May 30, 2011 in Media Center, News by admin

Back to the Future: What Lies Ahead?

By Tim Sosbe

Every now and then I like to stop and think about the future. Or maybe more accurately, the potential future.

No matter what the folks on the Psychic Friends Network want you to believe, no one can truly and completely predict the future. Certain tuned-in people might be able to make educated guesses based on available information, but no one has told me yet what I’ll eat for breakfast on June 11, 2013, or who I’m going to vote for in 2016. I also don’t really know what the next big innovation in learning technology will bring, and I most certainly don’t know what innovation that innovation will spawn (though I am sure that cascade of progress will happen).

This all reminds me of James Taylor. No, not that James Taylor … there’s a futurist working in this industry with the same name as the famed singer/songwriter, and I heard him keynote at a conference several years back. I still remember one great line: “A futurist is someone who makes predictions so far in the future he can’t possibly be held accountable for their accuracy.”

Funny stuff, no doubt in part because it’s so true. I could make all kinds of pronouncements right here and right now, but are you really going to remember in 20 years? If so, I can just cite unforeseen market conditions that impacted my predictions … give it another 20 years, I’ll say.

I started thinking about all this again after seeing a recent issue of USA Today, with a “Snapshots” feature showing failed futurist predictions.