“The artist...is always thought of as being way ahead of his time because he lives in the present. There are very many reasons why most people prefer to live in the age just behind them. It’s safer.” — Marshall McLuhan, 1970

Which toy will be next holiday season’s Furby? Will an upstart software maker surpass Microsoft? Will Asia recover by the end of 2000? As companies wrestle to eke out an edge in the fiercely competitive global marketplace, predictive strategies have become big business. Media guru Marshall McLuhan exhorted us to “know the now” in our quest to understand what is to come. But it also stands to reason that the “now” represents an unpredictable intersection of events that could just as easily lead prognosticators astray. Who could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the sexual revolution?

These days, big business is turning to all manner of futurists, strategists, and “coolhunters” in the quest to understand life next. The Wall Street Journal has devoted recent columns to Alex Bajrech, a 36-year-old teen-fashion tracker who works for Wet Seal Inc., and to Teenage Research Unlimited. Other well-known coolhunters include DeeDee Gordon, publisher of the quarterly tip sheet the L-Report, and Li Edelkoort, a Dutch woman based in Paris who counsels Coke and other brands about which colors are going to be most on trend and why.

Whereas coolhunting is the province of the young and hip, scenario forecasting is considered by some to be serious science. A forecaster develops scenarios based on possible and probable major shifts that could affect a company’s operations, then draws up game plans regarding how to react to each.

“It’s not about predictions,” says Peter Schwartz, president of the Global Business Network in Emeryville, California, which specializes in scenario planning. “Scenarios are about trying to avoid getting the future wrong in fundamental ways.” Schwartz has reason to stand behind his methods.

As co-founder of Smith & Hawken — the U.S. mail-order firm that sells upscale gardening equipment — he mapped out three possible scenarios for the future: a world of high economic growth, a worldwide depression, and a major social transformation marked by more holistic thinking. In each scenario, the founders saw potential for increased interest in gardening and a need for well-made tools.

“We got a world of high wealth, and Smith & Hawken changed its strategy. We were orienting ourselves to hippies growing vegetables in a depression. Instead, Reagan took office, and we altered our strategy to a premium market. Scenarios enabled us to recognize and act on the change.”

Next Century Lifestyles:
The Early Predictions

In 1966, the Wall Street Journal suggested that by the year 2000, “Dishwashing will be a thing of the past, since disposable dishes will be made from powdered plastic for each meal from a machine in the kitchen.” Though that prediction has fallen flat, many of today’s prominent futurists point to a world in which networked computers observe and manipulate things on our behalf- — whether those things be automated vacuum systems, home lighting, or the restocking of office supplies.

Researchers at the U.K.’s Henley Centre predict that by the year 2020, many workers will spend just 15 hours a week sitting at multimedia workstations in their homes, and children will swap their schools for cyberclassrooms. Increased leisure time will be spent making inexpensive long-distance video phone calls to friends, downloading videos, and going shopping via the Internet.

The Henley Centre further predicts that the wealthy will be able to cross the globe in record time, using space shuttles to travel outside the world’s atmosphere, cutting the journey time from the U.K. to Sydney to just two hours. Others will use solar-powered cars or travel on superconductive magnetic levitation trains capable of speeds of 350 mph.

As you work to expand your thinking on how today’s forming trends will impact consumer markets tomorrow, you might also refer on occasion to the following Websites — repositories of information from some of today’s leading futurists and trend analysts. You’ll find the authors’ insights and reasoning both useful and enlightening.

• www.demographics.com
• www.eiu.com
• www.everything2000.com
• www.fastcompany.com
• www.wfs.org/wfs/futurist.htm
• www.info-strategy.com
• www.iftf.org
• www.wired.com