Egypt – The Leadership Professor

The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year

A former student keeps me up on the popular press. His recent send is from the Atlantic Monthly: “The 14 Biggest Ideas of the Year.” The article is well worth a read.

The list will be fascinating to anyone interested in social change and modern times. It’s invaluable for understanding evolving and under-served markets and for developing new products and services for them. Here’s the list – in descending order for drama – and a few comments on each item for clarity.

What are the implications for your organization? For your career? For our collective future?

14. The Green Revolution Is Neither: Solutions are expensive. Progress has been slow. We’re still too dependent on fossil fuel. In 2010, only one-tenth of our electricity came from renewable sources. Kermit the Frog got it right. It’s not easy being green.

13. The Maniac Will Be Televised: In a world of expanding social media, it takes something pretty wild and loud to cut through the noise. Charlie Sheen. Donald Trump. Colonel Qaddafi. Bottom-line, “the electronic brain of the new media has an affinity for suspicious minds.” Amen.

12. The Players Own the Game: Think LeBron James. Superstar and media darling at age 18. His move to the Miami Heat was a big deal and a sign of change in athlete culture: players realizing their power and fans wanting them to have and leverage it.

11. Gay Is the New Normal: In 2010 and for the first time, a majority of Americans (52 percent) called homosexuality morally acceptable. Will opponents of gay rights now be an oppressed minority?

10. Bonds Are Dead (Long Live Bonds): Long-term interest rates are rising slowly. The Fed has been propping up bond prices, as the government keeps selling them off to pay for the stimulus. Bonds aren’t going away, but if the Fed wishes it were out of the bond market, what does that say for the rest of us?

9. The Next War Will Be Digitized: The controller of “the cloud” controls the world. Geostrategy looks to an opponent’s vulnerabilities and seeks to concentrate damage in places that do the most harm. Controlling everyone’s data is a lot more powerful than a few harbors, office buildings, or airports.

8. Grandma’s in the Basement (and Junior’s in the Attic): Census figures show the number of Americans ages 25 to 34 living with parents up to 5.5 million or 13 percent of that age. Grandparents are moving in with children, propelled by everyone’s need to save in tough times. The multi-generational family household is back in numbers not seen since the 1950s – and the American family is redefined.

7. Public Employee, Public Enemy: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has led the charge, and public unions are on radar screens now for conservatives out to bust them and liberals surprised they care.

6. Wall Street: Same as It Ever Was: So what’s changed if: (a) the big banks are bigger than ever; (b) “interconnectedness” has increased – financial assets are moving in conjunction with one another and rising together. Another crisis, everything falls at once; and (c) Wall Street pay is back at record highs?

5. The Arab Spring Is a Jobs Crisis: Euphoria has turned to depression. Uprisings did little to improve daily life. Emigration is up. Tourism down – by 75 percent in Egypt. No workable strategies are easy for economic security or social justice anytime soon. Unemployment is huge. One hundred million – 1/3 of the Arab world – are in the job-hungry age range of 15 to 29. Can new crises be far away?

4. Elections Work: Whether you agree with the Tea Party or not, they have brought activism and excitement onto the U.S. political stage – and a reminder that our actions at the polls mean something.

3. The Rich Are Different From You and Me: Super rich is a global phenomenon. We see it in developed economies like the U.S., United Kingdom, and Canada, and in developing economies like China and India. The very, very rich are leaving the rest of us behind. Income inequality is increasing at a rapid rate, especially for minorities and the U.S. and European middle classes hit hard by the recession.

2. Nothing Stays Secret: Internet. Facebook. WikiLeaks. Transparency is in. No one is spared. Too risky to say more.

1. The Rise of the Middle Class—Just Not Ours: The middle class in the U.S. and Europe are “squeezed.” The economy isn’t rebounding, incomes for most are not rising, and median household income has declined in real terms. But it’s a different story for the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Income per capita has soared. Jobs are increasing. Education improving. The bright side to this story: rising affluence means rising consumption. Do we have our products and services ready?

In my last post, I suggested we can all become more creative and flexible leaders by anticipating and planning for an increasingly complex future.

I took my own advice and looked ahead five years, identifying major changes that will impact leaders across sectors and industries. My top ten (in no particular order):

1. The mainstreaming of green globally. We’re all getting smarter about what we are doing to ourselves and the planet.

2. Unprecedented consumer empowerment. Everyone is a potential global critic who can generate a groundswell with a few strategic clicks and posts.

3. Increases in mobile technology development and use. Apps and more apps. E-book readers. Smart phones. I-pads. Notebooks. We’ve only just begun.

4. A rise in social media outlets and use. Young people are constant users. Professionals are Linked In. Baby boomers (and everyone from my old hometown, it seems) adores Facebook. Wait until the boomers retire. There’ll be no stopping their capacities to befriend – and they’ll join their children and grandchildren in wanting more.

5. The decentralization of power. The Middle East and Northern Africa offer important national illustrations – and they are not the first nor the last. Ordinary citizens armed with a desire for freedom and justice, cell phones, and access to the internet generated twitter revolutions that dethroned entrenched power (Egypt, Tunisia), put nervous leaders on alert (Jordan, Saudi Arabia), and made scared despots sink to the lowest levels (Libya). Organizational hierarchies, look out.

6. A rise in entrepreneurship. Kauffman Foundation research found new business startups at record levels in 2009 and remaining there today with an average of 565,000 new businesses formed every month in the U.S. The trend involves men and women, older and young, urban and rural, domestic and global, large and small enterprises. New competition is right around the corner.

7. The empowerment of women. Women are the majority in U.S. colleges, universities, graduate, and professional programs – and that trend grows worldwide. They are securing a voice and a vote in places where that has not always been the case. They are creative entrepreneurs with a responsible heart, as micro-financing stats demonstrate. They live – and shop – their values.

8. A new career ethic. Gen X and Y want advancement, learning, and challenge – and will jump ship to get it. Second career folks seek opportunities for contribution and significance. Women look for balance. We’d all better be looking at new ways to retain and train a productive workforce.

9. Shared knowledge and collaborative markets. Open sourcing is no longer only for hipsters and geeks, and crowdsourcing is a viable business model taught at Harvard and MIT. Younger generations like to connect and share all with the world: they’ll want to do business that way, too.

10. The growth in online retail. The stats are rising. Options are multiplying. Even the fearful are dipping a toe in the water. I just bought a travel blazer for my China trip while writing this post!