Posted by Adam Gordon on Sep 16, 2008 in all, emerging technologies, failed predictions, Future Savvy | 0 comments
In the MBA elective “Industry Foresight and Scenario Planning” that I teach, toward the beginning of Day One, I ask participant some very basic questions – basic questions being, of course, the hardest. One of them is: Can We Predict the Future, Yes or No?
Being graduate students, they’ve learned to prevaricate, and they do. It’s either No, with a bit of yes; or Yes with a bit of no. Both are correct or course. Clearly nobody can see the future perfectly, but there do seem to be times and/or situation where some see it much more clearly than others. (And therefore make better forecasts. How one can recognize this is a core topic of “Future Savvy.”)
Anyway, I’m reminded of this because I stumbled on two Web links, one after the other, that are salvos in this debate. The first is at:
http://picasso.rediffiland.com/blogs/2008/09/08/Predicting-the-Future-We-veall-hear.html
This is very much the standard, smirking, “look-see-bigCheese-got-egg-on-his-face” testimonial, of which there are many. Bloggers are, in many ways, journalists, and all journos like to see a big-shot egg-faced.
The other link is a fun 3-min video, posted on the Disney blog, see
which is at
http://thedisneyblog.com/2008/09/08/how-good-was-disney-at-predicting-the-future/
The clip argues, possibly slightly tongue in cheek, that the Disney forecasts as portrayed “Horizons,” EPCOT in 1983 – 25 years ago – were, in fact, not bad predictions. (Context is Disney’s tomorrow visions have, generally, been discredited.)
Back to the smirk site, above, which bears further thinking about. This one is hardly original (why do they all have the same 20 quotes? They also normally start with the Yogi Berra-ism “Predicting is hard, especially about the future.” Yawn) but at least they all correctly put us on our guard as to the poor future thinking of industry experts. In fact, the record of future prediction is littered with the most astounding mistakes. From underwater cities never built to rocket mail that never flew to Y2K disasters that never materialized – the list of laughable errors is a mile long. Experts aside, all of us are liable to confidently anticipate things that wont happen while missing what is brewing right under their noses.
Prediction-skepticism
Fair enough. But, the predictive nihilism behind these smirk sites is is dangerous in a number of ways.
First it promotes the skepticism that “we cant know anything” about the future. If the experts were so wrong – let’s all just give up. And therein we get the problem of many people, including highly-paid managers, justifying ignoring or under-funding future thinking. Sometimes managers, not wanting to look unprepared, suggest resources and expertise be channeled into “fast response” so that when the future becomes clear they can move rapidly to profit. This view is soundly rubbished in Hamel & Prahalad’s classic HBR 1994 article “Competing For The Future,” and I don’t think more needs to be said.
Second, there’s obviously no science behind the smirk. They pointedly do not show the number or extent of incorrect forecasts *in context of the total forecasts made*. We don’t know, in other words, how many people got it right or at least right enough to have profited or avoided losses. Wherever you have significant success, it is likely that there is a good-enough forecast behind it.
Finally the failed-forecast smirk lists also miss the fact that many forecasts are not meant to be an accurate anticipation of events. Many are trying to influence the future, that is, talk a particular outcome into being or shape it, or stop it from happening. People make predictions to sway an audience, or get a response from authorities or opposing forces. When Gates said: “640K should be enough for anyone,” who was he talking to, and what was he trying to achieve …? A real prediction of the future? I think not. Microsoft did not stop at 640, and nor did anyone think it would. And nor did Gates think anyone else would. Forecasts are often salvos in the games of power and influence, flagrantly used to marshal situations or promote self-interests, in situations where accuracy is not the point.