Futurist As Coach

This is an excerpt from an email discussion that I had earlier this week with a friend. I think coaching is a growing field where futurists will provide great benefit.

From the email:

I see several categories of futurist. This list is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive.

Industry Specific - I think these people typically just call themselves consultants.

Think Tank Researchers - They work for RAND or the Hudson Institute.

Acedemics - They are professors at universities and write papers that few read and occasionally get to say a blurb on NPR radio.

Journalists - They are the likes of Alvin Toffler, the author of 'The Third Wave'.

Coaches - I think this is a new development overall and especially among the futurist ranks. I think this is where the 'generalists' fall. Typically, they try to help the client articulate a goal, perform scanning and scenarios, then create a strategy to achieve the goal with contingencies for the scenarios.