Ruud Smeulders

We can create our own future by making the right decisions and having a sustainable future scenario. What is already possible today?

Let us look for all things that are already possible and those things that will be possible within the next 10 years. Why not start by concentrating on the basic things a human needs. We will exam the lowest levels of the Maslow Pyramid [1]. People need food, water, clean air, energy, housing, clothes, health, nice people around them, and protection. Starting with food: to grow our vegetables and fruit, our grain, rice, corn and potatoes, and to get the meat and fish we eat, we no longer all work in the garden or on the farm. Less than 2% of the population of Western countries like the United States and the Netherlands still works on farms or in the agri-food industry. Yet these countries have more exports than imports of food. A country the size as small as Belgium is enough to grow all the food the world population needs. That is, if we stop eating as much meat as we now do. So, if you create the right conditions and diet, food will not be the problem.

Now water: is that a real problem? Our world is more than 60% covered by oceans and seas. And under the surface of almost all the land mass there is fresh drinking water. Even under deserts like the Sahara in Africa there is drinking water. In some cases, it may take a lot of drilling and pumping to get the water out. Or we might need a lot of energy to purify seawater into drinking water. But the problem is not the water, rather technology and energy. The technology is available; however, it is sometimes expensive. Is energy then the real problem? No, it is not! We have lots of energy sources. The biggest one being our sun. If we were to use the sunlight that hits only half of all the roofs, then, even in a Northern country like the Netherlands we could generate enough energy to meet all our needs. By also using some other pollution-free energy generators, like windmills or flowing water turbines, the energy problem is no longer a major problem anywhere in the world.

Then there is the problem of clean air and a clean environment: clean up the pollution! Mostly, this is a question of behaviour and politics. If we use sunlight instead of oil or gas to put energy in our homes for heat and in our vehicles for travel, pollution will already reduce considerably. The carbon dioxide problem is solved using the sun instead of oil. So clean air and environment are also not the problem. These too can be solved, if we want to. So what about housing and clothes? These are partly driven by culture, climate and fashion. We can influence these very much, by using better materials, better isolation, better design for longer use and more comfort. But building new houses will remain a local industry, although it can be done on a small scale and environmentally friendly. In the future clothing will continue to be both a local and a worldwide industry and business. But with less pollution and less transport than we see today. Techniques such as 3D printing will improve this further.

So, health, protection and having nice people around you are perhaps the real problems of the future. For health, we will need to help ourselves a lot more than we do today. New technology and medicine will help. But also new diseases will appear. A whole new area of risk is now emerging in the area of security and protection. The Internet is giving criminals and terrorists, and also rogue nations the opportunity to attack people inside their homes and inside any physically protected area. We need new forms of security and new rules for protecting us from all kinds of known and unknown dangers [2]. And what about having nice people around us? Is that the real problem? I’m afraid it will stay one of the problems in all our futures. Being social and learning to live well can help, but in the end you have to do it yourself.

Companies and work will change dramatically if we solve the food, water, energy and pollution problems of today. In fact the way we work today is already changing. Working from your home or from a local office is now possible, thanks to the digitization of work. This is even reinforced in our society, where services are much more important than goods. It’s easy to perform your service from your home. Your home is usually better equipped than an office. And why would you work such long hours: if food, water and energy are cheaper, and housing or clothing are better, more local and also cost less? Looking at the higher levels in the Maslow Pyramid, we see that we are getting more time and space to address these aspects of our life. This means we will achieve more happiness and wisdom faster, to achieve our goals in the future.

Literature and sources

[1] Abraham Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation”, Psychological Review, 50, 1943

[2] Ruud Smeulders, “3652 x Tomorrow”, Secsi Media, 2012

There is a bright future for humanity possible if we create it together. We can create our own future. To do so, we need a good sustainable future scenario.

What the future really has in store for us is unclear. People have considerable influence on future development. More influence than many of us are aware of. Perhaps you remember the phrase from the song by Leonard Cohen “Get ready for the future, it is murder” [1]. It may indeed be wild, or even murderous. There are many scenarios describing the end of humanity, or even the end of the earth or our universe. An interesting collection and an excellent overview of these is given by Daniel Berleant, in his book “The human race to the future” [2]. Even in the near future, numerous wild things are possible. Mighty robots may conquer the world. A shortage of drinking water and increasing poverty may destroy civilization. Biotechnological changes to the DNA structure in living cells may result in new diseases and famine. But I believe there is a bright future for humanity possible if we create it together. And that is precisely what we have to do. If we know and understand what is possible, then we can create the best future for mankind.

You may think the notion of creating the future a crazy one. But that is exactly what entrepreneurs, managers, politicians and scientists do all the time. They make strategies and plans, scenarios and models to structure the future [3]. If you know what the possibilities are; if you make the right decisions; then you can create your own future. In companies, this is mostly done for a relatively short period of 1 to 3 years. But in government and in science, we see a much larger time period. If you’re planning infrastructure, then you should have an outline for up to 20 or 50 years. It can be done! We can build highways for cars; railways for high-speed trains; dikes to protect land below sea level. We can design new vegetables, and medicines to combat deadly diseases. We only have to know where we want to go to. And we need to understand what we can do with all of the possibilities available today and tomorrow.

When designing your optimal future, you need to be aware of all the things that can go wrong! As Cohen said, the future can, after all, be murder. There are so many things that can happen that could destroy your ideal future. Generally, this will be because other people interfere and will change your future. To counter this, try to create your future world together with lots of other people. Make it beautiful and desirable. But nature can also influence your ideals. Major disasters and small spontaneous changes in nature can have a huge impact on your plans. The future remains uncertain to a certain extent, but you can steer it in the right direction for a long time. And in the end, it is likely that your future will unfold as the only real future.

Literature and sources

[1] Leonard Cohen, The Future”, 1992

[2] Daniel Berleant, “The Human Race to the Future”, Lifeboat Foundation, 2013

[3] Frank Kwakman, Ruud Smeulders, “Big Innovation Models Book”, Van Duuren Management, 2013

Is the future really that unpredictable? I don’t think so! And here’s why…

In a time were everything is changing fast, many people think that the future is very uncertain. And it’s often said that the future is unpredictable. That’s not really truth. One can predict the future, but not in a very detailed way. Maybe also not just in all of the details you want to know. But a lot of our future is not as unpredictable as many people expect.

If we can’t even forecast the weather, how can we ever hope to forecast what the market is going to do?

Take for instant our weather forecast. And I agree with you that it is not always as accurate as you want it to be. For instance, if there is still some unexpected rain on that sunny day where you planned your family picnic. But most of our common weather forecast is very good. It gives you an excellent view of the weather in the near future. And one of the reasons that all those weather reports and weather channels are so popular is that we really believe that they can predict the future. We know that those models for weather prediction in the future are often correct, although not always very accurate.

Can we still believe what the economists have to say?

In many other areas a lot of people believe the predictions from specialists. We believe government when they say that the population is aging next 20 years. We believe them when they say that the cost of healthcare will rise enormous. We believe economists who are showing us that countries have to economize and banks are to be saved. But in many cases those predictions are not as solid as the weather forecast. Ageing is a problem for the Western World and for countries like China and Japan. But not for Africa, South America an major big parts of Asia. And if we open our borders in West Europe, the aging problem is solved in a few years. We will have other problems, but not an aging problem. It’s a political matter. Not a clean, scientific forecast of our future.

Understanding the past really does help

In technology and science a lot of our future development can be predicted. In fact science is nothing more than a way to understand the past and make models to predict the future. That’s the essence of science. That’s what scientists are doing. By analyzing and decompose observations in the past they make models and theories. And by using these theories and models they can say what will happen under certain circumstances. With this theory they can predict what will happen in the future under these circumstances. So, in fact, they make the tools to predict our future. But in practice, there are a lot of uncertainties. It’s very difficult to get a real nice set of rather certain variables of the future circumstances to use the models and theory. So it’s not so very easy to use the models to predict the future in a very accurate way.

That’s why I’ve written a book looking back over 10 years of trying to forecast the future.  The book describes the pros and cons, the sense and nonsense of trend watching within companies. It gives you a helping hand by doing your own trend watching within your company. This is the first step to develop a sustainable future vision for your company. But the book also describes how technology trends are sustainable over time. And the book shows you how to predict the future using these trends.

One way to create a reasonable future proof environment is by using trend watching and scenario planning tools. By using megatrends one can build an imaginary future environment that is credible. If you make several of these future worlds by using also the uncertainties in the trends, one has completed the scenario planning process. And if you have such a collection of environment you can design your company in such a way that it survey in all of these future worlds. You get a sustainable future image for your company or institution. After that, you can start to innovate in the right direction.

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