TALES FROM THE UNEXPECTED FUTURE

eric garland

“The future will be better tomorrow.”

- Dan QuayleFormer Vice President of the United States

The world isn’t a mess from what we don’t know, but from what we know for certain that just ain’t so.

-Mark Twain

There are things we know that we know...these are known knowns.There are the things we know that we don’t know...these are known unknowns.

But then there are the things we don’t know that we don’t know...these are unknown unknowns.

- Donald RumsfeldFormer U.S. Secretary of Defense

We know where the weapons of mass destruction are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, east, west, south, and north somewhat.

- Donald RumsfeldFormer U.S. Secretary of Defense

STOCHASM:

The difference between what you think you know, and what you

actually know.

I think about the future a lot

Do you see what I see?

Housing bubble? What?

Three big questions

• What is our understanding of future risk and reward?

• When and why do we fail?

• What can we do today to improve our perception?

for today

• A children’s treasury of bad forecasts

• Epic fails: Market research

• Epic fail: Risk estimation

• How to improve our foresight (despite the risk)

BAD FORECASTS

“What, sir? You would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks?

I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte to Robert Fulton, upon hearing of the latter's plans for a steam-powered engine.

"It has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“Remote shopping will flop.”-- Time Magazine, 1966

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“By the end of the century, we will live in a paperless society”

Roger Smith, CEO of General Motors, 1986

“This technology will lead to ubiquitous education and world peace!

A whole bunch of people

things we do to mess up forecasts

• Overestimate technological advance

• Underestimate technological advance

• Right forecast, wrong timescale

• Failure to comprehend social impact

• Miss secondary and tertiary effects

• Ignore intransigent human nature

• Discount wildcard events

• Missed assumptions about actor behavior

• Emotional attachment to the outcome

WE reject the NEW, the important, the disruptive and place it in the category of

“ridiculous”

Short list of ridiculous things

• Women comfortable in the working world

• A computer that fits in a single room

• People being able to use computers at work without “training.”

• The Japanese as serious industrial competitors

• The Koreans as serious industrial competitors

• The Chinese as serious industrial competitors

ALMOST EVERYTHING IMPORTANT

STARTS OUT AS A FUTURE SO RIDICULOUS

You look dumb talking about it.

GREAT MOMENTS in EPIC FAIL:

MARKET RESEARCH division

BETTY CROCKER

DUNCAN HINES

GUINNESS STOUT IN AFRICA

GREAT MOMENTS in EPIC FAIL:

risk analysis division

The mortgage market

The mortgage market

Fukushima Nuclear power plant

WE usemechanistic forecasting

for a complex world

improving our perception of

future risk and reward

the future is actually a group activity

We rely on authority to tell us which futures are safe to discuss

What does an authority look like?

can you rely on this man’s forecasts?

• 2005: We’re not in a housing bubble

• 2007: Growth with limited risk

• 2008: Unemployment will go down

• 2009: It’s all good, dude!

take a systems approach

ACTOR DECISIONS

THE HUMOR OF THE GODS

STRUCTURAL FACTORS

take a systems approach

Customers

Community stakeholders

Disruptive technologies

Today’sCompetitors

The environment

Economic trends

Politics

Regulators and gov’t agencies

Rigor VISION

What you can do starting today

• Start tracking economic, technological and social trends outside of your industry

• Hold active discussions with stakeholders about what it all means

• Ask how customer needs will evolve from macro-trends

• Tell your customers that you have their future in mind

@ericgarland

EricGarlandFuture

www.ericgarland.co

Thank you so much! Merci Beaucoup!