Forecasting and planning today plus or minus twenty years

Forecasting, planning, the applications of futures research, and the awareness of the future as a subject for systematic study are in good condition today, reflecting 20 years of progress. That progress has been on many expanding fronts and has proceeded at different rates, with slowdown and stagnation often occurring in one area while advances were enjoyed in another. In spite of that progress, there is an undercurrent of disappointment or setback among futurists and practitioners in strategic and long-range planning. Some of that dissonance between circumstances and belief comes from a general optimism that seems to be characteristic of all futurists. There would be little point in studying the future if one did not believe that such understanding will lead to effective action and to positive outcomes. That expectation is an invitation to recurrent, if not chronic, disappointment.