On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a lengthy interview with my Institute for the Future colleague Paul Saffo. From the interview:
Q: You call yourself a forecaster. Some people call you a futurist. Is there a difference?
A: People who call themselves futurists don't have a sense of history of the term. It dates back to the early 1900s. Tied into fascism, these guys would have parties and go hang out and stroke the streamlined lines of new cars. I think of futurists as people who have a particular attitude about the future. They're advocates for a certain kind of outcome. As a forecaster I am something very different. I am a professional bystander. I have opinions about the future, of course. But my whole posture is to be detached and to identify what I think will happen and not allow my judgments of what should happen to get involved.
