Futurists: The Economists of the Future?
Predicting the future is an inherent part of a leader’s job. That’s what the “vision thing” is all about. Historically, corporations have employed economists to ascertain change and its bottom line implications. Today, however, there is an increasing reliance on a new type of prognosticator--the futurist.
Unlike economists, whose predictions are based primarily on “hard data” from the past and a linear view of the world, futurists develop alternative future scenarios. They track and analyze social, cultural, political and technological trends (often referred to as “soft data”) along with the standard economic statistics.
A recent article in Investor’s Business Daily noted that the clout of economists has diminished because “their forecasts aren’t as reliable as before in today’s fluid, high-tech economy.” In other words, it’s no longer good enough to look at yesterday’s theories to predict tomorrow’s events. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan no doubt would agree, admitting that he can’t explain today’s economy because it contradicts traditional economic theory. One dramatic example of this shift was Wells Fargo & Co.’s decision to fire all its economists when it acquired First Interstate Bancorp last year.
Arguing that economists as forecasters are becoming obsolete, the article notes that the number of corporate economists across the country has dropped 15% over the last decade. Companies such as as American Express, Sears, Merck, AT&T; and Hewlett-Packard are now using consulting firms that help shape rather than predict. These are firms that focus on trend analysis rather than the extrapolation of economic data alone.
Weiner, Edrich, Brown Inc. (WEB), a New York firm founded in 1977, is a pioneer futurist consulting firm. WEB provides services that enhance an organization’s capacity to respond effectively to change.
Each of WEB’s clients receive monthly summaries of trends tracked by the firm. In addition, clients participate in quarterly meetings in which the trends are analyzed and discussed in the context of their specific needs.
“The ongoing monitoring of trends together with analysis by futurists and their clients adds a new dimension to the understanding of change,” states WEB Chairman Arnold Brown. “Economic issues are not filtered out, but they are only one of the trends used in the analyzing future scenarios.”
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Another firm that has been doing futures work for a long time is the Networking Institute, founded by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, co-authors of numerous books, including the provocative “Virtual Teams,” a book that lays out how companies can overcome the traditional boundaries of organization, location and time through the use of technology. This company, headquartered in West Newton, Mass., helps executives create work processes based on current and emerging technologies that cross functional, organizational, and national boundaries.
“In this way,” says Lipnack, “we help design, rather than predict, the future.”
As the conventional way in which people work is coming unglued, Lipnack and Stamps are leaders in explaining how virtual teams (working in new ways and in new places) provide the new glue that, when used correctly, can ensure competitive advantage. Lipnack and Stamps identify themselves as futurists although they feel they are “now-ists”--meaning they help clients construct the future today rather than predict what tomorrow will bring.
Every year futurists from all over the world meet to share ideas at the Annual Conference of the World Future Society. This year’s conference--which took place last month in San Francisco and was titled “TrendWatch: Technology, Society and Values”--was filled with sessions whose topics ranged from health, education, technology, politics, ethics, diversity and the environment to leadership, language, crime, intellectual property, war and peace.
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What makes the World Future Society conferences so interesting is the nature of the conversation between speakers and participants who represent different countries, values, occupations, orientations and disciplines. Attendees include corporate executives, academics, theologians, public administrators, elected officials, consultants, community activists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, criminologists and old-fashioned soothsayers.
The World Future Society, founded in 1966 and headquartered in Bethesda, Md., publishes the Futurist, a bimonthly magazine of forecasts, trends and ideas about the future; Futures Research Quarterly, a scholarly journal for the professional futurists; and Future Survey, a monthly digest of future-oriented books, articles and papers.
Based on what I heard at the World Future Society Conference this year, and acknowledging the inability to predict the future based on traditional economic models alone, I’m convinced that as the future becomes more uncertain, it becomes more certain that futurists will compete with economists for the corporate ear--and dollar.
