Clues of the future? Just take a look at the signals around you now
How to be better prepared for the upcoming decade and don't feel sorry about missing something just because you were too busy.
The clues of the future are visible right now, and we just need to look around to see them. That’s the reflection proposed by Amy Webb in her book The Signals Are Talking: why today’s fringe is tomorrow’s mainstream which helped me to open my mind for the upcoming decade.
In a complex, fast-paced world of soundbites, knee-jerk opinions, and information overload, most of the data that has ever existed is less than ten years old.
The lack of information isn’t what is preventing us from seeing the future, but the excess. Too much information tends to confuse rather than inform. It hampers our ability to understand novelty and this phenomenon is named by the author as The Paradox of Present. Without a guided process to plan for a better future, we fall victim of that paradox because “we lack a shared point of reference rooted in our present circumstances”. It means: we are too busy and fearful about the involution of technology, for example, to think about it might emerge from the fringe into different parts of our future mainstream.
According to Webb, future scenarios won’t simply arrive, fully formed. It will evolve slowly over the years, and as various pieces fall into place, we should continue to track the trends and recalibrate our strategy.
“We can observe probable future threads in the present, as they are being woven”
Organizations that can see trends early enough to take action have first-mover influence, and also help to inform and shape the broader context, conversing and collaborating with those in other fields to plan. Companies like Blackberry, Kodak, and Blockbuster struggled because the future surprised them, and the consequence is the typical feeling of “how did we miss that”.
Forecasting in six steps
As a strategy, first of all, you should look for early patterns as the distributed points on the fringe converge that begin moving toward the mainstream.
It’s in the ‘edges’ that are hidden the truths of the future, not in the mainstream. It’s important to observe what is not running now but has the potential to. So that’s why it is crucial to investigate the unusual suspects.
The 2nd step is to bring hidden patterns to the surface. It’s important to focus on not just one thing, but simultaneously observe the motion between objects. Zooming out reveals a pattern you would otherwise miss. Webb uses the analogy of a cipher for understanding how to decrypt and find the hidden patterns that emerge in the fringe. CIPHER is the abbreviation of the following pattern indicators: Contradictions, Inflections, Practices, Hacks, Extremes, and Rarities. It helps to see the relationships between the people, organizations, and projects on the fringe due to spot emerging trends.
The 3rd step is to ask the right questions and assess whether we can trust what we saw. After connecting the dots, is necessary to investigate what we think we know since we may have gotten distracted by shiny objects.
The 4th step of forecasting is about calculating the timing, to not only follow the path of a trend but evaluate how quickly it’s evolving. Track a trend’s trajectory. She uses ETA, a mathematical principle used by a GPS that ETA = (distance + speed) +/- (events along the route, circumstances that will impact the trend’s future). It refers to events that will reach us, as long we move in time and space, and determine our ways. Certain events will influence the momentum of a trend more significantly than others.
The 5th is to write scenarios to know what to do about the trend, how to make use of it, and how to prepare for the future. It involves telling a good story. Scenarios help us understand the meaning of facts. “If this, then that” thinking allows us to interpret how trends and emerging technologies will impact an organization, an industry, and even our entire society.
The goal is not to predict something that will happen but envision all of the possible outcomes and use them to help us make an informed decision about the strategy to employ in the present.
The last step is testing the strategy, pressure-test assumptions, force yourself to think through the implications of your actions to ensure that the strategy is sound. She named the F.U.T.U.R.E Test, an acronym that represents six questions to validate possible scenarios.
She concludes defending the importance of flaring and focusing, alternately broadening or narrowing ideas.
It’s a matter of highlighting the strengths of both sides (creative thinking and more pragmatic, analytical) rather than discouraging or downplaying one of them. Focusing and flaring are necessary for anyone hoping to build the future of anything.
