Morris Misel, business futurist

What Does a Futurist Actually Do? And Are We Ever Right?

November 4, 2026 - by Morris Misel

This week I came across a book on selling foresight, and one chapter was about the doubts people have about futurists: that we can’t really know the future, that it’s all bias, that it’s too theoretical to be any use, and that it costs too much.

They’re also, near enough, what people type into Google about us: what does a futurist do, is it a real job, can they predict the future, and what’s the difference between foresight and forecasting.

It’s November and a lot of us are sitting down to plan next year, so I’ve written my answers down in one place.

Key points

  • I work with people and organisations on what tomorrow might look like for them, so the decisions they make today rest on the best thinking we have.
  • I don’t do predictions. I do a lot of preparation, and that’s where people get the value.
  • Forecasting tells you what’s likely from the past. Foresight looks for what could change the picture, and gets you ready for it.
  • Futurists aren’t always right, and the good ones say so. I’d judge one on whether the thinking left you better prepared.
  • Most of what I talk about isn’t a guess. It’s signals of change that are already here, and what they might set off.
  • I find those signals in labs, reading, chance chats and, most of all, people, and I work with them through my own Misel Method.
  • Part of my work is turning it into immediate steps, things a team can start on now, because looking ahead on its own doesn’t change much.

What does a futurist actually do?

I didn’t set out to be one. I’d had a leaflet business, and after I sold it, my old clients kept coming back.

I’d tell them to go and find the people who’d bought it, and they’d say no, what they wanted was the stuff we used to talk about: what are those customers buying, when are they buying it, what are the best days to shop?

What they wanted was strategy, and as I said on a podcast last month, I didn’t even know what the word meant.

To give them an answer I had to understand their business and the world their customers would be in, what’s different about one day of the week to another, whether it’s pension week, and over the years that turned into a practice, and I got brave and made it the work.

So yes, it’s a real job. I work with people and organisations, and with conference audiences, across all sorts of industries on what tomorrow might look like for them, so that when they make decisions, they make them on the best thinking we have now.

Over 30 years that’s come to more than 2,800 keynotes, across 160 industries and 25 countries.

Why did I become a futurist?

I think it was in me before I was born. My parents were refugees, and they taught me that yesterday was something we couldn’t control, only learn from, but tomorrow was something we could choose and build.

Later the streets and the prisons taught me the same thing, as a welfare counsellor on the streets of St Kilda and as a prison chaplain for 15 years or so.

Can a futurist predict the future?

No, I can’t.

On that podcast I put it this way: “I don’t do predictions. That’s not the world I’m in, but I do a hell of a lot of preparation.”

In May I told a room of regional tourism people in Bendigo, “We’re not playing guessing games.”

What I do know is we’ll still be human tomorrow, and we’ll still make our decisions on the same things we always have, it’s just what sets those decisions off that keeps changing.

Most of what I talk about is already happening somewhere. At the Funerals Australia conference in March, I talked about celebration funerals, green burials and technology that keeps memories alive.

And I told them, “These aren’t predictions. They’re signals, clear signals from the future to today. Things that are already happening.”

The work is reading those signals and following what they might set off, the ripples, so you can see the second and third thing coming, not just the first.

How does a futurist find the signals?

It starts with finding the signals and connecting them, the big ones and the small ones, and the ones that seem to have nothing to do with each other.

They’re not always obvious, and they’re not always ready to be seen for what they could become. But they’re there, if you know where to look and how.

I find them in the labs, in wide reading and research, in serendipity and random chats. Most of all I find them in the wonderful people I meet, speak with, work for and network with.

Behind all of it are 30 years of trained, childlike curiosity, and never quite accepting that what we have now is what we will have, or what we should have.

Is there a method behind it?

Yes. Over the years I’ve developed my own tools and words for this work, battle-tested in real rooms, and together they make up the Misel Method.

Each one gives its own glimpse of what’s coming, I only bring one out where it’s needed, and every one of them starts with people.

When I wrote about why I built it, I said the aim was to make the people I work with independent of a futurist, able to see it for themselves.

Foresight vs forecasting: what’s the difference?

A while ago I worked with a terrific Australian food and beverage company that was brilliant at forecasting. They could predict sales down to the carton from past trends.

Then a new competitor came along and changed the way people bought and used that whole category, and with all their forecasts in hand, they were caught flat-footed.

Forecasting is a bit like the weather report. It takes the past and tells you what’s likely next, whether you’ll need an umbrella or sunglasses tomorrow, and it’s very good at that.

Foresight is more like keeping an eye out for the hurricane or the sunny stretch coming, and having a plan for both, because last year’s numbers can’t tell you about a competitor who hasn’t turned up yet.

I think you need both. I wrote about it in Why Foresight, Not Forecasts, Drive Future-Proof Strategies, and the first question on the checklist in that piece is a good one to ask any team: does your planning look at a wide range of possible futures, or just the most likely one?

Are futurists ever right?

Sometimes I’ve been right and sometimes I haven’t.

In Bendigo I told the story of standing on a stage in Tasmania 16 years ago, speaking to Regional Tourism Tasmania.

The speaker after me was from Airbnb, which had only just started, and the room gave her a terrible time, so I got up and stood beside her, because I could see that people finding each other online like that was going to change tourism, whatever we thought of the brand.

At Funerals Australia I reminded them that 20 years ago, on a stage in New Zealand, I’d talked about social media, PowerPoint and live streaming at funerals, and that back then “it seemed like the madmen had gone a step too far.”

I also get things wrong. On 8 April 2020 I said on a webinar, “We will get things wrong. No two ways about it, and that’s human.”

That July I told Phil Whelan on RTHK Radio 3 that, despite all the promises we were making, I thought 80% of work life would go back to how it was before COVID, and I wrote “please I want to be wrong!!!”

And this August I wrote a whole piece called I Was Wrong About the Middle.

I’d judge a futurist the way you’d judge anyone you take advice from, on whether the thinking left you better prepared and whether you did something with it.

And you don’t have to take my word for any of it. On 18 February 2005 I published the first piece on my blog, and this February I published the thousandth, so more than 20 years of what I said, and when I said it, sit there with their dates on, for anyone to check.

I was on radio long before podcasts existed, too, and on YouTube there’s a playlist of my talks from the stage. As I wrote in that thousandth post, the writing was never separate from the work. It was part of the work.

Isn’t it all bias and hype?

Back in 2017 I told iStart, “I am an optimist about the future, but it’s not Pollyanna stuff”. I said technology has an off switch, and that what scared me was how people choose to use it.

I said then that for 20 years all anyone wanted to talk about was the tech toys, and that people were finally starting to talk about what we’d do with them.

Isn’t it too theoretical to be useful?

It can be too theoretical if it stays on the slide, so my keynotes often finish on three questions for the room, and in my workshops a team turns the futures in front of it into its own immediate futures, steps it can start on now, each with a name and a date beside it.

What does a futurist cost?

I think of it as an investment: the time and the thinking to explore the possibilities properly, and then to choose forward deliberately, with your eyes open.

What gets you doing it matters less than the doing of it, so there are a few ways in: a keynote for your conference, a workshop with your team, advice over a longer stretch, my books, and the think-along tools I’m building through Think-Along AI.

What it comes to depends on which of those you need, and the speaking page is the place to start that chat.

The question I’m left with

Which of these have you wondered about? I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

Choose forward.

If you’d like a short read every Tuesday on what’s coming and what it means for your work: welcome.morrismisel.com/join

If you’re planning a conference or a strategy day for next year and want this thinking in the room: morrismisel.com/speaking

Morris Misel is a business futurist, keynote speaker, author and founder of Think-Along AI. For more than 30 years he has worked with people and organisations on what’s coming and what it means for them: 2,800+ keynotes across 160 industries and 25 countries. In 2026 Thinkers360 named him one of its Top Voices, globally and for Asia-Pacific.

Questions people ask

What does a futurist do?

A business futurist works with people and organisations on what tomorrow might look like for them, so the decisions they make today rest on the best thinking available. Morris Misel came to it through strategy work for the clients of his leaflet business and has practised for more than 30 years.

Is futurist a real job?

Yes. Futurists work as keynote speakers, strategy advisers and workshop facilitators for companies, associations and conferences. Morris Misel has given more than 2,800 keynotes across 160 industries and 25 countries.

Can futurists predict the future?

No, and good futurists don’t claim to. In Morris Misel’s words, “I don’t do predictions… but I do a hell of a lot of preparation”. The work reads signals of change that are already visible and follows what they might set off, so organisations are ready for a range of futures.

What is the difference between foresight and forecasting?

Forecasting uses past data to estimate what’s most likely next, which suits short-term planning. Foresight looks across a wider range of possible futures, including disruptions that aren’t in past data, and prepares an organisation for them. Most organisations need both.

How does a futurist find signals of change?

By finding and connecting signals, big and small, that aren’t always obvious or ready to be seen for what they could become: in labs, wide reading and research, chance and random chats, and above all the people a futurist meets and works with. Morris Misel puts it down to 30 years of trained, childlike curiosity.

What is the Misel Method?

Morris Misel’s own set of foresight tools, developed and tested over 30 years: inhabitable futures (the future worth aiming for), PTFA (past trauma, future anxiety: what holds people back), ripples (what’s arriving and what it sets off), HUMAND (who or what does the work) and immediate futures (what to do next). Each is used only where it’s needed, and each starts with people.

Are futurists ever right?

Sometimes, and sometimes not. A futurist is best judged like any adviser: on whether the thinking left the organisation better prepared and whether it acted on it, not on a scorecard of predictions.

What does a futurist cost?

It depends on the work: a keynote, a team workshop or advice over time. Morris Misel describes it as an investment in exploring the possibilities properly and then choosing forward deliberately. Enquiries start at morrismisel.com/speaking.

How do you make foresight practical?

Turn it into immediate steps: actions a team can start now, each with a person’s name and a date beside it, so the thinking about tomorrow changes what happens this week.

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