Twenty years ago, terms such as "sustainability," "environmentalism," and "health" were virtually unknown in business strategy circles. Today, all of these concepts have evolved broader and more complex definitions and they have moved from the margins to the center of business activity.

Baby boomers are perhaps the most widely studied generation in United States history. Everything about this group has been the subject of scrutiny: their shopping behavior, media preferences, living arrangements, politics, and more recently, their views of retirement and needs for financial planning. Most of these research studies aim to define current attitudes and segment a market that dominates by its sheer size. Few research efforts, however, take a longer view.

This download contains full information on background, research agenda, membership and deliverables for IFTF's Science in Place research program.

Please contact Anthony Townsend at +1-650-233-9522 for more information.

The research stream that will feed Science in Place has been building at IFTF for several years. Here's a collection of recent work that outlines some of areas we're looking into.

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In May 2008, the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council (CCRRC) publicly released the results of a year-long research endeavor by the Institute for the Future's Health Horizons Program, studying the Future of Health and Wellness in Food Retailing. This project helps food retailers connect the dots between food and health, design strategic processes that help retail stores respond to this future, and offer their customers a more holistic approach to food retail.

Three main deliverables resulting from this project can be downloaded in PDF format (see above links):

As boomers move into their 60s and 70s over the next 20 years, they
will not only carry their revolutionary history with them. They will
extend it into a new realm. Biology, the very basis of human life, will
be up for grabs as boomers make choices about physical aging that no
previous generation has had to make.

At our Spring 2008 Conference, we looked at how concerns about health and sustainability are converging--we call this trend "Green Health." As part of the first day of the conference, staff and attendees engaged in an immersive experience to examine a spectrum of green practices that broadly relate to health. With street ethnographic guides in hand, we set out to explore the streets of San Francisco and visit the diverse worlds of "Eco Chic," "Green Retail," and "Urban Community."

Welcome to the Future of Making! We are on the verge of a transformation of how products are designed, manufactured, and distributed. The entire supply chain is undergoing reinvention and the impact will be felt not only by manufacturers but also by individuals, households, communities, even entire regions. Driven by the need to innovate faster than ever before, green aspirations, and a quest for authenticity, new paradigms for “making things” are emerging.

Two future forces, one mostly social, one mostly technological, are intersecting to transform how goods, services, and experiences—the “stuff” of our world—will be designed, manufactured, and distributed over the next decade. An emerging do-it-yourself culture of “makers” is boldly voiding warranties to tweak, hack, and customize the products they buy. And what they can’t purchase, they build from scratch. Meanwhile, flexible manufacturing technologies on the horizon will change fabrication from massive and centralized to lightweight and ad hoc.

The 2008 Ten-Year Forecast Annual Retreat, "The Future is a New View of Life," took place in San Francisco, CA on April 9 & 10. Materials from this meeting are available for download to TYF members, including:

2008 TYF Map of the Decade (SR-1142)