{"id":528296,"date":"2010-04-14T14:01:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T18:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/futuresavvy.net\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2010-04-14T14:01:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T18:01:09","slug":"%e2%80%98when-trying-to-predict-the-future-watch-for-dog-poop%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/528296","title":{"rendered":"\u2018When trying to predict the future, watch for dog poop\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

I couldn’t resist reposting this yesterday’s bit o’ fluff from the cleantech news portal Greenbang<\/a><\/em>, itself reproduced from Forum for the Future<\/a><\/em>, first, well because it cites yours truly; but even more agonizingly because the headline is exactly what I should have called Future Savvy<\/em> if I knew the first thing about marketing, which I obviously don’t.<\/p>\n

So may I say, this is what\"No<\/a> I was trying to say: When trying to predict the future, watch for dog poop!<\/p>\n

Or perhaps: apparently helpful guides to the future are often dog poop disguised as chocolate, and here’s how to know the difference.<\/p>\n

Something like that.<\/p>\n

Note that this Greenbang story, below, is damaged by letting the most extreme predictions (the howlers) stand in for the general item. Prediction howler-spotting is sobering, but misses how many people got the future right, or right enough to make excellent decisions, and therefore overly damages the foresight field.<\/p>\n

Also, howlers are actually the low-hanging fruit. Being future savvy is ultimately about the more subtle job of correcting weighing apparently very credible and well-founded predictions, some of which are excellent, but others of which are far flimsier than they appear.<\/p>\n

There are various other minor problems such as not knowing the difference between the Gartner Hype Cycle and Zeitgeist bias, etc. And I would never call myself, not even in my most self-deprecating moments, a “futurologist.” But anyway, as I said, just a bit of fun:<\/p>\n

Greenbang<\/a> (13th April 2010)<\/span> by Trish Lorenz & Martin Wright:<\/span> Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.\u201d Niels Bohr\u2019s words are a wise warning to reckless forecasters.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCombining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler is no longer a problem. It would heat and cool the house, provide unlimited hot water and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300.\u201d \u2014 Robert Ferry, US Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in ten years.\u201d \u2014 Alex Lewyt, President of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp, also 1955<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Lewyt and Ferry both stumbled into a risky habit of all amateur futurists: extrapolating from present trends. In this case, they were caught up in the surge of excitement over the rise of nuclear power. They were not alone. In the tech-fuelled optimism of the \u201950s, magazines, radio and the infant TV were buzzing with predictions of flying cars and lunar settlements.<\/span><\/p>\n

They had fallen victim to what later became known as the Gartner Hype Cycle. This maps the enthusiasm and subsequent disillusionment typical in the introduction of new technology \u2014 a useful reality check for those caught up in \u201cirrational optimism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By contrast, there are those whose feet are too firmly rooted in present realities, and fail to see how innovation can combine with social changes to speed the widespread adoption of new technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Americans need the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.\u201d \u2014 Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, Royal Mail, 1878<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.\u201d \u2014 President of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford\u2019s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motors, 1903<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It is difficult to consider any factor that doesn\u2019t apparently exist at the time of making a prediction, but that\u2019s essentially what looking ahead requires. It wasn\u2019t all that long ago when people were predicting a bright future for teletext and fax machines. Few would have anticipated that both would be made almost obsolete by the internet and email. And yet the weak signals were there for those who chose to hear them. A fax machine, after all, is simply a modem with a rather complex print interface attached. It only evolved as it did because people were unused to reading information solely on screen, and computers were too big to carry around with them. Once laptops took off in the early \u201990s, the fax was doomed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.\u201d \u2014 Ken Olson, Chairman, Digital Equipment Corp, 1977<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Australian Senator Dr Russell Trood sums it up neatly when he says: \u201d \u2018Nowism\u2019 is a serious occupational hazard for those in the prediction game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s futurologists no longer try to predict a single outcome for the future; instead they map a variety of scenarios. For Adam Gordon of Future Savvy<\/a>, scenario-based thinking gives people \u201cpermission to think through alternative outcomes without necessarily predicting them.\u201d Instead of trying to forecast precisely what might happen, he says, \u201cwe can ask \u2018What if it does?,\u2019 and then explore the outcomes and our responses.\u201d Such thinking characterises much of the strategy adopted by forward-looking governments on tackling climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n

James Goodman, head of Futures at Forum for the Future, agrees: \u201cPeople think it\u2019s the output that\u2019s important, but actually it\u2019s the process.\u201d And, he adds, \u201cAll future planning has uncertainty at its heart.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Or as Martin Raymond, Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory, says, \u201cWe always try to spot the dog
\npoop in our forecast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Greenbang Editor\u2019s note: This was a guest article by Trish Lorenz and Martin Wright at Forum for the Future<\/a>. This piece originally appeared in Green Futures<\/a>, which is published by Forum for the Future and is the leading magazine on environmental solutions and sustainable futures. Its aim is to demonstrate that a sustainable future is both practical and desirable \u2014 and can be profitable, too.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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I couldn’t resist reposting this yesterday’s bit o’ fluff from the cleantech news portal Greenbang, itself reproduced from Forum for the Future, first, well because it cites yours truly; but even more agonizingly because the headline is exactly what I should have called Future Savvy if I knew the first thing about marketing, which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5646,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}