White papers
Exploring Microsoft Future of Work Scenarios
Exhibit 8: Making the Scenarios Real
There is evidence in today’s news to support the development of any of the futures outlined in the scenarios; the list of real stories, Web sites, and other references below reinforces the divergence of the scenarios. The combined weight of these references illustrates that planning for any one future is not the best approach. Recognizing the diversity of the potential futures helps reduce the myopia of believing that one future is more relevant than the others. As the future unfolds, all things remain possible, even those that people do not want to believe are possible. The scenarios when combined with this level of tracking help make alternative futures tangible and visceral.
Proud Tower
“Benefits for All in a Bigger Club: Today’s EU Expansion is the Rightful Culmination of History.” Financial Times, May 1, 2004.
“In Modern Imperialism, U.S. Needs to Walk Softly.” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2004.
“Civil Service Has Morphed Into U.S. Inc.” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2004.
“Who’s a Pirate? Russia Points Back at the U.S.” New York Times, July 26, 2004.
“SBC to Acquire AT&T for $16 Billion.” CNET News.com, January 1, 2005.
“Federated to Buy May Department Stores, Reports Say.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 28, 2005.
“Prying Eyes: Hackers Use Google to Find Web Interfaces for Thousands of Unprotected Web Cameras.” InfoWorld, May 17, 2005.
“Group Health Makes Shifts from Scribbles to Keystrokes.” Seattle Times, June 5, 2005.
“Unocal Bid by Chinese Faces Big Obstacles.” Seattle Times, June 24, 2005.
“Copyright Lobbyists Strike Again.” CNET News.com, August 1, 2005.
“Merger Monday Lifts Spirits.” Seattle Times, September 13, 2005.
“Dial to Purchase P & G Brands.” Associated Press, February 22, 2006.
“Huge Phone Deal Seeks to Thwart Smaller Rivals.” New York Times, March 6, 2006.
“Ma Bell, Reunited with One of Her Babies.” The Economist, March 6, 2006.
“Telecom Wars: Lord of the Rings.” Business Week, March 9, 2006.
“The Snooping Goes Beyond Phone Calls: How the Government Sidesteps the Privacy Act by Purchasing Commercial Data .” Business Week, May 29, 2006.
“A Piece of Work.” Fast Company, June, 2006.
“Down to Business: The Age of the Control Freak.” Information Week, July 3, 2006.
“Iberdrola to Buy Scottish Power for £11.6 Billion.” International Herald Tribune, November 28, 2006.
“It’s Not a Job, It’s a McCalling.” Business Week, June 4, 2007.
“Time for a Little Constitutional.” The Economist, June 14, 2007.
“Working Around the Clock.” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2007.
“Suez and GdF Agree Merger Terms.” Financial Times, September 2, 2007.
“Nationalism Bites the Dust.” Financial Times, November 16, 2007.
Continental Drift
“The Open-Source Challenge.” eWEEK.com, January 31, 2005.
“New Airbus Superjumbo Won’t Be Elephant in Boeing’s Living Room.” Kitsap Sun, February 13, 2005.
“India-China Pact Could Make Asia the Next IT Hub.” InformationWeek, April 12, 2005.
“On the Border.” The Economist, May 20, 2005.
“Supreme Court to Rule on File-Sharing.” Seattle Times, June 19, 2005.
“Immature Eggs Used to Clone Embryos.” Associated Press, June 20, 2005.
“India-Bound Jobs May Detour to Areas Such as North Dakota.” The Seattle Times, June 21, 2005.
“Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say.” New York Times, December 15, 2005.
“Uncertainty Blocks Chinese Wheat Gluten.” USA Today, September 23, 2007.
“In Threat to Internet’s Clout, Some Are Starting Alternatives.” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2006.
“France Backs Gaz de France, Suez Merger.” CNNMoney.com, February 5, 2006.
“White House Confirms Chinese Anti-Satellite Weapon Test.” Space, January 19, 2007.
“Bush’s Bad Business Empire: Making the World Unsafe for Microsoft and Mickey Mouse.” Mother Jones, November 4, 2005.
“Happy New Vulnerability!” InformationWeek, January 2, 2006.
“Chinese Premier Pledges Help for the Rural Poor, Playing Down Growth of Military Spending.” New York Times, March 5, 2006.
“Google Debuts Chinese-Language Brand Name, Defends Cooperation with Censors.” USA Today, April 12, 2006.
“Bringing the Jobs Home: A Software CEO Says ‘Backshoring’ Makes Economic Sense.” Fortune, May 17, 2006.
“Sousveillance.” New Scientist, June 26, 2006.
“Stern Looks for Way Out of NASA’s Budget Squeeze.” Science, June 1, 2007.
“Drawing Lines in Melting Ice.” The Economist, August 16, 2007.
“Chinese Hacked Into Pentagon.” Financial Times, September 3, 2007.
“Waving Goodbye to Hegemony.” The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2008.
“The Move Toward a National ID.” Parade, February 24, 2008.
“Could Globalization Be Going in Reverse?” WorldChanging.com, August 4, 2008.
“Barcode Tattoos.” Images from jetcityorange.com/barcodes/tattoos. (Undated).
Frontier Friction
“RFID: A Brief Technology Analysis.” CTONet.org, 2004.
“Microsized Surveillance.” Utne Reader, January 1, 2005.
“Are Your PDFs Spying on You?” PDFZone.com, March 21, 2005.
“School Choice Nirvana.” Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, April 1, 2005.
“State Bill to Limit RFID.” Wired, April 29, 2005.
“We’re Not Counting on the Government to Take Care of Us Anymore: Following Hurricane Katrina Victims out of New Orleans.” Mother Jones, September 12, 2005.
“Putting People Into Bins.” Scientific American (book review), April/May 2006.
“E-Commerce in Crisis: When SSL Isn’t Safe.” InfoWorld, May 1, 2006.
“NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls.” USA Today, May 11, 2006.
“While You Were Reading This, Someone Ripped You Off.” Wired, May 2006. (Also published as “The RFID Hacking Underground.”)
“RFID Tattoos for Tracking Cows … and People.” EndGadget.com, January 18, 2007.
“Tension Between Sunnis, Shiites Emerging in USA.” USA Today, September 24, 2007.
“Georgia Makes a Power Play — and a Big Gamble.” Associated Press, August 8, 2008.
“Leave My Child Alone! A Family Privacy Project of Working Assets and Mainstream Moms.” LeaveMyChildAlone.org Web site.
“Stop ID Cards and the Database State.” No2ID.net Web site.
Freelance Planet
“The Karma Economy: On the Web, A User’s Reputation is Priceless .” Utne Reader, January 1, 2005.
“E-Lancer: The Fittest in the e-World.” Korea Herald, February 11, 2005.
“The Hard-Up Go for the Hard-Sell by Offering Their Bodies as Adverts.” The Independent, London, February 18, 2005.
“Sweat Ship: Team Plans Offshore Assault on L.A. Coders.” LAVoice.org, April 28, 2005.
“Lone Rangers: Are Those in the Free-Agent Economy Just Getting to the Future Ahead of Everyone Else?” CommonWealth, Summer, 2005.
“Trend Is to Plug in, Tune Out at Work.” Seattle Times, June 20, 2005.
“eBay Targets Small Sellers.” Seattle Times, June 24, 2005.
“Free Agents Shun Traditional Employment.” Undated archival copy on NHPR.com. Originally published in Management-Issues.com, June 30, 2005.
“Understanding the Hidden Economy.” TheFutureOfWork.net newsletter, October, 2005.
“The Watched: Who’s Zooming In on Whom?” Mother Jones, November 1, 2005.
“The Network Unbound.” Fast Company, June, 2006.
“Employers Slow to Respond as Workers Ditch Traditional Careers.” Management-Issues.com, February 24, 2006.
“Cost-Effective Homesourcing Trend Grows.” USA Today, March 12, 2006.
“A Toast to Dissent: Activist Beer Makers Deliver Politics in a Bottle.” Utne Reader, July 1, 2006.
“Liberty in Our Lifetime.” Pamphlet from FreeStateProject.org.
