Wired Magazine never fails to make me think. The October 2009 issue featured “The Smart List: 12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World.” There were six ideas that have specific relevance to our field:

1. Recruit Autistics. "A preternatural capacity for concentration and near-total recall" makes autistic folks ideal software engineers according to Thorkil Sonne, who founded Specialisterne in Denmark, an IT consultancy that hire mostly people with autism-spectrum disorders.
2. Embrace Human Cloning. Human clones walk among us—identical twins—so why not take in vitro fertilization to its logical conclusion?
3. Make Health Risk Management Meaningful. According to Ralph Keeney, 55% of deaths for people aged15 to 64 are now due to their own decisions—compared to 5% a century ago. Provide people with better calculations of risk (for not using seatbelts, not exercising, bad diets, etc.) and then adjust health premiums accordingly.
4. Release All Nonviolent Offenders in Prison. Incarcerating nonviolent criminals costs us $22,000 per year—and has no social gain. Make nonviolent offenders go to counseling, get an education, do public serivce, and repay their victims.
5. Legalize Assisted Suicide. Ludwig Minelli, founder of Dignitas, a right-to-die organization, believes that prohibiting suicide doesn't keep desperate people from trying. Instead, provide dignified options—and counseling for people considering suicide.
6. Forget Medical Privacy. Guest commentator Jamie Heywood of PatientsLikeMe believes "privacy has been used as an excuse by those who have a vested interest in hoarding" health care information. He wants us to share our personal data on-line in social communities.

You may or may not agree with them—but, if implemented, they certainly will change our world.

I recently presented at a state behavioral health association meeting where, to put it mildly, the execs in the audience thought my five-year projections were a bit 'wild'. I heard many comments like, "That will happen eventually, but certainly not in five years…"

But even my view of the future of the health and human services field was given a 'big shock' by the remarks of Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. Mr. Schmidt was asked to answer the question, "What will the Internet look like five years from now?" Here are a few of the trends he is working into the five-year strategic plan for Google:

• The next five years will outstrip the factor of ten that we now know as Moore's Law—computers’ capabilities will be doubled (speed, storage, reduced cost, etc.) in five years—and not ten
• Within five years, there will be widespread broadband access well above 100MB in performance—in other words, super-fast bandwidth for real time audio and video communication
• Distinctions between TV, radio, and the web will go away—facilitated in part by inexpensive, fast broadband access
• Real time user-generated information on the web will increase—also facilitated by inexpensive fast broadband access—and the will be including it in search results, and more critical, in ranking
• Web users will expect to jump from one application to another seamlessly (much like today's teenagers)—and will demand applications that permit this
• Five years from now the Internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.

What does it all mean for our field? I don't know yet, but our team at OPEN MINDS is working on the answer to that very question. Stay tuned.