How And Why did You Become You?

How and why I became a futurist.

I am delighted to share ideas with fellow futurists, and I am always curious about the origins of their thinking. The profession of futurism is often imbued with mystical qualities and the sense that people are somehow anointed to profess their proclamations. Futurism has a halo of iconic gurus, beginning with the Oracle at Delphi and Nostradamus; more recently with authors and pundits on speaking tours.

However, I sense that futurism has more authentic roots for many, and I would love to hear your story. My beginnings as a futurist have been humble, and they are linked to circumstances that I could not possibly predict.

Ecology Days

I grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin a near-north suburb of Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan, where our avenues were lined with a lovely canopy of Dutch elm trees. When I was six years old, these trees became infested with a nasty beetle that would bore in into the bark and bring a deadly fungus with them, risking death to the trees. The beetles were killing the trees, so the local government decided to try to kill the beetles. Unfortunately their solution was to fog our neighborhoods with DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) a pesticide invented in the 1940’s that has since been proven to cause a plethora of nasty health issues for humans.

I remember police officers placing notices on our doors, admonishing us to tape our windows and doors and hide in preparation for fogging. Then one morning, after announcements blared from the police car loudspeakers, we could hear the helicopters and see the dense white mist covering the trees and homes.

I witnessed the toxic pesticide DDT being fogged from helicopters and trucks onto my street. The DDT that was sprayed was ultimately ineffective at killing the beetles, but instead killed thousands of birds, squirrels, and other critters whose dead bodies lined our streets. This story and other similar experiences were chronicled in Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring — an appropriate title for the day that bird songs went silent.

Imagine having helicopters fog your street with toxic chemicals today, and the police asking you to hide in your home. How would you feel? What would you do?

Seeing those helicopters fog our neighborhood with chemicals was a profound moment for me and I was not alone. As I grew up over the following years, awakened by assassination of our great leaders, watching the Vietnam war escalate on our 12” black and white TV, hearing of race riots and so much social injustice, I also took notice of the impending destruction of our environment. Our air was getting polluted, our waters were becoming so filled with toxins that major bodies, such as Cuyahoga River, were catching fire.

Earth Day

Lucky for me, the first Earth Day actually was born in Milwaukee, sponsored by Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was outraged over the oil spills impact the Pacific Coast at Santa Barbara. I was twelve years old, and led the Earth Day event in our elementary school, inviting politicians and scientists to illuminate the future, which was gloomy but resolvable at that time.

After reading and interviewing experts, I could sense that a major shift in our national thinking on the environment was about to happen. Sensing is derived from exploring and connecting seemingly unconnected events.

There was a broader zeitgeist of people craving change and safety. The passion was growing for change to emerge. I joined the Environmental Defense Fund and Save the Redwoods League. I signed up for Ecology summer camp in Shell Lake, Wisconsin, I also started my own action organization — SMOG: Save Milwaukee or Go.

The Bar Mitzvah

Shortly after Earth Day, I became Bar Mitzvah, a young man about to enter the world. As fate would have it my Haftarah portion (part of my Hebrew reading for the event), was a portion of the Torah call Zechariah. Turns out, Zechariah had extraordinary visions of things to come at the end of time. He told of happenings that no one had ever experienced; they put the familiar upside down and doubtlessly created astonishment among his listeners. Could everyone follow him? Probably not; but those able to read a transcript of his words could study his predictions and ponder hidden meanings. “Shout and rejoice, for I am coming — And I will dwell within you”. The Prophet announces a coming occasion of great joy. I do feel fortunate to have that portion — a future reflection on who I eventually became.

Culinary Days

When I was 13 years old I learned to cook, which eventually led me to attend vocational chef school and hotel restaurant school, going on to have several chef roles in various restaurants. After that I worked for larger food producers, creating new products and flavor profiles for restaurants. Through extensive interviews, conversations and research, I was able to sense the emergence of ethnic fusion and nouvelle cuisine by seeing what was happening with street food and celebrity chefs around the world. Chefs and guests at restaurants were craving variety and ethnic intrigue as the world was becoming more global. You could see whole new waves of culinary creativity being democratized, which eventually gave us Korean tacos, Wolfgang Puck and California cuisine, and of course plenty of experiments seen in food trucks today.

Fashion Days

I enjoyed a wonderful phase of my life in the fashion business, driving insights and innovation for brands with back stories such as Levi’s and Banana Republic. To be successful, we needed to perceive the future fashion funnel from Milan runways to mass merchandisers, and understand the multi-sensory experience of fashion. There are the sights, the shapes, the texture, the passion, the sexiness, the power of confidence in the personification of you.

When I first joined Levi Strauss & Co as Director of Insights, our company was on the verge of bankruptcy. The business had lost a billion dollars in revenue every year for three years in a row. Yikes!

My job was to help understand why customers were fleeing. We conducted extensive research around the world into all aspects of the business: product design, fit, store experience, marketing, employee relations, customer service, distribution. Each insight about what people craved led to a solution.

We also discover, through an exercise I now call Time Flipping, that Levi’s was at its best when connected to the cultural Zeitgeist. Levi’s may have been lucky or may have been tuned into the times. The brand was strong and present during the rebellion years of James Dean and Marlon Brando, during Woodstock and Summer of Love, Falling of the Berlin Wall and beginning of the dot-com era where people changed what they wore to work.

Patterns

Somewhere along the line I realized I had natural talent in pattern recognition and seeing over the horizon. That must be the common denominator among futurists. Along with the ability to hold two glasses of orange juice at the same time, one half full of promise and opportunity, one half empty with gloomy views of cataclysmic events. Transparency of both glasses require applying my definition of innovation: the ability to perceive alternative realities and the courage to move toward those visions. Seeing the patterns is only half the work, seeing the solutions is where the mojo happens.,

Maps of the Mind

I never really “decided” to be a futurist. My thinking just evolved through a series of events gifted to me from the “universe”. However, there was a moment of clarity in between my Whitefish Bay days and my professional times at Levi, where futurism became part of the jib description.

One day, in the early 80’s, I waltzed into a new age book store in Bandon, Oregon, which is one of the most beautiful and inspiring beach towns in the world. A book called Maps of the Minds winked at me and I felt a calling. Wow, a map of our mind and how we think, create and process ideas? Not just one map, but 50 fucking maps, from the greatest thinkers over the past two centuries. This compendium provided more questions than answers, more beginnings of the journey than ends. But, it seems to me that is true with futurists. We explore, we seek to see the unseen. We are alchemists of disparate ideas.

How was your own “futurism” born?

I would love to hear your creation stories. We share a fascinating profession, both inspiring and sometimes not easily understood. So, how and why did you become who you are today?