10 lessons in 10 years of leading a future foresight consultancy
For almost 2 years now I've been writing my 'Tomorrow' column for Spur magazine, one of Japan's leading printed fashion publications. Every month I unpack a future forecast. This year's topics ranged from AI-powered Fashion, The end of Barbie core and all Core trends, The Future Fashion Factory, Space Age Fashion, Modular design to Biomaterials and Interspecies Harmony to name a few of our topics.
1 future exploration a month, that's over 20 in the last 2 years... In our December 2023 column, I took readers through 🔟 lessons I learned in 10 years 🕥 of leading a future foresight consultancy and Trend Atelier. Here is the summary of the piece in English.
I am thankful for the detours, but here is what I recommend if you're getting started or hindsighting. The list is not conclusive, I'd love to know what you think!
I'd like to also take this opportunity to thank my editor Mari Fukuda for our work together and her kind feedback from the Spur team and readers. From a reader 💚: ‘Geraldine’s series is so inspiring and eye-opening that I look forward to discovering new ideas from her piece every month.’ From Mari 🙏: 'Internally, the Tomorrow column has now become a must-read column for the editorial team. Because Geraldine’s future predictions give us new perspectives and inspiration. It has become a key part of how we understand ways to move forward as cultural producers.'
1- Connect with the future foresight timeline you specialise in
Find out as soon as possible the type of foresight work and timeline you’re serving. Seasonal trend forecasts are not macro trend forecasts.
2- Commit to community
Foresight is culture-centric. We serve a diversity of thought and culture first, not late-stage capitalism. Commit time to human exchange and network intuition.
3- Prioritise self-care
Our role in society is to decode the world. Too many foresight professionals become mentally exhausted. Build time for contemplation.
4- Data is not everything and won’t predict the future
Our imaginations need to do the hard work to author the future. Quantified foresight is important, but data things don't influence breakthrough action.
5- Don’t repeat what everyone else is saying
Being a futurist means freeing yourself of assumptions or pre-ordained ways of thinking. It is vital to challenge popularised ideas of the future.
6- Don’t confuse Trend Forecaster with Futurist
I was a trend forecaster and I became a futurist because I shifted to systemic, societal, and emotional shifts, exclusively focused on macro and megatrends. Be mindful of what titles you give yourself.
7- Imagine the future
For critical and creative ideas of the future, learn about/how to work on plural and experiential futures.
8- Hindsight on your work
It’s rare to see forecasters, futurists and agencies be transparent about hindsight. Build accountability and humility in your work.
9- Embed a variety of methods
Building a variety of future foresight methods takes years. It’s a lifetime’s work, not a sprint.
10 - See the future as a question, not a final destination
No one can predict the future (s), often altered and unexpected. Embrace the future(s) as a question, not a certainty.
I leave you with points highlighted in my conclusion:
Being a futurist has required being in flux
Have the courage to go against the grain, be inconvenient
Use novel approaches to evaluating trends
Go beyond the cult of the new new new
The current trend of emphasizing mindless cultural evolution runs the risk of selling our smarts short. Yes, humans rely on socially maintained traditions even more than chimpanzees do, and our tendency to overimitate may be one reason we accumulate traits more effectively. But humans also exploit the cognitive niche. There are two critical ways in which foresight makes a difference to how our cultures evolve: instructing and innovating. - The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight
Finally, here are some future digging explorations I hope will also inspire you to look under the hood.
These are not part of Spur’s December column, just a list of recent signals of change:
Resist platform sweet talk with Ben Grosser
Go on a Deep Time Walk thanks to Professor Iain Stewart, Kate Raworth and Bruno Latour
Mark Fisher's lecture 'The Slow Cancellation of the Future'
The Wizard of AI (2023) by Alan Walburton
Jaron Lanier Looks into AI's Future. It's called Digital Dignity.
Discovering Underground Garden Club via Futures Friends
We reached 2.0 degrees says last week's UN Climate report.
Emerging tech interfaces unlock new futuring pathways. Thanks to Michell Zappa at Envisioning for the tour. And thank you Lilian Marino for introducing us.
