Secretary of the Future ... $100 Trillion Toilet Paper ... and more

Vol. 2, No. 6 | April 13, 2016 | AAI Foresight

News for the Foresight Community

> Hot Topic: Secretary of the Future?
> Relaunches: World Future Society, Communities of the Future
> Blog Report: $100 Trillion Toilet Paper
> Mack Report: More Services, Fewer Jobs?

Hot Topic: Secretary of the Future?

Recently on American Public Media’s Marketplace, David Brancaccio and Katie Long picked up on the late Kurt Vonnegut’s what-if scenario of a cabinet-level futurist. Vonnegut had fretted, “I'll tell you ... one thing that no Cabinet has ever had is a Secretary of the Future, and there are no plans at all for my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.”

Image: Alle / Flickr

The idea, Brancaccio and Long infer, is “to help politicians think harder about how today’s actions might play out in 10, 20, 50 years.” This is a well-established activity in many corporations, such as Intel, where former futurist-in-residence Brian David Johnson’s role included presenting to the decision makers “a future that really wasn’t quite rosy because the company needed to be prepared for that.”

Taking issue with such a proposal is Reason magazine’s science columnist (with solid futurist credentials of his own), Ronald Bailey: “My quick answer,” he writes, “It's a really stupid idea. Human beings are terrible at foresight, and it would be especially terrible to try [to] marry our purblind premonitions to government power.”

Bailey provides an overview of the U.S. government’s predictive failures since the 1970s, suggesting that, unlike businesses, government forecasters bear no real consequences for getting things wrong: “But if a private company gets its forecasts wrong, the worst that happens is that it goes out of business and is replaced by competitors who made the right calls. Markets are superb at marshaling vast quantities of information, and they amply reward foresight and good guesses,” Bailey writes. “The problem with government planning is government power.”

Returning to the idea of a Secretary of the Future, however, let’s look at another possibility: that foresight in government would not be about power or prediction, but about ongoing cross-agency and cross-sector discussions of possible futures and their consequences. This was the basis for such foresight-oriented government entities as the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, and then-Senator Al Gore Jr.’s 1990 proposal for a White House-based office to study critical trends. (“The Critical Trends Assessment Act: Futurizing the United States Government,” The Futurist, March-April 1990.)

Former Gore adviser Leon Fuerth outlined such a scenario of ongoing futures discussions in a 2013 article for The Futurist. Fuerth and co-author Evan Faber described ways for government workers below the cabinet level and across agencies to confer and inform each other on emerging trends and their potential consequences—thus fulfilling the goal of  helping “politicians think harder about how today’s actions might play out in 10, 20, 50 years.”

Comment: Shortly after his inauguration, President George W. Bush spoke at a trade association dinner I attended. During the meet-and-greet, I was able to blurt out a challenge to the new president: “We’d like to see more foresight in government!” He responded, without irony: “So would I. It would be a miracle.” —CGW

Sources:  David Brancaccio and Katie Long, “What  If We Had a Secretary of the Future?” Marketplace, posted March 1, 2016. Ronald Bailey, “A U.S. Department of the Future Is a Really Bad Idea,” Reason, posted March 18, 2016.

Reference: Leon Fuerth and Evan Faber, “Anticipatory Governance: Winning the Future,” The Futurist, July-August 2013. PDF available on request.

Image: Alle/Flickr (Creative Commons).

Signals: foresight, futurists, government

Relaunches: World Future Society, Communities of the Future

Two venerable futures organizations have recently relaunched themselves, with new missions and new websites:

* World Future Society, http://www.wfs.org, founded in 1966 by Edward Cornish, invites futurists to “Be a part of our ambitious and exciting plans as we build a community of future-focused leaders who connect across the globe and explore areas of shared interest.” The Society's annual conference this year, themed “A Brighter Future IS Possible,” will serve as a 50th anniversary summit on the organization's future. (Signal courtesy of Jerome C. Glenn.)

* Communities of the Future, http://communitiesofthefuture.org/, founded in 1989 by Rick Smyre, unites futurists at the local level to share visions and resources to actively manage the multifaced changes affecting their communities. As Smyre steps away from being the central driver of COTF's activities, he invites friends and colleagues to participate in building COTF 2.0. (Signal courtesy of Peter Bishop.)

Blog Report: $100 Trillion Toilet Paper

In January 2009, Zimbabwe issued its largest-denomination bank note, a one-hundred-trillion-dollar bill. Soon after, it was not enough to buy a single square of bathroom tissue.

The hyperinflation Zimbabwe was experiencing is an example of a wild card—a low probability, high impact event or condition. Unfortunately, writes environmental futurist David N. Bengston, traditional planning typically focuses on continuous change rather than on potentially life-altering events. In the case of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, life savings were wiped out, real assets were hoarded, and foreign investment evaporated.

“On the plus side,” Bengston notes, “hyperinflation is good for people who are in debt because they can pay it off with worthless cash. But a complete breakdown of the economy is a steep price to pay for clearing your debt!”

Read: “The Strange Case of the Hundred Trillion Dollar Toilet Paper” by David N. Bengston, Foresight Signals Blog, posted April 1, 2016.

Signals: economics, inflation, wild cards, Zimbabwe

More Services, Fewer Jobs? AI and Automation's Impacts

By Timothy C. Mack

Research and development in artifical intelligence and automation may focus on solving human problems or on developing machine learning; both focuses have potential impacts on creating or eliminating jobs.

On issues of agency, the researchers ask what problems need to be solved and how can AI or robotics solve them. For example, in the delivery of health services, how do you reach remote locations where costs are too high for the lowest income populations? Perhaps digital response and assessment can save lives where human doctors are not available or practical. Similarly, in elementary school settings with insufficient availability of human teachers, could a responsive program serve to tutor struggling students in a personalized way? In these examples, the digital agency is shaped so that the AI function is specific-task oriented.

The other side of this coin is the focus on machine learning, such as by the Google DeepMind project. Its most recent deep learning approaches are self-structured—that is, they are not preprogrammed. The 2015 Deep Q project let a reinforcement-learning program teach itself how to play older Atari video games, with the result that it not only learned very quickly but it surpassed the game creators in developing unique strategies. In this setting, the agency was intentionally independent and somewhat unbounded (except for the focus on video games).  Accordingly, the focus is expansion of AI learning capability (general intelligence).

So the question becomes how these two paths will affect the course of work worldwide in the future. And the clear answer is the old saw, “It’s complicated.” This means that outcomes will be shaped by the dialogues between these viewpoints: targeted problem solving and general capacity building. The spread between these viewpoints is driven not so much by Luddite fears of job replacement by the grandchild of automation in some form of thinking versus acting, but instead by more elemental fears of species replacement with AI as the next and better generation (whether it be augmented humans or digital avatars). It is very likely that both concerns about unbounded AI independence and the drive for efficiency and effectiveness will produce a mix of outcomes as we move forward.

Not only will AI continue to replace humans in many areas, but we will also see digital agents of all sorts assisting humans in areas such as law, medicine, journalism, and so on to improve outcomes. Medical services to groups and regions not served before, reductions in traffic fatalities from assisted-driving software, and better legal representation in an always high-stress field are among many examples ahead.

How we'll manage the cultural and policy impacts is more a political and social question than a technical one, but the policy issues are making themselves felt through the AI R&D world as well. The result, as it plays out, will be fascinating.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc.

Signals: AI, artificial intelligence, automation, education, jobs, work

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Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

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© 2016 AAI Foresight

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 | Twitter: @CynWag1

Designer: Lisa Mathias

lisa@lisamathiasdesign.net

Signals: Obesity and the Knowledge Worker ... We Are One ... and more

Vol. 2, No. 1 | November 3, 2015 | AAI Foresight

Inside Foresight Signals

> Obesity and the Knowledge Worker

> Combining 3D Printing and Clean Energy

> Hot Topic: Travel, Tourism, and Technology

> News from AAI Foresight: New Website ... We Are One!

> Mack Report: Coal’s Future Impacts

Obesity and the Knowledge Worker

You’re a highly skilled knowledge worker of the Information Age, with decision-making authority over your equally skilled employees. Feeling good about yourself? Hang on.

Research has shown that having a high level of control over your job can mitigate the stresses involved that contribute to obesity. But a team of Australian researchers now observes that different types of job control—skill discretion and decision authority—have different effects: Skilled workers with freedom to use those skills had lower body mass index and smaller waist size, while workers required to make a lot of decisions had bigger waist size.

With a global population of overweight people approaching 2 billion, researchers are pursuing a wide range of factors behind the growing epidemic. “When looking at the wide system of factors that cause and maintain obesity, work stress is just a small part of a very large and tangled network of interactive factors,” said lead author Christopher Bean, a health psychology PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide, in a press statement.

Reference: Christopher G. Bean, Helen R. Winefield, Charli Sargent, and Amanda D. Hutchinson, “Differential associations of job control components with both waist circumference and body mass index,” Social Science & Medicine, Volume 143 (October 2015), published by Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.034.

Signals: health, information age, knowledge workers, obesity, stress, work

Combining 3D Printing and Clean Energy

Additive manufacturing processes (aka 3D printing) have come a long way from rapid prototyping. A project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory merges building and vehicle construction with clean energy systems to create a possible solution to the challenges of the modern electric grid, such as intermittent outages and the impacts of extreme weather.

For its Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy (AMIE) demonstration, ORNL and partners printed both a natural-gas-powered hybrid electric vehicle and a solar-powered building, connecting them to create an integrated energy system. The intermittent power from the building’s 3.2-kilowatt solar array is balanced with supplemental power from the vehicle via the system’s central control.

“Working together, we designed a building that innovates construction and building practices and a vehicle with a long enough range to serve as a primary power source,” said ORNL’s Roderick Jackson, who led the AMIE demonstration project. “Our integrated system allows you to get multiple uses out of your vehicle.”

Details: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Image: Carlos Jones, courtesy of ORNL.

Signals: construction, energy, 3D printing

Hot Topic: Travel, Tourism, Traffic, and Technology

Advances in transportation technology over the past 50 years have enabled people to travel farther than ever, and to spend less time doing so. While investment in transportation has expanded employment and leisure opportunities, the total number of trips that people take has remained stable since 1965, according to Britain's latest National Transportation Survey, reported in the journal Significance.

Many current advances in transportation technologies go largely unseen, as in Fraunhofer IAO’s UR:BAN research initiative to create safer and more efficient streets in tomorrow’s cities. The project combines cognitive assistance technologies, networked traffic systems, and human factors research that will help predict what drivers, pedestrians, and others will do, preventing accidents and optimizing travel.

Other technologies affecting travel trends include smartphones, wearable devices, and social networking that have converged to create the booming sharing economy as exemplified by Airbnb, Couchsurfing, Nightswapping, and others, writes Singapore futurist Harish Shah.

“As these Sharing Economy models gradually converge with other developments also driven by technological evolution, they will very much impact the way the conventional hospitality industry players will have to do business,” Shah writes. Up next: telepresence robotics and 4D virtual reality that eliminate the need to travel altogether.

But technology is not the only force driving change in travel trends. As TechCast Global observes in its case study of Las Vegas, stresses in both the climate and the economy could lead desert-bound cities in the dust.

“Ten years from now, [Las Vegas] may have been evacuated and overrun by desert,” TechCast reports. “This gaudy entertainment capital faces serious challenges in the coming decades. They could be even worse in the years beyond 2035.”

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News from AAI Foresight: New Website … We Are One!

This fall, AAI Foresight introduced an all-new website designed by Lisa Mathias. The site is designed to improve user navigation and integration with AAI’s publications and projects. As is the future itself, the site is a work-in-progress, so please browse and send us your feedback.

Plus, Foresight Signals celebrates its first birthday with this edition! Highlights of the past year include:

• 10 Consumer Trends in Latin America
• Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet
• Has the First Cybermurder Already Happened?
• Living in a (Smart) Glass House
• The Challenges of a Rising China
• Hot Topic: World Population in 2100

Also beginning with this edition (Volume 2, Number 1), Foresight Signals will be published monthly. It will still be free, and it will still cover a variety of stories for and about the foresight community. Share your stories, news, feedback, and signals with us and your fellow foresight professionals. Log in to comment here or write to consulting editor Cindy Wagner at CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com.

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Mack Report: Coal’s Future Impacts

As coal-based energy declines, it will take other enterprises down with it, writes AAI Foresight Managing Principal Timothy C. Mack in his latest blog, “Coal and the Cascading Consequences of Change.”

Clean coal was long considered the wave of the future, but the U.S. government’s cancellation of the FutureGen project, which would have used oxy-combustion (considered the least-cost approach to clean coal), means more coal companies will fold.

One of the businesses affected by this decline is coal transportation, which often relies on waterways, Mack observes: “While water transport reductions largely impact inland waterway regions, systemic change is seldom confined, but cascades outwards, often producing unexpected negative impacts at the same time that industries such as renewable power grow.”

Read “Coal and the Cascading Consequences of Change.”

Signals: coal, energy, transportation

__________

Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.  

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

__________

© 2015 AAI Foresight

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 | Twitter: @CynWag1

Signals: Technology vs. Work ... Polarization to Evaporate ... The Top Women Futurists ... and more

Vol. 1, No. 21 | September 1, 2015 | AAI Foresight

News for the Foresight Community:

> Publication: State of the Future’s Special Focus on Work

> Opinion: Bob Chernow on U.S. Polarization

> Transition: Pardee Center for International Futures

> Update: “Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?”

> News from AAI Foresight: Welcoming Three New Partners

> Results: Foresight Signals Reader Survey

Publication: 2015-16 State of the Future’s Special Focus on Work

The latest edition of The Millennium Project’s annual State of the Future series includes the results of the group’s Delphi survey on the future of work, which focuses particularly on the impacts of technology on the workplace and workforce.

Synthetic biology, computational science, nanotechnology, quantum computing, 3-D printing, the Internet of Things, self-driving vehicles, robotics, and other developments “will have fundamental impacts on the nature of work, economics, and culture by 2050,” write Jerome C. Glenn and Elizabeth Florescu in the chapter titled “Future Work/Technology 2050 Real-Time Delphi Study.”

Whether these developments will create more jobs than they destroy is debatable, but we are already seeing jobless economic growth as the new norm, as well as increasing concentration of wealth and widening income gaps and long-term structural unemployment as a “business as usual” scenario, the authors write.

The chapter presents the responses of the nearly 300 Delphi participants, predominantly North American and European professionals with “medium” to “high” levels of futures research expertise. Among the findings:

• If current trends remain unchanged, average unemployment will grow to 11 percent by 2020 and to 24 percent by 2050.
• Robotics is the technology rated most likely to replace more jobs than it creates.
• Factors most likely to create jobs (or reduce mass unemployment) are new economic and work concepts and increased self-employment, freelancing, and DIY support systems.
• Retraining programs for more-advanced skills and STEM requirements in all levels of education are the actions thought most likely to be deployed and to be effective for creating new employment or income by 2050.
• A guaranteed lifetime income will be “absolutely necessary” or “very important” by 2050, according to more than half (59 percent) of the respondents.

The next step for the Delphi project, according to Glenn, “will be to write alternative scenarios and roadmaps to 2050.” The 2015-16 State of the Future also provides the latest trends on 28 indicators of progress and regress and updates the 15 Global Challenges.

Details: 2015-16 Stateof the Future by Jerome C. Glenn, Elizabeth Florescu, and The Millennium Project Team (2015, The Millennium Project).

Signals: Delphi poll, economy, employment, technology, work

Opinion: Bob Chernow on U.S. Polarization 

In an editorial for the Milwaukee Business News blog, futurist Bob Chernow predicts that the polarization clouding much of U.S. society today will evaporate in the next five to seven years. The roots for this polarization, he writes, “can be found in the changes in our economy and the shifts in power that many sense, but find difficult to express.”

Ongoing waves of rapid change have unnerved many, whose “objective, stated and unstated, is to stop perceived changes in status, power and wealth,” Chernow says. But demographic factors, such as increased ethnic and racial diversity and the rise of the powerful millennial generation (and its more secular values), may narrow many of the divides now keenly felt in U.S. society.

“Yes, we have deep racial divides in our country, but much of this has to do with age,” Chernow writes. “Young people, defined as 40 years or younger, do not care about race, religion or national origin. They are more likely to see the divide between left and right, which describes values.”

The growing influence of the millennials could manifest in increased tolerance, relaxing those tensions between left and right. “I believe we are five to seven years away from an end to the polarization we are witnessing,” Chernow writes. “We have begun to see signs already in the greater acceptance of the change and by compromise to accomplish collective ends that have been absent in our dialogues.”

Reference:  Bob Chernow, “Severe polarization in U.S. could end in 5-7 years,” BizTimes.com (July 9, 2015).

Signals: demography, generations, values

Transition: Pardee Center for International Futures

Barry Hughes, director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, has announced he is “going to cut back a bit.” Taking a sabbatical next year to write a book on world modeling and international futures, he will also lead the search for a new director for the Pardee Center (placement effective by fall 2016). Hughes, who also is the John Evans Professor of international studies at the University of Denver, will retain a “senior mentor” role at the Pardee Center. Jonathan Moyer, the Center’s associate director, will be acting director.

Details: Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.

Signals: futures studies, international futures

Update: “Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?” 

They say everyone talks about the future but no one does anything about it. In response to the provocative (or provoking) question “Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?” posted in the Atlantic technology blog, which we discussed in the last issue of Foresight Signals, at least one trend-watching group did something about it.

Portland, Oregon–based market consultants Little Bird, led by Marshall Kirkpatrick, compiled a Twitter list of 125 women futurists as a way to identify influential voices on that social network. The “top five” are Wendy L. Shultz, Jennifer Jarratt, Cindy Frewen, Rachel Armstrong, Maree Conway, and Heather Schlegel (aka Heathervescent). AAI Foresight’s own Cindy Wagner is also included on the list of “important women futurists online.”

In his blog post introducing the list, Kirkpatrick explains, “Here at Little Bird, we believe that there’s fundamental business value in listening to and learning from the very best thinkers on any topic you’re considering. … Of course there are important women futurists who do not use Twitter, but when looking for women futurists, we think this is a great place to start plugging in to the conversation.”

References: Rose Eveleth, “Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?” Atlantic.com (posted July 31, 2015).

Marshall Kirkpatrick, “5 Top Women Futurists & The End ofBusiness as Usual,” GetLittleBird.com (posted August 19, 2015).

Signals: feminism, futurism, influencers, marketing, trend hunting

News from AAI Foresight: Welcoming Three New Partners

AAI Foresight’s global network of experts is growing! Managing principal Tim Mack is pleased to welcome the following consultants as associates:

• Cornelia Daheim (Cologne, Germany), is the founder of Future Impacts Consulting and chair of The Millennium Project’s German Node. She was a managing partner with Z_punkt: The Foresight Company for four years, where she was most recently the head of international projects.
• Wendy McGuinness (Wellington, New Zealand) is founder and CEO of the McGuinness Institute (previously the Sustainable Future Institute), which focuses on the long-term future of New Zealand. She is also a Fellow Chartered Accountant, specializing in risk management.
• Carol Rieg (Washington, D.C.) is the corporate foundation officer for Bentley Systems Inc., where she established a global employee-giving program reaching 3,300 employees in 45 countries, among other accomplishments. She is also a former national director of the Future City Competition.

Learn more about AAI Foresight and its partner consultants. To connect, please contact Tim Mack at tcmack333@gmail.com or call 202-431-1652. 

Results: Foresight Signals Reader Survey

Thank you to all who responded to Foresight Signals’ reader survey in our last issue. Based on an overwhelming (63.6 percent) preference for “all of the above,” we will continue to offer short stories on trends and forecasts as well as news about foresight professionals and projects. To this mix, we will also add longer, “deep dives” into significant issues and interviews or profiles of futurists and other forward-looking individuals and groups. Feedback is always welcome! Log in at the AAI Foresight website to post your comments or drop a line to Tim or Cindy.

__________

Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.  

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

__________

© 2015 AAI Foresight

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 | Twitter: @CynWag1

Aging’s Social and Economic Impacts (Part Two)

By Timothy C. Mack

Older workers are a burden and a salvation for the economic future. We are all aware that the graying populations in developed countries now, followed by developing countries, are a demographic force whose impacts will be felt over the next 50 years.

Still, even such clear demographic forces are subject to influence from other forces, rendering the future uncertain. These forces include new technologies (health and genetic manipulation), education (resulting in fewer births among women, more time working), and cultural values (retirement bores many people). So the vision of lots of walker-bound elderly people clogging up our service systems and soaking up our tax money (or starving in the streets) may still be a possible and maybe even probable future (though not preferable)—but the timeline for such a scenario is substantially longer than most observers expect.

The U.S. Census Bureau still insists that one in five Americans will be 65 or older by 2040. That is the certain part. But what that will mean for the United States (still a bellwether nation) and the rest of the world is getting a lot more complex. The projected 67 percent increase in that over-65 U.S. population between 2015 and 2040 is very likely to include plenty of older individuals still working, still healthy, and still productive. The Urban Institute estimates that, by 2019, 35 percent of the labor force will be over age 50; Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College says 25 percent of workers will be over 55.

Part of this shift is due to health and workplace technology (telecommuting and the DIY workforce), but part of it is cultural. The now-retiring boomers are easily bored and hungry for mental engagement; and they are largely broke, with poor savings habits and the related need to continue eating regularly. As well, older workers are increasingly willing to forgo benefits (Medicare) by working part time in semi-retirement. While many employers are slower than their workers are to accept these attitude shifts, expect this shift to increase. In the face of a projected shortfall of trained younger workers as the economy continues to recover between now and 2030 (expect low U.S. unemployment levels for several decades), employers will increasingly value more experienced and skilled workers.

That said, skill sets also will shift rapidly, and our older, experienced workers will need training. Employers have shown a significant aversion to paying out in a globally competitive environment. Accordingly, low-cost training options such as community colleges, tax incentives, and other strategies appear viable for funding these programs, although the 21st-century skills that will be needed have been evolving over the past decade and a half.

Another important consideration for workers who will continue to commute to a traditional workplace are such adjustments as ergonomic chairs, better lighting, and exercise programs for all workers, including older ones. And it is likely that a constricting labor market will expand the number of companies who are thinking in this manner.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAIForesight.

Resource: Kerry Hannon, “Why Older Workers Can't Be Ignored,” Forbes (January 21, 2013).