Genius Forecasting, Intuition, and Vision

The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology—V3.0

GENIUS FORECASTING, INTUITION, AND VISION

by

Jerome C. Glenn

I. History of the Method II. What are Genius Forecasting, Intuition, and Vision III. How to Do It

How to find those of insight How to stimulate your own insight

IV. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Method V. Use in Combination with other Methods VI. Frontiers of the Method Additional Readings Endnotes


Genius Forecasting ii

Acknowledgments

Special contributions have enhanced this paper, namely from Sirkka.Heinonen, Professor and

Director of the Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics, Finland; Eleonora

Masini, Professor Emeritus, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy; Clem Bezold,

President of the Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia; Theodore J. Gordon,

Senior Fellow, the Millennium Project; O.W. Markley, Professor of Future Studies, University of

Houston at Clearlake, Texas; and W.H. Clive Simmonds, futurist consultant, Ottawa, Canada. I

also wish to acknowledge helpful comments and insightful remarks provided by the peer

reviewers of the first draft report, in particular by Olaf Helmer, retired RAND Corp futurist;

James Dator, Professor, University of Hawaii; Eleonora Masini, Professor Emeritus, Pontifical

Gregorian University, Rome, Italy; Larry Hills, United States Agency for International

Development, Washington, D.C.; and William Wolf, Professor and Management Consultant.

And finally, special thanks to Elizabeth Florescu and Neda Zawahri for project support, Barry

Bluestein for research and computer operations, Sheila Harty for editing, and John Young for

proofreading. Thanks to all for your contributions.


Genius Forecasting 1

The purpose of this chapter and its inclusion in a series on futures methodology is to remind the

reader that subjective approaches are very important, even though they may not be easily

explained or objectively applied. The paper does not argue whether those of great insight are

born or if anyone can be trained to become a genius forecaster. Instead, this chapter does explain

how such vision can be found, stimulated, and used in the policy process.

I. HISTORY OF THE METHOD

Leaders today and throughout history relied on advice from wise ones with great insight.

Alexander the Great sought council from Aristotle, Rameses from Moses, and George

Washington from Benjamin Franklin. The pronouncements of these trusted advisors about the

future would be called genius forecasting by today's futurists.

Probably the most famous lineage of genius forecasters was the Greek Oracle tradition in Delphi.

In reviewing this chapter, Sirkka.Heinonen wrote that this tradition lasted a thousand years. “The

Delphic oracle, called Pythia, was the most important oracle in the classical Greek world. The

prophetess was seated on a tripod seat over an opening in the earth, falling into a trance after

inhaling intoxicating fumes. This state enabled her prophecies which were expressed as riddles.

People consulted the oracle on everything from important matters of public policy to personal

affairs. The priests of the temple acted as interpreters…There were also several prophetic figures

called Sibyls in the Greco-Roman world, distinct from the Delphic oracle. The most famous

Sibyl was located at Cumae, south of ancient Rome. The ancient classical tradition of divination

included more than one hundred different techniques. Intuitive forecasting was based on the

notion that the prophecy directly transcends the human consciousness. Inductive forecasting, on

the other hand, was based on the indirect preknowledge of the future that the foreteller gets by

concluding or combining external signs and events, such as observing the flying of birds or the

entrails of sacrificed animals.

Genius forecasting, intuition and visioning are all connected with somehow foreseeing and

visualizing futures. The word intuition derives from Latin “in + tuere” which literally means

“looking into oneself” for getting insight. Intuition is thus like inner vision. These methods

recognize the importance of imagination. Imagination means here the ability to create future

images as a mental model. Albert Einstein already emphasized the meaning of imagination by

declaring that “imagination is more important than knowledge”.

The term genius forecasting was coined by Ralph Lenz.1 As a subjective approach to creating

and/or finding insight about the future, however, the term is most closely associated with

Herman Kahn,2 who was considered a genius futurist. His pronouncements about the future

often showed great insight. The term has been less used among futurists since the death of Kahn

in 1983.

The terms intuition or gut feeling are sometimes used when it would be far too complex to

explain how one came to some insight about future possibilities. Intuition may well have evolved

from a combination of rational processes, assumptions, methods, sources, mental models, and



heuristics. Just how all these might have come together in the genius‟s mind would be

impossible to explain. Nevertheless, two basic assumptions lie behind acceptance of such

intuitive approaches: 1) one whose brain processes knowledge from many sources and categories

more rapidly and more often than others is more likely to guess correctly about the future than

others who do not; and 2) some guess correctly more often than others, therefore, they are a

source of reliable judgment even without knowing why this is so. The chapter on Prediction

Markets in this series illustrates practical methods to apply this assumption.

The term vision tends to be used in descriptions of some future condition rather than a whole

scenario of a desired future. One could have a vision of some catastrophe for which people need

to prepare, such as a vision of years of famine leading to plans to build grain storage, etc.

Visions come from a range of sources, such as dreams or physical stress, and can be induced by

ceremony.

The history of intuition and vision has been recorded by humans sharing perceptions through

cave paintings, rituals, and stories forming the foundations of culture. A good overview of its

history is far beyond the scope of this writing. Yet the value of intuition as a source of

knowledge is one on which philosophers have agreed throughout history.3

All of us have an imagination; but futurists use intuition and vision in their work. Only recently

has freely talking about it become more acceptable for futurists. Why? Because in the 1950s

and 1960s, futures research was still viewed as too "far out" and lacking "empirical data."

Futurists did not want to be confused with fortune tellers and crystal ball gazers. Since there

were no standards or certification processes, and few graduate degree programs existed, anyone

could call themselves a futurist. This dearth opened the door for charlatans and frauds and

invited suspicion about legitimate futurists. Therefore, some of the early futurists preferred the

term “genius forecasting,” since it sounded a bit more impressive, while vision or intuition

sounded less respectable.

Hence, futurists downplayed vision as part of their work. Normative and visionary futurists, like

Barbara Hubbard using the SYNCON process in the 1970s (see "Participatory Methods" chapter

in this series) to stimulate common vision among diverse peoples, were never quite accepted like

Bertrand de Jouvenel in France or Herman Kahn in the United States, who were more rooted in

empirical sciences and statistics. As futures research became more accepted as part of the policy

world, the phrase genius forecasting was less necessary to use and Herman Kahn had died. The

next generation of futurists could more easily talk about "vision" and more intuitive approaches.

Now, not only is talking about future vision, worldviews, and futures prospective more popular,

decisionmakers are asking for it more often.



II. WHAT IS GENIUS FORECASTING, INTUITION, AND VISION?

Genius forecasting is an unspecified set of processes used by geniuses to arrive at statements

about the future. The processes need not be the same for any two geniuses.

Not all statements about the future by geniuses are genius forecasts, only those pronouncements

in their areas of expertise for which they have proven insight. Genius forecasts can also come

from people whose IQ is less than genius, but who have proven to have great insight in some

specialty. As Theodore J. Gordon argues:

"Somehow an individual, seasoned by experience and history, integrates all that is obvious and

implicit - through internal processes that are not necessarily obvious - and argues for a particular

future or set of developments. How do they do it? Not by decision trees like computers, but by

some other internal genius processes."4

One of the key qualities of futurists is their ability to imagine the future as being different from

the past. Those without such imagination can only extrapolate trends, something less than useful

in providing the necessary vision for long-term planning. Herman Kahn taught that the biggest

surprise would be that the "surprise-free scenario" from extrapolation would actually occur.

How then do we move the mind beyond extrapolation to analysis, synthesis, and speculation

about alternative futures? One way is by including subjective processes, such as genius

forecasting, intuition, prospective, and insight, into the mix of methods used in long-range

forecasting and strategic planning.

Probably the best source of diverse genius forecasting is science fiction literature.5 Science fiction,

however, unlike futures research, does not need to connect its statements to the realities of the

present; hence, science fiction is a freer medium in which to express speculation and intuition.

Intuition by graphic artists and poets can also provide insights peripheral to the mainstream or

surprise free thinkers about the future. Such peripheral vision can help identify emerging issues.

Sirkka.Heinonen, in reviewing this chapter, added that, “Day & Schoemaker (2006) use the

metaphor of the human eye for illustrating the importance of peripheral vision. In a typical

organization, the majority of resources are focused on its central task. In other words, in the

„organizational eye‟ most organizational resources are devoted to focal vision (cone cells), while

only a minority of resources are given to the periphery (rod cells). In human vision, the majority of

retinal cells are devoted to peripheral vision.”

Michel Godet 6 writes that, "Intuition is the lightning flash which springs from the right brain

through the synthesis of information and analysis stored in the left brain..."7 These activities of

the mind are pre-rational rather than irrational activities of the mind in that the insight, Platonic

Flash, futuristic vision, etc., are not rationalized at the moment of cognition, even though they

evolved from much rational thought and memory of experience. 8 Intuition can be thought of

then as the bridge between the known and the unknown.

Intuition may be the only useful source of information to forecast behavior of a chaotic system.

Dave Greenspan, contributor to a chaos portion of the "Methods Integration and Frontiers"



chapter in this series, speculates that the brain may have developed this ability as an evolutionary

response to chaos. Forecasting the future course of a chaotic time series by conventional means

is futile, since small differences in initial conditions lead to vastly different outcomes. Yet, in

human existence, forecasting has always been necessary (for example, to avoid danger); so

possibly evolution of the brain permits the mind to jump to intuitive solutions for forecasting the

behavior of chaotic systems. Greenspan suggests that the mind can "see" the hidden order (the

strange attractor) of a chaotic system that eludes arithmetic. Hence, if chaos theory becomes

more dominant in world affairs, we may have to take intuition more seriously.

The term "vision" has a broad range of meanings. A popular way to talk about vision is as an

ability to see what the vast majority do not. It is also the ability to think in images rather than

just ideas. A vision can be a mental image of some future danger seen during a dream or a

ceremony to invoke such experience. It can be a view of some desirable future, like a religious

or political utopia. It can be the result of people working together to create a new condition for

themselves. It can be static, like the goal of landing on the moon, or dynamic, like exploring the

unknown.

"Visions of the future are the stimulus to change the present," writes Eleonora Masini.9 One can

have a vision of what the future might be like, but one can also develop a vision of a desirable

future. Clem Bezold 10

gives a futurist definition of this normative approach to vision: "A vision

is a compelling statement of the preferred future that an organization or community wants to

create. Visions move and inspire us by stating why we are working together, what higher

contribution flows from our efforts, and what we are striving to become. Vision development is

the most powerful way to clarify where you would like change to go." 11

The French term le prospective was initiated by Gaston Berger,12

a philosopher in the 1950s and

1960s , and recognized and used by another French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel who wrote

the classic Art of Conjecture. It can be thought of as an anticipatory consciousness. It was

popularized by Michel Godet beyond the francophone world, who writes: "Prospective is

neither forecasting nor futurology, but a mode of thinking for action and against fatalism.

Prospective recognizes that the future is the ‟raison d'être of the present,‟ that is multiple and

uncertain, and that it is a way for everyone to take control of their own futures...Thus, the first

aim of prospective thought is to illuminate the choices of the present by the light of possible

futures." 13

One of the founders of futures studies in the Netherlands was Fred Polak whose book The Image

of the Future stressed the importance of images of the future and states that, “[We are] citizens

of two worlds: the present and the imagined. Out of this antithesis the future is born.”14

Insight, as defined by Clive Simmonds,15

is the ability to perceive the true nature of a thing,

especially through intuitive understanding (in this context, what and how something is

happening, who is making it happen and why). Insight is also the ability to look beyond, behind,

and through the actions of others to the new principles that they are consciously or

unconsciously disclosing.16

"Insight requires perceptiveness and leads on to the search for the

emergent, and therefore for ways to detect it - because you are now looking for something the

seeds for which are already being sown," Simmonds states. “With new insight, new future

possibilities become more likely.” An example of insight that changed the future was Toyota



Company's Just-in-time system for assembly line manufacturing (a continuous flow of parts for

its auto assembly lines).

One simple illustration of futures insight going beyond the given is the "nine-dot problem." The

problem is to connect three rows of three dots with four continuous straight lines. These four lines

can cross each other, but they cannot re-trace or back-over any part of the line. The dots look like

this:

After struggling to draw the lines WITHIN the mental box created by the nine dots, one might

get the insight that it is only possible to solve the problem by going "outside" the mental box:

Just as one gets insight into his or her own culture by leaving it to explore different cultures; so

too, the nine-dot problem is solved by going outside the perceived boundaries. Similarly,

speculation on alternative futures is thinking “outside the box” or beyond the given culture.



III. HOW TO DO IT

Such approaches to futures research are neither scientific nor objective; and this paper makes no

such pretense. Nevertheless, we can keep track of such statements about the future and those

who make them in order to discover patterns, identify assumptions, and evaluate statements and

mental processes that may produce them. Research is needed on the topic. One source could be

online prediction markets (see chapter by that name in this series) that keep track of who guesses

more accurately about the future.

If you believe that those of great vision are born, not made by an education or the mastery of

mental techniques, then the question of how to do genius forecasting becomes: how can you find

such people and their vision? If you believe subjective forecasting can be learned, then the

question of how to do it becomes: what are the methods identified in the literature and used by

futurists. We will look at both assumptions.

A variety of sources exist to find geniuses and their insight:

1. Visit prediction markets and see if it is possible to ascertain who guesses the most

accurately about what. Prediction market consulting companies are available on-line that

can create such markets for special assignments like finding the best genius forecasters.

The chapter on Prediction Markets in this series has more information.

2. Literature and Internet searches (including science fiction) can also be useful.17

The most

creative and subjective work tends not to get into print as quickly or easily as it does into

computer conferences, electronic journals, e-mail lists, blogs, and virtual worlds and

games. Hence, searching these sources for genius forecasters should also be considered.

3. Another approach is to ask the wisest ones you know whom they would recommend and

continue asking those recommended the same question in turn until a pattern of respected

recommendations and referrals occurs. A similar approach can start with

recommendations from professional organizations relevant to the area of interest and

review of the short résumés in their directories.

4. Observation at conferences and other gatherings of creative people is not only useful to

identify the genius forecasters but also to see how others react to them. Many who have

made important forecasts were ignored.

5. Contests could offer a prize to the forecast with the greatest insight and usefulness. The

Mitchell Prize from the Club of Rome stimulated and attracted visions from many

futurists and scholars over the years. A contest could be held for the most important

future vision and forecast for the year 2025 that could be acted on today by the current

leadership.

6. Follow current events to learn whose advice and forecasts showed more insight over

time.



7. Public Delphis (explained in the "Participatory Methods" chapter in this series) could

invite the general public to send in their view of the future. These submissions could be

condensed in a newspaper column, inviting further comments from the readers as a

second round of the public Delphi questionnaire. Such a newspaper column could be a

repeating questionnaire, collecting and feeding back subjective forecasting from the

public and the public's reactions to such future vision.

For those who believe that intuition and vision can be developed, many techniques exist that can

be learned.

READING and SCANNING DIVERSE SOURCES

Reading extensively and eclectically is the most basic way to develop subjective forecasting.

One should set aside time for reading new material. Michael Marien18

believes that reading

itself should be considered a futures method and laments that futurists are too busy to spend

enough time reading new works.

When an apple allegedly hit the well-educated head of Isaac Newton, the theory of gravity came

together in a flash or synthesis of many knowledge elements. Wallas in the Art of Thought

defined four steps for creativity: preparation, incubation, inspiration, and verification. Newton

had taken the first step by reading and studying the physics to-date; the next step of incubation or

meditating was accomplished while sitting under the tree; then inspiration - the flash of insight

on gravity as the apple hits his head; and last, the verification of analysis to see if the theory fits

the facts. The first step of preparation is the one over which we have the most control. Futurists'

preparation is environmental scanning: monitoring the key sources that document change. 19

GUESSING

Just as one builds the body by physical exercises, so too one builds the mental ability to

anticipate by imagining the future and guessing. A simple way to do this is to keep track of one's

guesses, review periodically, determine why guesses are right some times, and why some are

not. When guesses are wrong – ask what was wrong in the assumptions or mental model of how

the world works, that led to the wrong guess? When guesses are right - what was right with the

assumptions or mental models that led to the right guess. And then modify the assumptions and

the mental models of the world. Self-correcting false assumptions should improve guessing.

One could list several items in the news each day and list what one thinks will happen next week

as a result. Each week, one will know how the guesses turned out. This approach creates

feedback that can be used to improve mental models. Cognitive science is finding that

intelligence is increased by responding to feedback. The hard part is actually changing mental

models based on feedback. We tend to rationalize why we guessed wrong, rather than change

our minds so that we are more likely to guess right next time.



OPPOSITE ACTING and THINKING

Clive Simmonds suggests one way of developing insight is doing the opposite of what has been

done before. What once worked will not necessarily always work. Contrarians in the stock

market buy when most sell and sell while most buy. Imaging the exact opposite of what you are

doing right now can give insight into what might be possible tomorrow. For example, teachers

today might learn on behalf of others in the future. Farmers worked at home; then workers took

to the factory; today, information specialists can work again in their homes. Managers were

responsible for product quality; increasingly workers are becoming responsible for product

quality. Night follows day follows night.

SIMULATION and GAMES

Olaf Helmer, one of the original futurists at the Rand Corporation, believes a good way to

stimulate genius forecasting is by having geniuses participate in games that simulate the subject

of the forecast. War gaming was used in this way to stimulate insight into war prevention. (See

chapter on "Simulation and Games" in this series.)

MEDITATION

Meditation is probably the most ancient and universal method to develop insight, intuition, and

vision. Although many forms are practiced in many cultures, the general form is the mental act

of focusing attention.

Recently, some futurists have begun using some forms of guided meditation to help others

imagine different possible futures in a variety of situations. Imagine yourself waking up in the

year 2025 one morning in route to the great Sahelian centers of closed environmental agricultural

production with the newest nanotechnology robot farmers. What do you see as you get ready for

the day's work... Such guided meditation engages mental imagery and intuition that could lead to

insight about how Africa could reach food security.

Another approach to guided meditation begins with values. One focuses on what is the central

value of the organization, then imagines how that value is manifested some year in the future.

Once some images come to mind, one is encouraged to let the mind wander in this vision and

then begin to imagine the events prior to the manifestation of these values as a story back to the

present.

Visioning or guided meditation can also be used to assess the impact of long-range strategies and

policy options. The following general and introductory procedure is drawn from Using Depth

Intuition in Creative Problem-Solving and Strategic Innovation with permission from its author

O.W. Markley. 20

1. Choose several long-range strategies or policy options to achieve some goal. For

example, the goal might be energy security and the options might be: a) World Bank



loans for hydroelectric plants; b) create African Energy Research Institute; c) join a

global coalition for construction of orbital solar satellites; etc.

2. Pick one strategy for initial exploration.

3. Individuals in the team doing this visioning exercise should sit in comfortable chairs.

They should close their eyes and relax (physically, emotionally, and mentally) and

be told in a gentle manner to avoid rational or verbal thinking. Next they should

imagine that the strategy was actually occurring, as if their minds were movie

projectors. Each person should just relax and watch this mental movie. Enough time

should be given that they can explore what future follows the implementation of the

strategy...out to some specific year, like 2025.

4. Each should let his or her mind freely express and feel the mental images as they

occur without evaluating them.

5. After this mental movie or images have progressed to the desired time (year 2025,

etc.), let the participants record their impressions and questions that seem most

relevant.

6. Now do steps 3-5 for each strategy or policy option selected in step 1.

All members should be encouraged to share their experiences and questions that arise from the

exercise and to use what they have learned to inform whatever decision process may ensue.

This visioning exercise is quite simple. Many variations can and should be created to match the

unique circumstances and personalities of different futurist teams. However, the central idea is

to let the mind freely imagine the future in some structured fashion to identify what the more

analytic process of futures research might not have evoked. One weakness with the above

sequence is that the choice of policy options itself requires intuition. Without insight at the

beginning, the policies will be of little value; with insight, valuable policies will stand out like

diamonds.

PERCEPTUAL EXERCISE, DREAMS, FEELYSIS, and THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

Thought experiments were used by Albert Einstein. He imagined being a photon traveling at the

speed of light through the universe. Suddenly he noticed that his trajectory was bending or

curving relative to mass. This insight contributed to his understanding of the relationship of

matter to energy. Edward de Bono documents perceptual exercise and how to break out of

traditional-only thinking.21

He believed that the mind was a pattern-preferring mechanism that

would reject new input unless stimulated to do so.

Considering how influential our unconscious processes are, how little we know about them is

amazing. One such process is dreaming, which is less understood than building muscles by

lifting weights. Sigmund Freud thought that dreams were messages from the unconscious to the

conscious mind. C.G. Jung called dreams "the spokesmen of the unconscious". Dream analysts

advise us to keep pen and paper near our bed, so that we can write down our dreams upon

waking up. Reviewing such dream journals helps us become more aware of our unconscious



mental processes, find patterns, and catch our visions. John Peterson has created an on-line entry

form for people to upload their dreams and intuitions at

http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/tai/whether-map

As analysis is reason about reason that breaks things into their elements, so too feelysis is feeling

about feeling that combines things into intuition. 22

Just as many forms of analysis exist, so do

many forms of feelysis. Meditation is the most universal and generic approach to focusing

attention on one's feelings as one feeling evolves into the next. Another approach to feelysis is to

note how you feel about some possible future event or strategy; then focus your attention on how

you feel about that feeling, until a conclusion is reached. Conscious ideas do not account for the

sum total of experience. Unconsciousness can be brought into play to refocus to our

consciousness on those experiences we have temporarily forgotten. Feelysis can allow feelings

or the sequence of feelings to broaden our vision and stimulate our intuition.

EXTRADIMENSIONALITY

Many cultures have ceremonies specifically designed to induce vision in the participants.

Ritualized processes can stimulate vision from induced pain, privation, psychoactive plants,

chanting, and dance. These processes give an extradimensional point of view by altering normal

brain function and can help guide the future planning of the community.23

One can also get a physical extradimensional point of view to gain new insight. The lookout

knows before others what will happen because of the extradimensional vantage of height. The

Dutch used the telescope from a tower to see what ship was coming into port and what it was

carrying; they would know, in advance of anyone else in the seaport, what to buy and sell before

the ship entered the port. Early warning satellites in the earth's orbit and the crow‟s-nest on

ships are other examples of extradimensionality to alter normal perception and gain insight.

INTERNSHIPS

The traditional approach to learning is internships. One can stimulate abilities in oneself by

working with geniuses of great vision and intuition. Organizations that are developing long-term

prospective studies might well encourage their members to work with visionary leaders for a

specific period to stimulate their intuitive abilities. Today, such internships need not be physical;

they can be done through various forms of communications media as well. Interns can also

provide fresh insight and stimulate those of great vision to think anew. Such interaction can

stimulate both sides of the internship.

OTHER FUTURIST METHODS

Forecasting methods package vast amounts of information to stimulate new thinking and insight.

The chapters in this CD series can be viewed as systematic approaches to stimulate intuition.

For example, Morphological Analysis divides a subject into its component parts and then lists

alternative ways they can be combined. New combinations stimulate intuition. Cross-Impact



Analysis forces one to ask how one possible future event might influence another. Such

systematic questioning also stimulates intuition. The Futures Wheel challenges one to think

through the primary, secondary, and tertiary impacts of events and trends. This methodology

stimulates insight into the dynamics of change. Other methods in the series can also stimulate

new thought.

Some generalizations apply to stimulating intuition, such as: 1) seek freshness of data,

information, intelligence, and wisdom; 2) be open to consideration of the unusual, unknown, and

those ideas that are not-yet-accepted; 3) surround yourself with visual stimuli; and 4) let your

mind wander and feel free to draw playfully on paper as you daydream.

Sirkka Heinonen suggests a Socratic-like questioning about future issues to force new thinking

about the future.

The following summarizes ways to find and stimulate subjective forecasting:

How to Find Those with Insight

Prediction Markets

Search literature and Internet

Referrals from wise ones

Recommendations from institutions, organizations, and directories

Observations at conferences and other gatherings of creative people

Hold contests for genius forecasting and vision

Follow current events

Access public Delphis through newspapers, radio, and/or television.

How to Stimulate Your Own Insight

Reading diverse material

Feedback on guessing journal

Doing opposite of the usual

Participating in simulations and games

Solitary and guided meditation and visioning exercises

Perceptual exercises, dreams, feelysis, and thought experiments

Extradimensionality (mental and physical alterations from norm)

Interning with those of great insight and vision

Futurist methods.



IV. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE METHOD

Genius forecasts, intuition, and vision should be considered as INPUT to forecasting and

strategic planning, not necessarily the conclusion - or at least not the conclusion until cross-

referenced by other means. We want a broad array of subjective input, but such input should be

cross-referenced by more objective or analytic work.

If we expect too much of subjective methods and promote them as final product, then persons

who are less intuitive may disagree with the use of these methods - for the very good reason that

vision untested by other means is not tenable. For example, in the early 1960s the Pan African

vision that de-colonialization would lead to prosperity failed to take into account an analysis of

human resources necessary to manage natural, technological, and other human resources. Today,

population growth, economic and political problems, etc., could well lead to a re-colonialization

in several areas of Africa. If the post-colonial vision had been tempered by analysis of the

current status of resource management, a more useful future vision might have prevailed, guiding

better policy.

Bringing together Nobel Prize winners (geniuses by most standards) to forecast the future might

seem useful; however, the results of such an attempt were depressing. 24

Just because one is a

genius in chemistry does not mean that genius' judgments in social sciences are any good. If you

wanted to forecast the future of chemistry, then Nobel Prize winners in chemistry would make

sense.

One key value of genius forecasting is that it cuts time and costs. It is much easier and less

costly to collect genius forecasts than it is to build a computer model. The problem is how do

you find a reliable genius? That those of previously useful insights will have good insights again

is only an assumption. What about the young computer geniuses, not yet acknowledged, but

whose subjective forecasting is superior to the current cast of experts? How do we find them?

Online games? Second Life? Prediction markets?

And how can you know a genius forecast is good or not before the forecasted time? Someone

just being right before does not mean they will be right again. How do you know when to trust

your intuition? What if two genius forecasters contradict? How do you know whose judgment

to follow?



V. USE IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER METHODS

One could use the methods recommended to find genius forecasters and then invite them to use

the other set of methods recommended to simulate insight. For example, one could select genius

forecasters from prediction markets, by a literature search or referrals from the wisest, select

some others from your observations at conferences, and winners from a contest on future vision,

as well as those self-selected in a public Delphi. These geniuses could be invited to participate in

a visioning exercise that included simulations of the future, thought experiments, and games.

Such a combination of methods would surely produce new insight into the dynamics of our times

and useful future perceptions for strategy.

As mentioned previously, all futurists use intuition and vision in their work; hence, one could

argue that vision is used in combination with all methodology. However, several methods draw

on subjective judgment more explicitly.

Delphi studies collect expert judgments, genius forecasts, and intuition of others. The

respondents can use any method to arrive at their answers - from computer models to mystic

vision. The Futures Wheel organizes subjective judgments to find patterns and speculation more

objectively and identify secondary and tertiary consequences that may not have been obvious at

first. Cross-Impact analysis can be thought of as arranging subjective judgments in an objective

and structured fashion. Scenario construction requires intuition and insight to make connections

among possible events that have not occurred. Genius forecasting, intuition, and vision are also

valuable for backcasting scenarios that require one to ”exist” in a future that is not likely to be a

linear extrapolation, and work back to the present.

VI. FRONTIERS OF THE METHOD

Can genius forecasting be automated by converting the knowledge access and thinking rules of

geniuses into an expert computer program? Such a study might be conducted in cooperation with

Prediction Markets and those who have scored the highest. Lessons learned from reviews of

expert software‟s success and failures should be applied to an attempt to automatic genius

forecasting. We all know that intuitive approaches to forecasting have value, but how to know

when to trust them is one of the frontiers for research. Are there patterns of genius forecasting or

of the genius forecaster?

Another approach could use some of the principles of collective intelligence. I define collective

intelligence as an emergent property from synergies among data/info/knowledge,

software/hardware, and experts that continually learns from feedback to produce just-in-time

knowledge for better decisions than these elements acting alone. So, genius forecasters using and

changing information systems that in turn improve the intelligence of the genius forecasters,

should further improve the information systems on a continuous basis. This is becoming known

as collective intelligence, which I would define as: “Collective intelligence is the emergent

property from the synergies among data/information/knowledge/intelligence, hardware/software,

and experts (and in some cases the wisdom of crowds).



Another possibility is to conduct a Delphi among international macro-historians to identify and

rate what are the key lessons from history and heuristics that should be applied to forecasting.

Geniuses know how to draw on such wisdom as they make their pronouncements. The general

public could benefit from an analysis of such wisdom. Such a knowledge base of lessons from

history could be put into an expert computer program. The program could be used to force users

to consider such wisdom in the process of forecasting and to stimulate their own insight,

intuition, and vision.

A list could be generated each year of emergent issues by futurists: for next year, next five years,

next 25 years. Those who guessed poorly on the next year's issues could be deleted from the list,

and new ones added by the methods recommended previously for finding those of great insight.

A combination of all these ideas might well expand the frontiers of genius forecasting, intuition,

and vision.



ADDITIONAL READINGS

Petersen, John L., A Vision for 2012. Planning for Extraordinary Change, Fulcrum Publishing,

Golden, Colorado 2008.

Day, George S. and Schoemaker, Paul J. H., Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That

Will Make or Break Your Company. Harvard Business School Press, Boston. 248 pp. 2006

Sidney J. Parnes (ed.). Source Book for Creative Problem-Solving: A Fifty Year Digest of

Innovation Processes. Creative Education Foundation Press. Buffalo, New York, 1992.

Father Bernard J.F. Lonergan. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Harper & Row, New

York. 1978.

Gerald H. Langeler. The Vision Trap, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1992, 46-55, 182.

Masini, Eleonora, Vision of Desirable Societies, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1983.

Zoa Rockenstein, guest editor of special issue On Intuition, Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol.

22, No.2, 1988.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. The Change Masters. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge: How to get extraordinary

things done in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991. 362 pp. Note

particularly Part Three, which includes chapters on envisioning the future and enlisting others in

building the vision.

Nanus, Bert. The Leader's Edge: The Seven Keys to Leadership in a Turbulent World.

Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. 224 pp. The codification and application of insights

from his earlier work, Leaders; clear and straightforward in style, brief, it summarizes the need

for future-oriented thinking and suggests seven "megaskills" for leadership; Chapter Five,

"Futures-Creative Leadership," and Chapter Eight, "The Leader's Edge," are particularly helpful.

The book's appendix offers a quick workshop technique for environmental scanning --

identifying emerging change issues critical to strategic planning -- that is quite useful.

Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. 244 pp.

An interesting and fairly quick read that basically summarizes the case studies gathered as part

of a project on leadership; it is organized as an elucidation of four leadership strategies. See

especially "Strategy I: Attention Through Vision."

Peters, Tom. Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution. New York: Harper

& Row, 1987. 708 pp. See also Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., In Search of Excellence;

and Peters and Nancy Austin, A Passion for Excellence. Overall, a fun read, because of his

breezy writing style and the many interesting cases he cites; written as a "how-to" manual, In



Chapter Five, "Learning to Love Change," he highlights the need for organizational flexibility,

adaptiveness, and the critical role vision plays. (His newest book, undoubtedly another gem, is

Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. New York:

A.A. Knopf, 1992.)

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New

York: Doubleday, 1990. Chapter Eleven, "Shared Vision" is possibly the best statement yet

written on the usefulness of vision for organizations; the rest of the book is equally good.

Doyle, Michael and David Straus. How to Make Meetings Work. New York: Jove Books, 1982.

A classic in the field of facilitation.

Jungk, Robert and Norbert Mullert. Future Workshops: How to Create Desirable Futures.

London: Institute for Social Inventions, 1987. The handbook for community future workshops,

written by the father of future workshops.

Limitless Imagination In An Expanding Universe, Howard B. Esbin

http://www.heliotrope.ca/downloads/Limitless.pdf



ENDNOTES

1. Ralph Lenz was a civilian long-range planner for the United States Air Force. Referrals from

Ted Gordon, Olaf Helmer, and Joe Coates led to Joe Martino who said it was coined by Ralph

Lenz in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Until a better option is found, we will credit Lenz.

2. Herman Kahn was the first to leave the RAND Corporation to create a more general "think

tank" (the Hudson Institute) and who developed scenarios as a method of futures research and

tool for policy and strategic analysis. Although he was probably the most controversial figure

among futurists around the world, most would have acknowledged him to have had the highest

IQ among them.

3. Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy, Washington Square Press. 1961.

4. Theodore J. Gordon. The American Annals of Social Science.

5. Dennis Livingston. The Utility of Science Fiction, Handbook of Futures Research (ed) Jib

Fowels. Greenwood Press. 1978 pp 163-178.

6. Michel Godet, Professor of Strategic Prospective at the Conservatoire National des Arts et

Métiers in Paris, France, has been concerned with standards and quality in prospective future

studies.

7. Michel Godet. From Anticipation to Action. UNESCO 1993. p 3.

8. Paul Levinson. Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age, Jai Press, Greenwich, CT

1988 pp 25-31.

9. Correspondence with Eleonora Masini (former President of the World Future Studies

Federation) for this booklet: "I wish to add to the different and important definitions you

indicate, those that were published in the book ‟Vision of Desirable Societies„ which was

published by Pergamon Press Oxford, 1983, based on the research conducted during the previous

years by UNU and supported by discussions in Mexico City with the participation of people like

John McHale, Roger Garaudy, Ian Miles, and Juan Somavia. I here add for your information of

extracts from my introductory paper (whose whole volume is of course at UNU) ‟Theoretical

Issues, Insights, and Understanding‟ at the Mexico meeting. Visions of the future are the

stimulus to change the present. Fred Polak says that from the antithesis of the present and the

imagined, the future is born and that from this dualism in temporal terms the movement of events

emerges.

"I will also say that the present and the future are linked by the vision. The vision lies in

a perception of the elements in the present, and hence, is in itself the possibility of change, of

building a future which is different from the present.

"Vision captures change in the present and makes it the future, diverse, other. Hence, I

believe that the future is born from the antitheses of the present and the vision, as discontinuous



transformation or else it is present into a continuous building of vision which are the future,

reflecting the changing present.

"Is it true that we are living at a time when visions are not really visions, a time when we

are living according to worn-out visions of the present or worse, of the past?

"There is another aspect to visions: I said previously that the present is perceived as a

moment, even if rich of the past, the vision is perceived as a long-term happening, it does not

have limits, and as Westerners, we [wish] to see result, the limit. Perhaps this is one of the

reasons for our present inability to create visions of the future.

"This brings us to another concept: visions are multiple, they are not exclusive, the

failure of visions to which we have referred has probably partly been caused by the fact that they

usually aim at being exclusive. The Christian vision of society, and the community vision, as

normally seen, are exclusive and therefore limited, being structure-based and structure-oriented,

and therefore not flexible but static.

"Visions are diverse, continuously changing and interrelating because they are part of the

process of human history. Visions in this sense aim to understand the processes from which the

emerging structures will be more dynamic, more flexible, more democratic. At the same time

they are not being born from structures but from processes. Visions born from structures are

themselves crystallized, fixed, exclusive visions which visions born of ever-changing reality are

dynamic and multiple and by generating energy tend towards flexible dynamic structures.

"Perhaps I am trying to indicate that the very strength of a vision lies in its diversity. The

flexibility of structures, the search for the seeds of change in the present, and the multiplicity of

visions are the tightly [linked] to a democratic and participatory society where the general public

should be involved in the processes of decision-making. In this sense the emergence of visions,

of desirable societies can help the emergence of a democratic participatory society."

10. Clem Bezold has focused on health futures and the development of visioning process in

strategic planning at the Institute for Alternative Futures in Alexandria VA, USA.

11. Alternative Futures. The Institute for Alternative Futures. Newsletter. Winter 1994.

12. Berger Gaston, Étapes de la prospective, PUF, 1967

13. Michel Godet. From Anticipation to Action. UNESCO 1993 p28.

14. The Image of the Future; Fred Polack, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company 1973

15. W.H. Clive Simmonds is an industry analyst and futurist for Futurescan International, 66

Lyttleton Gardens, Ottawa, Canada K1L 5A6.

16. Simmonds, W.W. Clive. Monograph Insight Analysis. p.2-3 September 1993.

17. Theodore J. Gordon and Jerome C. Glenn. Issues in Creating the Millennium Project:

Report on Phase I. the United Nations University. 1993 p 70.



18. Until 2009 Michael Marien edited Future Survey for the World Future Society, Bethesda,

Maryland, U.S.

19. Environmental Scanning is a process of reading key newspapers, magazines, journals that

document change in the relevant area. Key people who make these changes should also be

monitored. A good source on how to do this is Issues Management by Joseph Coates, et al.,

Lomond, and the World Future Society, Bethesda, MD, USA, 1986.

20. Oliver W. Markley. Using Depth Intuition in Creative Problem-Solving and Strategic

Innovation. Source Book for Creative-Problem Solving: A Fifty Year Digest of Proven

Innovation Processes. Edited by Sidney J. Parnes. Creative Education Foundation Press.

Buffalo, New York. (reprinted from Journal of Creative Behavior, 1988, 22(2).

21. Edward de Bono. Lateral Thinking for Management, American Management Association,

New York 1971.

22. Jerome Clayton Glenn. Future Mind: Artificial Intelligence: Merging the Mystical and the

Technological in the 21st Century. Acropolis Books 1989, pp 66-76.

23. Andrew Weil. The Natural Mind.

24. Howard F. Didsbury, Jr.. Beyond Mere Survival: A Report on a Poll of Nobel Laureates,

Futures Research Quarterly, Summer 1990.

Genius Forecasting, Intuition, and Vision

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