{"id":121,"date":"2011-03-09T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T16:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wensmedia.com\/\/salesarchive\/permalink\/2011\/3\/9\/114930.html"},"modified":"2011-03-09T16:49:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T16:49:30","slug":"beware-of-futurists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/uncategorized\/beware-of-futurists\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Futurists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 20pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">Beware of Futurists<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I love attending conventions which feature futurists as keynote speakers. They are always entertaining, thought-provoking and even exhilarating when you consider the possibilities they espouse. <\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But they&rsquo;re seldom right!<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the late seventies I attended a cable convention at which a futurist predicted grocery stores would disappear within ten years. He talked about the technology which already existed to shop virtually on your TV, strolling the aisles from the comfort of your living room, placing your order with the click of a button and having it delivered to your doorstep within the hour.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It was an exciting presentation to say the least. But alas, the last time I checked, people are still going to the grocery store 30 years after that prediction.&nbsp;<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I once attended a seminar where I purchased a tape of Faith Popcorn (what a great promotional name!)<span style=\"color: maroon\">,<\/span> making predictions about the future. It was exciting stuff, so I put that tape in a time capsule at my <span style=\"color: maroon\">home and listened to it<\/span>ten years later. <span style=\"color: black\">When I opened my capsule, I discovered that less than 5% of her predictions had become reality.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have since done the same thing with a number of futurists&hellip;..reviewed their material years after their predictions, and none of them ever beat Faith&rsquo;s record of 5% success.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But I still love to hear these fantasies, and I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to attend a futurist&rsquo;s presentation to do so. It&rsquo;s a great opportunity to take your focus off of the problems of the past and consider the possibilities of the future.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Just remember that market acceptance of technology does not keep pace with technology. The first FM radio license was granted in 1937<span style=\"color: black\">,<\/span> yet 35 years later, less than 25% of the cars on the road had an FM radio.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And it wasn&rsquo;t that long ago that people who claimed to predict the future were burned at the stake as witches.<\/font><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Technology is being accepted much more rapidly with each ensuing decade, but the futurists&rsquo; predictions seldom reflect reality. Knowing this, I still encourage you to consider their theories as a way of broadening your horizons and opening your mind to new ways of doing things. Just don&rsquo;t rely on their predictions as the foundation for your business plan.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beware of Futurists &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I love attending conventions which feature futurists as keynote speakers. They are always entertaining, thought-provoking and even exhilarating when you consider the possibilities they espouse. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But they&rsquo;re seldom right! &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the late seventies I attended a cable convention at which a futurist predicted grocery stores would disappear within [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}