A Dip into a Think Tank

Researchers at SRI look for society’s newest trends

When corporations want insights into the sort of economic and social conditions in which they will have to do business in six months’ or even six years’ time, they often turn to one of several think tanks that specialize in looking over the horizon. A leader in the field is SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., which helped Merrill Lynch develop its innovative Cash Management Account that combines checking, brokerage and credit cards services. Founded in 1946 in cooperation with nearby Stanford University and formerly named the Stanford Research Institute, SRI has been independent since 1970. It numbers among its corporate clients such major firms as IBM, General Foods and Fluor.

Once a month, a special group of 18 top SRI professionals in fields as varied as urban planning, chemistry and energy meet to mull the future in a paneled conference room overlooking a leafy courtyard. The program goes by the acronym of TEAM, which stands for Trend Evaluation and Monitoring. TIME Correspondent Michael Moritz last week became the first reporter ever permitted to attend an SRI brain-storming session. His report: hat in the world are Langmuir Blodgett films?” asked Beth Hiseler, senior office assistant. The question stumped her 17 colleagues for a few moments, but the discussion leaped to life when Chemical Engineer Russell Phillips explained that the name refers not to some new foreign movie director but rather to thin layers of organic matter that might some day be used to convert solar energy to electricity. The explanation spurred another scientist, Nevin Hiester, to point out that Langmuir Blodgett films are still too expensive for widespread use in industry.

At the far end of the room stood James Smith, manager of Business Environment Scanning. Listening to the exchange, he observed that the group has been hearing more and more about such exotic-sounding materials lately. This prompted another TEAM member, Joseph Grippo, a senior management consultant at SRI, to ask: “Shouldn’t we be doing more materials research?”

Within a couple of months, SRI’s thoughts on Langmuir Blodgett films will probably be discussed in Scan, a tightly written bimonthly summary of the SRI meetings. Some 475 U.S. and foreign corporations pay $12,000 yearly to subscribe to SRI’s business intelligence program and to receive the eight-page Scan reports. The next issue of the pamphlet is also likely to contain articles on competition from Japan, the economic and social implications of the “information society,” and the growing public antagonism about violent crimes by youth.

Agenda items for the meeting start with SRI’s field staff, which constantly scours magazines, newspapers and scholarly journals for articles pointing toward social and economic change ahead. Some of the journals can be found on almost any newsstand, but others are more obscure. Examples: Futurist, a bimonthly published by the World Future Society, and the Hastings Center Report, which examines issues concerning ethics and the natural sciences. A week before TEAM met in Menlo Park, summaries of 88 articles were distributed to the group’s members. Subjects in last week’s packet of clippings ranged from an Asia 2000 report on the impact of nuclear power plant radiation on the spiderwort plant, to a British magazine story that Lufthansa Airlines is now using trains instead of planes on some routes in West Germany.

As the session developed, TEAM members found plenty to fret about. Somebody was worried about the significance of peace protests in Western Europe. Another was bothered by the long-term growth prospects for California if special education is cut out of state spending. Yet another was concerned about attempts in Ohio to levy a state sales tax on services.

The free-flowing nature of the sessions does have certain drawbacks. Corporate clients have sometimes been reluctant to adopt the group’s recommendations, complaining that the topics themselves are often banal or irrelevant. Even so, SRI can point to some impressive successes. SRI’s brainstorming technique zeroed in early on the nationwide trend toward home health care and quickly held seminars on the subject. In addition, TEAM sessions in the spring of 1980 focused on the rightward political lurch in the U.S. and the growth of religious fundamentalism.

Throughout last week’s session the group members returned again and again to one topic that fascinates them all: the public uneasiness with computers and their impenetrable complexity. Some members noted that so-called fail-safe computers that are never supposed to break down have recently been much in the news. Others recalled the computer-caused hiccups in the second launch of the space shuttle two weeks ago.

Gradually the discussion broadened into the increasing complexity of business and society. One member pointed out that econometric models, with their hundreds of equations, do not seem able to predict economic activity with reliability any more. Indeed, in recent months more and more companies have begun to pay less attention to the once highly regarded forecasts. Someone else recalled a comment by Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman that no one in the Administration really understands what is going on in the economy. Concluded Urban Affairs Specialist Thomas Fletcher: “People aren’t as intelligent as the systems they’re managing.” There were no final solutions or quick answers at the end of the meeting, but a month from now the same group will again come together and try to find patterns and trends in an ever more confusing world.