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| Alireza Hejazi | |||
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By: Alireza Hejazi The Delphi oracle had the words “KNOW YOURSELF!” above its entrance. Do we really know ourselves as the futurists? Self-assessment is a useful tool to evaluate our personal characteristics in order to develop our professional futures in an environment which becomes more competitive day by day. Looking at futuring as a profession requires certain attributes and evaluation criteria by which the futurists may be assessed. This evaluation becomes more important when companies, organization and even the societies are undecided on granting foresight projects to the right futurists and foresight professionals. From my early days of becoming familiar with Futures Studies (FS), I was looking for rules or standards that may change a future-oriented guy into a leading futurist. In recent years I have been looking for certain characteristics in different FS books, articles, blogs and even comments made there to complete my suggestive list of characteristics and thereby proposing a kind of categorization. Through a semi-comprehensive review I rearranged my own understandings of the most important features that the futurists may have and categorized them in a down-up (evolutionary) order. This produced a refined summary and also a conceptual diagram as following. In fact, futuring becomes an awesome occupation as you may not be able to apply your past experiences fully in this new job. Becoming a futurist is never like becoming a physician or a lawyer. There is also no regulating institute that may decide who is or is not a futurist. It sounds good?! What is it really like to be a futurist and what kinds of futurists do exist? In my point of view the futurists may be categorized in four main groups: 1) Future Oriented Guys (FOGs); 2) The Futurists; 3) The Professional Futurists; and 4) The Leading Futurists. Each of these groups has its own unique and common attributes that are characterized by their level of experience in futuring. Some may suggest replacing “experience” with “knowledge”. It sounds good, but it is not always so as there may be no significant gap of knowledge between a professional futurist and a leading one. In this case experience would be the determining factor.
FOGs can be found everywhere! From a couch potato who loves sci-fi movies to a higher school student who reads futuristic novels or magazines. Even a child who plays with lovely sci-fi toys may be regarded as a FOG! FOGs may have no professional knowledge on the futures, but they are interested in everything related to the future. Movies, stories, newspapers, magazines and the Internet are their most popular sources of information in which they may find something on the future. What about the futurists? First of all it is important to remember that the futurists always aim to raise the level of human consciousness about the oneness of humanity. People today are part of a global society and, whether they like it or not, they share a common fate. Secondly, to become a futurist, a person may imagine alternative possible futures and try to assess which futures would be most probable under a variety of conditions, including alternative actions that people might take. After passing successfully academic courses in the fields of FS or foresight and mastering with FS techniques and methods, a person may be qualified to be regarded theoretically as a futurist, yet he/she has to put his/her knowledge in practice by working as an independent professional or assistant on STEEP related areas. This will pave the way for becoming a professional futurist. Obviously the main duty of a professional futurist is to add tools and knowledge that help people design and shape the future, to help them achieve good futures for themselves, and, most generally, for all humankind. The professional futurists may use available knowledge from any field of learning and invent or adapt some methodological techniques distinctively aimed at the exploration of alternative futures. Looking at pros from another point of view reveals us that asking the right questions is the highest art of a professional futurist. The right answers can only be found if we ask the right questions. On the other hand, the professional futurists usually refuse to answer those futuristic questions they have not proper answers for, but they ask themselves another set of questions like: “Can I create the tools and methods for conscious evolution?”, “Can I help change and influence the future in a meaningful way?” or “Which trends will be dominant for the next ten years?” A professional futurist may build his/her personal think tank and develop a unique way of thinking about the future. He/she may target a distinguished futurist journal to publish his/her articles there. Meeting with other futurists especially those who may give a new idea regarding the future is always a rewarding experience. Attending futurist events especially those meeting professional needs and areas of activities may be another habit of a professional futurist, but he/she never considers predicting the future as a task just as the American futurist Bruce Sterling said once, a futurist’s job is “to predict the present” not the future. Professional futurists learn to be patient for the present and more for the future. They focus on what the people may want to know about the future of their lives and jobs, especially when they want to market their ideas. Marketing their books, articles, ideas and even comments they have made in different places, including futurist blogs will open up new opportunities for them. As a person who has had such an experience, my suggestion for you is activating your profile at futurist networks by posting new articles or commenting on others’ posts. Increasingly you’ll learn to focus just on your own goals, interests and agenda and not permitting others interrupt you by their sudden and usually baseless thoughts. What about the leading futurists? The leading futurists are usually oriented with three remarkable points: 1) Developing a new FS thesis, methodology or concept; 2) Nurturing a number of FS students through their thesis, methodology or concept; 3) Accomplishing STEEP missions successfully in national, regional and global scales. The leading futurists focus on the future in order to redirect attention to the present and create a kind of self-evaluation of society. They improve their ability to change or so-called “future fitness”. They provide images, analysis and “truths” at a meta-level and this is their real job. They create social visions as “a taste for the potential of the future society”. They even think about rewriting the social contracts in their societies in the era of knowledge economy. In a higher level, the leading futurists try to imagine “free work” from the claws of its old dependency on salary. They believe that the future is created out of consciousness and a process of clarification. The unconscious is transformed into the conscious and acts and this transformation builds what is called: “the future”. The leading futurists think about reliable systems that may facilitate this transformation and the professional futurists may help them in this regard. In a longer shot, they look forward to find proper systems for communicating their ideas about the future with next generations. This can be regarded only as a general categorization and many kinds of classifications may be offered based on other dimensions, even with more branches and details. We may never know fully ourselves as the futurists, but the next generations will know who we were at least by reading what we have written on the header of our websites such as: “Tomorrow is built today.” or “The future is a chance to be new”. Doesn’t it sound like the words that the Delphi oracle had above its entrance: “KNOW YOURSELF!”? Notes:
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