Forecasting the Future

Edward Bellamy
source: en.wikipedia.org

Forecasting is a method which allows individuals or organizations to make a prediction on the future state, status, or condition of the topic or subject of the analysis. A business could forecast public demand in a product, profitability of a department or the company, or the impact of geopolitical issues on supply chains. Business can utilize forecasting not only for potential success but also to determine if a current business will fail (Li, Sun, 2010). By collecting information about the factors, variables, interdependencies  and other variables related to the topic, the analysts will determine how each impacts the future state and will make a best guess as to which influences will prevail and ultimately make a forecast. Forecasting in an innovative capacity follows a similar process. New technologies, public behaviors, and other factors will help the analysts determine how the future will be shaped based on advancements.

One prediction that was almost one hundred years in the making was by Edward Bellamy. In his 1887 book “Looking Backward”, Bellamy was the first person to coin the term “credit card” (Watson, 2017). Although his use of the card differs form today, the concept of a card tied to an individual for the use of purchasing came into popular use in the 1980’s. Fantasy novels and specifically utopian or dystopian works tend to predict futures based on taking current trends to a logical conclusion or a projection of their own hopes or ideas onto a society at large. Bellamy was very interested in looking at how the lives of people would change in the future and considered the aspects of how they would live, work, leisure, and even eat (Watson, 2017). The turn of the century, 1800’s to 1900’s, was the impetus for many writers to consider how the turn of the next century would change the way people and societies were constructed. The ability to view the current societal issues and identify a potential solution to address them at a national scale and demonstrate that through writing about the lives of people in the year 2000 resulted in a very interesting story. Many of the aspects of Bellamy’s work did not pan out as predicted but the work was an inspiration to architects, urban planners, and others over the course of the next century (Watson, 2017).

 

References

Li, & Sun. (2010). Forecasting business failure in China using case-based reasoning with hybrid case respresentation. Journal of Forecasting, 29(5), 486–501. https://doi-org.coloradotech.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/for.1149

 

Watson, J. M. (2017). Topographies of the future: urban and suburban visions in Edward Bellamy’s utopian fiction. Planning Perspectives, 32(4), 639–649. https://doi-org.coloradotech.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02665433.2017.1350874