Welcome to the future – by the way, it’s already here!

Hi! Are you by any chance a futurologist in disguise? Well, how about we find out? Put on your visionary goggles. Take a deep breath. Stay calm (you know it’s just a job – it’s not that important). And don’t forget: we’ve got faith in you!

Let us teach you our way to create the future. Previously we’ve given you why and a few hows. This time, and in the following two hotletters, we’ll let you know even more about how.

Our quick and easy crash course is completely free of charge. All we expect in return is that you put it to good use. Ideally we’d like you to make the world a better place – cause we know you have those super powers of yours hidden inside.

“I didn’t get a thing in the beginning, I’m afraid. But I’ll guarantee you, it really does work. Creating the future is my new steady companion”, statement from a member.

Say, what’s a futurologist? Is it someone dressed up in a tight silver coloured outfit? Do you need a huge beard? A crystal ball? Or a white cat that you can swing above your head while inhaling magical smoke? No, absolutely not (at least not necessarily). Futurism is not a science per se. Your approach depends on what kind of work you want to do. Inspiring scenario work, provocative predictions, trend analysis, trend spotting, data analysis, scientific stuff – there are many different ways of making uncertainties feel less uncertain.

Future Navigator has an action-based approach to futurism. We call it Future Based Ideas Development™. We believe that people should see themselves as part of a problem in order to be part of a solution. For us, futurism is about being able to see the world from as many different perspectives as possible. That way you will learn to challenge yourself to new possibilities. In fact, the future is just a good synonym for possibilities. We work with brain science, quantum physics and anthropology, inattentional blindness, behavioural science, the impossible feel of mental history (why did people do what they did at certain points in time) and what we call “meaning mining”. Technology is overrated as a change agent – meaningfulness is much more interesting (We are actually starting a big research project this fall on future studies and “How to create the future with Originality, Innovation and Common Sense”).

We want futurism to be dangerous and inspirational – it matters what we do! And yes, we do a lot of guessing too. But that is also what puts the fun in to a futurologist’s job. In our opinion futurology might be the one approach to the world that has that innate ability to bridge people, organisations, and maybe even ideologies in order to create common goals (i.e. create common sense – the solutions where everybody feel that “this is the right thing to do”).

But, rather than getting you all stressed up by all the writing we could do on the subject, that none of us has any time to read anyway, we’d like to give you the following tasks instead, as a “futurologist-to-be”:

1. Tell yourself at least once a day (and be proud to say it out loud): “I don’t know”.

2. Take pictures of gadgets, people, and everything else you find “original”.

3. Define what you describe as a “success” – make it straightforward and make sure to look at your previous achievements.

4. Write down five things that gives meaning to your life during a week – feasible things “that make it all worthwhile”.

5. Challenge your perspective – make those everyday, mind-numbing situations more inspiring and exciting by doing something unusual and different.

Then we’ll tell you why next time…