Josh Bernoff’s entire career as an analyst and author has been focused on the future. In this episode The Futurists discuss forecasting: What is the difference between strategic insight and tactical decisions? Why is it so difficult to predict the timing of forecasts? Why organizations have a bias towards the status quo, and why futurists have a bias towards change. Josh explains how summarizing “What It Means” can bring a liberating clarity to forecasts and strategic plans.

This week, frequent guest and friend of The Futurists, Ross Dawson, takes over the hosting chair to speak with Joanna Lepore about Foresight and Vision(s) of the Future. Ross, founder of AHT Group (Advanced Human Technologies Group) and the futures think tank Future Exploration Network, introduces us to Joanna Lepore. In 2024, Joanna founded and now co-leads Foresight Inside Group (FIG), an invite-only network for corporate futurists. Previously, she established and led Foresight at McDonald’s global HQ and Mars Wrigley, helping to push the strategies of some of the world’s best-known brands into the future. Motivated by the power of diverse perspectives, she also created and hosts Looking Outside, a podcast to share those perspectives. This episode is packed with powerful and practical insights into the future, offering inspiration on how to seize today’s opportunities and drive change in a transforming world.

Dan Schwarz is the CEO and co-founder of FutureSearch.ai, a startup venture that intends to become the leader in AI-powered forecasting. Dan points out that hybrid systems that combine human forecasting with machine intelligence have already surpassed human-only prognostication, but the AI-only approaches still fall short. FutureSearch has begun to benchmark several leading AI systems on their ability to provide accurate deep research. Dan tells TheFuturists about the weaknesses in human forecasting and the areas where he sees opportunity for AI to outperform. Topics include the anticipated trajectory of AI prediction, including the near term pitfalls and risks, and some surprising long term implications.

Donna Dupont is the Chief Strategist at Purple Compass. She is a deep expert in designing foresight and forecasting scenarios for defense, national security, policing, public safety and public health for government agencies clients in Europe and North America. In this episode, she provides practical advice, based on her experience, for how to contend with increasing volatility in society, geopolitics, the environment and economics.

Jerome Glenn is the CEO and co-founder of the Millennium Project, a global consortium of hundreds of experts in 70 nations, hailing from academia, government and private sector. Each year these experts collaborate on forecasting a consensus view of future trends. Jerome shares with The Futurists a summary of insights from this year’s 500-page report, The State of the Future. He describes a range of forecasting tools and techniques invented at the Rand Corporation in the 1970s and tells how they were used to generate the trends analyzed in the report. And he shares findings about General Artificial Intelligence, nuclear weapon proliferation, climate change and global temperature, and pandemics.

In this first episode of the Futurists we meet our hosts Brett King and Robert Tercek. We get right into why we created the podcast and why forecasting the future has never been more critical than it is today. As we launch this new podcast our intent is to seek out the world’s foremost thinkers, experts and visionaries building the future of tomorrow. Join us on this journey and we will see you in the Future!

In this episode, Australian author, speaker and futurist Ross Dawson joins Robert and Brett to talk the path to the future. From tackling the qualities that make a strong futurist, to the tactical application of forecasting at a organizational level. Dawson is Australia’s leading futurist, but a globally relevant voice.

Doug Shapiro, one of the leading analysts of trends in the media and entertainment industry, explains how Hollywood now faces a second phase of digital transformation. First, the Internet unbundled media distribution, and now AI is reshaping the creative process. No one will be spared: impact will be felt by major media companies, independents and the full range of professionals from screenwriters to directors, cast and crew. Shaprio provides a summary of the changes that occurred in the past 20 years and his bold forecast of the AI-defined future that will lead to infinite content. Topics covered in this episode: how the definition of quality is shifting; how value is migrating to new control points in the media supply chain; how YouTube and TikTok paved the way for GenAI; the demise of middlemen; the fragmentation of attention; the extreme power law of popularity; the rise of new gatekeepers.

In episode #4 of The Futurists, Regina Joseph talks us through the mechanics of the methodology known as Superforecasting. From her work with Pytho, Sibylink, the National Science Foundation, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and beyond, we learn how forecasting extends well into the future through human collective intelligence techniques and statistical analysis. What does it take to see the trends of the future emerging as the world seems chaotic, disruptive and unpredictable?

In Episode #12 of The Futurists, our guest is longtime global futurist and author Rohit Talwar, who offers his perspective on the human side of the forecasting and planning process. Rohit explains how he uses a combination of commonsense psychology, simple but profound questions, non-violent communication techniques, and data-informed storytelling to open executives up to the process of envisioning multiple possibilities. Learn more about Rohit at www.fastfuture.com. https://fastfuture.com/team/rohit-talwar/

In this week’s episode of The Futurists, Peter Hinssen joins the dynamic duo to talk the new normal of constant technology change and his new book The Phoenix and The Unicorn. A specialist in corporate forecast planning, Hinssen’s insights are compelling.

In this week’s show we interview the legendary British science fiction author Charlie Stross. From Accelerando through to the Laundry Files we talk through how politics and social dynamics of our day tend to inform science fiction and why science fiction authors should be thought of as hi-brow entertainers rather than particularly gifted seers of the future. And yet, we get into why sci-fi authors tend to be fairly good at forecasting too.