Hey pals,Â
It’s been a while and lots has happened since I last wrote: I started a PhD, I had a baby (she’s called Evie <3), I joined Glasgow Uni as a researcher, I took up triathlon (lol), and I moved from London to Glasgow. I’m still writing and podcasting and speaking on all things science/tech/society, but I guess I’m now straddling academia and media and working out what my version of a freelance-researcher-writer looks like along the way.
I’m sure there are folk on this list thinking ‘sorry who is this?’ as you may have signed up to Brain Reel while I’ve been off on hiatus or have frankly forgotten who I am in the time since my last edition - no hard feelings if your interests have evolved since then!Â
But for everyone who fancies sticking around, I hope you enjoy my wee internet ramblings, and my notes on what I’m researching and thinking right now.
The Audacity of Futurists
As I mentioned, I’m now doing a PhD..! I started at UCL in September 2020 in the Science and Technology Studies department, completed about 10 months (and passed my upgrade!), took maternity leave/had baby/moved to Glasgow, and have now found an academic home at University of Edinburgh. I’m now officially in the Sociology department, which suits me pretty well given how my project has progressed, though I think I’m a cross between STS / Economic Sociology / Political Economy (if any of that really means anything / matters).
Anyone who has done a PhD will know that the description of your research changes week on week, but this is the current ‘blurb’ I’m using:
Power in prediction: the political economy of corporate futurism
Corporate futurism is the practice of exploring, analysing and making strategic decisions to build towards so-called 'preferred futures' within the corporate environment. My research looks at market of this futurism 'product', the power dynamics at play between the practitioners and the clients, the methodologies chosen by corporate futurists, the technosocial narratives at play, and the 'emancipatory promise' that is often made with respect to what futurism (and futurists) can do.
Arguably many different people in many different professions do some form of futurism. But I’m interested in those people who call themselves futurists; who therefore claim knowledge, status, intention and responsibility in the work that they sell. I’m focused on corporate futurism as I’m curious about the mechanics of exploring, designing, and investing in futures that are predicated on profit, and despite this, why and how futurism is still seen as emancipatory, socially beneficial and ‘good’ in these spaces. I’m interested in why someone would want to be a corporate futurist, instead of a management consultant, or an entrepreneur, or a researcher, or a performance artist, or the myriad other arguably quite similar professions – what makes this title different, more desirable, less ‘not that’…
I guess it all kind of builds to wanting to understand the very want – need, perhaps – that people have to ‘change the world’. How they choose to do that, what tensions that brings up given the conditions of society, why and how ‘change-makers’ are both raised up and torn down in culture – and why that want and need to change the world is a blessing and a curse.
At the moment, I’m hung up on the word ‘audacity’, and the phrase: The audacity of futurists. Where do they get the gall, the nerve, the chutzpah to claim knowledge about the unknown? As per Merriam Webster, where do they get their ‘intrepid boldness’ to make declarations about what comes next? Or, by another definition, why do they feel they can be ‘bold or arrogant [in their] disregard of normal restraints’ in being so-called disruptors, innovators, entrepreneurs, sages...?
Looking into the audacity of futurists, though, is unearthing stuff not just about them, but about me too – ‘audacity’ has negative connotations; clearly in using this language, I’m suspect of futurists. Is there a hint of jealousy in my questioning of their presumptuousness? Am I angry? Am I appalled? Am I awed?
Of course, there’s some obvious ‘answers’ to some of these questions, regarding privilege and entitlement of certain groups in society, certain cultural ideas that exist around progress and freedom and duty, and conceptions of expertise around the globe in different fields. But I feel there’s more to be said about changing the future.
We all know about the butterfly effect, and the time-travel sci-fi trope around not changing anything in the past for fear of royally messing things up. And yet, there exists in society the idea that good, intelligent, ambitious people in society should create the future; that the now and the next is very much up for grabs. Changing the future, building it, creating it from scratch is not presented with the same cautious warning that Doc gave Marty.
The idea of ‘one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia’ is old hat. The negative impact of innovation, progress, technological advancement is well-trodden ground. It’s not new to question the morality of building the future. And much has been said and written about the inability to predict what comes next. And yet, corporates pay a lot of money for futurism; many people feel wowed by futurists; and the narratives surrounding futurism align with broader societal ‘goods’ around ambition and selflessness and being at the cutting-edge.
Some would argue that futurism isn’t that different than activism, than writing manifestos, than working with workers on what they want from their work – these all aim to bring into existence a particular desired future into existence by exploring, analysing, strategically planning and collaborating.
Is the difference just the corporate links? Is the difference the self-identification as a futurist specifically? Is the difference the type of people who tend to get into the powerful, wealthy, influential rooms versus those who don’t? Are professionals that pronounce the moral justifications around their output and actions an ick..?
I don’t think I really question the audacity of activists, but I do sometimes wonder: ‘how dare futurists’ - my PhD is (partly) a quest to work out why.
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I’ve not really mentioned any of my questions about the market of corporate futurism, the ties to technological progress, the different flavours and methods used, the history of it all…there’s a lot to unpack.
Which I guess (hopefully) makes for a good PhD (and future newsletter editions…)
A few wee recommendations
I’m currently halfway through We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and whilst it certainly makes for pretty horrific reading (it’s about the 1994 Rwandan genocide) it’s a brilliantly-told account, written in a way that makes you keep reading.
I watched Brian and Charles the other day and it was absolutely cracking. Sod all those futuristic AI movies, this is the sentient robot tale that sticks.
I loved this piece on amateurism and playing the piano in the FT Weekend. So much so, that I read it, had a wee cry, then dug out my sheet music.
I look forward to Fridays so I can listen to the updated New Music Friday playlist from Popjustice.
I’m loving both the concept and the execution of the If Books Could Kill podcast - they take an airport bestseller and explain why it is terrible. Come for the Gladwell-dunking; stay for the lesson on how to critique something you know to be not-quite-right but can’t quite get to the heart of it.
Writing the next edition of my newsletter has been on my to do list since June 2020, so please do send your congratulations by reply, or share Brain Reel with your pals - whatever you like really?
See you next time - hopefully next week..!
Gemma
Great to hear what you're working on, Gemma. Looking forward to the next instalment!
Dear Gemma, very interesting read and curiously awaiting the next post to see how your research project, findings and insights evolve. Personally, I believe that the Corporate Futurism market is growing and evolving in direct response to the knowledge and information explosion as well as accelerating uncertainty. Having access to the best informed guess about the probable future creates a strategic advantage ( even if it is only weeks or days) and a sense of agency ( which is preferable in running a business to being constantly overtaken by surprise which could literally wipe you out.) I see it being no different than armies of old sending out scouts to gather intelligence about a terrain, a route or an opponent's resources and preparations in order to be the survivor. Maybe this survival instinct that Richard Dawkins describes at The Selfish Gene is what drives the entire practice of Futurism- corporate or not.
Perhaps there is an element of ego in some practitioners who want to be the oracles of truth or masters of destiny, but in my opinion, most of the investments made into trying to create preferable futures is driven by a need for control, order, predictability, surviving and hopefully thriving, despite a very, very messy chaotic world. And if you succeed in ending up closer to the preferable future than the random future, these actors - if operating at scale, can indeed make a dent in the universe because of globalization, interconnected economies, instant media. But as you say....it could be for better- or for worse. There are always unintended consequences in complex eco-systems that few of us mere mortals have the power to compute.