By definition, in innovation we are dealing with the future. And we know that the future is always a foreign country – they will do things differently there.
The problem, of course is in prediction. And that problem is compounded by the degree of attention that we pay to our leaders at any given time.
Take Davos. The great and the good regularly assemble there in order to pontificate. In 1997 the world’s political and economic elect designated Southeast Asia as the most dynamic region. This was shortly ahead of meltdown, the Asian financial crisis, when Thailand, hardest hit, effectively became bankrupt.
Then in 2008 Davos totally failed to predict the forthcoming global banking crisis, initiated by Bear Stearns and Lehmann Brothers.
Almost laughable was the 1991 prediction of Lord Rees-Mogg, one of Britain’s most respected pundits, who foresaw “a decade of escalating economic and political disorder unparalleled since the 1930s.” Right outcome (broadly). Wrong decade.
Robert Millikan, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923, declared: “There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom.”
The problem arises fundamentally from hubris. I get a senior governmental or academic position and start to believe that I know what the future holds.
It was George Santayana who said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Perhaps more useful are the words of Yogi Berra: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
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