by Futurists routinely make the point to clients that they are so focused on their own industry and its trends and developments, that they miss important developments from the “outside.” We are the champions for bringing the outside in. It is one of our core competences as futurists.
Let’s reverse the spotlight for a minute and put it on ourselves as futurists thinking about our own future as an industry (or profession). The inverse applies — we are overly focused on the outside and neglect our “industry” when it comes to our own future.
Fifty-ish years into our existence, we are still not sure if we are a capability, a field, a discipline, or a profession. And if you asked most futurists, they frankly wouldn’t care. Our focus is inherently about the larger global context and “bigger issues. I get it.
But I think this is a problem for us. I’m motivated in large part by my dissertation research that explored why it is so difficult to integrate foresight into organizations. One of, if not the key obstacle, is our lack of credibility. And it seems to me that one mechanism we have at our disposal to improve our collective credibility and prospects is building a profession (“industry-level” stuff). It’s the “the” answer, but it could help and it’s something within our purview to do (rather than just complain). Andy Hines
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