Doing innovation, being innovative or innovating, is all about insight into plausible futures that might come to pass with the introduction of some new thing. This insight could come in a flash, or it can come after many, many tries, or it can never come at all. The flash of insight is, however, usually best when it is preceded by the knowledge and understanding that comes from learning the future.

Learning the future is the opposite of, and the antidote to, predicting the future. It is impossible to predict specific futures, although many try. Learning the future, however, is all about developing new knowledge that lets you understand and gain insight into plausible futures. These are the insights that let you make the right decisions about products, services, customers and business that will determine success or failure. Learning the future is all about creating knowledge that is critical to the innovation process. It turns innovation into an explicit knowledge process.

Starting an innovation journey can be likened to walking through a dense fog bank. When you start out, you can see nothing but diffuse light, no objects or landmarks are visible. As you walk deeper into the fog bank, forms start to emerge. Shapes become visible as fuzzy blobs and dark areas. Details are unclear but at least you know where the objects are. As you get closer to the objects, however, details start to emerge. You can make out the different parts of the object, start to see what color it is, it's detailed form and composition. Finally, when standing close enough, no matter how dense the fog, you can see the details of the surface, the specific materials and construction of the item.


Learning the future is like walking through this fog bank. It is gathering the knowledge you need to make decisions about the future. It is learning about what is possible and what is wanted and coalescing this knowledge into concepts for solutions and how to have these solutions adopted. It is walking through the fog bank of uncertainty and the unknown until the shapes and details of the solutions are clear.