The Futures Company

Compiled by Tom Ding

Passed around the office lately were:

• A comparison of the news-to-death ratios of Swine Flu and Tubercolosis by Hans Rosling, adding an interesting perspective to Alex’s earlier post. Guess what: lots more people die of TB, but it hardly gets any news coverage.
• Naturally 7 wowing the crowd with some full-on beatboxing, in whch they impersonate a small orchestra, a video from this year’s TED conference.
• A great little insight on depictions of the future in advertising, still strangely trapped in some old-fashioned futures borrowed from the 1970s.
• The idea bounty, where creative sorts can sell ideas straight to brands. Although, as our IT Manager pointed out, the terms and conditions make for scary reading, and might just be enough to make you think twice about offering your best ideas.
• And finally, is it co-creation? is it mass customisation? is it an inventive way of improving the margins on crisps even further? The picture at the top of the post top might offer some clues. Whichever it is, the new Create-a-chip Kit from Kettle Chips is only available in the US at the moment, so we’ll have to leave that piece of research to our American colleagues.

Tuck in!