Scan Monthly No. 045November 2006 |
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Signals of Change
Venture Philanthropy
SoC207
Charitable or philanthropic organizations are taking an active role in financing basic research and supporting the development and commercialization of emerging technologies. Will the new initiatives complement or compete with existing corporate initiatives?
Virtual Testing Grounds
SoC208
Virtual worlds promise completely new opportunities for designers, developers, and marketers to test and explore consumer reaction to products before going to market with them. But the virtual testing grounds have yet to prove their worth conclusively in the real world.
Automation Climbing the Value Chain
SoC209
As automation technologies and capabilities climb the employment value chain, traditionally secure middle-class jobs in sectors as diverse as scientific research, medicine, multimedia production, financial reporting, and financial services are at risk.
Building Green
SoC210
In the past quarter century, the automotive industry has been constantly improving its vehicles to reduce various detrimental impacts on the environment. Signs are emerging that creating greener buildings is now becoming a growing priority throughout the world.
Atomized Ads
SoC211
Advertisers are experimenting with new, short form factors for media content. Ads are shrinking down to ever-smaller segmentssome as short as two secondscreating atomized ads.
Biofuels and Genetic Modification
SoC212
New global targets to increase biofuel use will require a dramatic increase in the growth of crops for use in the production of renewable fuels, but current farming practices will be unable to meet these targets without affecting food pricing and the environment. Opportunities exist for biotech firms to produce efficient biofuel crops that will relieve the pressure on both the food industry and the environment. Genetic-modification technologies will be an important tool in the process.
Insights
| RFID-Enabled End-Consumer Applications: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly | View full summary |
| D06-2540 | Download this Insight |
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Radio-frequencyidentification (RFID-) technologybased applications are relatively new. Whereas potentially beneficial applications are fairly easy to identify in manufacturing, logistics, and supply-chain operations, consumer applications still face many questions: What applications will consumers perceive as beneficial? What will consumer acceptance be for a technology that many media outlets have described as problematic because of privacy considerations? How much will consumers be willing to pay for RFID-enabled products and services? Marketers of RFID systems frequently overestimate potential consumer benefits oreven more problematictry to sell products to consumers on the basis of marginal consumer benefits of business-focused applications. In the best case, consumers will perceive such marketing efforts as misguided; in the worst case, they will feel deliberately misled. Otherwise, companies will miss opportunities, disappoint consumers, or even face negative consumer and public reactions. Author: Martin Schwirn. 7 pages. |
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| Scan Meeting Digest: 18 October 2006 Meeting | View full summary |
| D06-2541 | Download this Insight |
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This document is a digest of the Scan abstract clusters that participants in the 18 October 2006 Scan meeting identified. The digest includes a description of the Scan process for people who have never attended a Scan meeting, a list of the clusters that meeting participants identified, and a one-page description of each cluster's premise and supporting abstracts. The document has active links that allow the reader to access the supporting abstracts for each cluster in Scan's online abstract database. The document also has links to previously published Scan documents relating to the particular cluster. Clusters of abstracts for this October meeting include a time for remodeling health care, out of step with global competitiveness, social-networking effects, democratization of science and research, the virtual testing ground, new global moral leaders, for-profit philanthropy, collaboration as business model, basic research is back, questions about the virtual world, and shifting biases online. Compiler: Martin Schwirn. 40 pages. |
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Calendar
Scan Abstract Meetings
Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:
- 24 January 2007 at 9:00 am
- 21 March 2007 at 9:00 am
- 23 May 2007 at 9:00 am
- 18 July 2007 at 9:00 am
- 19 September 2007 at 9:00 am
- 17 October 2007 at 9:00 am.