DIY dinners down under

The Future Laboratory – Anyone interested in the future of food should listen to co-founder of The Future Laboratory Chris Sanderson talking on Australia’s leading design-related radio programme, By Design, on ABC Radio.

Chris joined food broadcaster Michael MacKenzie and Elizabeth Farrelly, Sydney Morning Herald architecture critic and author of Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness, in a wide-ranging discussion on food, families, dining out and eating in.

Listen now to find out more about printing food, the fate of the dining table and why everything important in life happens on a flat surface.

Download or listen to the 15 February episode of The Panel on the Radio National website.

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2012 Trend Briefing motivates Melbourne

The Future Laboratory – This week an audience of 320 people attended The Future Laboratory’s 2012 Melbourne Trend Briefing, marking a decade of The Future Laboratory working in Australia.

The half-day presentation packed in a wide range of subjects, including how to survive The Transformation Age, how to monetise the Personal Information Economy, how to understand Revivalism and how to build The Tomorrow Store.

Members of the audience at ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, described the event as ‘extremely well presented’, ‘factual and eye-opening’, ‘motivational’ and ‘brilliant’.

The 2012 Sydney Trend Briefing will be held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Monday 20 February. For tickets click here.

The next Trend Briefing in the UK is on 14 March 2012 in London. To find out more, contact Alena Joyette.

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Take a tour: The future of travel and hospitality

London – LS:N Global is inviting members on a magical mystery tour aimed at unearthing key trends and insights affecting the travel and hospitality sector.

The Travel & Hospitality Futures Forum on 25 April, to be held at The Future Laboratory headquarters at 26 Elder Street, will examine key market shifts that are vital to understanding how business and leisure tourism is changing in the era we call the Turbulent Teens.

The economies of SLIMMA nations – Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and Argentina – are growing, establishing new opportunities for brands. New Urban Explorers (NUEs) and Bucket List Adventurers are illustrating a new desire in people to prospect beyond the traditional fly-and-flop holiday.

We will also explore new travel tribes and trends such as Hidden House Hotels, One-Room Tourism, W(h)oleness Spas and Curated Holidays.

To book a place, or learn more about the day, click here. Alternatively, email Alena Joyette.

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A deal a day keeps the blues away

Future Poll – Napoleon once described the 19th-century British as a nation of shopkeepers. It seems that their 21st-century descendants have found a new focus for commercial flair – as online consumers who search daily deal sites for the buzz of finding a bargain.

A new social commerce futures report for LivingSocial by Future Poll explained that people are hard-wired to love a good deal, and when coupled with the strong psychological effects of scarcity, a hunger for a daily deal develops.

The report found that 57% of UK adults who use deal websites check them as often as social networking sites, and 85% claimed they tried new experiences because of these sites.

And 37% of UK men use daily deal sites compared with 32% of women, confounding decades of research indicating that men don’t like to shop. Brant Barton, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Bazaarvoice, says this is due to ‘the increasing use of gaming principles in social commerce that appeals to the male user, and it is no longer purely about shopping’.

So ignore the cries that group buying is dying, a Ubiquitous Gaming Culture means it’s just warming up. The report findings were the hot topic at radio stations across the country, including BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Wales, LBC and LBC News.

Future Poll is the research division of The Future Laboratory. To find out more about Future Poll’s work, contact Tiffany Arntson.

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