ON THE ROADS-6

LOUISE FREDBO NIELSEN02.03.2014

FOREWORDLouise is a futurist at Future Navigator and she is my 6th guest for my ‘’on the roads’’ interview series. We talked about future navigator and her futurist perspective.

She won a big national prize for a paper on the future of the Danish innovation system. She can help you and/or your organisation to find your way in the confusion and identify the skills that you and your organisation needs in order to be head of the game in the future.

CONVERSATION

You are working at Future Navigator as a futurist. If I describe your company as a solution shop, what would you like to say

about your job?

At Future Navigator we want to bring out the best in people. We will do everything we can to help you visualise your better tomorrow. The goal is to qualify your ability and foundation to create new meaningful concepts, services, and products, and select through a variety of great ideas. In short – using the future as a springboard for success – today. I help people use the future as their compass in order to be gasp-worthy and kick ass in the future. I absolutely love to have the opportunity to create value for other people and help individuals as well as organizations get even better as well as ready for the future.

What are the key points for the futurists?

Do you also dream of making stuff better? Being a positive difference? Creating the future? Be remembered for some really cool solutions? And moving from more to better? Well, then you might be a futurist at heart. One of the most important things when working as a (aspiring) futurist is to be curious. And to embrace what you see coming – whether it is scary, exciting, welcomed or annoying. Look at the trends and transformations that are happening all around you all the time and try to map them. Then build some scenarios (just small ones in the beginning – you can even to it with Lego brigs to make it even more fun) and thing about what you can make of that. You can ask yourself questions like “what could these developments and trends change?” “Who will they influence?” “How will they change the way we work/live/interact?”“What is it that we do not know?” If you want to start spotting your own trends, youcan take a look at Future Navigator’s Trendspotting Guide.

Nowadays, shared working environment trend is rising unlike in a typical office environment. According to some futurists, we will not work at classic offices in the

future. This trend also helps mobile life. What do you think about coworking spaces? What are your foresights about that?

In the future our working environment is going to change as lot due the all the electronic devices that make it possible for us to work anytime and from everywhere. But interestingly enough what we see is also that even though gadgets, phones and computers make it possible for us to interact online without actually being together, we are still building bigger airports and the office-cooperatives are blooming around the world- cause people also need to meet each other and interact in real life. But in the future we are going to customize our workdays way more than we see today because we

have all these technological possibilities– and the wage-earner culture where you have one job from crib to cradle is totally dead!

FREE CORNER

The way of living in the positive future lies beneath designing it. What would you say if I wanted you to make me a future map on

a topic based on the four questions below? What is the topic?The need for entrepreneurship among young people Within the subject, what is changing?The labour market is changing dramatically. Young people today are probably going to reinvent themselves 5,6,7,8,9 times or more during their work lives. Futurists predict that in 2030 2 billion jobs have disappeared due to automation and the exponential development of technology. But that being said, the good news is that the majority of the jobs that people will have in the future do not exist yet – so we can play a role in creating them ourselves, it we want. In the future we will likely switch between different jobs, between being permanently employed, being freelancers, taking breaks to recharge at the Bahamas and starting our own companies. You can have your own company while being permanently employed at a large company and you do not have to be anything for all of your life. Because of the changes to the labour market that gets much more flexible Why is it important?Because the labour market is changing so dramatically, it is so important that young people also see entrepreneurship as a possibility. I would love to plant a seed in other young people that entrepreneurship is one way to go - a way where we can create our own dream jobs, make a difference and create BETTER growth (as opposed to the out-dated paradigm of MORE). How is it supposed to be?That everybody truly has the belief that of cause they can start their own company if they want to – and succeed even though people around them might tell them that they cannot to exactly that!

SHORTLY

• When was the last time you did something for the first time?I talked over a thousand people at future day

• Do you have a motto? What is it?Never let fear stop you from doing what you really want

• Do you have a book and a movie that is about the future which you would like to suggest to us?Book: Flash Foresight-Daniel BurrusMovie: Star Wars

• When said ‘entrepreneur’ who comes to your mind?Danish woman called Soulaima Gourani

• Some simple questions have difficult answers. What is your simple question?What are you seeing yourself in 5 years?

• Einstein said ‘’I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.’’ What is your passion?Help young people..follow future dreams..

• Which animated film character are you?Old Men in the animated movie ‘’UP’’

• If you were to begin a sentence with ‘’if’’ ,what would you say to ignite our creativity?What if I had all courage in the world?

• Who are the futurists?Everybody

Louise Fredbo NIELSEN http://www.futurenavigator.dk/louise-fredbo-nielsen/ https://twitter.com/LouiseFredbo http://www.pinterest.com/louisefn/

Fatih CETİZ http://www.fatihcetiz.com/ https://twitter.com/fatihcetiz