How to See the Future

IT TURNS OUT that some of my students think I'm meant to show them how to see into the future.

They suggest that's what it says in the academic syllabus in the Emerging Technology module I teach at LIT-Clonmel. I thought out loud for a minute, trying to list ways I thought people could set themselves up to monitor emerging trends and to perhaps predict what's ahead on the technology roadmap. In my mind, it's a matter of clever listening, especially when around smart people (like those in the photo from Limerick OpenCoffee). I have watchlists, reading lists, and trust agents worth following. The watchlists often generate photos and descriptions of brand new technology. The reading lists emerge from suggestions I find on blog posts, trustworthy tweets, and conference proceedings. The trust agents are people with backgrounds worthy of respect. Getting the watchlists, readings and trust agents into one nice compilation is an on-going process. What's fresh and compelling today could easily be stale and dull a year from now. Nonetheless, I'm going to create a presentation that lays down my schema for seeing into the future and then I'll blog my thoughts and see if anyone affirms my viewpoint.

I listen to Peter Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship once a year because Drucker gives good coverage to "determination", he knows how to look at reality and has sage advice about working out plans when the plans don't work out.

Some of this flexible planning forms part of the conversations that I hear in OpenCoffee meet-ups around Ireland. And when I get opportunities to chat one-on-one with men and women who know how to exploit opportunites, I feel I'm standing alongside people who already know how to see the future.

So I'll have my blog post up before the next Limerick OpenCoffee on the first Thursday of December 2011. And I'll give my ideas a full airing in my final Technology and Trends session of November. I will record and share that session too.

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Peter Drucker -- Innovation and Entrepreneurship, ISBN 978-0060851132

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