As a professional futurist, I think about the future all the time. I realize that most people don’t have this luxury but I also don’t really believe that this trait is a “luxury.” If you want to succeed in the future, you must think about the future today.
I recently watched a wonderful 6-minute video on Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin. The video consists of nothing more than a series of questions but many of them can be used to prompt your thinking about the future.
Here, for reading—and thinking—enjoyment, are some of the more pertinent questions:
1. What will you do when gas is $10 a gallon? (I would add the following question as well: What will you do when it is $1 a gallon?)
2. What will you do when electricity is free?
3. What will you do when computational power is a 1000 times more powerful?
4. Is it likely your organization will have the same products as bestsellers in 10 years?
5. Where will the replacements come from, and when?
6. If we got rid of textbooks, what would be the best way to replace them?
7. If you discovered your biggest competitor was successfully developing a product that reinvents the rules of your industry, what would you do?
8. Could you do the same thing if the competitor wasn’t about to do this?
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