Fords newest exclusive feature: its "futurist"

I'll bet that Sheryl Connelly's title is one you won't often come across: she's a Futurist.

Right?!

Ms. Connelly's job is to inhale social, cultural, technological, environmental and economic trends, and use them to predict what consumers will want in both the near and distant future. Basically, she's a pattern-recognition machine.

She then makes suggestions to her employer how they can best be prepared for the impact of these trends. That employer is Ford, the only automaker to keep such a person on staff.

Trends move slower than we think, about three years at a time, while a fad comes and goes quickly. For example, jeans are a trend, while the style of jeans (skinny or bootcut) are a fad.

Calling herself "a polite contrarian", we sat down together to chat about how Ford is preparing for the future. The automaker has a database of 200+ trends, and one she devotes much time to is our aging population.

Because as consumers grow older, it impacts all facets of the car manufacturing process.

Ford's Design Studio uses an "aging suit" to mimic an older buyer.

The designers don rubber gloves to reduce feeling and mobility in fingers, scratched glasses to reduce visibility, a suit that restrict movement around the knees and hips, and a neck brace which makes it difficult to swivel the neck. Then off they drive, experiencing what it's like for an eighty-year-old to be behind the wheel.

That's why the lip of Ford's newer cars are lower, because older people tend to enter the seat backwards, and then swing their legs inside.

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Fords newest exclusive feature: its "futurist"