Futurists and the {grow}th of Social Media

I know that he’s not classified as one, but I think that the first futurist I was exposed to might have been Walt Disney. That’s a theme for another conversation though. I do know that Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt were the first “official” futurists I encountered. I remember getting both Future Shock and Megatrends as gifts. There was a sparkle in the eyes of the givers as they said, “We think you’ll like these. They’re right up your alley.” I reminded them that I was a tennis pro and the only alley I was concerned with was the doubles alley. Clearly, they saw a different story for me.

Anyway, I read and enjoyed both books, and along with Time Magazine naming the IBM PC Man of the Year, they were probably somewhat responsible for my pursuing a career in software, computers, and technology from that point forward.

Two futurists that I’ve encountered in the last few weeks have me thinking again. And it’s exciting stuff if you don’t mind looking at the big picture, so to speak. And, wouldn’t you know, Mark Schaefer’s responsible for my discovery of one of those. You’ll want to read both of his posts that I link to below if you haven’t already.

I started reading Rolf Jensen’s The Dream Society a few weeks ago. He is the Director of The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. I could write many pages about this book and the thoughts that it has spurred but for the sake of this post, suffice it to say that he talks about the future as it will exist beyond the Information Age. He sees and defines six emotional needs and the markets that target those. The needs he defines are, adventure, togetherness, to care and be cared for, to define ourselves, to feel safe and secure, and, to demonstrate our convictions.

He feels that companies will need to harness these markets in order to prosper in the future. Will they do that with ever more advancing technology? How about with newer and better products and services? Nope. And if that’s the case, what a sea change for the world of business used to creating cookie cutter products and services and for our world interacting with those. Jensen proposes that the story behind the products will be what gives companies a leg up on their competition. He thinks that we will pay for stories that ignite our imaginations and reflect how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen by others. Stories, he says, that are capable of translating information into accessible emotional terms. Businesses need to imagine their futures the way good novelists imagine their stories, he advises.

Are any of you starting to see social media at play (or work if you prefer) in what he’s talking about? And mind you, he wrote this in 1999. Same year that other book was published, what was it again, oh yeah, Cluetrain Manifesto. Markets are conversations. Which you can also read about in Jim Tobin’s Social Media is a Cocktail Party. Mark wrote just over a week ago about the future of social media. It generated a lot of conversation (be sure to read the comments), and one of the people who contacted Mark as a result was Venessa Miemis, who has been writing about the future for the last seven years or so. She was gracious enough to talk with Mark about futurists, the future, social media and a few other very interesting topics.

“I do think we’re in a very transformative period in history, and we all need to hone our ‘futures thinking’ skills in order to actively participate in the process of shaping our collective future, instead of just being a passive bystander.”, she tells Mark early on in the interview. I think that’s exactly right. I think that the transformation she speaks of is happening because are moving out of the shadow of Gutenberg, where we were passive bystanders in terms of our information consumption. This was due to the fact that the distribution of information, enabled by Gutenberg’s invention, was so expensive that it had to become institutionalized in order to fulfill it’s promise of mass distribution. And it wasn’t just publishing and media conglomerates that we relied on to distribute that information. Large corporations, who could afford to print and distribute information to employees, shareholders, and journalists helped to shape our roles as passive bystanders as well. Our ever generous “corporate fathers.”

Now however, thanks to computers, some wonderful software and the internet, we are all able to publish and distribute information. That in turn has led to a new information space, social media. And as a result of that space, business models and organizations are being forced to change, to reinvent themselves, and their products and services. Because in that space, we are able to seek, exercise and give expression to those six needs that Jensen identified. That space is still young, vibrant and {grow}ing. As Venessa said “If we know more about each other, we may be able to begin collaborating on an enormous scale to solve some of the world’s serious problems.” The social media space may indeed enable something as grand as that. As it matures towards all of the things that it will eventually enable, it is also giving us all the opportunity to hone our stories and our storytelling skills, as we network within our various communities. That opportunity is not one to be squandered if, as Jensen proposes, storytellers, those who create the culture and image of company, will be the most generously rewarded leaders of organizations in the future.