We can build our own future. Together.
“Tomorrow does not exist,” proclaimed Matt Klein, upcoming keynote speaker at Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference in Austin, Texas said. “The future does not exist.”
That’s a bold proclamation from someone often billed as a futurist. Klein, however, prefers the term “cultural researcher,” which he calls “a really sexy way of saying I look for patterns in culture.”
Klein believes that organizations spend too much time trying to peer into the future and falsely believe that with enough data we can see tomorrow as a fixed, immutable point.
But that isn’t how futures work, Klein says.
“What I’m more interested in doing is helping empower organizations to realize that tomorrow doesn’t exist, and that we hold the pen. Like, we’re sitting at some of the most influential organizations in the world, and rather than looking at a trend report or a dashboard to tell us what to do, how do we remember that we hold the pen and we get to author whatever futures we want?”
That sounds very nice from a philosophical standpoint. But what does this actually mean for communicators who are in the trenches every day, trying to stay one step ahead of a culture that’s constantly shifting?
As with so many things in comms, it means starting with your audience and understanding them on the most fundamental level.
“How do we better align ourselves with communities and those who care most about us and who we care most about?” Klein mused. “What are their visions and their tastes and their experiences and their goals? And as organizations, how do we show up and help augment that and fund that and amplify that and platform that, rather than trying to corral everyone to us? How do we go to where people already are and build those preferred futures together?”
In other words, rather than trying to chase and interpret trends as if they have the answers, communicators can work collaboratively with their constituent communities to build a mutually beneficial future.
“It’s about a dialogue,” Klein said. “It’s about going back and forth and building with people, not just for people. I think as market researchers or strategists, we do the research, we put something out into the world, and we cross our fingers and hope that the thing resonates — forgetting that we could actually be bringing people along for the ride and building with them.”
But there are limits to this collaboration. Klein used a (probably apocryphal) quote attributed to Henry Ford: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
All this thinking and dreaming and building can’t simply be abdicated by listening to our audiences and doing exactly as they say. That’s how you wind up with a mess on your hands. But by getting involved and becoming part of the conversation rather than being an aloof observer of trends, voraciously devouring reports about the future without participating in it, you can begin to co-create something pretty cool.
“It looks like rolling up our sleeves and becoming active participants in building and making things, not hiding behind a dashboard —letting go, becoming stewards of culture rather than stewards of the KPI,” Klein said. “That we are in service of communities and building preferred futures rather than a number. And when we’re in service of building a more equitable, sustainable, creative, exciting future, that inevitably trickles down to impact the KPI.”
This isn’t to say that Klein is anti-dashboard or anti-KPI. To the contrary, he notes most of his day is spent looking at numbers. But he also says there is a difference between being data-driven in making decisions and being data-influenced.
“My argument is, I think we’ve overcorrected a little bit in that direction, and we’ve lost touch a little bit with the human — not just our own humanity and our own kind of touch with the world, but also those that we’re hoping to serve and solve for,” Klein said.
It’s not always easy. It takes mindfulness, courage and curiosity, Klein says, to not simply follow the dashboard, but build a future together.
“There’s a great quote, which is, ‘If you want a good image, start with a good reality.’ And I think as comms people, we’re very focused on trying to spin the image, which is fine to a certain extent, but it’s far easier just to create a better reality — which is the whole preferred-future idea.”
See Klein’s full presentation during the Future of Communications Conference, Nov. 12-14 in Austin, Texas.
Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.
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