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Papers, Articles, & Trend Reports

At the DaVinci Institute we are continually adding to our vision of the future. We have immersed ourselves in the fine art of launching new businesses, attempting to separate the myths and the fantasies from the things that work. Listed below are some concept papers produced at the Institute:

• The Future of Gaming - Where brilliant thinkers like DaVinci, H. G. Wells, and Mandelbrot inspired much of the world around us today, the world of tomorrow, the very world where we will be spending the later years of our lives, is now being imagined inside the young minds of today’s gamers as they learn to harness the awesome power hiding in each gamer’s toolbox.
   
• The Future of Library Series:  Part 2 - The Search Command Center - One thing that is not commonly understood is that libraries have access to resources that most home-based computer researchers do not, including extensive database collections free to their patrons. For the most part, these consist of expensive pay-to-subscribe databases that few individuals can afford. As a way of shifting attention, the Search Command Center will replace the tradition card catalog as the first stop in finding information in a library.
   
• The Future of the Avatar - In the future, our avatars will learn from us.  They will know when to smile, when to laugh, and when to break down in tears during intense periods of emotion. They will know details of the movies we’ve seen, be able to cite passages from our favorite books, and know the history of every member of our family. With each generation of avatar, they will become more life-like, growing in realism, pressing the limits of autonomy as we become more and more reliant on them for experiencing the world. The avatar will become an extension of ourselves and much, much more.
   
• The Future of Library Series:  Part 1 - The Time Capsule Room - Most libraries will find that the Time Capsule Room will take on a personality of its own, as local people begin to participate in populating the spaces.  Ideas about what constitutes a Time Capsule Room will vary from city to city, but it is the ability to differentiate, uniqueness of operation, and variety of perspectives that will give a dimension of personality to the library.
   
• The Future of Automobile Transportation - The automobile industry has literally cemented a firm grip on global cultures with streets and roadways that are designed for cars and little else.  As part of my job at the DaVinci Institute, I come in contact with many of the people working on next-generation vehicles, engines, navigation systems, and power sources. The amount of effort going on in this area, driven largely by the desire to wean our nation off our reliance on oil, is truly staggering. But so far, no real disruptive technologies or systems have emerged.
   
• Reinventing Property Rights on the Nano Scale - Will people in the future sell real estate “information rights” as a separate property right? Smart dust will likely pose the ultimate intrusion into our personal lives.  With particles that can be “sprinkled” throughout buildings, offices, parking lots, on furniture, and even embedded into our pets, the streams of information coming from all around us will, on one hand, be praised as our best friend, and almost in the same breath, condemned as our worst enemy.
   
• Why Do We Fear the Future? - What has changed?  Why have we gone from a time in the 50s and 60s where we couldn’t wait for the future to happen until now, a time where many live in constant fear of what may lie ahead? To begin with, we have created huge markets for storytellers, and every good story needs a villain.  Villains come in many varieties, but one of our most insidious fears is the “fear of the unknown”, and a good writer can quickly build layers of conjecture around the known pieces of truth and craft settings, characters, and storylines around virtually any topic.  So it is easy to turn emerging technology into a villain. But that's only part of the answer...
   
• The Future of Education - While many people are making predictions about the direction that education systems are headed, we have found the best predictors to be hidden in the participative viral systems springing to life in the online world. This paper is the result of an 18-month collaborative research study conducted by the DaVinci Institute, its members and associated research teams. The focus is on the key missing elements that will cause disruptive next generation education systems to emerge. 
   
• Lessons from the Ancient World - Roman Numerals were a numbering system that prevented an entire civilization from doing any higher math. That situation is not unlike many of the systems we have in use today.
   
• The Complexity Disease: Complexity is a Very-Real, Very-Destructive Disease that Destroys Human-Based Systems - Complexity itself is neither good nor bad.  On one hand, complexity is necessary because complexity means functionality. However, complex systems are created by people for use by other people.  And it is the interface with people that causes the problems.
   

• Capturing Human Intelligence:  Next generation artificial intelligence will be created from data bases of actual human intelligence - The best way to describe real human intelligence is through an analysis of the ultimate music player.  The ultimate music player will be able to assess your mood, your likes and dislikes, whether you’re doing something that requires you to be physically active or just sitting comfortably in a chair, and it will read your response to the music.  The ultimate music player will measure your heartbeat, brainwaves, biorhythms, stress levels, circadian rhythms, and a few other sensory inputs we haven’t even invented yet. The ultimate music player will only serve up songs that you respond well to.  

• Creating the Ultimate Information Experience: Planning Our Next Generation Libraries - Coffee can be purchased on a commodity level at any grocery store.  On a product level it can be purchased in any restaurant.  But if you want the real coffee experience, you have to go to Starbucks. If you pay close attention, Starbucks is not in the business of selling coffee.  Rather, their primary product is the Starbucks experience.  So if we transition that concept into the information world, how do we go about creating the ultimate information experience? How do we create the library of the future?
   
• The Happiness Index: A New Way to Measure the World Around Us - Yes, happiness means different things to different people, but even without having a common definition, happiness has become a significant focal point of study and research around the world.  And working on the assumption that whatever we measure will get better, the “happiness index” will become a significant measuring stick for our progress.
   
• The New, New Language Wars - By some counts there are currently 6,700 languages in the world and only 225 nation-states.  With most nation-states they understand the efficiencies of having a unifying single language.  But any effort to move in that direction is met with a complex web of resistance among various language groups.
   
• Death to the Gatekeepers:  A new generation of freedom-loving entrepreneurs have made it their mission to circumvent gatekeepers - In the not-too-distant past, every creative work, whether it was a song, a movie, artwork, poetry, or an article for publication, had to be approved by at least one other person before the public could see it.  Often times the work had to be screened by layer upon layer of reviewers so only the very best accomplishments would rise to the top. However, these gatekeepers are finding their role under attack by the tech world.
   
• 2050 and the Future of Transportation:  Frictionless Vehicles and Binary Power will Define Transportation in the World Ahead - Transportation technology is progressing at a much slower pace than some of the other sciences such as information technology, biotech, and nanotechnology.  As an example, the world's human speed record was set in 1969, a full 37 years ago, when Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Gene Cernan flew in Apollo 10 at 24,790 mph.  While there is much talk about flying at a speed that approaches the speed of light, very little effort is actually being expended in this area. But that is soon to change.
   
• Fractal Transactions:  Launching a New Era in the Future of Money - A fractal transaction is simply an automated point of money distribution.  Money flows into the transaction, from one or more sources, and instantly leaves the transaction, automatically distributing money to one or more recipients.  While this doesn’t sound like anything earthshaking, it indeed is. Fractal transaction are destined to crack open many new rich veins for business strategists to mine.
   
• The Empire of One - Running a solo business in the past meant that you had a one-person practice, most often offering a professional service, well suited for lawyers, accountants, and doctors.  However, a new breed of solo business has emerged that allows people to leverage the power of the Internet and control a vast empire from their home office or wherever they happen to be.  Across the world thousands of people are giving birth to what is being called an “Empire of One”.
   
• Findability Vs Spyability - Will the convergence of search technology and RFID chips
  improve our lives or forever put us in a fishbowl for all to see?
   
• Driving Forces: Emerging New Trends that will Affect the Way We Live, Think, and Act in 2006 and Beyond - 2005 was defined by Google, iPods, Deep Impact, the “World is Flat”, natural disasters, blogs, podcasting, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and a dramatic influx of new technologies designed to give us freedom and control of our lives.  But 2006 will feel quite different as we shift into a new gear.  Here are some of the key trends that will make the coming year one to remember.
   
• The Future of Libraries - We have transitioned from a time where information was scarce and precious to today where information is vast and readily available, and in many cases, free.  People who in the past visited libraries to find specific pieces of information are now able to find that information online. Traffic counts in libraries are dropping.  So what is the future of this once valuable resource?
   
• A Study of Women Inventors - Although growing in numbers, today’s female Inventors still only account for around 10% of the US inventor population.  Here's why.
   
• Approaching Maximum Freud - All technologies end.  And as they approach the end of their life they approach a period we call "Maximum Freud".  This is the period when industry leaders will spend much of their time on the Freudian Couch to understand what lies ahead.  This is a period of extreme chaos, and also a period of extreme opportunity.    
   
• Ten New Parks to Inspire the Mind and Redefine the Communities We Live In - This is a new approach - the idea of participatory parks where the community decides on a particular theme and becomes integrally involved in creating the distinctive features.  Participatory parks will range from active to passive on various community involvement scales, but in each case, the host city will set into motion a long range plan for people to rally around.
   

• Ten Key Trends for Women in 2005 and Beyond - As people move through life, they search for signposts along the way. They search for those rare pieces of intelligence that give them a gut-level feeling of confidence about what to do next. Today’s women are particularly adept at reading these signposts, which range from magazine articles, to movies, to conversations with a people they trust. They trust their instincts and aren’t afraid to make critical decisions.

• The Coming Collapse of Income Tax - Within the next ten years the income tax system in the United States will be dismantled. A number of emerging new forces coupled with the universal dislike of the system will soon gain enough of a toehold to cause it to collapse. While a new tax system will need to simultaneously emerge in its wake, the exact form of the replacement system will depend on the political party in power at that time.

• The Buzz Chronicles:  Creating a Small Blip on the Radar Screen of Humanity  - The online reputation of the DaVinci Institute is a huge factor in determining our cash flow. Consequently we spend most of our days trying to figure out how to create more buzz.  The article I wrote on October 5th titled "Intellectual Property’s Next Big Wave - Taste & Smell Patents" was a rare success. Here’s a quick summary of what we call the "buzz chronicles":
• Intellectual Property’s Next Big Wave - Taste & Smell Patents - Roughly ten years ago I was involved in a conversation with some patent attorneys over the question of whether someone could patent a smell. The conclusion they reached was yes, as long as there was some system in place for defining smells. Enter the October 4, 2004 announcement that two Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering how people can recognize and remember an estimated 10,000 smells.
   
• Top 10 Trends in Innovation - The research team at the DaVinci Institute has spent the past few months reviewing hundreds of factors influencing innovations in the US. Using a scoring system designed to assess the overall impact of each of these factors; a group of the Institute’s staff and advisors weighed in.
   
• Abondoning Our Young - The engines of Colorado’s job creation have gone silent.  R&D purse strings remain tightly drawn. In 2004, total U.S. R&D expenditures are expected reach $284 billion, a rise of just 1.3% in inflation-adjusted dollars.  Of this sum money earmarked for Colorado is notably absent.  This is an alarming reality as the state’s economic doldrums show very little sign of recovery, and the startup world, once the most fertile ground for economic recovery, has been placed on life support.
   
• The Innovation Crisis - During the past three years the United States has lost its competitive edge. Our dismal economy has forced the failure of many emerging technologies. Without these new technologies to rally around, the rest of the world has caught up.
   
• Ten Rules for Bootstrapping Your Business - At the DaVinci Institute we have immersed ourselves in the field of bootstrapping, attempting to separate the myths and the fantasies from the things that work. While there can never be one perfect way to launch a business, these are some of the practical rules which seem to hold the most truth.
   
• How to Launch Your Own Movement - Too often the old notions about starting a business fail because the end goal of what we're trying to accomplish is too big. It's too big for what you can accomplish yourself. It's too big for the traditional revenue paradigms of business modeling. And it's too big to fit within the legal structures that we as business people have to operate within.
   
• The Virtual Country: A Conceptual Study - The Internet, while still in its infancy, has created borderless economies, that are confusing the issues of power and control, and even the sovereignty of nations. We are now entering into a new era of public power and control.
   
• Interview with Gavalord - Is it not conceivable that people in the future will have the technology to view the past?  Tom Frey asks the reclusive physicist as he reaches across the table for his coffee cup. And if so, don't you think they would have the technology to be watching us right now? This statement caused me to pause and rethink the implications.
   
• The Ethics of Knowledge - Is there such a thing as inherently bad knowledge? Or is all knowledge value-neutral?
   
• Smart Shoes - The three products that the human body must interface with the most are the seat we sit in, bed we sleep in, and our shoes. We're going to take a couple minutes to explore the future world of shoes.
   
• Inventing The Future - At the DaVinci Institute, our goal is to forecast future inventions, many of which will have a profound effect on our lives. Here are snapshots of a few highly probable inventions that our research tells us are likely to have a profound effect on the future:
   
• Smart Seat Technology - Using expanding polymeric gel technology, a gel that expands 1,000 times its original size, future seats will have the capability of sensing and meeting your body's needs. Thousands of gel cells will line the seat's contact surfaces. Pressure sensors will first even weight distribution to alleviate circulation problems. Temperature sensors will cause both a rhythmic pulsing of gel cells and manage a consistent air circulation provided through squeeze-pump capillary tubes. Airflow will dry perspiration at the same time it cools the body.
   
• 21st Century Calendar - Several aspects of the current solar/lunar calendar are clumsy. Specifically, not all months are the same length. Thus, there is no correlation between the date of the month and the day of the week. People who are paid by the month earn more per hour in February than they do in March. We have holidays at odd times, scattered unevenly throughout the year.
   
• The Fort Peck Incident - The two men sat patiently in the small grove of trees, quietly assembling their gear. Few words were spoken between the two of them. Weighted backpacks with connecting wires were placed in a motorized raft, followed by two coolers and fishing rods. Both were dressed as nondescript fishermen to blend in with the Montana population.