The future is tomorrow

No, not another marketing claim. Just my way of anouncing that I will be blogging live from The Future Summit (#tfs09 on twitter). Roularta and Flanders DC gathered some fine speakers to shed their light on our time being. I’m really excited since this is my first official invitation as a blogger. Thank you for the invitation guys.

I’m hoping to meet some interesting people, have some great talks, learn to listen a bit better and get inspired.

Now, who’s coming tomorrow and what will they be talking about

Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight Director, The Future Laboratory. Savigar will talk about The Fifth Scenario. The what? That’s what I’m asking myself as well. Most likely – since that’s what the website tells me – he’s going to talk about how companies and brands use wild ideas and uncommon strategies to prepare for the unthinkable. Being a fan of Foucault and his description of Unreason, I’m really looking forward on how he will take a pragmatic approach to the improbable but nonetheless probable.

Herman Konings,CEO , PocketMarketing/nXt (Belgium). Konings is one of the most well known trendwatchers in our country. Yet I’ve never seen him live and I haven’t read any of his books yet (shame on me, I know). Yet he’s going to present us the results of some brand new research on trends.

Ian Pearson, Futurologist, Futurizon. Ian Pearson is a futurologist. I usually think futurologists are people who are highly sensitive people with a great imagination. They can sense things which are around us, which are already happening but before we become well aware of them. Of course you can’t tell from looking at an embryo what he or she will look like in 20 years, but you can tell a thing or two about how they will most likely evolve. Not only do I hope to hear more about the embryonic ideas and concepts Pearson has spotted in our present and how he thinks they will evolve. I also hope to get a glimps of how his sensitivity works. Maybe I’ll ask him personally tomorrow.

Also on the speakers list are three people with inspiring case studies

- Isabelle Maenhout, CEO of Navitell who will be talking about software which can help you navigate through life by the use of authentic storytelling

- Bernard Lahousse, Director of Creax Food who will talk about his foodpairing project

- And last but not least: Bart De Waele, CEO of Netlash, one of the best performing web-agencies in Belgium. Bart is a well known entrepreneur and webpersonality in Flanders and beyond. We ran into each other on some occasions but we’ve never actually spoken to each other. He did however invite me to participate in his trends-project (in Dutch) in which I was asked to share my thoughts about what 2009 would bring in the online world. Writing for this project meant a lot to me. Bart gave me the opportunity to work on some ideas I had in my head for quite some time but which I’d never worked through before. They have inspired me ever since so I’m very grateful for him putting me to work. Now I’m looking forward to hear Bart live, talking about his experiences with trends.

So, that’s all for now folks.

You can follow me live @superblyhuman (twitter) and on this blog.

Dutchspeaking readers can also follow me on @hcouvreur (twitter) and on our companyblog www.thebigpicture.be

The Options Paradox

I don’t know about you but I find too many options inconvenient.

Having a choice is fine. It’s a great way to express who I am and to explore what I want. I love to choose the clothes I’m going to wear. I love to choose the words I’m going to use. Choices are – to a certain extent – empowering and an affirmation of freedom. I can do what I want. Nice.

Or not?

More and more often the idea of too many options gives me stress and makes me choose the default option. Well, choose. Let’s say I’d rather stick to the default option because it feels safer. The net result is that I’m pretty much happy, while at the same time I feel frustrated because I didn’t explore the possibilities these options offered and I might end up paying more for something I don’t enjoy or use completely.

For years now half of my mobile phones’ widgets remain unused, sometimes because I don’t read the manual, sometimes because I know I don’t need them, but most of all because I don’t like to screw things up and ‘disturb’ the phone. Aka: I don’t want to make a mess of it.

So I get to what I call the Options Paradox: at a certain point: offering more options only makes the default more appealing.

Another story. Last year I made my first trip to New York. One evening I wanted to order a wrap in a Mexican restaurent. So I looked at the menu and picked one. What followed was a very frustrating and confusing conversation. The guy behind the counter questioned me for every single ingredient which was supposed to be in the wrap I wanted to order. What kind of bread? How should the bread be backed? Meat? Sauce? Vegetables? I’m simplifying it a little since I can’t remember all the options anymore.

I was so surprised and overwhelmed by what I was asked that I just started nodding and ended up with a role that didn’t live up to what the menu had promised me.

And the worst thing was, it was my choice. Or that’s what was understood as such. If you have all the options and still fail to pick what you want, that’s too bad for you.

Ok I hear you, I may have been a little more assertive.

But it made me think. If options are there to allow us to a) make sure we get what we want b) let us explore and enjoy freedom and c) are supposed to make us feel better about ourselves, then could it be that

• giving too many options is just what you have to do to miss the point?
• if you want people to use the default option, do you have to give them way too many options?
• if you give a lot of options and want people to explore them completely you’d offer them gradually?
• the default choice is actually the default choice and the best choice as well for a reason other than what I’ve stipulated before?

These are questions I cannot answer yet but which I’d love to be able to answer any time soon.

If you know examples or are willing to share some thoughts about the Options Paradox, feel free to contact me @ superblyhuman-at-gmail-dot-com, or leave a comment here.