Amy Webb uses five research questions to spot emerging opportunities: where people waste time, struggle with technology, seek information, get stuck, and want to be perceived. Futurists aren't prophets but analysts who use trends and data to forecast what comes next, helping entrepreneurs navigate post-COVID shifts.
and kind of just ask them where they think the opportunities might be in a post-COVID world.
Zach, welcome back. So Zach, this week I guess we've done, we've done a lot of stories in recent weeks where we've helped you as readers navigate these uncertain times. We've written about a couple dozen stories on people and companies and how they're pivoting. We did a webinar to sort of break down next-tier steps that people need to be thinking about and sort of second-order effects that our colleague Steph Smith did. And but one group we kind of haven't heard a lot from, and that I think these are people who every day are thinking about these kinds of issues, is futurists. And so this week we asked Zach and a bunch of our writers and analysts to reach out to a number of futurists and ask them a little bit about where they see things headed. Zach, what did you find?
Yeah, so I guess to start off, many of you might already know this, but futurists aren't prophets, at least the good ones. They don't claim to know the future. A futurist is basically just someone who studies kind of next-order outcomes. They use signals and trends and analyze technology trends to try to get a better grasp on what might be coming. And they use, you know, it's very interdisciplinary. They use mathematics, engineering, art, technology. They use forecasting models. So we talked to a bunch of these folks on our team and kind of just asked them where they think the opportunities might be in a post-COVID world. What the emerging industries might be, the short and long-term impact of this crisis on entrepreneurship. And we got a lot of really interesting varying answers. Some of the futurists we talked to were specialists in certain industries or sectors like education. Others were a little bit more general. And, you know, some of the recurring themes are that, you know, catastrophe is a catalyst for change generally, and it can, it can lead to some really good things.
So one, one of the futurists that I think really highly of is Amy Webb, and she shared a sort of construct for how she thinks about change and how she anticipates things. So what was it she shared with you that was interesting?
Yeah, so Amy Webb is a, what you'd call a quantitative futurist. She uses a lot of data to formulate her opinions on, on things. And what she does is she always starts with a set of 5 questions, and I'm going to share those here because I think it's an interesting preface to what we'll be talking about in our article. But she asks, where and how are people wasting their time? So that's one big question she'll always ask. She asks, where and how are people having difficulty with technology? That's an especially interesting one right now. You know, a lot of— we're seeing a lot of new technologies emerging. Video conferencing has been accelerated. Others have struggled. The third question she asks is, where and how are people looking for information? And then she'll ask, where and how are people stuck? And how do people want to be perceived? So those are kind of 5 big questions that guide a lot of her thinking about what's to come in the future.
Those sound like the kinds of questions you should ask yourself before you start a business. So I'm curious to see like what else we can learn from those, rather than just like, how do you think about the future? Or how do you think about what's coming? But like, how can you position yourself in front of that if you're someone who needs a new job or is thinking about a new business.
Sure, definitely. And she took us through a number of hypothetical examples, which we'll share more on in the piece, but she kind of took us through her framework of thinking about these things, particularly for entrepreneurs who are maybe looking to get their feet wet for the first time, or more importantly, looking to do something important right now. I think there is going to be a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs to do things that help other small business owners and entrepreneurs. And I think that that's an important thing that shouldn't be overlooked in this conversation.
That's great. Well, I will look forward to seeing more on this, and I'm sure you will too. So definitely check your email on Sunday. Thanks again for joining us, Zach.
See you, Brad.
