Every organization deserves a futurist. They might not be an individual at the top of the corporate ladder, they don’t have be a Sr Vice President or Chief Experience Officer. As history proves, innovation can come from anywhere, it’s not bound to any specific title. A futurist i believe is someone with good taste, good know-how, and a very vivid imagination. Someone who can connect the dots, which no one did before, can imagine, and do things which other’s cannot.

So who is a futurist, it’s a person’s who is always has a lot of questions, and a lot curioisty, a hunger for following the market pulse and identifying emerging patterns and trends. I vividly remember, Umberto Boccioni’s Unique forms of Continuity. One of my professors gave a talk on the sculpture, there was something just nearly magical about the way the sculpture’s aesthetics. Such a different and unique expression of movement and fluidity, a beautiful portrayal of speed and dynamism.

In many ways i’m a futurist, I still remember back in university, i started tinkering with different smartphones and gadgets, i knew these things had a big future. Working on the weekends, when everyone was partying in Dubai, i was thinking about Brand Development and Corporate Identity, and how to capitalize on such ideas as a student. That’s how i got the extra cash to invest in such an expensive gadget of those times. Later on working on many user experiences with some of the best consulting firms in the world, i still thank my faculty deep in my heart, for teaching me how to take risk and break barriers. To go beyond, where no one else dares to go.

But being the first to notice things, and being open-minded can backfire, you can pay the price for being honest. As soon as i got the chance, i bought a wearable device, because i know wearable’s have a big future in E-health, so i must learn and adapt my self for this field, cause E-health has a big market in terms of digitization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Wearables themselves are a very new sector, and i needed exposure to this area, vital for growth.

Right now, I’m currently working on a User Experience for a Vehicle Tracking System, and just finished working on another User Experience for the Royal Saudi AirForce and Ministry of Labour. That’s the sad part about being a futurist, you can’t always find the people to discuss things with, because firstly there is a lot of confidential things that you are working on, and even though they might be your ideas, you don’t own your ideas in a corporate setting, every month, you get compensated by a financial transaction, and the company literally takes ownership of your ideas and thoughts.

I spend a lot of time reading about what people are upto at IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Lockheed Martin, Skunkworks, Boeing/ Following their posts on Facebook, and LinkedIn. I try to get a grasp of what the future holds for us. I’ve met other futurists too. I can clearly remember meeting Paul Kenny, founder of one of the Middle East’s most successful E-commerce companies. How do you differentiate a real futurist from someone pretending to be one. One way is that a real futurist has some kind of working prototype to show his idea, it’s not just random words thrown in the air. The public does not know what the future is, but it is upto the creatives to decide how they can make the future, into a reality that they envision.

So how to push yourself into the future? Here are some tips.

1. Do you listen to the people who are making the future? Do you follow the pioneers, developers, designers, innovators, artists whose ideas are going to be part of the future?

2. Do you do things that make the future come to you? Start with attending conferences, or maybe even a chat with someone intellectual at a gathering.

3. Do you share with others what you learn? Because the one way to know something well and move beyond is by convergence.

I’m always looking for the future, the future of art, technology, design. You name it, i’m always thinking about innovation. The future of life. Perhaps being in the future, is just a state of mind. While we all possess ideas individually, where we fail is to communicate with each other, in order to progress together as collective human beings. The challenge lies in being able to make a prototype of a concept you believe in. From there-on, we have something tangible to discuss, and move forward with.