A little over two years ago I mentioned a new anticipatory thinking tool I’ve developed called “situational futuring.” It helps me gain better insight into the world ahead. Until now I hadn’t given too many details about how it worked or how to apply it, but I recently decided to reveal how the process works and how to apply it.
While I’ve been very protective about the crazy brain games I use for developing predictions, this will give you a sneak peek into one of the secret tools I use for thinking about the future.
Situational futuring is a micro-futuring process that positions a single technology, specific idea, or what-if condition inside a future time slot. Through the use of situation-specific scenarios, it builds a growing body of understanding around that topic.
Early on, after I attempted my first test runs, I began to realize how difficult it was to develop the “situational” storylines to paint the broader picture, so I made a few changes.
As I worked through a series of alpha and beta stage tests, I concluded that it still needed a few more parameters to improve usability. It is this new and improved version of situational futuring that will be one of the key methodologies we’ll work through in our upcoming course – “Inside the Mind of a Futurist”.
Inside the Mind of a Futurist
The techniques and strategies to predict, prepare, and profit from the future.
To be an influential and effective leader, strategist, or investor, you first have to think like a futurist. The forces of technology-driven-change are sweeping across every industry, disrupting cities, businesses, products, and professions. Critical decision makers, investors and strategists can no longer make decisions by projecting market trends forward.
The unique insights of futurists come from techniques such as backcasting, situational futuring, scenario planning, causal layer analysis, and environmental scanning, as well as watching innovation trends that will disrupt markets.
You will not only be able to proactively study and plan for the future, but also use these tools to create it!
Traditionally, future-studies have been regarded as a theoretical discipline, but this course will show you the science behind the techniques and give you ways to make it actionable and potentially quite profitable.
In this course you will learn:
- Six techniques for predicting any technology’s future.
- How and when to use each technique.
- Practice using these techniques to shape your investment, corporate, and product strategies.
- Wildcard techniques to avoid/prepare for catastrophic risk.
- Improve your ability to communicate using powerful techniques for making a compelling case for your ideas.
Who Should Attend
Over time, futurist thinking will become integrated into virtually every discipline. This course has been designed for corporate executives, planners, strategists, influential thinkers, and those who aspire to take on that kind of role in the future. More specifically, those who manage or influence portfolios of technology or companies:
- CEOs
- CMOs
- VPs of Strategy
- Corporate fund managers
- VCs
- Angel groups
- Board of Directors
- Family Offices
- Science fiction writers
- Future enthusiasts and hobbyists
Cause and Effect Relationships
Our lives are filled with cause and effect relationships. While these are typically far more complicated than a simple one-to-one relationship, for the purpose of this exercise we will limit it to simple answers about simple relationships.
With enough practice you will be able to describe a complex cause-and-effect relationship in greater detail, but that will come later.
Final Thoughts
Thinking about the future is hard. It works muscles in your brain that rarely get exercised.
Situational futuring is a very demanding process, forcing you to look at scenarios from a variety of different perspectives.
Author of “Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future”
