The 2010 Ten-Year Forecast will be a forecast to build the next decade on. It will start from five benchmark forecasts that define the critical forces shaping the next ten years. From these foundational forecasts, it will develop alternative scenarios that use today’s signals to imagine how tomorrow’s world will look, depending on the perspective you take. All of these will come together with the Annual 10YF Retreat to give you the tools you need to help your organization begin making the future you want right now, today.

Five Benchmark Forecasts

Five critical forces will shape the coming decade: carbon, water, power, cities, and identity. This year, the Ten-Year Forecast program will provide the IFTF point of view on each of these forces with five benchmark forecasts. The forecasts will lay out the crucial perspectives and data points to watch. They will also help you build a systems view by highlighting the critical intersections across these five forces.

Alternative Scenarios

While benchmark forecasts provide the focal points you need filter out the noise as you look at the future, alternative scenarios give you the resolution needed to understand the implications of what you’re seeing. This year’s forecast will filter each of the five benchmark forecasts through four alternative scenarios:

One Step Ahead of Disaster, where the challenges posed by recurring crises provide the opportunities for economic growth.

Sustainable Paths to Happiness, where constraints on consumption shift local and global priorities away from productivity toward creative participation and happiness.

Local Disasters, Regional Conflicts, where serial or cascading local collapses continually threaten the stability of the world.

Superstructed Systems, where fundamental changes in the costs of coordination drive rapid adaptation to extreme environments.

The scenarios will provide concise summaries of these alternative futures—illustrated by provocative signals of innovation from today—in an easy-to-share format for engaging your colleagues, customers, or suppliers in strategic discussions that will build your readiness and resilience.

10YF Map of the Decade

The 10YF Map of the Decade will be a way to discover order in a
complex and chaotic future. Using a simple grid, the map will provide an at-a-glance view of the future created by the five benchmark forecasts and the four alternative scenarios. What are the three key innovations you need to keep an eye on in a world of carbon down-scaling? Or the market and policy-altering developments in a world of neuro-social identities? The 10YF Map of the Decade is the fastest path to a comprehensive view of the coming decade.

10YF Annual Retreat

The Annual 10YF Retreat was held in the Spring of 2010 at Cavallo Point in Sausalito, California. This retreat is an ideal setting to step up your engagement with the future, to connect with others who are working at the scale of the decade, and to bridge the worlds of business, government, and community. Dive into the 2010 forecast, huddle with colleagues and experts from diverse industries and sectors, and grapple with what it means to be a leader in an uncertain and inherently translocal future.

Become a Member Today

The Ten-Year Forecast is about rewiring your mind, your organization, and your world for the long term, giving you the tools needed to make the future you want, today. For more information about the Institute for the Future please contact: Sean Ness at 650-233-9517 or sness@iftf.org.