Director Marcel Nillesen of the marketing company CustomMedia in Emmeloord has placed security footage on YouTube with the text 'Do you recognize this man?' In the video a man walks into the office and comes back out sometime later, carrying a laptop. Whoever gives CustomMedia the golden tip can look forward to a nice reward.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The amount of cameras around us is growing fast and the registration of our behavior in the physical world can be shared easily. Currently there isn’t a lot of legal ground to protect people against this. Soon hobbyists will film passing cars, read license plates automatically and connect databases. Just for fun. Then we can type a license plate number on a site and see where it’s been. Fun. Furthermore we’ll be able to start automatically recognizing faces in every photo or video on the internet. Also fun. We’ll also automatically translate every spoken text. Useful. That means we won’t be able to do anything without being seen.

Developments like this mean we’ll get world-wide pillories. Any human being, anywhere in the world can, in time, broadcast on their own easily, and preach shame. Shame when we don’t stick to global norms and values. That have to be created first, by the by. Such developments will disrupt nations, create denationalization and in a very long time (think 20-50 years) the emergence of global values with fitting legislating, government and control. This trend can’t be stopped anymore.

Related trends

• De-nationalizing

Samsung has asked consumers to make a home video containing a Samsung phone with the help of the site InstinctThePhone. Samsung will add the phone, you don't even have to own it. The first 1000 videos will receive $20, the winner $10.000.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will more and more often come up with mechanisms to employ existing customers, or other people involved with the brand, to reach others. This is a nice example of it.

Yvette, Rabobank's brand agent, has sent an email to her relations to ask about their experiences with her. The text in the email turns out to come from the University of Maastricht and contains a link to the survey site. Here Yvette's relations will be asked questions such as 'during my conversations with Yvette we talk about things other than just finances' which people can answer themselves.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are increasingly represented by brand agents, artificial characters that, in time, will look like humans and with which we engage in dialogue. For now it’s just in third person, but in time Yvette will ask ‘Do you mind if I sometimes ask you personal questions?’ Not during email, but during a spoken conversation. The facial expression of the customer will say enough. Then market research will be a continuing logical part of the dialogue between people and brands. Using Yvette to send an email and as part of a survey is a step in this direction.

Through Dutch housing site Zuka buyers and sellers can chat with one another directly. Typical questions that aren't (as) easily caught in a database - for example 'from what time will the sun be shining in the garden?' or 'when was the exterior painted for the last time?' - can easily be answered in this way. In an extreme case one might even be able to make an offer from the chatroom.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

You can sell or buy a house just like any other object. We used to need all sorts of complicated things for this, but in the network economy that’s being created it’s all about allowing two parties to meet. In a next step, Zuka could arrange for a notary, sort mortgages and arrange the move. Sometimes you’ll need a physical, real person, but that’s going to be the case less and less. This is a development in that direction.

Related trends

• Network economy

Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has developed a 3D LCD display box, the so-called gCubik, that with its 10cm diameter fits into your hand perfectly. The developers will commit themselves to creating sharper images in the coming years.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

More and more displays are inhabiting our world. Bigger, smaller, more real. As long as it looks most like our real world. Because that is, after all, how people think. And this is the world in which brands transform themselves. Soon brand agents will be walking in such displays like it’s never been any different.

Related trends

• More 3D

Energy company Nuon offers Dutch people self-service through the number 0900 0808. Callers are asked to enter their client number and the four numbers of their zip code for identification. After that, through the use of IVR (Interactive Voice Response system, with keys) they can check whether a bill has been paid, change the account number, increase or decrease the amount pay or switch to automatic payments.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how companies are increasingly automating the dialogue. Available 24 hours a day, no waiting periods, and above all you’re helped faster. Currently only with the phone’s keys, but after with speech. Currently you need a lot of codes on hand, but soon you’ll simply talk and be recognized by your voice and mobile number. It’s coming ever closer.

While the Dutch broadcasting company NET5 shows Wimbledon's most important matches on television, the others can be watched on Wimbledon2008 (Dutch). You can also watch old broadcastings, view the results and send in your own questions.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Live TV will become Live Internet and with that the country borders will disappear: we’ll be able to follow anything from anywhere in the world. When this has progressed far enough we can expect live broadcasts that are aimed at other countries from anywhere in the world. Virtual experiences in which we’re involved en masse in real time, and in which brands can play a part. The era of national television and national broadcasting models will disappear into the history books forever.

While western eyes are trained on China and India, China is looking chiefly at Africa: the next continent that will bloom up in a year or twenty. The Chinese quest for fossil fuels is leading more and more often to extremely active governmental support for projects in African countries that can offer oil. For example, China has been investing billions in oil-rich Angola for years and it's now investing in the electricity grid of the poor, West-African country of Nigeria. China has recently awarded Angola the support of 135 million dollars for rebuilding their electricity grid, water supplies and the infrastructure. In 2002 the civil war that had been raging in Angola for the past 27 years and had destroyed the infrastructure was finally ended. The Angolan media reported that the Chinese dollars will fund the modernization of the electricity grid in two cities in the Lunda Norte and Lunda-sul provinces, as well as the construction of a water purification plant, canals in Luanda and an improvement of the infrastructure in two other provinces. Furthermore the Chinese money will be used to build a center for the treatment and prevention of malaria in the hospital of Luanda.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In a long term development, the virtual world will cause the world’s prosperity to be more or less equally divided. Huge differences, such as we still know today will disappear. The fact that China can develop like this is partially caused by the extremely good opportunities to communicate across continents and to share knowledge. This allows a land with 1.3 billion people to develop rapidly and take control. These kinds of developments are part of this.

At GreenNote American students can get financing for their college/university studies through acquaintances. The student creates a profile and adds, alongside the desired monetary amount, a photo, information on finished courses and in 'my story' the reason the money is needed. And of course why they think that lending them money to go to college is a good investment. From there the student can start to approach people.

If people are interested in offering a loan, GreenNote formalizes this through a legally binding contract for both the student and the person offering the loan.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how new financial brands are created in the network economy. The new model will be borrowing from the acquaintance of an acquaintance. We trust the people we know, our trusted relations, and the trust that they have in the outside world. This is how micro credit becomes useable around the globe, this is how new brands such as GreenNote grab a chance that traditional banks aren’t yet embracing well enough.

Related trends

• Network economy

Dutch TV producer Talpa (Dutch) belonging to John de Mol asks for new ideas on TalpaCreative (English). Visitors of the site can win €500,000 and on top of that their idea will be brought to life, giving them eternal fame as an added reward.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

It’s a typical example of the network economy in which different parties can find each other in a different way. In this new economy the production factors are knowledge, creativity and relationships (as Ben Tiggelaar once said). Those are the factors with a shortage and so people have to look for them. That creativity is the only limitation left also shows. If we have a good idea we’re almost certainly able to make it. Anything is possible. And if it’s not possible then it can be done in the virtual world anyway. Brands facilitate this process and Talpa is giving an example here.

Related trends

• Network economy

On MijnAankomst (MyArrival) you can register your traveling plans beforehand. If you don't arrive at the designated time all contacts you've entered will automatically get an emergency message via text message and email. This message will contain advice on how to trace you quickly. If you want to go for truly safe you can let certain contacts know your plans even before you leave.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Human beings want to move across the globe in all freedom. Insecurity is an important reason not to travel. For example because of unfamiliarity with the culture, nature, local crime rates or the language. Technology will start to assist bridging these gaps. This service of Dutch site MijnAankomst (MyArrival) is an example.

This water beam follows the hands of a washing person.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

What’s this doing on this site? The essence in these developments is that technology starts to adapt to the human being. We’re ever better able to spot people, to recognize them and start a dialogue with them. But in this case even the mechanical parts respond to humans. That’s something we don’t yet see every day. In the far future, when we think robots are the most normal thing in existence, we’ll look back on this type of development as earlier states of the technological ‘sensing’ of people.

This video shows the making of a photo where automatically through the use of a flash image, without you seeing it, an image is added. That image is seen in the picture itself, mind. It seems to be similar to photo fraud in cars. Here a flash that detects and bounces back the original flash.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The virtual world forms a shell around the physical world. That offers a lot of added value, but at the same time its reliability is in question. This time it’s about photo manipulation, but soon you’ll be able to call someone under a different name and even sound the same as the person you’re pretending to be. A few years later this will also happen with the corresponding video images. What’ll be real? Thankfully our brains are excellent at dealing with uncertainty and they’ll start to guess when certain sources are reliable and when they’re not. And if you have doubts, you can test it. That also goes for the contact with brands.

Our human brains appear to appreciate a monetary reward just as much as a social reward. Money and status are handled by the same spots in our brains. That explains, for example, why people are willing to pay more for a Toyota Prius: the appreciation of the people surrounding them makes up for the cost. The social function of brands proven, so to speak. There's more information at NeuroMarketing.

Anyone with a Dutch bank and cell phone number can now transfer money privately with a text message (SMS) by using Rabobank SMS betalen (Rabobank Text Message Payment, Dutch). Useful for such things as sharing a cab, buying a birthday gift together with several friends or paying in a restaurant. There are a few simple steps:

• open a mobile wallet on www.rabosmsbetalen.nl and put money on it


• send a text message to 6689 with the cell phone number of the recipient and the monetary amount (for example 0621567657 10)


• you'll receive a text message confirmation of 6689 with a password – that's just a normal Dutch word; in my test it was 'kwaal' (illness)


• send a text message with the password to 6689


• you've paid. The recipient will now receive a text message with the amount paid and the cell phone number of the person who made the transaction

If the recipient doesn't yet have a mobile wallet, they'll receive one automatically on the payment. Then the recipient can pay with the money again immediately and this allows the mechanism to spread virally very fast.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

People don’t want to transfer money to a number, but to a person. A cell phone number is already more a ‘human’ than a bank account (which could also represent, say, a company). Soon it’ll be a standard function in Live Messenger, transfer money. Currently through Rabobank, but soon everyone will have a wallet hidden behind their telephone number. Sooner or later a financial coaching brand can help you with the simple sentence ‘transfer ten euros to Erwin’. Given the setting around that time the brand won’t even have to ask you which Erwin you mean, but transfer the money immediately. This mobile product brings this future another step closer.

Since recently there's a permanent notification of the last five items of the Dutch blog FuturEyes marketing agency VODW on Mensmerk.nl (the original Dutch version of this site) in the right hand colon 'partnerfeeds'. This is because I think it's an exceptionally good blog: the items are highly relevant, they make a clear link with trends and the writing style is short yet complete. On FuturEyes Mensmerk.nl is mentioned showing the last five items from the categories media evolution, brand evolution and coaching brands. (All links here lead to the English site.) With these links Mensmerk is also very relevant to the visitor of FuturEyes. This marks the start of a promising cooperation that has yet to assume its exact shape.

Related trends

• Coaching brands