Out of the office update : I’ve been on the road since last week (Europe and Asia), and won’t be hitting the “green, green grass of home” until early next.
Month / April 2007
Virtual tourism
Apparently New Zealand is now the first country in the world to have a Google Earth layer dedicated to tourism. Someone at NZ Tourism is thinking ahead of the game.
Thanks Tim for the pointer.
Who is best at predicting the future?
While I have always been aware of the Long Now Foundation, for some reason it gradually dropped off my radar (would Alanis Morisette call this ironic?)
It turns out that they have podcasts of all their seminars, and they make for damn interesting listening. One of the most interesting ones is by Philip Tetlock where he discusses the results of his longitudinal study about how accurate experts are at predicting the future.
He categorises them into two camps : foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes have many tricks (i.e. experts that cover broad areas) while a hedgehog has but one trick (i.e. a deep subject matter expert).
Tetlock examines the accuracy of these two groups across a range of different criteria. It’s fascinating, and especially relevant for my work on the Technology Futures programme.
We’ve found that the mix of foxes and hedgehogs in any one large group can dramatically alter the buzz of an event.
As a sidenote Tetlock has been quite clever in selecting the two animals use as illustrations. The imagery behind the choice is strong, and you could conceivably label someone a hedgehog without incurring their wrath. After all, rolling into a spiky ball is quite clever. You could not really say the same if you labeled someone a slug, a flatworm or a hagfish (despite the fact that a hagfish has a couple of neat tricks too)…
Thanks Jan for the pointer.
Mining waste
From New Scientist magazine (March 10 2007) comes an interesting little article which bears more thought. It points out that demand for flat screen TVs and cellphones is creating shortages in metals you’re never heard of.
Bismuth and indium may sound like potentially disgusting medical conditions (“I’m sorry son, that’s the worst case of bismuth I’ve ever seen…”), but they’re both rare and uncommon metals.
So uncommon that some people are saying that they might run out in 3-5 years. According to the analyst quoted in the article, it’s going to start a while new industry : mining electronic waste to try and recover trace metals.
Very Kim Stanley Robinson….
Health insurance innovation
While in India a couple of weeks ago I noticed a billboard which advertised discounted health insurance for diabetics. It’s an interesting development in an industry which is not widely seen as being innovative.
By offering health insurance for specific illnesses, the company no doubt adjusts it’s premiums and cover. However it’s a clever approach and targets the niche other companies would penalise.
I’ve not seen this type of offering before, and I’m wondering if health insurers in other parts of the world also target specific illnesses?
Here’s the link.