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