationships.
By Geoffrey Colon
When Facebook announced role of community manager will become
its new timeline for brands for- commonplace.
mat, one of my friends in ad- New job title creation happens every few
vertising commented, “Wow, if years as technological shifts force changes
you think about it, in one fell in work functions. Here are a few more ad-
swoop, Facebook has basically ditions to the “C Suite” that we might an-
elevated the Community Man- ticipate as technological and economic
ager role as the most important trends shape the corporate future.
job function at any agency, • Earned Media Officer, or EMO, will be
large or small.” one new role. We’ve been hearing a lot in
I thought about it for a sec- recent years about the “Paid, Owned,
ond and realized that what my Earned” model of marketing. (Examples:
friend was saying was correct. magazine ads are “paid,” Web sites are
Technological innovation has “owned,” and word-of-mouth buzz is
empowered corporate commu- “earned.”) Many companies want to move
nity managers—who were once away from the “paid” silo and strictly op-
the servants of creative direc- erate in the “owned” and “earned” areas.
tors, strategists, and planners— Buying a TV commercial based on impres-
to become true brand gurus. sions (how many viewers might be watch-
The masters of Facebook real- ing—but also might be ignoring) makes
“Technological ized that the power in a brand little sense when a company can get cus-
page had always been driven by the com- tomer engagement for half the price in an
innovation has
munity manager. No longer simply a Web earned environment. Example: having a
empowered page to maintain, an organization’s Face- home-made video contest for the compa-
corporate com- book presence creates a narrative, an ad- ny’s Facebook fans and featuring the win-
munity manag- vertisement that is also a relatable story. ner on its official Web site.
Businesses 35 years ago barely had This is why Procter & Gamble cut sev-
ers … to become marketing departments. Most relied on eral thousand traditional marketing jobs
true brand sales departments to do that job. The title recently. Its attitude is, why pay for some-
g
­ urus.” of chief marketing officer (CMO) is rela- thing that we can get free? However, it is
—Geoffrey Colon, tively new; it became necessary when still an illusion that earned media is a free
companies needed a “voice of the con- channel. Once companies realize that
vice president, sumer” working internally. So now as so- earned media is the dominant business
Social@Ogilvy cial communities grow and flourish, the model moving forward, the EMO will be in
6 THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 • www.wfs.org

2. charge of exploiting this fact and pushing analytics. It won’t be enough to simply
earned media impressions and engagement. plot a digital course of action. One must
• Chief Content Officer, or CCO, will execute the action, code it, create it, and in-
emerge as marketing moves from the cre- terpret its impacts.
ation of 60-second television spots to the Even if we see these job titles emerge,
development of rich content for various so- how long will they last in the shifting
cial channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, workplace? As we move away from
YouTube, Pinterest, and Tumblr. The CCO military­ style hierarchies toward flattened,
-
will work hand-in-hand with community cooperative systems, the collaborative,
managers to see that they are getting the open source, work-from-anywhere land-
right type of content for the brand they scape could put even these titles out of
oversee for all the channels in which they commission. Only the future can tell.
need to publish. I see many former film
producers, magazine publishers, and pho- Geoffrey Colon is vice president of Social@Ogilvy
tographers fitting nicely into this role, as (http://social.ogilvy.com) and editor of the Futurist Lab
long as they have a handle on the emerg- on Tumblr (http://futuristlab.tumblr.com).
ing media landscape.
• Open-Source Manager, or OSM,
would collaborate and share best practices
with outside companies. In the future, the
title and role of CEO will have much less Energy | Sci /Tech
credibility as Wall Street is drained of its
power. As a result, an executive who works
both internally and externally with open- Harvesting Vehicles’
source talent to find the best solutions will
become a key player. Future companies Waste Heat
will all be open sourced and focused on
building a better standard of living. As a An innovative car-exhaust mechanism could
result, a CEO whose primary focus is to raise cars’ energy efficiency by 20%.
earn capital and return investment to
shareholders won’t be necessary. Most of gasoline’s stored energy never
• Chief Linguist may be a new role that actually powers a single car, according to
doesn’t replace anyone but is necessary to General Motors (GM) researchers. Half to
interpret how people speak within the three-fourths of gas energy is lost as waste
world of social networks. We’re used to in- heat spilling out of the cars’ tailpipes. But
terpreting shorthand expressions like LOL, GM and competitors BMW and Ford are all
BRB, IDK, and BTW (laughing out loud; be separately working on ways to capture that
right back; I don’t know; by the way). As heat energy before it leaves the tailpipe
future generations only learn to type and convert it back into mechanical energy
within a 140-character limit, new slang will that the cars can use.
emerge, and it will be up to the linguist to “You’ve got a lot of this waste heat. Let’s
configure the best way to communicate try to turn it into a mechanical heat and
with the company’s audience. put it to work,” says Jeffrey Brown, vice
• Chief Data Scientist will replace the president of Dynalloy Inc.
chief marketing officer or the chief digital Dynalloy is helping GM design a ther-
officer. Neither CMOs nor CDOs have mal recovery system that would be in-
enough analytical skill to understand what stalled near a car’s exhaust system and use
to do with the emergence of big data. As a the escaping heat to generate enough elec-
result, mathematicians who can crunch tricity to fully power the car’s radio or air-
data to make sense of human behavior will conditioning. The system consists of a thin
replace C-suite titles that have less grasp of belt of nickel-titanium alloy that loops
math or simply build digital strategies. In around three pulleys to form a triangle.
the future, it will be more important to in- One corner of the triangle lies close to the
terpret behavior that will be measured via thermal exhaust system, where it is very
www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 7

3. World Trends & Forecasts
RICK DOCKSAI / WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY
“This is one of many [waste-heat recov-
ery concepts] that are being explored, but
it’s also the newest boy on the block. And
right now, we are now producing some
outputs that are looking very competitive,”
says Browne.
So far, a 10-gram strand yields 2 watts,
enough to power a small nightlight. That
would amount to harvesting 4% or 5%
more energy. Since the typical combustion
engine’s energy yield is now just 25%, that
would constitute a 20% overall energy-­
efficiency increase.
“It’s not tremendous, but the impact is
huge, because it’s all for free, because it’s
heat that’s currently lost,” Browne notes,
adding that further refinements could
bring up the energy yield even more.
Diesel trucks are also prime candidates
for waste-heat recovery systems, according
to Browne. He also foresees the systems
going into use in farm vehicles such as
tractors.
“In farm areas or other rural areas where
fuel is hard to bring out there, you could
potentially make a pump out of it,” he
says. “It’s hard to bring power to anyplace
out in the bush.”
Browne sees even bigger opportunities
in public mass transit. Subway trains get
Alan L. Browne, GM hot; another corner is farther away, where much more use than cars, after all, with the
engineer, presents a it is cooler. miles of rail line that they pass back and
model waste-heat The belt automatically expands and con- forth every day. Every mile of rail could go
recovery system at
tracts in response to changes in tempera- to generating heat that could be turned
the U.S. Department
of Energy’s ARPA-E
ture: Heat makes it tighten up, while cold into mechanical energy.
Energy Innovation causes it to loosen. So as the different areas Cars are driven sporadically—perhaps
Summit in National of the belt are exposed alternately to blasts an hour or two a day—but it would be bet-
Harbor, Maryland, in of hot and cool air, the belt moves along ter to have the heat engine continuously;
February 2012. The and turns the three pulleys, which in turn trains would get more output. “Your cost
Department of En- move a shaft that drives a generator. The factor for the waste-heat recovery system
ergy awarded GM $8 more heat that strikes the belt, the more goes down if it’s on a train,” says Browne.
million to develop electricity the generator creates. “You’d be getting much more life cycle en-
the system into a “It uses low-grade waste heat that can’t ergy out of them than out of a car.”
workable mecha-
be used in a conventional motor,” says Other mechanical structures besides ve-
nism.
Alan L. Browne, a GM Technical Fellow hicles might eventually deploy waste-heat
and one of the project’s leading team mem- recovery mechanisms, too, according to Jan
bers. “We’re just harvesting this stuff that Aase, director of GM’s Vehicle Develop-
is otherwise being dumped into the envi- ment Research Lab. He speculates that oil
ronment.” pipelines or fuel stations, for instance,
The U.S. Department of Energy awarded could use them to collect some of their ma-
GM an $8 million contract for waste-heat chines’ waste heat.
recovery R&D this year. Ford and BMW “That’s more of an aspirational concept,”
are working separately with partner firm says Aase, who estimates that any applica-
BSST. tion of the technology will be at least an-
8 THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 • www.wfs.org

4. other five to 10 years in the making. The Resources | Earth
energy output will have to significantly in-
crease, and the production costs lowered,
before GM and other companies will want Biofuels Miss the
to use it. They are working toward a near-
term goal of 200 milliwatts per gram of Mark—So Far
material.
“We’re hopeful but cautious at this point. Meeting U.S. goals for biofuels will require new
The economics has to work, and the packag- land-use and incentive policies.
ing has to work,” says Aase. —Rick Docksai
To securely meet its future energy needs,
Sources: Interviews with Jeffrey Brown, Dynalloy Inc., the United States passed in 2007 the En-
www.dynalloy.com; Jan Aase, Vehicle Development ergy Independence Security Act (EISA),
Research Laboratory, GM, www.gm.com; Alan L. setting benchmarks for sustainable, renew-
Browne, Technical Fellow, GM RD, www.gm.com/ able energy production through biofuels
design-technology. development. But biofuels benchmarks are
What’s Hot @WFS.org
On the Futurist Blog, our writers offer The 22nd Century at First Light: “Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again”
uniquely forward-looking perspectives on Envisioning Life in the Year 2100
By Dale Carrico, posted May 5, 2012
current events.
By Cynthia G. Wagner, posted May 8, 2012
In a recent futurological piece, “science
When imagining the changes we may and technology writer” Dick Pelletier de-
The Theory of Opposites (or, how I see by the turn of the next century, we clares: “Although many today might find
learned to stop worrying and love might no longer find it very useful to look the idea of romance with a machine repul-
Amendment One) back to changes occurring in the same sive, experts predict that as the technology
amount of time in the past. Eighty-eight advances and robots become more hu-
By Eric Garland, posted May 10, 2012
years ago, in 1924, movies were silent, man-like, we will view our silicon creations
The Internet is lit up with hand-wringing and the Great Depression was an incon- in a much friendlier light.” … [read more]
about a referendum in North Carolina re- ceivable wild card. But change is acceler-
garding the passage of a referendum ating exponentially, as The Singularity Is
aimed at making gay marriage illegal in Near author Ray Kurzweil has argued, and The Second American Century
the state forever more. On Facebook, the next 88 years could see the equivalent
By Tsvi Bisk, posted May 4, 2012
Twitter, and in the comments sections, of of the last 10,000 years worth of change.
all the usual Internet hangouts, well-think- … [read more] Despite fashionable twaddle about
ing people are lamenting this step toward American decline, America’s cultural influ-
a new Dark Ages, a further deepening of ence has never been as dominant as it is
injustice, a coarsening of society. … [read 100% Honest, Transparency, Disclosure now. Indeed, the twenty-first century
more] —is this the future that we want? promises to be the American Century to
an even greater extent than the twentieth.
By Hank Pellissier, posted May 6, 2012
The American attitude to life—The Ameri-
More Eyes in the Sky Imagine: you arrive at the party; you can Idea—is now reflected in the univer-
recognize no one, but immediately your sal aspirations of all humanity. Through-
By Rick Docksai, posted May 8, 2012
internal antennae-and-computer begins to out history foreign observers have
While a solo unmanned aerial vehicle swap mind-files. Within seconds, the new perceived and portrayed the dignity and
(UAV) is starting to become a common acquaintances are scanned; you “know” majesty of the American Idea in ways that
sight over war zones and, to a lesser ex- everyone you see; you know who wants have impacted the thinking of the rest of
tent, over civilian communities, research- to sleep with you, work with you, laugh the human race and triggered their desire
ers in Germany are taking on the next and/or be friends with you; you know ev- to emulate the good life. … [read more]
great challenge: UAVs that fly in pack for- eryone’s curiosities, intentions, memories.
mations. … [read more] Everyone’s brain is “naked.” Fully in- Read these essays and more, and add
formed, you enter and mingle. … [read your own comments to the conversation:
more] www.wfs.org/blog
www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 9

5. World Trends Forecasts
a. Landcover classification on oil imports has re-
versed in the United
States.
Ethanol fuel has
made headway in es-
tablishing better en-
ergy security for the
nation, but it still
must be blended with
conventional oil
fuels. So other home-
grown fuel options
are needed to help se-
cure the energy
future.
EISA has set a goal
for U.S. biofuels pro-
duction at 36 billion
gallons by 2022, two-
b. Satellite-derived net primary productivity (MODIS NPP) thirds of which
should be non-corn-
starch-derived biofu-
els made primarily
from cellulosic mate-
rials such as harvest
re s i d u e . B u t , f i v e
years after the policy
was put into place,
there are no commer-
cially viable biorefin-
eries to convert cellu-
losic feedstock into
fuel, which will make
NPP (gC m-2 yr-1) it challenging to meet
EISA’s 2012 produc-
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 tion benchmark of
500 million gallons.
William Smith and
colleagues assigned
flying past unmet, and bioenergy’s devel- The production goal of 250 million gallons
land-use classifications opment is being delayed by sticker shock. in 2011 similarly slipped by unmet.
(top) and measured Meeting those targets and securing the en- A recent article in the American Chemi-
plant productivity for ergy supply in the United States will re- cal Society’s journal Environmental Science
the continental United quire rethinking of the current energy Technology looked at the goals set by
States (bottom) using ­ arket.
m EISA to determine the amount of harvest-
satellite imaging “America’s addiction to foreign oil has able land that would realistically be
(MODIS) to determine had a significant impact on our economy needed to meet those biofuels production
land’s potential (NPP) and our national security,” says Bob Din- goals.
for biofuels production.
neen, president and chief executive officer “Most previous studies have overesti-
Reprinted with
permission from
of the Renewable Fuels Association, an eth- mated the bioenergy potential of the U.S.
Environmental Science anol fuel trade group. “The only effective by using only a handful of field-measured
Technology, 2012, 46 strategy for improving U.S. energy security yield values to calculate average yield po-
(6), pp 3536–3544. has been the Renewable Fuels Standard” of tential, which is then applied over large re-
Copyright 2012 2005, which was updated by EISA. Since gions,” says William Smith of the Univer-
American Chemical the RFS was enacted, Dinneen says, the sity of Montana, the article’s lead author.
Society. long-term trend of increasing dependence The EISA benchmarks are based on as-
10 THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 • www.wfs.org

6. sumptions of maximum yield potential without subsidies or other
over all land considered to be available for government support, the re-
bioenergy production. port says. And without that
Smith and his colleagues analyzed satel- economic incentive to build a
lite data that integrates climate and vegeta- market, the technological ad-
tion dynamics to quantify terrestrial bio- vances needed will be slow
mass growth capacity—land’s ability to in coming.
grow plants—of the contiguous United “The major barrier to bio-
States. They took a best-case-scenario ap- fuels is that the uncertainty is
proach, conservatively accounting for un- too high for most investors,”
available land such as protected land and says Purdue University agri-
wetland to maximize their estimate of land cultural economist Wallace E.
available for biofuels production. Tyner, co-chair of the com-
Even with that best-case-scenario ap- mittee that wrote the NAS re-
proach, the researchers determined that port. The government can
potential yields are much lower than the play a role in mitigating that
estimates used by EISA. To meet the poli- economic uncertainty
cy’s bioenergy goals, extensive redistribu- through certain incentives,
tion of currently managed land or massive but “biofuels alone will not
expansion of farmland would be needed: provide energy security,” he
80% of current agricultural land would says. “We can be indepen- “The major
have to be directed toward biofuels, or 60% dent of OPEC oil if we want, but we will barrier to
of current rangeland would have to be con- have to pay the price. Renewables, at least
biofuels is that
verted for biofuel agriculture. That conver- in the medium term, will be more expen-
sion would incur significant fossil-fuel sive than crude oil.” —Kenneth J. Moore the uncertainty
­ nputs, reduced productivity and green-
i is too high
house-gas-sequestering abilities of the Sources: Bob Dinneen, Renewable Fuels Association, for most
land, and additional strain on already
investors.”
www.ethanolrfa.org.
stressed waterways and aquifers used for William Smith, University of Montana, www.umt.edu.
irrigation. The paper “Bioenergy Potential of the United States —Wallace E. Tyner,
Even if land were converted for use in Constrained by Satellite Observations of Existing Pro- Purdue University
biofuels production to meet EISA targets, ductivity” was published in Environmental Science
“large-scale cellulosic ethanol production Technology, 46, 2012.
remains unavailable due to the difficulties Wallace E. Tyner, Purdue University, Department of
associated with converting cellulose to a Agricultural Economics, www.ag.purdue.edu.
usable form,” Smith says. “This removes a
very large pool of biomass from consider-
ation—for example, crop and forestry resi-
dues—and places the entire EISA biofuel
target on starch ethanol, which is
mainly derived from corn grains in
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www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 11

7. World Trends Forecasts
Conservation | Government ignated as part of the water trail also con-
cern Foster. The required public access
points will mean negotiating contracts of at
Waterways to Connect least 10 years with landowners. He points
out that landowners themselves could sim-
Communities ply create their own access to the river and
charge fees to the public.
A program to develop rivers and lakes will The National Water Trails System joins
p
­ romote local stewardship and tourism. other initiatives of the National Trails Sys-
tem act of 1968, which includes the Na-
A new National Water Trails System tional Recreation Trails, National Scenic
aims to increase community access to wa- Trails, and National Historic Trails.
ter-based outdoor recreation. At the same Waterways that are designated will be
time, the restoration of local waterways provided signage, technical assistance, and
will promote tourism and economic devel- resources required to develop the trails, ac-
opment through encouraging an ethic of cording to the Interior Department, and the
stewardship, according to U.S. Interior Sec- Army Corps for Civil Works will team
retary Ken Salazar. with local partners in development
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PHOTO Like what the na- p
­ rojects. —Cynthia G. Wagner
tional trail systems
have done for hikers, Sources: U.S. Department of the Interior, www.doi.gov.
bikers, and other National Trails System, www.nps.gov/nts/.
outdoor enthusiasts, “Scenic Niobrara River Could Be Candidate for
­
national water trails N
­ ational Water Trails System” by Algis J. Laukaitis,
would provide more Lincoln Journal Star (April 7, 2012).
recreational opportu-
nities for water lov-
ers such as kayakers,
rafters, and anglers.
“Rivers, lakes, and Medicine | Sci /Tech
other waterways are
the lifeblood of our
The Chattahoochee communities, con- Sensing Brain Injuries
near Atlanta is the necting us to our environment, our culture,
first river designated our economy, and our way of life,” Salazar Smarter helmets could lead to rapid detection
as a National Water
said in announcing the first national water of concussions.
Trail by the U.S. De-
partment of Interior.
trail, Georgia’s Chattahoochee River. The
The system of wa- river provides most of Atlanta’s drinking The year is 2015; the new quarterback for
terways will encour- water, and the Chattahoochee River Na- the Clairmont High School Gladiators is
age local steward- tional Recreation Area provides more than about to attempt a 20-yard pass. He arches
ship, economic 65% of the Atlanta metro area’s public his arm, but before he can throw he’s
development, and greenspace. sacked by a 300-pound defensive lineman
recreation. Designating waterways as part of the from the opposing Washington Tigers.
National Water Trail could be hindered by There’s a hush in the stands as the QB lies
the costs associated with developing recre- immobile on the 30-yard line. It was a hard
ational facilities, notes Dan Foster, the Na- hit. Finally, he rises to his feet, and the
tional Park Service superintendent in crowd erupts in applause. He prepares for
charge of the Niobrara National Scenic the next snap, but he stops as the coach
River in Nebraska. He told the Lincoln and a team of paramedics rush the field.
­ ournal Star that a national water trail des-
J Unbeknownst to the quarterback, a sen-
ignation could benefit the local economy sor in his helmet has detected an abnor-
but also tax it “if people are not ready to mality in his brain-wave activity, indicat-
take care of visitations.” ing a concussion. He is led from the field.
Land ownership issues in the areas des- The Gladiators lose the game, but the
12 THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 • www.wfs.org

8. young quarterback is spared a far worse mediately after impact is essential to de-
injury and is able to play again later (much tecting brain damage because concussion
against his mother’s wishes). symptoms can vanish quickly. “The sooner
Hashem Ashrafiuon, an engineering pro- we can get an EEG recording, the better
fessor at Villanova University, is working our estimate of [the impact’s] severity
on a sensor headset system to make the should be,” he tells THE FUTURIST.
above scenario a reality. The system he’s Ashrafiuon expresses optimism that the
developing—with colleagues from Brain headset will be used to diagnose concus-
Computer Interface Inc. and Wisconsin sion soon. The system has already been
University—uses a single electrode to mea- used for early diagnosis of Alzheimer ’s
sure electromagnetic brain waves, or EEG. disease.
The data is transmitted via Bluetooth. “Brain EEG is simply a signal,” he says.
Ashrafiuon hopes this system will soon “It has frequency content or wavelength
replace the conventional impact tests that just like radio waves. Alzheimer’s disease
high-school sports programs use to deter- patients generally start losing ‘power’ in
mine head injury. In these tests, players are some of the higher frequency bands and
asked a series of memory questions before have instead more ‘power ’ in lower fre-
they’re allowed to play sports. This estab- quency bands.”
lishes a baseline. When a player receives a Other potential uses for the headset
brutal hit, he or she is asked a similar set of monitor include early detection of post-
memory questions. A change in responses traumatic stress disorder and autism.
can indicate concussion. —Patrick Tucker
“Not very scientific, in my opinion,”
Ashrafiuon says of the test. Source: Hashem Ashrafiuon, Villanova University,
Getting actual brain-wave readings im- www.villanova.edu. K
What if digital communication felt as real as being touched?
“Moving, insightful, and provocative…Chorost does an
impressive job of articulating how brain-to-brain communication
could become real, and of exploring its implications for all of us.”
—Ramez Naam, author of More Than Human: Embracing the
Promise of Biological Enhancement
“A fascinating discussion of optogenetics research...
Michael Chorost is not only a clear and concise science writer, but
also a visionary.” —The New York Times
“By combining cutting-edge neuroscience, keen insight into the
social potential of networks, and touchingly candid personal
anecdotes, Chorost has written one of the most memorable
and thought-provoking books of the year.”
—Steve Silberman, contributing editor, Wired Magazine
Pick up or download your copy today.
www.simonandschuster.com
www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST July-August 2012 13