FORGET FUTURISTS: Unless you plan on doing futurism right

February 22, 2013

Right on time, the media is rekindling its affair with Futurists, the love that dare not speak its name.

The cycle is the most predictable thing in all of predictology – as we blossom into the mania of Boom and Bust, the media becomes enamored of these exotic creatures that call themselves experts in the study of what’s next. Who Are These Futurists, and What Can They Tell Us? Lately, I have seen several major consultancies launch “foresight” services, business magazines are speaking glowingly about these useful forward-looking chaps, and even Al Gore’s new book is nothing but classic futurist material, entitled THE FUTURE. It’s as if we’re back in the good old days of Thinking About a Shiny Future! Hooray!

Full disclosure: I am one such Futurist, though I have become a very public critic of the field itself and its relationship to organizations. I have been in the field long enough to see several Boom/Busts where foresight is concerned. And after the drubbing foresight took in the last five years, I see the current uptick in references to foresight as nefarious.

Our collective desire to go back to The Future is not the same thing as appreciating Foresight.

Here’s what I mean: The Future is about tech-driven growth of the current model. It is the media-friendly version of futurism, the one that focuses 90% on gadgets, 5% on new business models, and at maximum 5% on dystopian visions of a world gone completely wrong. It’s a pep rally for the big and the splashy, driven largely by trends in technology, awash in venture capital. Economic fundamentals, social trends and philosophy are last to be invited the party, arriving only in time for the hangover, The Bust.

Foresight is a balanced approach, one that encourages us to consider all of the trends in front us: emerging technologies, eroding liberties, economic inequality, new values, potential risks. This version of looking ahead isn’t just obsessed with shiny toys and lots of money; it exists outside of Boom and Bust and abhors easily predictable speculative bubbles. It is always the type of thinking that is first to go in a crisis, as we saw when thoughtful futurism was shown the door after the traumatic events of 2001 and 2008. Internal foresight groups got fired. Innovation was forsaken in favor of short-term security and cash flow management. Authority trumped imagination.

I say you should ignore this new round of future giddiness entirely – unless you are also interested in figuring out why we refuse to consider a balanced approach to foresight when we need it most – as a way to avoid man-made financial catastrophes and as a way to choose humane solutions for society.

If you aren’t going to appreciate foresight for its true usefulness, spare me your obsession with gadgets and money

>>>>>>>>

My second book, How to Predict the Future…and WIN!!! is a satire that shows how executives can look ahead without repeating the mistakes of other businesses that got the future wrong. Free sample chapter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ae-Wehr/1322844727 Ae Wehr

    Interesting you mentioned the 5% dystopia, as the media always plays these scenarios out along traditional grounds. (omg terrorsts can use the internets!)

    I still remember this TV series on discovery called “beyond 2000″, back when it was a channel worth watching (mostly documentaries).

    It promised “convergence” of technologies which would empower consumers.

    Instead we got the DMCA rammed in through the back door, which made such convergence criminally prosecutable if you did not first go to incumbent industry and ask them politely for *permission* to disrupt their industry with things the public actually wants.

    Now, instead, we have chips built into devices which allow unaccountable corporate bureaucrats to push a button and make books disappear:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0

    or even remotely break the chips on devices you legally own to prevent you re-purposing the device with third party tools:

    http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=595021
    http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EElkyVZlkAWyvjrKRY.php

    I’d say the dystopia caused by tech is already here. Not only do we no longer have property rights due to these laws, the majority of americans don’t even know what rights have been stolen from us!

    • http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

      I’m torn on your view here. Certainly, the media conglomerates have done themselves no favors with their legalisms and refusal to change. But as a musician and content creator, that the public “demands” that I do my work for free or fractions of a penny is really not quite cool either.

      The unaccountability thing of just shutting off potential free speech – that’s a real pain, with abuse potential being off the charts.

      As far as dystopia…I don’t know, I feel like something really awesome is around the corner, if not already here. If this is dystopia, I can handle it.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ae-Wehr/1322844727 Ae Wehr

        What i’m mentioning has absolutely nothing to do with the trend of downloadng. (Which I might add is abating, not due to draconian law like this, but due to media outlets providing much more convenient and portable ways to attain media)

        A downloaded e-book is not subject to the above abuses, only “legitimate” ones.

        Anti-circumvention law goes far beyond enforcement of copyright in that it abrogates the basic concept of individual possession in the digital age. You essentially do not own all the digital devices you are “buying” because the tools which should be there to help you make full use of your devices are illegal.

        “abuse potential” is the key phrase here. All of these laws are based on the concept of abuse potential, with a corrupt government knowing they can go 100% to luddite hollywood’s extreme on this because of how poorly our education system has taught technology concepts to our citizens.

        Nearly any object sold today could be abused to detriment of not only profits, but human safety.

        A kitchen knife’s primary use is to slice and clean food for human consumption. It can be and is often also used to slice living humans to make them dead.

        The DMCA is like banning kitchen knives. Sure, criminals can’t use them to threaten public safety, but you are also denied the basic liberty to prepare your own food, because you would have to go ask TGI Fridays and Dominos for permission to “deny them profits” by preparing your own food. Do you think they’d say yes (and you’d ever pay less than 8 bucks a head for a meal again) if they had that kind of veto power?

        (meanwhile, criminals out to harm you will swap to baseball bats)

        Pirates will always pirate: While the “efuse concept” I linked above allows microsoft to (violate the computer fraud and abuse act by) reach(ing) into your living room and break(ing) memory modules on your device, xbox 360 games are on torrent sites everywhere.

        Meanwhile, you really don’t own what you buy anymore. I’d call the re-imposition of serfdom via suppression of pro-consumer technology tools and a complicit government a dystopian concept.

  • Jim Lee

    At some point during the last 13 years, the “Long Boom” became the “Big Bummer”. People are a little tired of being depressed all of the time. The current focus on the future is a positive sign that people are willing to take charge of their destinies, and it is a good thing. I’m just worried that all this celebration of the future is a little premature.

    So, I think of it as a positive cycle within a larger negative cycle. AKA, a massive head-fake.

    Let;s enjoy it while it lasts…

  • Leo

    I suppose I shouldn’t really ask this, but to do Foresight correctly, decrease the focus on gadgets and increase the focus on economic fundamentals, social trends, business models, etc? (I’m embarrassed to ask this. If I can’t figure it out, maybe I shouldn’t be one sort of thing).

Previous post:

Next post: