In Search of Futurists

When you think about planning for the future, what's your time horizon? Next week's meeting schedule? Your annual workplan? A three-year, long-range plan? A five-year strategic plan? Next century (now only 14 years away)?

Do you think of yourself as having a futures orientation? Can you identify Extension colleagues you consider futurists? Is anyone you know really thinking in a visionary way about Extension's future? Or are your colleagues finding it hard to think beyond the next legislative session?

This article is the beginning of a series on bringing a FUTURES perspective to Extension. Future articles will explore how futurists approach the study of the future. We'll examine the implications for Extension of some futurist predictions and visions. We'll review some efforts already under way to prepare Extension for the 21st century. This article begins by examining the qualities and characteristics of a good futurist.

Suppose you wanted to bring together some people to form an "Extension Futures Group." You're looking for people interested in and capable of peering into Extension's future in the next century. You want to assemble a group that can stretch the collective vision of Extension from the now to the then.

The first question is whether you would nominate yourself for this group. How high is yourfutures quotient? To help you reflect on the qualities of a good futurist, and to assess the extent to which you possess those qualities, I've designed a FUTURES QUOTIENT (FQ) self-assessment instrument.

The FQ instrument represents a quantitative summary of the characteristics I associate with futurism. It's not meant to be taken as a scientifically valid and reliable measure of futurism, but rather as a tool for stimulating reflection and discussion-and having some fun with the idea of a FUTURES QUOTIENT (FQ). Let me suggest that you complete the selfassessment and compute your FQ before reading the discussion that follows on the 15 qualities represented in the instrument.

A Futurist Orientation

The first quality I would look for in a futurist is a balanced perspective-neither extremely optimistic nor extremely pessimistic (FQ item #1). Overoptimism reduces the ability to deal with real problems and dangers. Overpessimism smothers hope. My ideal futurist is realistically hopeful.

The next quality is an empirical perspective. Futures study is study - and is thus data-based. The visions generated and analyzed by futurists are grounded in the study of long-term trends and patterns (FQ #2). Futurists look for information from a variety of sources in constructing these trends and patterns, distrustful of the limited perspective and fallibility of any single data source (FQ #10).

My ideal futurist believes that human beings have an important and meaningful amount of control over the future. This belief is tempered by a clear recognition that there are forces, conditions, and events beyond human control. But, fundamentally, the futurist is interested in creating the future - not just studying it (FQ #3).

Futurists are time explorers and therefore in love with the frontiers of new human experiences, new ideas, and newness itself. There's a passion to such exploration, thus the quite deliberate use of that sadly overused word "love" in FQ #4.

Intellectual and emotional stimulation accompany exploration. Boredom falls victim to the futurist's sense of awe at the very notion of FUTURE (FQ #5). One of the most important characteristics that separates Homo sapiens from other animals is understanding even the possibility of future.

Futurists explore not only time, but also space. The globe, the universe-these are the territories of the futurist (FQ #6). Diogenes was expressing his futurist understanding and vision when he said in the 4th century, B.C., "I am a citizen of the world."

The futurist's openness to the world is an openness of mind. Thus, the futurist is at ease with and challenged by ambiguities, uncertainties-and the unknown in general (FQ #7). Futurists are also "imagineers," able to mind travel to and through the unknown, and unknowable, to imagine situations hitherto never encountered (FQ #8).

Yet, it's this very sense of and respect for the unknown and unknowable that makes my ideal futurist modest about predicting the future. Overconfidence in one's ability to predict the future can lead to arrogance, orthodoxy, and inflexibility. However, a complete reluctance to make predictions is avoidance of the futurist's responsibility to play seer. Balance, then, is desirable, tending towards a belief in the possibility of prediction, but tempered with a healthy respect for the fallibility of human prognostication (FQ #9).

FQ #11 also emphasizes balance, this time with regard to risk-taking. Time explorers necessarily take risks, but calculated risks. The overzealous risk-taker can be a danger to the species, willing to gamble everything for one something. Any vision of the future must be conditioned by a clear sense of our potential for irreversible self-destruction.

In weighing the relative risks and benefits of various future scenarios, my ideal futurist is able to see the big picture. This means bringing a holistic perspective to futures analyses-a combination of technical, ethical, social, economic, and psychological considerations (FQ #12).

With so many unknowns, so many possibilities, s many visions to be spun, and with the future an ever-expanding frontier, always beyond the grasp, the work of the futurist is an on-going process, a truly never-ending story. Those who need concrete endpoints, definite parameters, and finished jobs need not apply (FQ #13).

The final two dimensions of the FQ deal with self-definition. Are you creative? Are you a futurist? These aren't genetic characteristics. People who say, "I'm not creative" have established a self-fulfilling prophecy of self-limitation; likewise, a futurist orientation. The first step in being a futurist is deciding to be one. Developing a futurist orientation begins when you decide you value and want to cultivate your already existent, but perhaps underdeveloped, futurist quotient.

Having decided to be a futurist, and to bring a futurist orientation to Extension, you can then cultivate and strengthen those qualities that undergird the futurist perspective. The qualities you identify may differ substantially from my list, summarized below. The point is to develop a list and cultivate those qualities of mind and habit that will help transport you-and all of us-into a created future.

Summary Futurist Qualities

1. Balanced perspective-not overly optimistic or overly pessimistic.
2. Empirical perspective-follows statistical trends and qualitative patterns.
3. Believes in the possibility of creating the future.
4. Innovative-likes to try new things, try on new ideas.
5. Intellectually and emotionally stimulated by consideration of FUTURES.
6. Global, universal perspective.
7. Comfortable with and challenged by ambiguities, uncertainties, and the unknown.
8. Imaginative.
9. Modest about, but willing to make, predictions.
10. Seeks information from multiple and diverse sources.
11. Calculated and careful risk-taker.
12. Holistic, big picture perspective.
13. Process-oriented without need for definitive end- points and precise answers.
14. Creative.
15. A Futurist-by self-definition.

Extension Futurists

Send ideas for articles and manuscripts for review and possible publication for this Futures section to Michael Q. Patton, 72 Classroom Office Building, 1994 Buford Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108.

As a futurist, you might also be interested in membership in the World Future Society for $25, c/o 4916 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814-5089. The World Future Society's 1986 meeting will be held in New York City, July 14-17, with the theme:
"FutureFocus: The Next Fifteen Years."