These questions are the business futurist's meat and potatoes. The
answers are of prime importance to a wide range of companies:
traditional telephone companies,
wireless carriers, phone
manufacturers,
digital camera makers, and so on. The answers could
sway investments of billions of dollars. Even thinking about the
possibilities can spark big changes and new ideas. It's all in the
perspective, says Fariborz Ghadar, a futurist at Penn State.
"Futurism helps organizations see perils and opportunities."
Ghadar gives this example: One inescapable prediction is that by
2015 the world will have 20 megacities, cities with upwards of 20
million people. Only three of those megacities will be in the
industrialized world (New York,
Los Angeles, Tokyo). All the others
will be in the developing world, and that means places like Mumbai,
Lagos,
Shanghai,
Mexico City, and
New Delhi will be bursting at the
seams. Is that a nightmarish vision of tomorrow? Not in Ghadar's
eyes. "Those concentrations of people will need significant
infrastructure, and somebody, probably not government, will put it
in place. Just think about the opportunity involved in putting in
wireless networks in these cities. The possibilities are very
positive for businesses that grasp the fact that these changes
suggest needs that will be met by open-minded organizations."
Indeed, it's the thought that counts, says Southern Methodist
University adjunct professor Joe Dancy. About a decade ago, when
natural gas deregulation took hold, Dancy advised a smaller natural
gas company to rethink its very business model. Maybe gas wasn't
its real business, Dancy posited. Maybe the company's core assets
were its rights of way for pipelines, particularly in urban areas
where new easements are very hard to acquire. Add in skilled,
fast-responding maintenance and construction crews and, just maybe,
the company could go into the
telecommunications business. What if
it began laying
broadband cable? What if it reinvented the business
completely? The company did none of this, Dancy says, but by going
through this deep thinking, it made sure it knew itself that much
better.