Trendwatching: my 2013 predictions

Just as others, I failed dramatically in my 2012 predictions. After visiting the Horecava Food Fair, I foresaw that ice cream would become hot, as well as the break through of the culinary bitter ball. This time I will stay on the safe side and just look at the non culinary world:

1. The Syrian civil war will affect the stability of Iran.
2. The U.S. successfully increases its energy production. All else remaining equal, prices will grow moderately. Geostrategical disruptions of energy supply though will lead to a further price hike.
3. Painful sacrifices of purchasing power, in combination with a still deepening recession, lead to rising tensions and social violence in Southern Europe. This will strengthen the traditional left and drive the right to the far right. 
4. Also elsewhere, austerity measures will lead back into recession. Bad times for consensus politics. In the Netherlands, the Conservative-Labour coalition will not make it to the end of the year.
5. The prestige and credibility of monarchies will crumble. In Europe, we may see one disappear. It is a logical result of growing transparency.
6. Coursera will affect universities as Napster has changed the music industry. Eventually we will all be able to learn from eminent scientists. Being in an actual class room will be like being dragged on to the stage to dance with Bruce Springsteen.
7. If electronic warfare has become fully effective, we may also see the digital equivalent of the Great Train Robbery.
8. There will be no Elfstedentocht ice skating tour. Not because of the whether; there would simply be too many people for the (up to now) required 15 cms. of ice.
9. Those who have high expectations of 2013 will be disappointed.
10. Barcelona will win whatever there is to win. At least got that one right.

The disadvantage of peace and harmony (a Christmas thought)

I am color blind, but I did not discover that myself. You only know when other people tell you they see colors that you don't. It is the same as being stupid: you don't understand the things you cannot understand, so others have to tell you.

This principle shows why we have to rely on other opinions to understand the flaws of our system. As far as I am able to see, this is an important ideological problem of our contemporary world. Without alternative perspectives, we will be unable to see what happens, if it is rooted in our system.

The rational allocation of resources dogma

What would be the right price for a house? One of the most visible symptoms of the current crisis is the oversupply in housing. Demand is stable: housing is a basic necessity, and being evicted can drive people to suicide (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and counting). This means that prices would have to drop to the level where buyers step in. They do not.

We do not have a mechanism that rationally measures the value of a house.

Black snow in Omsk

Last week, Omsk was covered twice in black snow. While unusual, one does not need too much phantasy to come up with plausible explanations. No reason for concern, according to federal authorities. Not as bad as when it snowed white powder in summer, although the aluminium silicate crystals did not prove to be unhealthy either. But just to be safe, let's keep our children inside, refrain from sporting activities and not touch the snow with our hands ...

The future of social media

Last October 31, ETFI professor of Scenario Planning Albert Postma painted scenarions for the long-term future of social media at IPK's World Travel Monitor^® Forum 2012 in Pisa. His presentation included the opinions or visions of several international colleagues, including my own. I see two important trends. In the first place, a growing gap between different types of news consumers, with some able to access far more sources of news than would have been thinkable in the past, and others, overwhelmed by the vast offer of news, limiting themselves to 'low-cost' news (or fun, bizarre etc. news; see "In a bizarre world ...").
A second trend is growing pressure on the freedom of expression the internet in general, and social media specifically, have generated, both from commercial parties (especially the entertainment industry) and from political power.

For the other opinions, see ETFI's Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/stendenetfi.

Incoming Tourism

Interview about an ETFI-research project on possibilities for incoming tourism in the north of the Netherlands:

“Fryslan needs to anticipate shifts in consumer behaviour .“ Frisian tourism entrepreneurs should be prepared for Spanish tourists, watersport companies need to offer a variety of products and the world heritage site the Waddensea must have a visitor centre.
All these recommendations are the outcomes of a scenario research towards trends in the field of tourism within the next five years. According to Oskam, entrepreneurs should be aware of shifts in consumer behaviour. This will allow entrepreneurs to anticipate trends.
More articles on the scenario reasearch can be found here.


See also: blog.etfi.eu

Youth exclusion

Youth exclusion is one of the main disastrous effects of the current crisis in the long run. The majority of Spaniards under 30 is currently unemployed, without counting those who are studying or otherwise unavailable for the labour market. This is up from structurally high youth unemployment.

The Spanish youth live at home with their parents. Just 45,6% of people between 18 and 34 are independent; no more than 21,5% of those under 29 and able to work are economically autonomous. The lack of perspective of employment or an independent home strengthens a cultural emphasis on family life: parents do not want their children to leave home at any cost and the youth do not want to leave home if that would mean losing quality of life.

According to El País, the youth mature sooner but they are more infantilicized. The repercussions of leaving this age group inactive are improductive investments in education, a lack of innovative impulse and a future work force that will be unprepared for their responsibilities.

This situation cannot be solved as long as four destructive factors coalesce:adverse economic circumstances, a speculative housing market, an obsolete education system and overprotective parents.

What is scenario planning?

Explanatory video on scenario planning (in Dutch, English subtitles).

In a bizarre world ...

Now that the traditional newspaper business model has become obsolete, apparently internet newspapers' main challenge is to fill the space between the advertisements. It does not matter how, in fact there seems to be a distinction between 'low-cost' news and news with value which can be offered in the printed press or behind paid access.
The 'low-cost' or copy-paste news is identical in most newspapers, which are obviously generated automatically.

Especially popular are the sections of 'bizarre', 'weird' or 'fun' news. Is this genuine news, or pure fiction for marketing purposes? Take the following article:

Belgian couple headed for Lourdes arrives in ... Loudes
A Belgian couple that wanted to visit the image of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, did not arrive in the pilgrimage site in the French Pyrenees, but in the town Loudes, according to the French magazine La Montagne. Loudes is situated in the also picturesque Haute-Loire and, like Lourdes, in France, but a few hundred kilometers from the place where Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary half a century ago.

The Belgians did have a GPS in their car. Unfortunately they had typed in "Loudes' instead of 'Lourdes'.

Source: HLN.be (http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/959/Bizar/article/detail/1472833/2012/07/19/Belgisch-koppel-op-weg-naar-Lourdes-belandt-in-Loudes.dhtml) and La Montagne (http://www.lamontagne.fr/auvergne/actualite/2012/07/19/en-route-pour-lourdes-un-couple-de-belges-se-retrouve-a-loudes-1224910.html).

Strange. Even if this were interesting or 'fun', who made this story? Did the Belgians call the newspaper, or a Loudes policeman? Was there a reporter involved, or do we just submit our weird and fun stories through the newspaper websites?

So far, 134.342 people liked this story on Facebook. In a bizarre world where we no longer understand who took our money, we stay informed through random weird stories, that may be true, or just fun.

Top ranking for Barcelona-Maastricht-Oxford Hospitality Master

 

El Innovative Hospitality Management (MSc) de TSI-Turismo Sant Ignasi se sitúa por segundo año consecutivo entre los 5 mejores másters de turismo y hotelería de España, según el ranking publicado hoy por el periódico El Mundo.

La publicación, que reúne a los mejores 250 másters de España, destaca del IHM "su elevada tasa de inserción laboral, y las cadenas hoteleras colaboradoras, como Marriott, Hilton o Ritz-Carlton".

El Innovative Hospitality Management (MSc) es un master universitario que se realiza conjuntamente entre TSI - Turismo Sant Ignasi y la Hotel Management School Maastrich (Maastricht, Países Bajos). El programa también realiza algunos contenidos en colaboración con Oxford Brookes University Business School (Oxford, Inglaterra).

Está dirigido a graduados con un interés particular en los aspectos creativos y multiculturales de la industria hotelera y tiene como puntos fuertes la innovación, la hospitalidad, y la gestión y dirección de empresas hoteleras.

El ranking de El Mundo se realiza a partir de un análisis exhaustivo de los programas, teniendo en cuenta 26 criterios clasificados en categorías tales como la demanda, los recursos humanos, planes de estudio, los resultados generales y recursos materiales. Además, tiene en cuenta las instituciones colaboradoras, el número y el prestigio de los miembros del profesorado, programa académico, relación calidad-precio, tutorías personalizadas para los estudiantes y los resultados obtenidos por los estudiantes.

Para realizar el ranking,  "El Mundo" ha tenido en cuenta las opiniones de más de 500 expertos de los profesores, antiguos alumnos y empresas colaboradoras.

http://www.tsi.url.edu/es/noticias/el_innovative_hospitality_management_de_nuevo_entre_los_5_mejores_masters_en_hoteleria-264

The abandonment of democracy

In our history books we have studied how economic crises and abandoning democratic principles go hand in hand. It is fascinating and frightening to see, currently, how this mechanism is being set in motion.

Originally, democracy was the sovereignty of the will of the people. The people are free to decide and join forces to defend the common good by majority vote. But now there appears to be a footnote: the people may be wrong. Mistaken. EU Commissioner De Gucht raises the question in an interview with the Belgian Standaard: Greece remaining in the Euro-zone will only be possible "if the Greek people will be able to judge rationally in their elections. But they are desperate people... " (De Standaard).

If economic austerity is the only rational thing to do, why do we still have to vote? And why do people fail to see what is good for them? Is there an institution which prevails over democracy and which may judge what is rational and what is not?

And what can we do if the people give the wrong answer?

Politics as a profession

We may assume that many people are active in politics because of their convictions. On the other hand, it is not unthinkable that the work of politicians can be seen as a profession with attractive social and financial advantages. If this is the case for some, then it would not be hard to figure out the wisest political career planning: this is, obviously, in mainstream politics, either by obtaining a position in a political party that will hold power for the years to come, or if we have a political alternation by joining the party which is likely to replace the power party. In view of mobility, the latter option is probably even better.

Where will we find most corrupt activity? Political parties do not advocate corruption. Corruption may be linked to an attitude towards political power rather than to political convictions. Criminal activities will obviously be planned in an environment where their probability of success is greatest. This relation is illustrated by this map of political corruption in Spain:

Does corruption have an ideology?

I have been receiving more visits from the US lately, and I am afraid these visitors may have been misled by googling the combination of "public administration" and "corruption" (see Public administrations as corrupt welfare systems). This is of course not what I meant to say: I strongly believe in society offering a series of services all of society is supposed to benefit from, such as education, health care, a prison system, garbage trucks and fire brigades. Recent ideology is that private enterprise will organize these activities more efficiently. Two decades down the line, it is time to evaluate whether this dogma is actually true, and if so, why.

The other big question is: how do we make sure that these services are really managed around the social benefits that justify their existence, and not for other, e.g. personal benefits. The Soviet system was unable to solve this question. So is ours.

The end of teaching as we know it

View more presentations from Alvaro González-Alorda

Public administrations as corrupt welfare systems

Why is it harder in some countries to cut back on their administrative bodies, normally in multiple layers, than on other public services that, at least at first sight, seem at least as important - say, education or health care? I believe these administrations historically have a different function. While the authoritarian dictatorships of Southern Europe failed to build welfare states, they did create corrupt substitutes through the control, assignment and withdrawal of civil servant positions. Now that Southern European democracies still have very limited social systems, political parties continue to rely on handing out public jobs to their supporters.

This is a corrupt alternative for the northern welfare states, and with no democratic protection against poverty in place, it is hard to see how this vicious circle of clientelism can be broken.

The Tipping-Point of Radicalization

Why would anyone put a tattoo in their face? If you get a tattoo to identify with a certain subculture, the surprise or shock-effect that the picture inspires is part of the motivation. The image will remain but the surprise will gradually fade, unless you keep drawing attention by the amount, nature and placement of new tattoos.

The growth of fascist movements is fed by the mobilization of social frustrations insufficiently covered by mainstream political parties. Their success – putting these frustrations on the political agenda – will therefore lead to a further radicalization. If there are no further frustrations to be uncovered, the fascist movement can only dissolve and become part of mainstream politics. The Dutch ‘Freedom Party’ PVV initially voiced anti-islamist sentiments invoking liberal principles; now that these thoughts have become part of parliamentary debate, the movement abandons these same principles and launches a website to incite overt anti-immigration anger (“Have you lost your job to a Pole, a Romanian or a Bulgarian?”).

There is no turning back. Once you have written hatred on your face, you can no longer approach a nice girl in the park and ask her out.

A 10 against fascism

A Bachelor dissertation read at Tilburg University, identifying right-wing PVV as a contemporary fascist party, was awarded the highest grade (10). This unusual qualification made national press and has sparked controversy.

The debate about the underlying hypothesis has become a political one. Unlike others, I do not object to linking PVV to fascism, and I believe it is extremely relevant to study how the far right will evolve in the next decade. I am hesitant though about the academic perfection attributed to the paper and about the publicity that was sought. The grade seems to be a statement. It means no favour to the student, nor to science, nor to a political cause.

It reminds me of a curious judgement I received when I was a student. I wrote a small paper about a movement inside Italian fascism. I analysed its ideological origins, and I could use the findings in later work on the effects of censorship. My supervisor (at the Dept. of Contemporary History) looked puzzled and asked: "But where does it say that you are against fascism?"

I still wonder whether medical students are also required to state that they are against cancer.