By: Lindsay Angelo, Futurist Consultant, MBA, TEDx Speaker
In today's business landscape, change is the only constant. Amidst macro global challenges—from climate change and cultural shifts to technological advancements like Artificial Intelligence (AI), the law of accelerated returns calls for more change to come in the next decade than we've seen in the last century. For this reason, building your foresight capabilities is more important than ever.
In this article, we'll provide an overview on who can benefit from futures training, how to develop your own foresight skills and the importance of diversity in futurism.
Let's dive in!
Who can benefit from Futures training?
Futures training isn't just for big-shot decision-makers. Anyone with a compelling vision or flare for shaping the future can reap the rewards — from corporate innovators and leaders to consultants, entrepreneurs, and those eyeing a career in foresight.
More specifically, futures training can benefit individuals and teams with a variety of professional backgrounds and personal aspirations, including:
Consultants, Coaches and Advisors: If you work with organizations helping them envision and plan for the future or you aspire to be a Futurist consultant, foresight and futures thinking enhances your ability to guide and support your clients effectively.
Corporate Professionals and Business Leaders: As a corporate professional or leader, foresight and futures thinking will improve your leadership skills and performance, enabling you to make informed decisions, contribute strategically, and stay ahead in your industry. Bringing foresight to your team or organization also fuels growth and innovation.
Entrepreneurs and Founders: If you're an entrepreneur or founder seeking to stay ahead or create a business strategy in the market, foresight will help.
Anyone Planning Their Future: If you simply want to gain a better understanding of where the world is heading, foresight is designed to do just that.
What is Futurist-in-50 Days?
Futurist-in-50 Days was built to provide an accessible path for anyone wanting to build their foresight skills. Futurist-in-50-Days isn't your business as usual training program. It dives deep into the principles and methods of futures thinking and strategic foresight.
What does Futurist-in-50-Days cover?
Futurist-in-50-Days is designed to democratize foresight by delivering a comprehensive toolkit that will build your foresight capability and coin you a Certified Futurist.
By the end of the training, you'll be able to:
appreciate the critical role of foresight
discover how to frame the future
identify, distill, and prioritize trends
craft compelling future narratives using tools such as scenario planning and backcasting
connect foresight into strategy
master exercises in the key pillars of foresight: strategic thinking, creativity and storytelling.
This training transcends theory; it's a hands-on learning journey that will enable you to navigate uncertainty, manage risks, and plan strategically.
The Importance of Diversity in Futures work
Diversity is a cornerstone in futures work. Without it, one ends up creating future scenarios and strategic plans with significant gaps. Not only is it imperative to represent a variety of backgrounds, professions, and demographics in the foresight process, it's also important to ensure that diversity is represented in the Futurist community itself.
The Futurist-in-50 Days program recognizes this and aims to make futurist tools accessible to everyone, breaking down barriers and fostering a more inclusive community - and future.
Join the foresight community and kick-start your career in 50 days!
The ability to foresee what's around the corner isn't just for big shot decision-makers; it's a universal skill becoming a necessity for any professional in today's landscape. Foresight fuels innovation, improves decision-making and ensures a sustainable future for generations to come. For this reason, there will be more demand for Futurists in the next decade than there ever has been.
As we venture into a quickly-changing landscape fuelled by artificial intelligence, the Futurist-in-50 Days program paves the way for individuals and organizations to anticipate, act with agility and actively shape the future.
Click here to learn more about Futurist-in-50-Days.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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See this blog for more information.
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To navigate the futures space and the foresight field, it's essential for professionals to not only build their strategic foresight capabilities but to also develop creative thinking, strategic thinking, and story-telling—the magic treo of a Futurist. As an expert in foresight or even someone at the beginner level, combining these three thought lenses will allow you to form integrated visions and join the ranks of professional futurists worldwide.
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A wide variety of backgrounds can lend themselves to future studies—from Science to technology, to creative thinking fields, to cultural anthropology, to design to strategy and strategic planning.
Because there are many tracks or niche specialties in the field of futures studies, a variety of backgrounds can support the career. There is also formal training you can complete—for example, a Certificate from the Futurist Institute, Institute for Futures Studies, Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, or a degree in futures studies. If you're looking for an applied program, learn more about our brand-new training program here.
You can also read more about how to become a successful Futurist here.
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Foresight capacity can greatly benefit policymakers, especially those at the beginner level, by enabling them to anticipate and prepare for future challenges and opportunities. This can help foresight professionals adopt a more proactive approach. By attending foresight training, you can easily identify emerging trends, risks, and opportunities, act on experiential scenarios and future events, verify and develop strategies to address them and create preferable futures.
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Strategic Foresight efforts can be integrated into company planning by leveraging corporate foresight methods to anticipate future events, craft alternative futures, and identify potential risks and opportunities. Future thinking can help companies develop more robust strategies, overcome strategic challenges and make more informed decisions.
About the author
Lindsay Angelo is the founder of Futurist-in-50-days, supporting impact-driven professionals, teams and organizations in learning to think and lead into the future. She's also a practicing and award-winning Futurist, Strategy consultant, MBA and TEDx speaker. She's advised Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, think tanks, and celebrities - all the while creating a nomadic lifestyle rooted in travel, family and community. Named a Woman to Watch and Global Innovation Leader, Lindsay's delivered over 100+ keynotes and has worked with organizations including lululemon, Unilever, the LEGO Group, Snapchat and the Human Potential Institute. Her experiences culminate in what she refers to as her sweet spot - where strategy, innovation and foresight intersect, where the rational meets the emotive, where facts meet insights and where logic meets creativity.
