Five signs that you believe in 'the future'

How to stop believing in the single future

The phone rings in my office one day.

X: Hello Maree, I need to know about the future of (topic/issue/trend) please.

Maree: Hello, why do you need to know that?

X: I have to manage our strategy process and my boss told me about futurism. He wants to use it.

Maree: (Thinking ‘futurism?’ An art movement and strategy?) How in particular does your boss want use foresight?

X: Well, he asked me to get some predictions about the future of (topic/issue/trend) so that we can focus our resources on those predictions.

Maree: I’m afraid I don’t do predictions.

X: Why not?

Maree: What happens when the prediction is wrong? Most of them are you know.

X: Well, it’s a prediction, how can it be wrong?

Maree: Because predictions need facts and data to be right. There are no future facts, just our ideas of and images about the future. There are no crystal balls that work you know.

X: But people make predictions all the time. Why can’t you? I just need to get some predictions so I can write strategy based on them.

Ma…