How to Spot the Future | Wired Business. Photo: Brock Davis Thirty years ago, when John Naisbitt was writing Megatrends, his prescient vision of America’s future, he used a simple yet powerful tool to spot new ideas that were bubbling in the zeitgeist: the newspaper. He didn’t just read it, though. He took out a ruler and measured it.
The more column inches a particular topic earned over time, the more likely it represented an emerging trend. As clever as Naisbitt’s method was, it would never work today. This may sound like a paradox. So how do we spot the future—and how might you? It’s no secret that the best ideas—the ones with the most impact and longevity—are transferable; an innovation in one industry can be exported to transform another. This notion goes way back. Sometimes the cross-pollination is potent enough to create entirely new disciplines. The same goes for old industries, as well. Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.
Finland Futures Research Centre. Futures studies. Moore's law is an example of futures studies; it is a statistical collection of past and present trends with the goal of accurately extrapolating future trends. Futures studies (also called futurology and futurism) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. In the same way that history studies the past, futures studies considers the future. Overview[edit] Futures studies is an interdisciplinary field, studying yesterday's and today's changes, and aggregating and analyzing both lay and professional strategies and opinions with respect to tomorrow.
Foresight may be the oldest term for the field. The futures field also excludes those who make future predictions through professed supernatural means. Probability and predictability[edit] Institute For The Future. Futures studies. Welcome to WFSF.