Influential Voices On The Future Of Work: Brian David Johnson, Futurist – Forbes

Brain David Johnson - Futurist

Each month I feature different leaders' voices offering insights into the future of work and changes theyve seen within their industry since the pandemic. Im particularly interested in leaders that approach challenges as opportunities to create positive and lucrative business opportunities. This column profiles everyone from celebrities and business people, to community leaders and changemakers, and gives readers a peek behind the veil of different businesses and industries.

This month I interviewed Brian David Johnson (BDJ), who is a futurist, author and professor. BDJ lives, eats and breathes the future. The slightest scratch on the surface of what BDJ does will uncover a plethora of fascinating ideas, each will blow your mind open. Fasten your futuristic seatbelt, as we break down exactly what his titles mean.

As a futurist, Brian is sought after by companies and organizations to generate predictions forecasting 10 years ahead based on current culture and industry trends. Brians predictions from a decade ago have turned out to be pretty spot on, proving that futurecasting can work. BDJ doesnt always stop at the 10 year mark - with some clients he looks as far into the future as imaginable, predicting dystopia and utopian scenarios.This helps companies to plot their specific course towards the future they want, and to prepare, disrupt, mitigate and recover from the futures that they don't want. For Brian, futurecasting is not about predicting the future, but rather about taking a pragmatic approach to determine a vision of the future that companies can then work to build.

As an author, BDJ gets to creatively prototype his ideas. He has written over 10 science fiction and science fact books and has created over 20 graphic novels. His most recent science fiction book is WAR: Wizards and Robots co-authored with will.i.am. Its a story of empowerment about a young female engineer who holds the power to save the world. However, most of Brians sci-fi graphic novels arent found on the shelves of bookstores, because they are privately owned by companies that hired BDJ to visually represent his futurecasting for employees. Lastly, he writes about robots and then uses those stories to enable kids to imagine, design and build their own robots.

BDJ and Wiil.I.am publish futuristic YA novel: Wizards and Robots

As a professor at Arizona State University Brian teaches and mentors students to become applied futurists. He is also the futurist in Residence at the Center for Science and the imagination. His last appointment is as the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab, where they work with organizations such as the United States Military and Secret Service to imagine a range of possible and potential threats to national and economic security. From there they can plan should undesired situations occur. When participating in threat casting the dress code is mandatory casual, flip flops encouraged, because BDJ and his team have learned that if you can see someone's toes its hard to get mad at that person while discussing touchy subjects.

As you can see with a small scratch of the surface, a whole new, futuristic, world is exposed. So how did Brian develop his career and what are his views on the future of work? Read on for his insights.

What did the pandemic exemplify in your work?

The pandemic is a destabilizing event. Destabilizing events are nothing new. We see them all the time. This could be a natural disaster, power outage or a regional conflict. The key to understanding destabilizing events is to understand two things:

1. What is the nature of the destabilizing event?

2. What is the magnitude of the destabilizing event?

With COVID - the nature of the event was a virus. And the magnitude was global.

These two factors made the pandemic a great accelerator. It's sped up changes that were already in progress and pointed out flaws that already existed. We saw this play out through global supply chains, the healthcare system, financial systems and how we use technology on a day-to-day basis.

I'm the futurist for the association of supply chain managers. As you can imagine, the supply chain had a really big pandemic. Supply chain went from something that was in the back office to something that was a conversation at the dinner table. We saw a lot of things that went wrong but we also saw a lot of things that went right.

During the pandemic the association did a survey of organizations looking at those who did futures planning and those who did not. One thing that they discovered was that the organizations that actively planned for their future generally had a 2 to 6 month business advantage because they took action before their competitors. This wasn't just for pandemic planning, many organizations hadn't done pandemic planning. But it was simply the ACT and the operationalization for thinking about and planning for the future that gave them head start.

The pandemic has shown all the necessity for planning for the future. Innovation comes not from predicting the future but for exploring a range of possible and potential futures to guard against strategic surprise.

Are there any interesting projects you are currently working on?

We just wrapped up a couple of multi-year projects that examine the future of information warfare and information disorder machines.A good place to start is to define the different elements of information disorder, mis-information, dis-information, and mal-information:

Mis-information - Spreading false information, but you dont know its false - most of the time this information stems from a small sliver of truth, say 10%, and becomes 10% truth and 90% misinformation. This information is usually not shared from a place of maliciousness, but simply not knowing its false.

Dis-information - When false information is knowingly shared to cause harm.

Mal-information - Leaking information that is designed to stay private and making it public with the intention to cause harm.

We examined information disorder paired with machine learning, algorithms, and artificial intelligence; and what that might mean for free speech and the future of the United States. Looking ten years out data will be gathered not only from places such as social media, but also from things such as smart cities, autonomous cars, and Internet of Things technologies. Not only will these places be gathering data, but they can also have the ability to message you - running the risk of sending dis-information or mis-information. Information disorder would then be able to be tailored on the fly to topics you are most passionate about that would incite or enrage you to take action. Oftentimes the goal of this type of attack isnt to get you to do one specific thing, but to create chaos and disorder - typically to get you to begin to question the validity of things such as government or businesses.

The best way to combat information disorder is to interrogate the information. Ask, who is saying this? And why are they saying this?

As a society we have to have a broader conversation around how to fact check and how to understand biases and inherent biases. In 2020 we began speaking more actively about this topic. It is a conversation that needs to happen more often to help people learn to pause before reacting and apply critical thinking to the messages that we are receiving. What is great is that we are beginning to design classes for schools to teach this next generation to think more constructively.

Graphic Novel, Invisible Force created by BDJ and the Threatcasting Lab at ASU

What do you believe the future of work will look like?

The question is not, what will the future of work look like? but it is what DO YOU want the future of work to look like? We are at an interesting moment in time, especially coming out of the pandemic where we have had a global destabilization when it comes to work. We are finding new modes of being and working and the future of work is localized and up to us. We dont have to do anything in a specific way as we come out of this destabilized event. Right now we have the ability to choose.

Everybody has the ability to shape their future. The first step is to realistically ask yourself, what is the future that I want? Once you have identified what your ideal future is, then you can start breaking it down to understand the agency that you have and most importantly identifying people you should be talking to and bringing together. To shape the future and create change it takes connecting with people - this can be in work and also in your community. Having a clear articulated picture of the future you want to create has incredible power and can draw people in to help you advance your vision. You have more control than you think.

Some things we can expect with the future of work does involve things such as automation and robotics. As we have learned from the pandemic, there are places where it is safer to not have humans doing specific tasks. If a robot or machine took your job, your job probably wasnt that great because it was turning YOU into a robot or machine. The industrial age turned human beings into machines. As we move into the future, the constellation of all the emerging technologies allows for us to be more human. We of course will have to remap the labor force and create wages for people to live comfortably.

People have asked me how they can future proof their career when it comes to the future work in the face of coming atomization. I tell them to be human! Thats the one thing the machines cant do. Everything we do is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be a lot of technology, businesses, processes and procedures in between but its always about people.

What does the future of technology look like?

Over the next 5 to 10 years a constellation of technologies will fundamentally remap the future of work. This includes artificial intelligence, smart cities, The Internet of Things, robotics, autonomy in land, sea and air as well as digital autonomy and increasing availability of computational intelligence and connectivity.

I have written about this and called it the coming age of Sentient Tools: technology that is aware, can think and is social with people. It will know us as individuals. Imagine working in a sentient office that is constantly using all of these technologies to make you safe, sustainable, productive but also is there to make your life better. Maybe even, your sentient elevator tells you a joke on Monday because you hate Mondays. The idea is that we keep human beings at the center of the technology tools we develop, not productivity or profit (although also important), but that ultimately everything we develop is to enhance the human experience. If we have the vision of what we want the future of technology to be then we can design ways in which technology can enhance and amplify humanity.

If you were to design the future or society what would it look like?

A society that keeps humans at the center. Everything we do is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be a lot of technology, businesses, processes and procedures in between but its always about people.

I always think back to Carl Sagan who used to tell people that our place in the universe is small and inconsequential. We arent even at the center of the universe, Earth is in the suburbs. We have to remember on this scale - that humans are not the central actor in this drama. We are bit players.

All we have is each other on this precious blue planet. It is important to also honor the world in which we live and realize that we are all interconnected.

Any final thoughts to add about the future?

The future isnt some fixed point on the horizon that we are all running towards helpless to take action. The future is built by people and organizations (run by people). The first step is to ask yourself or your organization:

From there you can start to take action.

The way that you change the future is you change the story that people tell themselves about the future that they will live in. If you can get yourself and others to see the future differently, then you can change the future. This is not just a nice thing to say, it is the truth of what I have seen over the last 25 years time and time again with people and organizations.

Remember that you need to be an active participant in your future. Never let someone else build your future for you...that never ends well.

Stay up to day on what BDJ is up to on Twitter @bdjfuturist

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Influential Voices On The Future Of Work: Brian David Johnson, Futurist - Forbes