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Last year my grad assistant Maria Romero produced a series of short videos (none more than two minutes) about the Houston foresight program and the future.
I thought I’d share and talk about the “what is a futurist” clip. As we tell our students from Day One, you will be fairly regularly explaining what a futurist is. Any time you reply to “what do you do” with “futurist,” the inevitable follow-up is “what’s that?” So we have the students practice answering the question in various ways, whether it’s a quick conversation response, an elevator pitch, a written piece, or a stump speech.
My clip fits the elevator speech approach. There are many ways this can be handled – there is no right way. It’s useful to have your own standard pitch, but sometimes it’s fun to play with different approaches.
In the clip, I mention three variations.
- The simplest is to suggest that historians study the past, journalists cover the present, and futurists explore the future.
- A slightly more complex answer is that we study change, in which I note the likely influence of disruptive changes forces us to consider a range of future outcomes.
- The most complex [but short answer] is that we train futurists in three areas: understanding the key concepts of futures thinking, mapping the future with alternatives or scenarios, and influencing the future with visions, plans, and designs.
If you’d like to share you elevator speech, I’d love to hear it. Andy Hines
My favorite lately goes something like this: “With the overwhelming pace of change in today’s world and the anxiety that creates, Futurists deliver peace of mind by helping you determine which change you can safely ignore.
And, if I’m being cheeky, I’ll add “We can help you turn turn FOMO into JOMO. There is great comfort in being able to say with confidence “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Having worked mainly in regional communities in Australia, I have generally introduced myself along the lines of ” I can help you look over the horizon and identify a number of alternative futures facing your business / industry / town / region. You can then choose your preferred future to action”.
Then, as engagement progresses, I introduce trends, imagining etc to facilitate choice by the stakeholders.