by It’s been great to hear growing interest in developing the field and profession of _______, um, what do you call it?
I looked at this question in my dissertation and found it has received intermittent attention over the years (Cornish, 1977; Horton, 1999; Becker, 2002; Schwarz, 2005; Amsteus, 2008; Sardar, 2010; Masini, 2010; Marien, 2010; Tonn, 2010; Rohrbeck, 2011). The pattern seems to be one of (a) flurry of activity (b) inability to achieve consensus (c) long quiet period, (d) repeat.
One phenomenon I’ve noticed in that last 10 years at APF, which has an active listserv for conversations, is that when this or related questions about the field/profession get raised, two things happen: (1) someone inevitably points out that it’s all been talked about before (2) others suggest it’s not really relevant anyway — and the conversation quickly dies out. Thus, in my experience we’ve actually talked about it very little – and this is a professional association!
I think these are critical questions for those of us interested in building the field and the profession (and fair enough, not all of us are). I suspect that if we simply try to have the conversations again spontaneously, we’ll repeat the cycle above. What I’m thinking is that we first need to figure out a strategy for how to work through these issues before we dive in again. Does that make sense? I think we can do it, but it won’t be easy.
Full disclosure: “Foresight” is my preference. Andy Hines
References
Amsteus, M. (2008) Managerial foresight: concept and measurement. foresight, 10 (1), pp.53-66.
Becker, P. (2002, October) Corporate foresight in Europe: a first overview. Working Paper. Institute for Science and Technology Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany.
Cornish, E. (1977) The study of the future: an introduction to the art and science of understanding and shaping tomorrow’s world. Bethesda, MD, World Future Society.
Horton, A. (1999) A simple guide to successful foresight. foresight, 1 (1), pp. 5-9.
Masini, E.B. (2010) The past and the possible futures of futures studies: Some thoughts on Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake.’ Futures, 42 (3), pp.185-189.
Marien, M. (2010) Futures-thinking and identity: why ‘‘Futures Studies’’ is not a field, discipline, or discourse: a response to Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake. Futures, 42 (3) pp. 190–194.
Rohrbeck, R. & Gemünden, H. (2011) Corporate foresight: Its three roles in enhancing the innovation capacity of a firm. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 78 (2), pp. 231-243.
Sardar, Z. (2010) The Namesake: Futures; futures studies; futurology; futuristic; Foresight — What’s in a name? Futures, 42 (3), pp. 177–184.
Schwarz, J. (2005, Fall) Linking strategic issue management to futures studies. Futures Research Quarterly, pp. 39-55.
Tonn, B. (2010) What’s in a name: reflections on Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake.’ Futures, 42 (3), pp.195-198.
I agree with your analysis. It’s time to make a decision regarding both a name (foresight’s good) and also whether futurists should be certified. If we don’t, I’m going to suggest a tagline for all futurists and the APF – “We study things to death.” I’ve run three successful healthcare business for 24 years. If I never made a decision and was never willing to make a mistake these businesses would have been out of business long ago. Come on folks. It’s getting a little embarrasing.
It’s an interesting question. The heart of the question, to me, is what is our jurisdiction? That is, what work do we do, and how do we identify our work as distinct from that others do?
Another related question is how we add value compared to, say, operations research people? I’m going to venture an opinion that while other forecasters (of various sorts) offer certainty in an uncertain world, futurists offer ways to explore, appreciate, and embrace uncertainty as a competitive advantage.
If that’s the case, it offers us a unique jurisdiction in work: we dominate work that deals with uncertainty, and let others deal with areas in which certainty is plausible.
So what’s in a name? The description of what work we do.
indeed — agree on the jurisdiction question. BTW, I have notes from a paper/project you did on this topic, but I can’t for the life of my find the original — any chance you could share with me?