As organizations increasingly try to grapple with the seemingly endless scorching rate of technological innovation and change, more are engaging the services of self-described futurists for advice on how to adapt.
What Is A Futurist?
Basically, futurists are those who look to and provide analysis and insights on potential futures. They help others anticipate and prepare for potential changes and disruptions in order to make better decisions today. Think of futurists as in the same league as historians. Futurists explore the future, just as historians study the past. Historians are concerned with origins, roots, stories/points of view of where we have been in the past and how we got to where we are today. Futurists are interested in emerging trends, technologies, goals, purposes. In short, futurists are interested in where we might be going in the future and how we can get there. It’s interesting to note that in many cases good futurists have a little bit of a historian inside of them (e.g. studying the past can help predict potential futures.)
What Do Futurists Do?
Futurists research and explore the full range of potential / plausible futures. A futures consultant or facilitator helps clients expand their typically narrower focus on the future to a broader range of possibilities. They forecast the future, not just to know the future as an abstract description, but rather to prepare for it as a concrete reality.
The objective is not just to know what will happen, but to be ready whatever does happen. The objective is not necessarily to be exactly right (which is impossible), but rather not to be wrong--that is, not to be surprised. Surprise means inadequate preparation, late response, higher risk of failure, even chaos or panic. Thus, preparing for the full range of plausible futures is the objective of futures studies.
Futurists take an inter-disciplinary approach and employ a wide range of methods, from trend analysis to scenario planning, to simulations, to strategic planning and visioning. Since the future does not exist, we must study ideas about the future. Futurists use data from the past and present, and our concepts and methods to understand how the present will evolve into possible alternative futures. We also borrow liberally from other fields, such as creativity, complexity science, organization development, systems analysis, and philosophy.
What Type Of BackGround Do Futurists Have?
Futurists come from a wide range of backgrounds. What they have in common is big picture thinking, strong pattern recognition, and innate curiosity.
Futurists come from a wide range of backgrounds and walks of life, be it liberal arts, psychology, engineering, the sciences. A growing number are coming from the dozen or so futures degree programs worldwide.
Other characteristics typical of futurists include openness to new experiences, comfort with ambiguity, thinking systematically, seeing options and alternatives, questioning and challenging assumptions, a global outlook, a long-term time horizon, optimistic, and having a sense of purpose.
How Can I Train To Become A Futurist?
The formal study of the future goes by a number of names, including “Strategic Foresight”, “Futures Studies”, and “Prospective Studies”.
Formal futurist higher education options are somewhat limited. There are about a dozen degree programs worldwide. Within the United States there are two main academic programs created that focus on training futurists 1) the University of Houston (M.S.) and 2) University of Hawaii (M.A. and Ph.D.). Both programs have been around for over 30 years.
Futurists without the formal education learn on the job through professional development. Many professionals become futurists by acquainting themselves with futures concepts, tools and methods, familiarizing themselves with the literature, and participating in futures conferences and organizations.
What Professional Networks Are There?
Here are some places to go to find more information….
- World Future Society 20-25,000 members who subscribe to The Futurist magazine and attend annual meetings; mostly centered in the U.S. www.wfs.org
- World Futures Studies Federation Several hundred members spread across the globe with a rotating secretariat, includes many academics www.wfsf.org
- Millennium Project Volunteer group around the globe that produces the annual State of the Future report and other futures studies, as well as the Futures Research Methodology. www.millennium-project.org
- Association of Professional Futurists 200+ professional futurists and students in futures degree programs. http://www.profuturists.org/
- The World Future Council. http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org. The World Future Council brings the interests of future generations to the centre of policy making. The Council addresses challenges to our common future and provides decision-makers with effective policy solutions.
Being a futurist sure sounds like fun….and there might just be a future for futurists. :-)
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