"While there can be surprise technological and market disruptions, classical Newtonian mechanical physics’ suggestions that trajectories are the flight paths determined by mass positioning, direction, and momentum as a function of time can help us make accurate predictions." ~ Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld & Steven Tian
As a writer, I appreciate gifts of inspiration. Reading the above quote set my mind off this morning. It is so true! As a futurist we are always studying trends, innovations and developments, and then searching for signals that will inform us about the "trajectories," each of them will follow. Using Newtonian mechanical physics as helpful metaphors to understand directions and how much inertia a trend has, how fast it is changing, and how much resistance it might face are all useful considerations.
I have had the pleasure over the last year to meet with the leadership teams of many large companies around the world to talk about the future. Bringing a list of over 350 fast evolving trends across the domains of science, technology, societal, geopolitical and economic is a good place to start, but these discussions almost always turn quickly toward Newtonian mechanical physics. How much? How fast? When? What direction? How much inertia? What kind of resistance? These are the right questions!
As I covered in an article earlier this week, we can create different buckets of trends, innovations and developments. Some, are incremental innovations, while others are "launchpad" developments that will support entire new ways of thinking and will change the direction of our future.
It's not enough to pocket a list of quickly evolving trends, developments and technologies. One must understand the physics involved, the dependencies for a development to move forward, understand which rung on the historic ladder of progress a development is sitting, and also understand it's potential for scaling. These, of course, are just the beginning, but they are a good place to start.
