Signals: Consumer Trends in Latin America... Geoengineering... Smart Pills... and more

Vol. 1, No. 3 | December 1, 2014 | AAI Foresight

Inside Foresight SIGNALS

> 10 Consumer Trends for Latin America

> How to Test Climate Change Solutions

> When Not to Take Smart Pills

> Big Data and the Information Revolution: Report from David Pearce Snyder

> The Réunion Island Story: Report from Timothy Mack

> Newsmakers: Edward Gordon, Thomas Frey, and State of the Future

> SIGNALS Feedback: Biofuels versus Food?

10 Consumer Trends for Latin America

Using cultural observation, trend spotting, scenarios, design thinking, and other futures tools, the consulting firm –BAUTISTA– has identified 10 key trends that will affect companies doing business in Latin America in 2015:

1. Bubble Life: consumption habits focusing on the hyperlocal, or nearest surroundings.

2. Less Is More: a growing preference for smaller spaces, fewer objects, and more connectivity.

3. Freedom as Aspiration: rejection of restrictive schedules and spaces, demand for more decision-making power.

4. Low-Profit Company: entrepreneurship based on wage justice; quality over utility.

5. Millennials ≠ Teens: with maturity come work and family responsibilities—and socioeconomic influence.

6. Next-Tech Massification: life-altering technologies from smart cars to smart glasses will approach mainstream.

7. Polarization: public abandons the middle ground in significant social conversations.

8. Pure: The New Natural: intensifying paranoia over the artificial in food choices.

9. Saturation à Apathy: information overload leads to avoidance of media.

10. Slow Down: rush is anathema; consumers seek stress-reduction remedies.

The report, 10T415 (Ten Trends for 2015), provides a rich assortment of examples for the trends, as well as incisive forecasts based on the research analysis.

–BAUTISTA– is a research and marketing consulting firm that tailors strategies for clients working in Latin America. To request a copy of 10T415 (Ten Trends for 2015), which is available in English or Spanish, please contact Luis Carlos Chacón: luiscarlos@bautista.la or Juan José Baute: juanjose@bautista.la

Signals: business, consumers, forecasting, Latin America

How to Test Climate Change Solutions

Geoengineering projects aimed at solving climate change problems might seem too big to test. After all, the earth and its atmosphere are mighty big fields in which to conduct experiments.

Researchers at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are now pursuing a small-scale experiment for testing such risky approaches as solar radiation management (SRM). The proposed experiment would involve small amounts of sulfuric acid (about the amount that a commercial aircraft releases in a few minutes of flight in the stratosphere) to determine the effects of SRM on radiative heating, water vapor concentration and movement, and the risks of ozone loss.

The researchers hope to provide better, science-based information for policy makers, according to project leader David Keith, the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard SEAS and a professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

“There is a wide range of experiments that could be done that would significantly reduce our uncertainty about the risks and effectiveness of solar geoengineering,” Keith said in a press statement. “Many could be done with very small local risks.”

Source: Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences 

Signals: climate change, geoengineering, public policy

When Not to Take Smart Pills

Who doesn’t want to be smarter and more creative than they already are? Students at exam time are especially drawn to so-called smart drugs that offer hope for enhancing cognitive performance or creative thinking.

The smart-drug solution might backfire on healthy students, however. Research recently published in PLOS ONE showed negative effects on healthy subjects using the popular drug Modafinil.

The randomized double-blind study, conducted by psychologist Ahmed Dahir Mohamed at theUniversity of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, used the Hayling Sentence Completion Test, which tasked participants to respond quickly and accurately. Mohamed found that, when the task required instant responses, the drug increased participants’ speed but impaired accuracy. Similar results have been found in tests for creative thinking.

It is important to note that these results were for healthy test subjects. Modafinil or other performance enhancers may yet be valuable for those who fall in the lower end of the spectrum for cognition or creative thinking, or for adolescents, whose brains are still developing. However, Mohamed’s future research will focus on nonpharmacological solutions, such as meditation, exercise, and diet.

Reference: PLOS ONE manuscript PONE-D-14-10968, “Modafinil increases the latency of response in the Hayling Sentence Completion Test in Healthy Volunteers: A Randomised Controlled Trial,” Ahmed Dahir Mohamed and Chris Roberts Lewis, Trial Registration, Clinical Trial.gov identifier: NCT02051153

Signals: human enhancement, mindfulness, pharmacology, psychology, youth

Big Data and the Information Revolution: Report from David Pearce Snyder

In my strategic briefings around the country, I routinely ask my audiences (largely managers and professionals) whether they have heard the term “Big Data,” and most of them raise their hands. But, when I ask how many of them know exactly what “Big Data” means, almost no hands go up.

The term is clearly riding a rising “hype cycle,” as reflected by a report in the July 24, 2014, issue of InfoWorld Tech Watch: “A recent survey by Gartner, the IT research firm, found that 64% of large enterprises are investing in ‘Big Data,’ but also found that a similar chunk of firms (60%) don’t have a clue as to what to do with it.”

This apparently indiscriminate management enthusiasm for Big Data can be forgiven (at least in part). Big Data boosterism has been intense. One keynote speaker at the 2012 Davos World Economic Forum proclaimed that “Big Data is a new class of asset, like currency or gold!” Later that year, Gartner forecast that, by 2015, Big Data “would directly generate 1.9 million new jobs, and indirectly generate 5.7 million additional new positions.” Read more.

Excerpted from “Big Data - the Real Information Revolution” by David Pearce Snyder, AAI Foresight Blog (November 17, 2014). Snyder is a futurist consultant and principal of The Snyder Family Enterprise.

Signals: big data, computing, hype, information, management, simulation

The Réunion Island Story: Report from Timothy Mack

It is often stated that productivity-enhancing technology may eliminate jobs, but innovation will create more. The experience of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean offers an illustration and test case for this principle.

AAI Foresight recently had the opportunity to assist some regional business leaders in exploring the Indian Ocean’s widely presumed potential for rapidly becoming a powerhouse of economic, social, cultural and political development. In fact, the Indian Ocean is truly poised to be one of the twenty-first century’s leading strategic theaters as a crossroad of global trade and economic growth, as well as potential crises. …

Over the next 20 years, several areas of uncertainty will accompany the rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical changes expected throughout the Indian Ocean region. This transformation will be enhanced by extraordinary growth in a range of technologies, especially in renewable energy, food science, and biotechnology.

Unfortunately, these projected increases in the outputs of industry, agriculture, and fisheries, as well as rising levels of consumption worldwide, are already exerting environmental pressure on the ocean. All nations must find means to reduce the environmental impact of this economic growth and its byproducts, so that development activities can meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own challenges. Read more.

Excerpted from “The Indian Ocean: Growth and the Jobs of Tomorrow” by Timothy Mack, AAI Foresight Blog (November 23, 2014).

Photo courtesy of Reef Check. 

Signals: business, climate change, development, energy, environment, fisheries, industry, islands, oceans, reefs, trade

Newsmakers: Edward Gordon, Thomas Frey, and State of the Future

In an interview with the Desert Sun, Dr. Edward E. Gordon, author of Future Jobs and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation, was lauded for his efforts to promote rational approaches to the current jobs crisis. At issue is the surplus of workers and shortage of skills—not just in the United States, but around the world, creating a global talent competition. Read “Unfilled Key Jobs Crisis Takes on Worldwide Proportions” by Morris Beschloss, Desert Sun, November 18, 2014. 

Picking up on the theme of turmoil in the world of work, DaVinci Institute President Thomas Frey predicted that technological disruptions from such innovations as the Internet of Things will eliminate billions (yes, billions) of jobs in the next 15 years—but will also create countless new occupations. His presentation for Rockwell Automation’s Process Solutions User Group was covered in the industrial engineering journal Control. Read “Opportunity, Upheaval Ahead in Technology-Driven Future” by Jim Montague, Control, November 17, 2014.

“For better and for worse, there is nothing quite like The Millennium Project, an awesome but unwieldy distillation, of trends, forecasts, and proposals largely concerning 15 Global Challenges,” writes Michael Marien in his extensive and detailed review of 2013-14 State of the Future, the September 2014 book of the month at Global Foresight Books. This 17th edition of SOTF was written by Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, and Elizabeth Florescu, the director, senior fellow, and director of research, respectively, of The Millennium Project.

Marien, perhaps best known as the longtime editor of Future Survey, offers a balanced but sharp assessment of the volume in his review, scheduled to be published in the Winter 2014 issue of World Future Review: “There is much to commend this ambitious overview, but much to question,” he writes. While praising the content of the report, he warns that “the presentation leaves much to be desired.” Read the full review here. 

SIGNALS Feedback: New Source for Tomorrow’s Biofuels (FS, Vol. 1, No. 2)

Hazel Henderson (via e-mail): We at Ethical Markets Green Transition Scoreboard® track only biofuels that do not compromise food supplies and are sustainable, such as from algae grown on seawater. Kelp is a nutritious food for humans, as in Japan and elsewhere. The Norwegians are on the wrong track here! See the Masdar Institute’s work with Boeing in our February 10, 2014, report.

Foresight SIGNALS is a publication of AAI Foresight

1619 Main Street #1172

Freeland, WA 98249

http://www.aaiforesight.com/

Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack

tcmack333@gmail.com | 202-431-1652

Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner

Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner

AAI Foresight provides issues identification and tracking, strategic planning, organizational development, messaging, marketing, technological assessment, and strategic services for a broad range of clients.

Foresight Wisdom: La Rochefoucauld

"To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can do to seem established there already."
--Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

Twenty-first-century translation: Fake it till you make it.

The Indian Ocean: Growth and the Jobs of Tomorrow

By Timothy Mack

It is often stated that productivity-enhancing technology may eliminate jobs, but innovation will create more. The experience of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean offers an illustration and test case for this principle.

AAI Foresight recently had the opportunity to assist some regional business leaders in exploring the Indian Ocean’s widely presumed potential for rapidly becoming a powerhouse of economic, social, cultural and political development. In fact, the Indian Ocean is truly poised to be one of the twenty-first century’s leading strategic theaters as a crossroad of global trade and economic growth, as well as potential crises.

That future is not without challenges. Réunion’s regional job market has been struggling, with 40% of population below poverty line. As a formal Department in the government of France, Réunion can rely on economic and logistic support from its home country, but there are limitations to this assistance.

On the other hand, the island it is not without domestic resources. Réunion Island has dominion over more than 315,000 square kilometers through its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), based on its mere 2,500 square kilometers of dry land.

Over the next 20 years, several areas of uncertainty will accompany the rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical changes expected throughout the Indian Ocean region. This transformation will be enhanced by extraordinary growth in a range of technologies, especially in renewable energy, food science, and biotechnology.

Unfortunately, these projected increases in the outputs of industry, agriculture, and fisheries, as well as rising levels of consumption worldwide, are already exerting environmental pressure on the ocean. All nations must find means to reduce the environmental impact of this economic growth and its byproducts, so that development activities can meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own challenges.

Global strategic military activity will also likely expand in arenas beyond traditional geographic conflicts, including cyberspace, outer space, and the oceans, as well as around new biotech weapons of all sorts, including disease-based weapons.

The Ocean as a Resource

The global food and agricultural system is now in crisis, and the future is likely to be worse. Some countries will meet only 30% of their food consumption needs (or less) using domestic production resources.

The ocean is a treasure trove of future resources that can replace the loss of land used for agriculture and mineral resources. It accounts for 30% of world petroleum reserves and half of natural gas reserves. Nearly three-fourths of the earth’s oxygen is generated by ocean biomass, one-third of freshwater evaporates from the ocean, and half of the carbon dioxide currently generated is absorbed by the ocean. Note, however, that the ocean’s production of oxygen is dropping and CO2 is rising.

Ocean-based biofuels are one possible direction for energy development, but ocean power is an almost inexhaustible path. Ocean power consists of both wave and tidal-driven kinetic power. Both provide predictable patterns of power delivery though a medium more than 800 times denser than air, thus allowing for more compact and durable turbines than wind-power generation. Annual direct investment in ocean-based power (wave, tidal, and thermal) has grown tenfold over the past few years, and this trend is very likely to continue.

The Case for Réunion Island

Viable strategies for Réunion Island include sustainable agricultural and energy practices, using innovative technologies for integrated coastal and ocean management. These practices would address biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption by enhancing resiliency in all these systems, mitigating manmade hazards, and combating such growing crises as marine debris accumulation (and the related global jellyfish epidemic) and carbonic acid buildup in the oceans due to increased CO2 absorption (with shellfish and coral reefs especially at risk).

Réunion and other islands face additional challenges from coastal erosion, algae bloom due to pollution, and sea life die-off. Accordingly, we need to know much more about the causes and mediation strategies for these conditions. This is especially true concerning extreme weather from climate change and the threat of increased typhoon activity to shipping, recreation industries, and coastal integrity.

Potential biotech breakthroughs to address these challenges will require modeling submicroscopic systems, which could be enabled by expanding the IT capabilities on Réunion Island. We can reliably expect an astronomical increase in computer processing power per unit of cost over the next 15 years. This enhanced computing power will enable us to break down the boundaries between living and nonliving systems and enhance their interactivity: Look for increased convergence among the “info-bio-nano-hydro-cogno” sciences, and for the resulting impact on social, ethical, legal, and political structures.  

The sectors with high potential for job growth in Réunion include materials-intensive applications such as ocean habitat and recreational development, shoreline expansion, deep-water exploration, and harvesting and mining equipment. The development of floating and anchored offshore cities within the island’s EEZ could also offer a possible strategic adaptation to the likely scenario of rising ocean levels. 

Planners should take caution, however, to consider the impacts of an overly rapid expansion of shoreline and recreational activities. An example is China’s Ocean World resort and casino off Macau, which will be the largest such facility in Asia and involve a nearly half-billion-dollar (US) investment. The environmental impacts of a project of such size should be carefully reviewed. The Ocean World development sits on top of an extensive and well-established oyster breeding ground, though this fact is not likely to reshape the project in this case. 

Global warming is another critical environmental issue affecting future economic prospects. Of great concern in coastal zones is the potential for shifts in the large-scale ocean-current patterns running from the equator to the Arctic. Such shifts could alter the climate and ecological profile of islands like Réunion. These patterns, their tipping points, and the potential scale of current shifts are not yet fully understood—and they must be explored.

Forecasting Future Jobs

Policy planners and development leaders in Réunion and other emerging regions would do well learn from trends in larger bellwether arenas such as the United States, where a variety of forces are driving the development of new markets and products—and growth opportunities. For example:

• Increasing corporate and government surveillance is expanding markets for new privacy products.
• Widening income gaps are stimulating growth in the private security arena, as the “haves” seek tighter protections for their real estate and personal property. 
• The abundance of identical manufactured products increases markets for handcrafted and unique items.
• Increasing technology capabilities are inexorably expanding market for virtual-reality products, wearable computing, and personalized learning software. (Note the “high touch,” personal and experiential aspects of these high-tech developments.)
• Similarly, the markets for personal digital agents with greater capability will grow, such as buyer bots and other agents on the Internet.
• Hectic modern lifestyles are driving markets for solitude and simplicity vacations. 

Job seekers will also need to develop new skill sets. According to McKinsey & Co., 85% of new jobs involving knowledge work will also require problem-solving and strategic skills. In addition, creativity, analytical problem solving, teamwork experience, mental flexibility, and increased decision-making speed will all be critical to success for job seekers. Finally, loyalty to organizations and task ownership, strong work ethic, and personal integrity will be highly valued by employers. 

Meanwhile, a more unsettling trend is that increasing numbers of white-collar and semi-professional positions may be replaced by decision software and expert systems, as the automation of manufacturing continues to expand. 

One of the most productive approaches to address the viability of various strategic or tactical approaches is benchmarking comparable entities worldwide, to see if similar paths might be effectively followed.

Conclusion

Réunion Island has significant opportunities. It has committed leadership, viable economic models, and both tangible and intangible resources to utilize in enhancing its future. 

What may be missing is a critical mass of strategic partners, sufficient overseas investment, and the political will to marshal the public support necessary to move ahead. The path is clear, and it only takes a committed group to launch a new beginning for Réunion. 

_______________

Timothy Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight. Mylena Pierremont (Ming Pai Consulting) contributed to this report.

Useful links:

• Réunion Island, general information 
• University of Réunion Island 
• Technopole de la Réunion, public-private innovation consortium 
• Reef Check 

Signals: Biofuels, Ebola, Digital Natives, Urban Design

​Vol. 1, No. 2 | November 15, 2014 | AAIForesight.com

Inside Foresight SIGNALS

> New Source for Tomorrow’s Biofuels

> Ebola’s Unexpected Impacts

> Are “Digital Natives” Really Tech Savvy?

> Why Urban Designers Should Get Emotional

> Signals Feedback: In Memory of Joe Coates

> Message from Tim Mack, AAI Foresight Managing Principal

New Source for Tomorrow’s Biofuels

It’s plentiful, it doesn’t displace farmland for food crops, it can be converted to fuel far faster than petroleum, and it’s carbon neutral. Is seaweed the world’s answer to future energy shortages?

Using an experimental rapid-heating process called fast hydrothermal liquefaction, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology converted an impressive 79% of kelp into bio-oil. A similar project in the U.K. using the same species yielded just 19%, claims energy engineering researcher Khanh-Quang Tran.

The key in the Norwegian work is rapid heating, Tran says: The kelp-and-water slurry was heated to 350 degrees C at a rate of 585 degrees C per minute, thus mimicking (but wildly accelerating) the natural processes that create petroleum.

​The next challenge is to scale up the process so that this and other biofuels can contribute to meeting future energy needs while reducing global warming. To do that, biofuel production will need to increase by 22-fold by 2025, according to the International Energy Agency.

Reference: Quang-Vu Bach, Miguel Valcuende Sillero, Khanh-Quang Tran, Jorunn Skjermo (2014). “Fast hydrothermal liquefaction of a Norwegian macro-alga: Screening tests.” Algal Research. DOI: 10.1016/j.algal.2014.05.009

Signals: algae, biofuel, energy, oceans, seaweed, research, resources

Ebola’s Unexpected Impacts

Until the current global Ebola crisis hit, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea were making great strides against the tropical diseases that affect their poorest citizens. Now, health workers and philanthropic aid diverted to Ebola’s frontlines will likely deplete vital resources needed to fight Neglected Tropical Disease (NTDs) such as river blindness, schistosomiasis, and elephantiasis, warn health officials.

“NTD mass drug distribution has been described as the best investment of health dollars for any health intervention, with delivery costs of 20-50 US cents per person/year,” states David Molyneux, emeritus professor and senior professorial fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

He notes that half the world’s population—and 60% of children—will be living in the tropics by mid-century.

Details: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Signals: Africa, aid, demography, developing world, health, investment, medicine, philanthropy, tropical disease

Are “Digital Natives” Really Tech Savvy?

They’re comfortable with all forms of technology because they’ve grown up playing with it, but don’t mistake the digital natives’ comfort with computers for true media savvy, warns a new study led by Shiang-Kwei Wang of the New York Institute of Technology. Despite myths about the young surpassing the old, teachers are more experienced in using IT—and students still need teachers, she concludes.

Wang’s study of U.S. middle-school science students revealed that they have wide access to computers outside of the classroom, where they spend much of their time playing games, listening to music, and socializing. But these students were not as fluent in using information technology in the classroom beyond doing basic research; they lacked the skills necessary to develop creativity, solve problems, and work more productively.

Their teachers, on the other hand, were far more fluent in these non-entertainment uses of technology, but they have had few opportunities to introduce these skills to their students.

Wang recommends better training for teachers in developing ways to integrate these practical uses of digital technologies into the curriculum. The key for students is to build on their natural comfort with the technologies that they use outside of school.

“The school setting is the only institution that might create the needs to shape and facilitate students’ technology experience,” she said in a press statement. “Once teachers introduce students to a new technology to support learning, they quickly learn how to use it.”

Reference: Shiang-Kwei Wang et al. (2014). “An Investigation of Middle School Science Teachers’ and Students’ Use of Technology Inside and Outside of Classrooms: Considering whether digital natives are more technology savvy than their teachers,” Educational Technology Research & Development. DOI 10.1007/s11423-014-9355-4

Signals: digital natives, education, generations, IT, learning, media literacy, schools, teaching, youth

Why Urban Designers Should Get Emotional

Traffic jams are stressful, and bike paths through dark tunnels are scary. In order to design more emotionally positive environments, German researchers have launched the interdisciplinary Urban Emotions project to capture previously unavailable data about the human ecosystem.

Study participants wear heart monitors and other sensors as they travel through town, recording data about their stress levels when encountering such things as a car horn blaring suddenly from behind or a hidden entry on a jogging path where a mugger might be lurking. (Other stressors include noise pollution and heat spots, while green spaces can induce more positive experiences for city dwellers.)

​Researchers then collect the biometric data and compare it with other publicly shared information, such as photographs of the locations uploaded to social media sites like Facebook or Flickr. By pinpointing the locations that are causing the stress and analyzing the suspected stress triggers, urban planners and designers can address them and anticipate future problems.

“If successful, these new, creative methods will be a valuable addition to traditional urban planning,” says project leader Dr. Bernd Resch, a geoinformatics expert at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Geography.

Details: Heidelberg University

Signals: biosensors, cities, design, emotions, geography, habitats, psychology, sociology, urban planning

SIGNALS Feedback: In Memory of Joseph Coates (FS, Vol. 1, No. 1)

Ian Pearson (@timeguide via Twitter): Nice piece about Joe Coates. A fine mind and never afraid to tell the truth.

Gary Marx (via e-mail): Joe was a dear friend. With Vary, we had a dynamic duo. I was privileged to spend time with Joe at their home, in his office, and, of course, at WFS gatherings. He was the epitome of the inquiring mind. Joe kept questioning and challenging. At the same time, he was teaching us all about thinking and reasoning skills and pressing us toward critical and creative thinking. We all live richer lives because Joe was part of ours.

Steven M. Johnson (via e-mail): Our group at Honda actually got to know Joe well, and at one point hired him.

Tom Lombardo (via e-mail): Thanks for the nice review of Joe’s work, life, and career.

Hazel Henderson (via e-mail): I first met Joe Coates when he was at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and I was serving on NSF’s Committee on Research Applied to National Needs (RANN). Joe was always a wonderful intellectual challenge and kept us on our toes! Then while serving on the Technology Assessment Advisory Council (TAAC) to OTA from 1974 until 1980, I connected with Joe and Vary Coates, who were both outstanding research contributors to OTA’s Studies. These are now being selectively re-published by Ethical Markets and Cosimo Publishers in New York, with the first volume, “Alternative Technology for Local Development,” with my foreword, now in press.

Joe was an outstanding futurist and I learned much from him and Vary over many years. I will miss Joe’s towering presence at so many World Future Society meetings, and he earned an honored place in the annals of futures research.

Message from Tim Mack, AAI Foresight Managing Principal

Welcome to Foresight SIGNALS, the newsletter of AAI Foresight. We are taking a slightly unusual approach to the newsletter’s development: It is, of course, a service for our clients, but our primary goal is to build a vibrant conversational opportunity for the larger foresight community. The initial distribution list was a mixture of thought leaders in foresight and critical trend areas. No subscription fees will be charged at this time.

To create a more dynamic form of “newsletter,” we encourage viral distribution among your networks, as well as feedback: critical assessments, commentary, and dialogue. The mission of the Foresight SIGNALS newsletter is thus to serve as catalyst for increasingly energetic discussion among editors, writers, and readers concerning matters of mutual interest and concern.

We are pleased to welcome you as collaborators in foresight thinking and as partners in dialogue! Connect with us by replying to this e-mail, adding comments to the FS blog, or writing to Tim Mack. tcmack333@gmail.com

Want more Foresight SIGNALS? Check out the FS blog! Recent stories: Innovations in Higher Education, Foresight Wisdom..

Feel free to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with all stakeholders. And if you’re interested in becoming a blogger for FS, please contact Cindy Wagner, our consulting editor, at CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com

Foresight SIGNALS is a publication of AAI Foresight

1619 Main Street #1172

Freeland, WA 98249

http://www.aaiforesight.com/

Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack

tcmack333@gmail.com | 202-431-1652

Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner

tomwarner13@gmail.com

Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner

CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com

​AAI Foresight provides issues identification and tracking, strategic planning, organizational development, messaging, marketing, technological assessment, and strategic services for a broad range of clients.

Foresight Wisdom: Middlemarch

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. 
 --George Eliot, Middlemarch (p. 744)

Innovations in Higher Education: The Grinnell Story

Fundraising like a seasoned politician, President Raynard Kington of Grinnell College recently delivered a report on the state of the college to local alumni in Washington, D.C.— a savvy constituency he jovially called “my people.”

Unlike many higher education institutions, Grinnell is in an enviable position for a lot of reasons, Kington remarked. The college boasts consistently high rankings not just on academics and quality of campus life, but also on a range of increasingly significant measures. For instance, this small, liberal arts college in central Iowa is ranked number two in both economic diversity and graduation rates.

“At Grinnell, low-income students graduate at the same rate as high-income students,” Kington reported.” We’re determined to eliminate differences.”

Innovation at Grinnell toward increasing this economic diversity includes work by the Posse Foundation, a program that has successfully expanded the size of the pool of students with economic needs.

But a challenge to this work is to simultaneously attract “full-ride” students—i.e., those from families with sufficient wealth to pay the current tuition of $50,000 a year. (Kington noted that expenditures per student are $66,000, so even the full-ride students get a $16,000 scholarship.)

To ensure all students’ success, the college added a new measure on its survey of incoming enrollees: Grit.

This understanding of students’ intrinsic drive to achieve, or of when short-term failures may thwart long-term success, will enable the school to do a better job of predicting who will need help. “We a want 100% graduation rate,” Kington said.

This year, Grinnell’s focus on increasing diversity has turned to working with students with disabilities, Kington said. More such students are attending Grinnell than ever, but the services necessary for them to succeed are costly.

“We want to make sure that all students have every support necessary to succeed,” he said.

Plans for innovation in facilities include rethinking the century-old architecture of the buildings housing the principal teaching spaces for the arts and social sciences. Kington likened the “Alumni Recitation Hall”—comprising long corridors and boxlike classrooms—to a World War II hospital.

“Teaching takes place organically, with spontaneous interactions,” he noted. “We need to make rooms more flexible.”

Student life on campus is another area ripe for innovation at Grinnell, including handling sexual assaults and improving mental health care. Addressing a growing nationwide concern for campus safety, students and faculty came up with a lot of solutions, such as night-time lighting in the dorms that could be dimmed instead of having to be turned all the way off.

Another simple solution being replicated on other campuses is a two-part information card that can be torn apart: One half gives instructions for teachers on what to do and say when a student comes to them to report an assault, and the other half provides help and resources for the student.

Because Grinnell College is in a rural community (about midway between Des Moines and Iowa City), neither the school nor the town is able to attract sufficient health-care providers, and the problem is particularly acute for providing mental-health services for students, said Kington. Right now, nurses on call at the Student Health and Counseling Services (SHACS) must do triage, but in the future, the school hopes to partner with the local hospital, rather than “continue pretending to be a health-care provider.”

The final area of innovation that Grinnell College is pursuing is its own brand marketing. One important measure of value that has been disappointing is in getting the full-pay applicants to decide to attend, when so much attention has been paid to increasing the pool of lower-income students.

“We need to rethink how we talk about ourselves. We weren’t doing a great job of promoting the brand,” Kington observed. At the same time, “We don’t want to send the wrong message to high-need students.”

From this alumna’s point of view, President Kington’s most promising innovation has been his vision: “We focus on sixteen hundred students at a time. If we get it right for them, they’ll affect the lives of millions.”

__________________

Cynthia G. Wagner is a graduate of Grinnell College, where she majored in English (and minored in “Intro To…”). The Foresight SIGNALS blog is an occasional supplement to the AAI Foresight SIGNALS newsletter.