Some Thoughts On The Online World In 2010

from the what-do-you-think? dept

At Techdirt, we're huge believers in scenario planning. It's an amazingly useful tool for thinking through many possible futures so that you're best prepared no matter what happens. We use scenario planning in our corporate work both in figuring out what we should do as a company and (more usually) in helping our customer prepare for any kind of future environment. Of course, one of the fun aspects of scenario planning is looking around and seeing what plenty of other people think about potential future scenarios as well, so it's nice to see the Smart Internet 2010 project being released -- as it's basically a set of scenario plans (though, they don't use that term) for the internet in 2010. One of the biggest issues with scenario planning, however, is the tendency for some people who don't fully understand the purpose of scenario planning to pick up on one single scenario and assume that's what's being predicted. Unfortunately, it appears the press is already doing that with these scenarios, by focusing on the scenario with the catchiest name, and saying that's what these researchers predicted. Nothing could be further from the truth. They're just saying this is one possible future. The reality is often somewhere in between the various scenarios -- but understanding all of them helps everyone be better prepared no matter which direction the future really goes in. It's no so much about predicting the future (which is impossible), but about preparing for any future.