Career options for futurists

This page Career options for futurists provides advice for people wondering about becoming a futurist in the next stage of their career.

Someone called a "futurist" is often doing the same work in an organisation as someone with the job title "researcher," "strategist" or "innovator. "

Activities

In practice, a futurist will be doing one or more of the following:

• Creating and delivering thought-provoking keynotes or other presentations
• Writing reports, white papers, webpages, magazine articles, or book chapters
• Helping organisations to create and review scenarios
• Helping organisations to identify and track trends
• Contributing to workshops in which organisations work out their future strategy
• Teaching organisations about tools and techniques which they can subsequently apply by themselves.

Skills

Three potential skill areas for futurists are:

1. Determining which future scenarios are credible - this requires skills in forecasting
2. Determining which future scenarios are desirable - this requires skills in philosophy
3. Determining how to increase the likelihood of desirable scenarios—this requires skills in agility, activism, politics, and entreprenuerialism

See also

• Association of Professional Futurists
• Futurism
• Foresight Graduate Programs - Global List from the Accelerating Studies Foundation
  • Global Foresight Wiki