Selling Tomorrows

Selling Low Probability, High Impact Events

Tom Friedman has an excellent column today comparing the application of Dick Cheney's "One Percent" Doctrine on terrorism to climate change.  As Friedman explains, the question is what to do about potential events that are unlikely to happen, but if they do the fallout would be catastrophic.

With that in mind, he counters about the downside if we're wrong on climate change:

"If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull's-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent."

This is an interesting avenue of tomorrow-ism to explore. Anyone have other examples of low probability, high impact events that have been successfully sold to the public?  (Meritorious or not?)

Why We Came Together for Y2K But Fall Apart on Climate Change

Farhad Majoo has concluded his two-part look at the Y2K anniversary on Slate, and given its study of how one vision of the future was widely believed and stopped, and another is mostly believed and MIGHT be stopped, it's worth careful study. Snip:

"Davison says the most important difference between Y2K and global warming is the cultural attitude surrounding each case. Y2K never became a moral issue. "It was always framed as a simple design error," Davison says—nobody fingered it as the consequence of our reliance on digital technology or argued that the way to get out of this mess was to get rid of computers. The debate over climate change, meanwhile, has always been as much a social and political argument as a scientific one. "Climate change brings into view questions about modern society in general," the Australian scientist says. It's not just a question of what fuel we should use to power the planet—there are questions about where we should live, what we should eat, how we should travel. "It's become a general debate over modernity itself," Davison says."

New Book: "Future: A Recent History" Will Change the Way You Think About Tomorrow Today

I’ve just finished reading Lawrence Samuel’s new book, “Future: A Recent History.” Suffice it to say, I’ve underlined a fifth of its passages, written in the margins of almost every page and scribbled dozens of check marks for the "wow" insights I want to remember later.  It’s that good.

 

The book explores 100 years of history in 200 dense pages, taking readers on a tour of how people's expectations of the future have changed over time.  An ambitious number of topics are covered -- politics, religion, class, gender, pop culture, fashion, the home, business, jobs, travel, architecture, and lots of science and technology.  But the payoff is equally large, as Samuel’s brisk writing style delivers a fascinating look into an aspect of our culture that we are barely conscious exists.

 

Marketers and PR professionals will find Future to be an especially valuable tool for better understanding target audiences.  If you needed proof that your vision of tomorrow needs to adapt to people’s preconceptions of what’s ahead, this work offers plenty.  And while Samuel doesn't take on what people are thinking right now (many others do that) his voyage through history teaches you how to spot the patterns.

 

It’s worth noting that a lot of books make fun of futurists who have gotten things wrong.  Rightly so.  Many of them are hysterical and it's part of what makes this topic fun.  Not Samuel.  He found a chillingly large number of predictions that have come true.  Sure, sometimes the predictor got the technology right and its impact on society wrong, or vice versa.  But there are patterns to the errors, and understanding them will help you be a better marketer, historian or futurist when it comes to dissecting and using predictions.

 

If all that’s not enough, the exhaustive research that went into this work offers a treasure trove of books, articles and pop culture moments to be further explored by anyone interested in futurism. 

 

A worthy successor to I.F. Clarke's "The Pattern of Expectation," "Future: A Recent  History" will change the way you see tomorrow today.

People from the Future Say we're Living in the "Age of Stupid"

The Bronze Age.  The Space Age.  And now the "Age of Stupid?"  That's what director Franny Armstrong is trying to get across in her new film, "The Age of Stupid."  Snip:

"Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"

One of the most effective ways to get people to believe a vision of the future is to explain it from the perspective of hindsight, precisely as this movie does.  It taps into our "if only I had made X decision instead of Y" experiences and fears.  Typically companies, organizations and other thought leaders try to paint a picture of the future by pointing out conditions that exist today and identifying conditions that are likely to develop, the combination of which would result in a tomorrow that's good or bad.   But mentally, as Nicolas Kristof explains, that just provides too much wiggle room for people who are looking for reasons not to act.  The evolutionarily programmed fear buttons just don't get pressed. Watch this trailer, reflect,and offer your thoughts below.  

Documentary on Jacque Fresco, Futurist Fighting Scarcity Through Design

A peer to Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco has spent much of his 90+ years focusing on solving the issue of humanity's perception of scarcity; something he blames for the search for wealth, power and manipulation of people.  His designs, captured beautifully in the film Future by Design, seek to meet people's needs in ways so that they won't feel like they're missing anything. 

Fresco:  "When you try to think about the future, remember this.  The process with which you think about things is based upon indoctrination, which are given by a society.  So your range of thought is limited by the dominant values of your society."

Here's a press kit for the multi-award nominated documentary which explains parts of his philosophy.

WSJ removes creative barriers to imagine green homes of the future

A great piece and noteworthy effort by the Journal to explore the home of tomorrow from a green perspective. Instead of foisting a lot of weird constraints on four architects, each of whome was tasked with drawing up their perfect eco-friendly houses, they simply removed the most stifling barriers, "cost, technology, aesthetics or the way we are used to living." 

Framing Science: Belief that climate change is hyped at all-time high

Matthew Nisbet, one of my favorite thinkers on the intersection of PR and science, caught a recent Gallup survey that finds four in 10 Americans believe that the media's reporting on climate change is exaggerated. Here's a snip from his blog, Framing Science:

"A Gallup survey report released yesterday finds that a record 41% of Americans--and 66% of Republicans--now say that news reports of climate change are exaggerated. I first spotted this troubling trend in a 2007 paper analyzing twenty years of public opinion about climate change. This latest survey reinforces my fear that climate advocates have fallen into a dangerous communication trap.

At the root of this growing perception is something I blogged about earlier this week: As long as science is communicated as the principal reason compelling policy action--and this "compelling" science dramatized by a focus on severe environmental impacts such as hurricanes--the message will either fall on passive ears and/or be easily countered as "global warming alarmism."

Back in March, Matthew also picked up a disturbing Pew study stat that says the average mix of five hours of cable news contains just one minute devoted to science and technology.