Week 11

Today's session was on technology assessment and forecasting, and it elaborated on how it is important to be forward-looking. And being forward looking didn't simply mean just looking at what we have today and thinking about what might happen, but today we discussed how it was more important to go back from the future rather than going forward from the present. This meant that we are only limited by our imagination and it is vital for us to view the possibilities of the future, and to start working on them today.

The process of strategic foresight as the next business frontier was also perceived to be a viable option that would prove to be successful for organisations if they chose to have strategic foresight as one of their practices.

This video mentioned that the capacity for a business to generate different more accurate images of the industry's future will be his greatest asset. And i thought this to be really true as competition within industries soar high and it's always better to stand out with your unique future innovations. One other quote that was mentioned in the video was- "To be successful in the future, your business needs to develop the understanding of the future as its foundation for strategy and innovation development". This summarises what we discussed in class today, that we need to extrapolate into future possibilities so as to anchor ourselves in methods and strategies today.

One interesting thing that Prof mentioned was to "take the obstacles and challenges of today and make them into stepping stones into the future". I thought that this optimistic mindset was interesting and would be beneficial to all who adopt this thinking. Most people see obstacles and challenges as dampeners to their growth, but what they do not realise is that these obstacles can be taken in a positive light and in turn be used to generate more ideas on where the use of technology can lead them into future possibilities.

What I managed to pick out from the presentations today was that it’s easy to overestimate ST gains and underestimate LT ones. It allowed me to realize that society is often short sighted and we’re unable to fathom the various benefits and gains we can inherit in the long run, if only we were willing to not let anything restrict us.

Overall I'd rate today's session a 8/10 as it summed up what we've learnt over the past 10 weeks and is helpful in my understanding of how the future can shape the present.