Learning From The Future

from the sounds-good,-but... dept

The latest Thomas Stewart column is about how to learn from the future. Actually, that's not true. The column is telling people that they should "learn from the future", but doesn't really tell them how. Basically, he seems to be saying "be aware of what's happening". He also seems to not understand how scenario planning works - since that does exactly what he's talking about when it's done right (and in the article he suggests it doesn't). He tries to distinguish between learning "about" the future and learning "from" the future, but I think the two are closely related - and one is useless without the other. In scenario planning you are definitely learning "about" the future - but the process of designing those scenarios comes by learning "from" the future. It's about looking at trends and key factors to determine where things might go, to get an understanding of what it means should it ever happen. So, to learn "about" the future, you first need to learn "from" the future.