Predicting The Future

We often hear that globalisation and the effects of technology are making the world a smaller place. We hear such news and feel its effects, as companies cut back, close or move jobs to overseas’ locations.

Usually, when we hear this type of news it is too late to do anything, as the decisions to close or relocate jobs have already been made.

However, by looking ahead to see the changes that are taking place globally and then considering how they might affect us, it is possible to get a clearer picture of the future.

With a clearer picture, we can see the actions we need to take to influence our own future. In order to do so, we can consider the future in three ways:

–      we can invent it, as suggested by the late Steve Jobs.

–      we can wait for it to happen and react to it, as most of us do.

–      we can try to predict it and adapt our actions to benefit from it.

Given that few of us have Steve Jobs’ ability to invent and many of us are unhappy to just let things happen and react, let’s focus on prediction.

The good thing about predicting the future is that many elements of future trends already surround us every day.

We can predict the world’s population will continue to increase, resources will be scarce and more expensive, security concerns will increase and political and social instability is likely to spread. We can also predict that the value of information, data and social media will increase and that smart technology will become increasingly influential in all aspects of our lives.

This is, of course, an incomplete snapshot of the future but it demonstrates how we can identify trends and thereby create opportunities.

So, let’s look around and see what future trends are already happening and consider how we can use them to create our own future.

What do you think? Can you predict the future?  If you have any comments contact Nick on 028 8224 9494 or via Twitter @nick_oec.