It's not that the Future is Coming!

To meet the challenges of the future, we need to find out about what we can plausibly expect in the years ahead so we can understand what our options are. We can then set reasonable goals and develop effective strategies for achieving them.

Many people believe it is impossible to know anything about the future, so the future can simply be ignored. This is a very serious mistake. It's true, of course, that we can know only a little about the future, but that little is extremely important, because a knowledge of the future--even when it's very uncertain--is critical in making wise decisions, in both our professional and personal lives.

Learning what we can know about the future enables us to think constructively about it and do things that will contribute to our achieving a desirable future, because preparation is needed to meet the challenges of the future and take advantage of the new opportunities opening up.

We humans really do have the ability to think constructively about the future, anticipate many future events, envision desirable goals, and develop effective strategies for realizing our purposes. By learning about current trends and likely future developments, we can develop a mental data bank and set of blueprints for improving our future life. These assets can help us to succeed in whatever we seek to achieve.

Proactive, future-oriented thinking can lead to greater success in both work and private affairs. The future will happen, no matter what we do, but if we want it to be a good future, we need to work at it. As Adlai Stevenson put it, "Change is inevitable; change for the better is a full-time job."

Every crisis should be a reminder to us of the importance of thinking now about the future. A crisis almost always results from earlier failures to deal with an emerging problem or to anticipate a likely eventuality. In retrospect, we often recognize that the crisis was perfectly preventable.

The importance of thinking ahead is growing rapidly because the pace of change is accelerating. New technologies--such as the Internet and genetic engineering--are producing a cascade of economic and social changes in our lives and raising serious questions for politicians and ethicists.

We are now in a period of convulsive change, when almost everything seems to be coming unstuck: New technologies are also revolutionizing warfare and restructuring governments. Scandals rocking business and religion call into question people's faith in institutions. Advances in science and technology are raising unsettling questions for people concerned about morality and ethics. The world's population, already higher than ever before in history, continues to rise, along with the number of nations. Societies around the world are undergoing radical restructuring as people regroup in response to technological and economic shifts.

Many people do not understand how it is possible to think realistically about the future, and clearly it is a challenging task. Still, futurists have refined scores of useful techniques to help us think ahead. Here are three examples:

• Trend analysis begins with the systematic collection of data concerning what is actually happening in the world around us; that is, measurable changes in such indicators as the number of elderly people, the standard of living, and atmospheric pollution. These measurements generally indicate a certain direction or trend, and we can make a crude forecast simply by extending the trend line into the future. For example, the current growth of world population makes it possible to estimate what the population may be 15 or 30 years from now. However, such projections become less certain as we look farther out in time.
  

• Precursor analysis is based on the observation that many phenomena go through stages. For example, people go through a series of biological stages from conception through gestation to birth, infancy, childhood, and so on. Similar patterns may be seen in technological and social developments. By knowing the stages of such phenomena, we often can anticipate future developments.
  

• Scenario analysis enables us to think about alternative future developments. We can create a scenario--a series of possible future events showing how we expect our business to progress in the future. We can then create two additional scenarios--one assuming that revenues will be 20% above our current expectations and one assuming they will be 20% below. We can then consider what might result from each scenario.

People in business study the future to identify potential new products and services, as well as markets for those products and services. Trend watchers also may identify potential threats to their industry and can prepare to deal with them before they become crises.

Restaurants, grocers, and other food-industry professionals study trends in demographics to assess who their customers are and what their dining habits are. An increase in minority populations in a neighborhood, for example, would lead a grocer to stock more foods linked to ethnic tastes. An increase in young, single professional workers or dual-income households--groups who feel pressed for time--might inspire grocers to offer more ready-to-eat meals.

"Leisure" industries such as tourism, sports, and the arts must gauge the public's desire to spend time and money on various activities. Real estate markets fluctuate with demographic and economic shifts, which also have impacts on retail businesses, school systems, and local governments. The health-care industry, including insurance, is also directly affected by population trends, new technologies (including pharmaceuticals), and economic fluctuation.

The public's changing values and priorities, as well as emerging technologies, demographic shifts, economic constraints (or opportunities), and environmental and resource concerns, are all parts of the increasingly complex world system in which leaders must lead.

"Technology-related issues today besiege Congress across the range of committee responsibilities--stem-cell research and human cloning, missile defense, cellular telephones, genetically engineered foods, the Internet, and much more--because technology has become a central part of modern life," according to technology-assessment expert Vary T. Coates (THE FUTURIST, September-October 2001).

Policy makers might commission reports from future-oriented researchers or task their own staff members to identify important trends. A scanning team for the Hawaiian government was credited for giving the governor an idea for a statewide after-school project and for inspiring the Hawaii Visitors Bureau to sponsor a conference on ecotourism (THE FUTURIST, May-June 1993).

School officials must also track trends in order to assess numbers of students to accommodate, numbers of teachers to hire, new educational technologies to deploy, and new skills for students (and their teachers) to develop (THE FUTURIST, March-April 2001).

The World Future Society is the world's largest and oldest organization devoted to the future. Founded on October 18, 1966, in Washington, D.C., the Society is a neutral clearinghouse for ideas and information about the future.

As a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization, the World Future Society is not beholden to any corporation, government agency, political party, or belief system. The Society takes no stand on what the future will or should be like, but rather provides a forum for the exchange of information and opinions about the future.

The Society currently has approximately 30,000 members in some 80 countries. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the trends shaping the future.

They've been described as "world's fairs of ideas," "the greatest intellectual shows on earth," and "a global village in microcosm." World Future Society meetings are open to all members and are perhaps the most stimulating and rewarding of all the Society's membership benefits.

Unlike reading journals or books, or even visiting the Society's Web site, attending a conference allows you to meet other futurists, exchange ideas with experts, ask vital questions, explore new fields of interest, and collect fresh insights on a wide variety of topics, all in a relaxed yet invigorating environment.

The conferences offer several tracks, such as health, business, education, creativity, environment and energy, values and religion, science and technology, and international perspectives. Organizers have found that these tracks help participants select the sessions they're most interested in, but "cross-tracking" can also be highly rewarding.

Society conferences are also an opportunity for special-interest groups to meet, and they often identify or organize session tracks in the program especially for their members. At the 2001 meeting in Minneapolis, for instance, groups organizing tracks included the WFS Mexican Chapter, Police Futurists International, Communities of the Future, the Millennium Project, the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and the Women as Futurists group.

The opportunity to meet other like-minded people each year is one of the many intangible rewards of the World Future Society's annual meetings. "I don't know what I'd do in the summers without WFS," said one longtime member and contributor. "I'd have to go fishing or something."

1966 The Society is founded in Washington, D.C., and is chartered by the District of Columbia government as a nonprofit scientific and educational organization.

1967 The Society begins publishing THE FUTURIST as a newsletter.

1968 First chapters are established in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.

1969 The U.S. Internal Revenue Service recognizes the World Future Society as a nonprofit charitable organization, allowing donations to be deducted on U.S. income tax returns.

1971 First general meeting of Society members at Washington Hilton.

1974 U.S. Vice President Gerald Ford speaks at Society's special conference on energy issues. Society's first book (dealing with energy) is published for conference members.

1975 The U.S. National Science Foundation and Library of Congress give the Society a grant for a report on the study of the future.

1977 The Society submits to sponsors its two-volume report, Resources Directory for America's Third Century.

1979 Future Survey, a monthly journal of abstracts, is established.

1980 Canada's Governor-General opens Society conference in Toronto, the first held outside the United States.

1985 A scholarly journal, Futures Research Quarterly, is established.

1988 and 1990 Professional Members' Forums are held at the Futures Library in Salzburg, Austria.

1992 Society's offices moved to modern office building in Bethesda, Maryland. Collaborates with Smithsonian Institution on a lecture series.

1993 Society assists United Nations Development Programme in establishing an Africa Futures project. A directory of organizations in the futures field is published.

1995 Web site (www.wfs.org) is established.

1996 President Clinton commends the Society's members "for working with vision and energy to develop creative strategies for fulfilling the Promise of the future." Jenifer Altman Foundation gives Society grant for an environmental bibliography.

1997 Society forms an International Council. Among the early members are Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Sri Lanka) and Alvin and Heidi Toffler. The first issue of Future Times, an occasional newspaper, is published.

1998 The Nathan Cummings Foundation gives the Society a grant for its special conference on the Year 2000 computer problem.

2000 Electronic newsletter, Futurist Update, is launched. Forums on Social Innovation, Opportunities, and Wisdom are started on the Web site.

2001 Society responds to September 11 attacks by putting on its Web site nearly 40 essays commenting on terrorism and the responses to it. The site was included in the Library of Congress's September 11 Web Archive.

2002 The Society now has 117 chapters in 39 nations.

The Society has been supported over the years by the generous contributions of time and money from its members and friends. The Society's authors and speakers share their work and insights with no financial compensation. Among them:

inventor R. Buckminster Fuller;

writers Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Alvin Toffler, Gene Roddenberry, and Frederik Pohl;

political leaders Gerald R. Ford, Al Gore Jr., Newt Gingrich, Edward M. Kennedy, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Richard Lamm;

scientists Carl Sagan, Glenn T. Seaborg, B.F. Skinner, and Ray Kurzweil; and countless other scholars, business leaders, and researchers, such as:

feminist Betty Friedan;

anthropologist Margaret Mead;

actress Ellen Burstyn;

media theorist Marshall McLuhan;

architect Aurelio Peccei;

and futurism's great pioneers, Herman Kahn, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and Robert Jungk.

World Future Society members recently explained why they study trends:

1. To get investment ideas and save money. A group of "angel investors" reports finding new ideas by studying trends and reading World Future Society publications: "You have saved us money!"

2. To get early warnings. Scanning the environment for emerging opportunities and crises is like looking both ways for traffic before crossing a busy road. It just makes good sense.

3. To get confidence. A solid foundation of awareness about trends can give you the confidence to take wise risks.

4. To get an edge on the competition. Seeing what's coming before others do can give you lead time to establish a foothold in a new market.

5. To get at the heart of a trend. Analyzing the details within a trend can help separate truly significant developments from rapidly appearing and disappearing fads.

6. To get goals in balance. Thinking about the future is an antidote to a "profit now, worry later" mentality that could lead to trouble in the long term.

7. To get informed on forces affecting your field. Health-care planners, for instance, need to know what's going on in biotech and medicine, values and public policy, labor supply and population aging.

8. To get informed on forces in many fields. Educators, for instance, may follow trends in the economy and the workforce to know how best to guide their students.

9. To get a glimpse of emerging futures. A trend is a glance at potential futures; we can then take actions to turn those trends into opportunities.

10. To get yourself and others ready for the future. Many futurists serve as consultants or counselors; they must keep abreast of trends not only for their own sake but also to help their clients. From "Top 10 Reasons to Watch Trends," THE FUTURIST, March-April 2002.