TREND 2:           GAMES NO MORE

                                THE BLURRING OF “PLAY”

                                                SHOW ME THE REAL THING

Emerging Trends:

Who would have thought that the world of video games and teenagers would merge to form a major new industry?  Nintendo, Sony Playstation2 and Microsoft X-box have created the platforms for a $200 billion industry that did not exist 25 years ago.  On Nov 9, 2010, a single game, Call of Duty: Black Ops, topped $360 million on its first day of sales. 

Even the Supreme Court is in the middle of this. It is currently struggling to reconcile the First Amendment right of free speech against the California ban of sales of violent games to minors.  Why? Grand Auto Theft VI to name just one. Games are out-doing each other with visuals too graphic to resist and most of them depict sex or extreme violence. And sometimes both.  Intel is producing chips specifically to run graphic simulation so real that it was once the exclusive domain of US Air force F-16 pilots and NASA astronaut flight simulators. Reality so real that it‘s more fun than a to-do list or homework. Okay that has never been a hard sell, TV has been doing it for years, but now, even the latest generation of web–based TVs pale by comparison. Sony and Microsoft are in a deadly battle for market supremacy.

Fantasy Football gets real. The worlds of video games and live broadcasts are merging.  The blurring of reality and play will be amazing as multiple camera angles, and stop and reverse play become available on live TV sporting events. Viewers will soon be able to go back during time-outs and check out any play from different angles instead of looking at the Camry ad.  They’ll even be able to see both on a split screen while continuing to watch live action. “Call your own play” and see how the action might have been different based on simulations that use profiles of the players on the field. Couch coaches can call plays simultaneously with live action.

At Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, monitors on swivel arms are mounted on the box seats. Using ChoiceSeat, an interactive software, it displays instant replay from multiple camera angles showing type and speed of pitch and players’ stats. If the real ball game is boring, fans can shop at the franchise store or play pong without leaving their seat, ka ching $$$.

Now, where do kids fit in you ask? Do you really think adults have the imagination to create games other than Ferrari Challenge and Baseball 2002?  Boring!!  The 10-14 year olds will be creating the most novel graphic experiences and the most engaging story lines for the next set of interactive games, and they’ll put them directly on line for download from their web sites…for free! Shawn Fanning and Justin Frankel fundamentally altered music and file sharing before they were 20. Brian Cohen, another 20 something, is developing stunningly efficient content distribution technologies to allow streaming of large data files like the more graphic intense and complex video games. Soon they’ll be ubiquitous, playable on any digital device, anywhere.

In 1999 video game sales topped $6.1 billion while movie theater tickets tallied $7.5 billion. Today video games have become a $200 billion industry while movies have move up to $100 billion. It’s clear where this is going…convergence in 3D.

Question to ponder: in this nexus of 3D technology, cutting edge virtual reality, interactive media meets old fashioned story telling meets gaming and entertainment, what will the next generation look like?

Next Opportunities:

Teens are in great demand to create and beta test the games, but some of these games have already created “world championships” with prize money!!! Wait till Jim McMann or MTV or Zyanga get their hands on it and put some buzz to it.  Will Extreme Computer Games World Championship for Doom or Spy vs. Spy or Mafia Warfare be the next mega hit? Kinect is just the tip of the interactive games iceberg. Tron may seem quaint today, but not if players can “enter” the game.  Soon, players will feel the bullets and smell the burning tires, feel what the competition is feeling and simultaneously take on multiple champions from a “home appliance” or perhaps from an eyeglass PDA while sitting at the skyport waiting for a Boeing space shuttle to fly to Japan via the stratosphere.  

Another major opportunity awaits: using the highly seductive technology created for computer games as teaching tools, combining technology, entertainment, and creative learning. Not simply in the transfer of high quality graphics to create realistic tours of ancient Egypt or conversations with digital Einstein, but melding technology with gaming to truly merge learning with fun.   

Marc Prensky of Corporate Gameware said, “What if we provide ourselves with the tools (that are) as fun to use as the toys we provide our children? Computer games are high in engagement and low in content. Business, by contrast has lots of content but little engagement. Put the two together, and you just might have something” altogether new as a way of conducting business. Too radical? Maybe so. But already being beta tested and proving to be a successful new business model.

See if you have the imagination to pick apart the opportunities in this unfolding wild scenario that upon second glance, is not so crazy.

Let your imagination run wild.

Create the future and smell the roses, it’s your move!

                  MAKING THAT MILLION AT 17

                           FINDING ROLE MODELS THAT FIT

Emerging Trends: 

As ever-younger entrepreneurs enter the Net business world to create the next new idea and earn their first million dollars before turning 18, the roles of parents and teachers will be radically altered in the child rearing landscape. At 25, Chris Hughes is starting his second career as “entrepreneur in residence” at the VC firm of General Catalyst Partners. Oh, Chris Hughes? He’s the founder of Facebook and the web site My.BarackObama.com that raised $500 million for the Obama campaign.

There is a real threat that parents who are not extremely savvy will be sidelined, considered outdated, uninformed, and outmoded by 14 year olds.  This will allow all kinds of cyber surrogates to take their place.  When hormones are taking off and emotions are running amok, teen years are often isolating and awkward.  With a community of hackers egging them on and with the know-how to hack into the FBI, the Pentagon or any web site, their alienation can become lethal.

On the plus side, many children will feel empowered at a very early age and have the ability to make a difference.  But many of the child pioneers will be “playing” outside the proverbial sandbox, choosing to drop out, start a company, work on defining new frontiers, earn real money and stock options, some before they are old enough to vote.  VillageVentures.com will be creating mini-incubators in college towns like Ithaca, NY & Hanover, NH. to catch the 21 somethings while they are still incubating. Venture capital is coming a-knocking on your 14 year old’s bedroom door.  What are you going to say? Or will you even have a say?

Next Opportunities:

TeenCoach.org already exists for the budding teens and the not so budding teens who just don’t fit but have a bright idea and want someone to guide them through the maze of options. Many companies as well as employers like the CIA will collaborate with parents of the super talented and compete for the creative powers of their children. Smart Schools like Smart Companies will gear up to find ways to keep them in school.  Even smarter schools will become venture capital partners with philanthropies and develop school based business enterprises in which students and teachers create and own “companies” together, with shares they can cash in or transfer to college if they chose to graduate. And if Uncle Sam is smart, the IRS will allow money earned through such school-based businesses to be tax free when used to fund education.

Smart Schools will identify and teach advanced “net business development skills” as opposed to simply using computers in classes as a teaching tool. Courses will focus on becoming a net entrepreneur, teaching skills like identifying trends, developing ideas into products, seizing opportunities and realizing them at net speed, interdisciplinary team collaboration, jump starting an idea, and even leadership and branding. This is where it will get scary.  Genetic and other kinds of testing will be available to identify the children with the highest potential for “net skills.”  Parents hoping that their child will become the next Bill Gates will literally seek to incubate them.  Speaking of Bill and catching them early, Microsoft has already struck a deal with the Indian government to allow it to cherry pick the brightest from the Indian school system and be sent to Microsoft to be trained as software engineers in return for a sizeable investment in IT in Indian public schools. What a deal for India. Hardly!

 In the meantime, as they seek to leave a legacy that carries their passion forward into the next generation of emerging trends and technological shifts a lot of the “older generation” of net entrepreneurs, 20 and 30 somethings will want to mentor the younger stars of today.  

Opportunities you ask? Be the first Smart School teacher to create the school based business model that makes real money, which engages the 13 year old and weans her away from the ubiquitous gaming and away from the hacking and tweeting she does to get attention.  Help her create a new killer i-Phone app that gets a million downloads from the Apple Store. Be the one who creates a net skills testing program for 6, 10, 12 year olds and spot the Steven Jobs of tomorrow.  Be the first Smart Company to start a mentor program with the local school system to tap into the next generation of Einsteins.  Be the parent who dares to collaborate with her 14-year-old and goes along for the ride into the unknown. Get in there with your child and let her show you how to create something new and daring.  The 70’s may have been the start of the modern day youth movement.  Be warned, we are at the start of a real teen movement that will rock us all.

Let your imagination run wild.

Create the future and smell the roses, it’s your move!

The CIA has determined that the best internet hackers are between the ages of 12 and 16. Not old enough to drive or work full time legally, but old enough to do real damage as the daily break-ins at various sites including CIA’s own site continue to highlight. But on the flip side, extreme successes will be seen at younger and younger ages, and most of them will not even have a high school diploma. 

High school dropouts like Dan Hamans of Iowa make over $40,000 a year (NY Times, 2008). Dan is a professional computer games player, his first job was testing computer games at Quake. A past champion, Dan estimates he has garnered almost $100,000 in cash, prizes and endorsements since he began competing in 1995. Computer games have already been Dan’s ticket to the job market. And instead of a high school diploma, kids like Dan may opt for a Cisco Certified Expert Certificate, whose graduates typically start at a salary of $75,000. Dan is 19 years old.  

Mark Zuckerbeg. Oh, you don’t know the name? But you might as well know he has a net worth of $3 billion at the age of 23! Young geeks are in, and if their skills and entrepreneurship are timed just right, their potential for making millions of $$$ overnight at 16, 18 and 19 is a very real possibility.  When they smell a success, venture capitalists will line up a mile away. BTW, Zuckerbeg is the founder of FaceBook.com. Such alternate routes to success will be extremely common. Bill Gates, the Harvard dropout poster child is already past 50. There are now emerging teenage CEOs too; Ryan Zacharia at 18 is the CEO of Stockpickz.com that “picks stocks from a teenager’s point of view”. His school principal bought stocks based on his picks! 

The impacts of success at ages as young as 16 and 19 will profoundly impact families, society, as well as business.

Question is: How many of the dozens of talented musicians who performed at Woodstock 1 still had a viable musical career 30 years later? The majority died or burnt out because they could not handle the pace and the fame. Led Z finally came out of hiding in 2007. What will be the crash and burn rate of this generation of revolutionaries?