Picking the Right Futurist for Your Strategic Insights
When I look at my overall client types, it seems to me that I have two main types of client. The first is a client that has a good business and is generally successful and wants a futurist to help keep them ahead of emerging issues and opportunities. The second main client type is one that feels their organisation has or is hitting a brick wall, that has experienced a lack of success through past approaches to developing insights and strategy and that the ‘something’s gotta change’ mantra has emerged inside the executive team. Which is why the brief becomes important
The brief to your futurist is aimed at ensuring you know why you want a futurist to help you. If you are not clear on what a futurist can (and cannot) do, it is likely you’ll spend company resources seeking answers to a question that won’t help. Simply put, your expectations will not be met.
In the client types above, typically the client that is happy with how things are going wants to a) ensure they aren’t going to be surprised by an unexpected downturn, and b) seek even more opportunities to develop their business further. That framework sets to approach a furturist ought to take.
The client that has a realisation that what they’ve been trying hasn’t been working requires a VERY different approach. It is likely that the need for more immediate impact, less theory and more pragmatic decision frameworks will be needed. For some clients what they want a futurist to do cannot be done – the n eed for a turn-around specialist aiming at saving a business is NOT a core capability of a Futurist. It is something I’ve been asked to do from time to time. I have instead referred the business on to someone else.
Which comes down to the idea of how you Brief your Futurist. Following this model, any futurist worth their salt will be able to tell you whether what you want is realistic in the time frame and aligned to high quality futurist thinking. They should also be able to advise you AGAINST using their skills if your needs are different to what can be provided. Given the organisational time, people and financial resources you could invest, both you and your futurist ought to be clear before you begin and agree on an assignment
And of course if you have any questions, by all means contact me
You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is…
Read More >Some of Australia’s leading futurists gathered in Melbourne in March to provide a specialist Futures approach to addressing the Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra. The outcome of that Summit and the development that subsequently followed has led to the creation of the report ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’ that has worked through each of the ten…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will meet with eminent ABC radio presenter Jon Faine on Wednesday the 16th of April to discuss the outcomes of the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra on the weekend With a focus on the future of Australia it would be only natural…
Read More >A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a…
Read More >As preparations continue for the Prime Minister Rudd’s ‘1000 heads’ ideas summit in Canberra in April, a group of Australia’s leading futurists are gathering in Melbourne this weekend for the ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’. The futurists attending the summit work across Australia, in corporate, not for profit and Government agencies in a variety of fields…
Read More >A few thoughts on what steps could be taken to overcome the ‘treat everyone like a nail’ approach that Interest Rate rises seems to do. Check out the idea under the ‘Latest Focus’ section Interest Rate Rises are going to penalise too many people who don’t deserve to lose their homes
Read More >Marcus Barber offers his thoughts on How to Stop Japanese Whaling in its Tracks and suggests that raiding boats won’t do the job. Instead he suggests that the key to negotiating with the Japanese is to have the Japanese people do the work. And to encourage them to do so we must begin to talk…
Read More >If an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ raised the profile of global warming to the general population, it appears that a willingness by political leaders to take appropriate action to mitigate the possible ramifications is still very much lacking. It is such a pity. No one who holds the Global Warming scenario close to heart wants to be…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will join Tim Cox on 774 ABC as part of the conversation hour next week Tim is filling in for Jon Faine whilst he takes a well deserved break and Marcus will join him for the conversation hour kicking off at 11am on Thursday the 13th of December, where they’ll discuss…
Read More >At the AustForesight 2007 Conference, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber and fellow Futurist Steve Tighe presented their take on what is required to enable futurists to be seen as more relevant to the Corporate world. Drawing on their shared experience as facilitator and client, they detailed the journey of foresight and futures across the past 50…
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