What Is A Futurist?
In the tradition of a famous Jewish joke, if you ask five futurists what futurism is, you'll get twelve answers.
This is because being a futurist means wildly different things to different people. There are also a lot of charlatans, phoneys, and con artists out there, as well as trendspotters who dress up as futurists.
Is This A Futurist?
Some say they are a futurist because they think about the future a lot, whether they can help others anticipate it and even shape it strategically and effectively or not.
Some say they are a futurist because they like spotting trends (and may actually be good at it). However, trends and fads are not what futurists are most concerned with. Trends and fads are very useful to marketers, but they are far less valuable than understanding and tracking "deep drivers of change" to great strategists, leaders, and innovators.
Others say they are a futurist because they know a lot about technology. But most technologies fail to impact the future because they are solutions looking for a problem. Since starting my first company, which helped tech start-ups and tech innovators grow, I have seen scores of technologies demise in the great technology graveyard.
Some claim to be a futurist because they think they can accurately predict the future. A seasoned futurist knows predictions are a fool's game—and so are not very useful to anyone serious about shaping the future.
"He who predicts the future lies, even when he tells the truth." Arab Proverb
I do not think any of these are good enough to be a professional futurist.
The Art, Science & Craft Of A Futurist
Futurism is far more than telling people that robots and qubits, climate change, and some kind of collapse are coming. Of course, they are!
What it all means in the context of a specific business or industry—and how to respond strategically so an organization fits and even forges the future—are what a futurist should be concerned with.
Futurism is a serious profession that requires many years of training, practice, experience, and both personal and professional development to become competent.
One does not become a futurist simply because we want to be one, think it sounds cool, or write it on our LinkedIn profile. [Do connect with me on mine.]
An expert futurist should:
Be fully committed to the study of, experimentation with, and refining of approaches that help them (and others) glimpse a range of possible futures that may impact an industry or the entire global system
Be able to imagine and interrogate, with others, various scenarios of how a sector or system may evolve over time and the impact of this on an organization or community
Build an ever-more coherent understanding of the underlying deep drivers of change that impact a specific organization or nation.
Have the skills to consistently, reliably, and in a "grounded" way help people both understand and shape the future in a way that is actionable yet also inspired and creative.
Tools & Tips of The Trade
To achieve this, a professional futurist will have assembled and integrated a substantial set of approaches, methods, tools, and practices for making sense of the future: what is breaking down and what is breaking through.
They will have also mastered an entire other set of methods, tools, and practices for communicating their ideas, insights, and intuitions efficiently, accurately, and responsibly so that others can feel them, reflect on them, and use them to adapt what they do and how they do it to fit the future rather than fade from relevance and fail.
For me, an expert futurist should be able to go one step further beyond grappling with the future and help clients forge the future they want to see (guided by their deepest values, moral concerns, and leadership responsibilities).
The Definition Of A Futurist
I have come to my working definition of a futurist:
A professional futurist blends science, art, and craft to study, explore, and communicate what is probable, possible, problematic, and preferable in the future of a sector or system... and guides others to forge a future worthy of their noblest aspirations.
To go deeper into the role, skills, and dangers in the world of futurism, you may want to read my other posts about futurism and futurist keynote speakers:
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After many years of learning and developing, and always restlessly improving my craft, I help groups of leaders and people managers at events all over the world take a more active role in forging the:
If you'd like to find out more about how I might help your audience grapple with the future and wrestle breakthroughs from the jaws of chaos, send my team a message through the inquire now form.
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