It’s been said that timing is everything….and the future is no exception. I recently came across a story “Future computer system could be your personal chef” that brought me back more than twenty years. The story opens with “IBM is developing a computer system that could theoretically customize healthy recipes based on your personal taste buds.” I did some work for an organization that explored the feasibility of essentially developing a computer simulation model of taste. A simple idea would be that new food concepts could be screened against the simulation model to see which passed an initial test. As the model grew more accurate, it could become more deeply involved not only in testing but in actual new food design. Basically, my colleague who was behind the idea foresaw what IBM is now developing more than twenty years ago. I felt bad watching him try in vain to convince others that this was do-able and would one day be standard practice.
It would be an interesting case study (beyond the scope of a blog post) to figure out why this particular case hasn’t happened sooner. Actually, I could imagine a dissertation that studied the fate of ideas before their time. [In fact, my former professor and current Houston Futures Advisory Board member Oliver Markley study likes to joke that foresight is the study of ideas whose time has not yet come.] In many cases, we futurists propose ideas that seem “ready” to us, but then they don’t make it for various reasons. The context or conditions were not yet ripe. But they may eventually become ripe. I think it’s useful for futurists, especially organizational futurists working for a single organization, to periodically revisit their “failed” ideas and re-evaluate them in light of changed circumstances. It is particularly useful practice to evaluate – or at least speculate – on why a particular idea didn’t pan out, so that in re-evaluating it later, one knows where to start looking in terms of what needed to change. History may be full of ideas just waiting for their second chance. Andy Hines
