The Future Is Now for This Fast-Forward Thinker

Coca-Cola threw out its crystal ball, as did Signet Bank, Avon and Owens-Corning, and they all looked to Edie Weiner to help map out their future.

Weiner isn’t your ordinary business consultant--spreadsheets or fancy formulas are not part of her shtick. Instead, she uses a different way of forecasting what’s ahead in the ever-changing marketplace, hoping to keep her clients on the leading edge of thinking in today’s world.

“We don’t behave like other analysts do by carving out three trends and talking about those for a couple of years,” said Weiner, who runs the New York-based futurist consulting group Weiner, Edrich, Brown Inc. with her partner, Arnold Brown.

“We are always having our clients looking at new things and thinking. That’s going to help them.”

Thinking is the crux of Weiner’s livelihood. Whether she’s doing needlepoint at her country home, lunching with friends or immersed in a serious business meeting, her mind never stops.

“I can get more things done in an hour than most,” boasts Weiner, a sharp and self-confident 47-year-old. “I don’t take to relaxation very well.”

Such intensity has made this native New Yorker one of the world’s leading futurists.

Much of her notability stems from her consulting firm, which was founded in 1977 and has since helped more than 100 companies, associations and government groups in planning for the future.

Unlike traditional corporate consultants who use market surveys and financial forecasts, her business relies on constant reading and reflection to alert her to emerging trends.

Each month, Weiner and Brown carefully read dozens of publications, from Mother Jones to the Economist, looking for new, interesting and offbeat ideas. Summaries of about 80 articles are then written and sent to each of their 15 current clients.

Every three months, the clients gather to discuss the readings and how they apply to the business world in general. Weiner and Brown also present four or five papers to the group that theorize some of the broad themes found in the readings.

Every client is also entitled to 50 hours a year of consulting services, which are geared for their individual business needs.

“The mind is a muscle and it needs exercise too,” said Kerley LeBoeuf, president of the National Assn. of Convenience Stores, a trade group that has used Weiner’s firm for two years. “Edie gets you to reach outside the norm in your thinking, and somewhere down the road you can apply that to your business.”

Besides her consulting work, Weiner has written two books on business management, serves on two corporate boards, CompUSA and First UNUM Corp., and spends much of her time on the lecture circuit--”I never use notes when I give speeches,” she said.

“She has a way of conveying her thinking very well,” said Edward Cornish, president of the World Future Society, a Bethesda, Md.-based association for people who are interested in the future.

While Weiner is best known for her consulting work, she’s also reputed for breaking down gender barriers in the workplace.

At age 23, she marched into the exclusive male-only Hartford Club in Connecticut to attend a luncheon despite the doorman’s attempts to block her entrance. By 28, she was named to the board of directors of the Union Mutual Life Insurance Co., now called UNUM Corp., becoming one the first and youngest women to serve on a corporate board.

“People don’t picture themselves as leaders,” she said. “They just believe what they believe and others follow them and they become leaders.”

“There are people who worry, ‘What if I fail?’ and [how that will be] not only financial but also embarrassing,” she said. “I just barreled through it and never got embarrassed.”

Eager to share such experiences with today’s youth, Weiner recently founded Esteem Teams, a mentor program run under the auspices of the National Assn. for Female Executives that matches female corporate leaders with inner-city girls.

Despite her hectic schedule, Weiner never stops thinking about new ideas and trends. Topics from aging to beef consumption roll off her tongue complete with their implications on the future.

“I could never get away with just knowing 10 things,” she said. “I need to know everything.”