Outthinkers #34—Faith Popcorn: Predictions to Know From a Leading Futurist
Faith Popcorn founded her BrainReserve (FPBR), the futurist marketing consultancy, in 1974. The New York Times has called her “The Trend Oracle," Fortune Magazine named her “The Nostradamus of Marketing," and she is recognized globally as the original and foremost Futurist. She has identified such sweeping societal movements as “Cocooning,“ “SOS,” “AtmosFear,“ “Anchoring,“ “99 Lives" and “Vigilante Consumer."
As the key strategist for Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, Faith and her esteemed team apply their insights to cultural and business Trend Truths, opening the vision of their clients, repositioning their brands/companies, developing new models and innovating for sustainable growth. She is a trusted advisor to the CEOs of The Fortune 200 including such companies as American Express, Apple, Campbell's Soup, Citigroup, Chipotle, Colgate, Comcast, among many others.
With a documented 95% accuracy rate, Faith predicted the demand for fresh foods, home delivery, telemedicine, enhanced entertainment and home schooling, as well as capturing the spiritual tenor of the millennium with Cocooning and its impact on COVID-culture. Additionally, she predicted the rise of Social Media.
Faith is also the best-selling author of four books: The Popcorn Report, Clicking, EVEolution, Dictionary of the Future and the Upcoming, and Popcorn Report 2030: A Leap of Faith.
In this podcast she shares:
- What strategists often get wrong in attempting to predict the future
- Her view on the future of the Metaverse and Non-fungible tokens (or NFTs)
- Whether we are ever going to go back to work
- Why employees hold so much bargaining power now and how that will change how companies compete
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" I think the greatest error that people make about the future is trying to extrapolate what's going to happen from what did happen from the past. That is a major error, the way to figure out the future and become an overnight futurist is look forward."
-Faith Popcorn
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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Faith + The topic of today’s episode
2:20—If you really know me, you know that....
3:06—What is your definition of strategy?
3:40—What are you most well-known for?
4:51—What is the process you use, and how do you frame a strategy around those trends?
6:30—How do you define the metaverse, and what does it mean for the future?
8:13—How do you see bitcoin shaping the future?
8:50—Can you give us an example of a company that was reluctant to adapt to change, and the effects of this?
10:00—Tell us more about NFTs
10:50—What happens when technology is misused?
11:33—What are you thoughts on early adapters?
12:23—Talk to us about the future of work
11:33—What are you thoughts on early adapters?
14:05—How will freelance and gig workers find security in the future?
14:50—Can you talk to us about the future of robots?
18:00—What is something people do wrong when predicting future trends, and what kind they do to avoid this?
19:05
Thank you to our guests, thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.
Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast