logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2019
31m 51s

Your Business Plan is Science Fiction

GARTNER
About this episode

Why should a business utilize science fiction? What do you think your business plan is? That’s the message of Brian David Johnson, a leading expert on science fiction prototyping and threatcasting. Threatcasting is a sub-genre of forecast that details future threats and how the organization can track threat development and know when to respond. Brian David Johnson joins Continuous Foresight to walk us through why threatcasting is effective and how you can use it in your forecasting work.

Gartner is an impartial, independent analyst of business and technology. This content should not be construed as a Gartner endorsement of any enterprise’s products or services. All content provided by other speakers is expressly the views of those speakers and their organizations.

Meet Brian David Johnson

Brian David Johnson is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and a Futurist and Fellow at Frost & Sullivan. He also works with governments, militaries, trade organizations and startups to help them envision their future. He has over 30 patents and is the author of a number of books of fiction and nonfiction, including Science Fiction PrototypingScreen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing and the Devices We LoveHumanity and the Machine: What Comes After Greed?; and Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian and a Futurist Journey through Steampunk into the Future of Technology. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal and Slate to IEEE Computer and Successful Farming, and he appears regularly on Bloomberg TV, PBS, Fox News, and the Discovery Channel. He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.

Up next
Sep 30
Turn AI Promises Into Measurable Business Outcomes
Executives are asking the same question in 2025: Where is the value AI was supposed to deliver? In this episode of ThinkCast, Gartner experts Mary Mesaglio and Rita Sallam outline how leaders can define, measure and maximize AI value across the enterprise. From productivity gains ... Show More
24m 47s
Sep 23
AI, Strategy & Marketing Growth: What Every CMO Must Do Now
CMOs are facing extraordinary expectations — from the enterprise, customers and their own teams. In this episode of ThinkCast, Gartner experts Alex De Fursac Gash and Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone cover a portion of their Opening Keynote from this year's Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xp ... Show More
25m 50s
Sep 9
4 Steps to Unlock Better Managers
Managers are stretched thin, but remain the most powerful voice for employee trust. In this episode of ThinkCast, Gartner VP, Advisory Alexandra Earl introduces the 4 C’s of Manager Communication Competencies: Championing, Coaching, Conversing and Connecting. From helping employe ... Show More
18m 34s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2024
Tech at Work: The Future of Spatial Computing
Managing technology has never been more challenging. HBR IdeaCast’s new special series, Tech at Work, offers research, stories, and advice to make technology work for you and your team. This week: how to prepare your company for the future of spatial computing. 
32m 9s
May 2024
Tech at Work: How the End of Cookies Will Transform Digital Marketing
Managing technology has never been more challenging. HBR IdeaCast’s new special series, Tech at Work, offers research, stories, and advice to make technology work for you and your team. This week: how digital marketers are preparing for the end of third-party cookies—and what thi ... Show More
35m 27s
Jun 2019
How Fact Influences Fiction with Douglas E. Richards
“Every technology has great things that it can do and horrible things that it can do.” Douglas E. Richards is a New York Times bestselling science fiction author. Douglas frequently uses the world of scientific fact to influence the creation of his fictional worlds. He’s authored ... Show More
1h 11m
Dec 2022
Ep300 - Steven Novella, Jay Novella & Bob Novella | The Skeptics' Guide to the Future
From the bestselling authors and hosts of "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" podcast, Steven Novella, Jay Novella & Bob Novella visit Google to discuss their book "The Skeptics' Guide to the Future: What Yesterday's Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorr ... Show More
1h 7m
Apr 2020
What If We Lived 50 Years Into the Future? - Guest: Steven Kotler
Mark Twain once said...Well, Mark Twain said a lot of things but in this particular context, his "it's difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future" is as apropos as it is yogi Berra-ish. But these days, futurism is not only harder than it's probably ever been, bu ... Show More
54m 54s
Aug 2021
Jonathan Brill, "Rogue Waves: Future-Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change" (McGraw-Hill Education, 2021)
Today I talked to Jonathan Brill about his new book Rogue Waves: Future-Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change (McGraw-Hill Education, 2021)There are ten big trends that Brill identifies as disrupting business now and into the future. Each is a wave of chan ... Show More
38m 40s
Jan 2022
Forecasting the Future of Tech with Scott Belsky
How will work and life change in a material way over the next 5 years? That one line, written by guest Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky), was enough to get hosts Sahil Bloom (@sahilbloom) and Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) to immediately invite the successful entrepreneur and investor o ... Show More
1h 17m
Feb 2020
Thinking of data science initiatives as innovation initiatives
Put yourself in the shoes of an executive at a big legacy company for a moment, operating in virtually any market vertical: you’re constantly hearing that data science is revolutionizing the world and the firms that survive and thrive in the coming years are those that execute on ... Show More
17m 27s
Sep 2023
2502: Bloomberg: How Open Source is Driving Innovation in Tech
Today, I am joined by Adam Wolf, the Global Head of Engineering at Bloomberg—a company renowned for delivering data, news, and analytics through groundbreaking technology. With more than 17 years at Bloomberg and a strong academic background from Yale, Adam is a veritable treasur ... Show More
24m 51s
May 2023
Night School, Class 3: Big Tech vs the insurgents
From the rise of ChatGPT to job cuts at companies such as Meta and Amazon, tech has dominated the headlines in 2023. On this episode of Night School, the Financial Times’ innovation editor, John Thornhill, breaks down the biggest tech stories of the year so far. He tells US manag ... Show More
16m 7s