FORECASTING
Forecasting is the oldest "profession" of all living things. The first "living" molecules moved where it was warmer and where the "food" could be. How did they “know” this? Perhaps they could predict somehow. In this way "live" molecules, cells, organisms differed from "inanimate" ones.
In course of evolution and complication of life, forecasting improved and became more complicated. Most often, predictions were based on knowledge of repeating things. After winter, the spring always comes, then summer, then autumn and winter again. It is cold in winter and hot in summer. If you step on leopard's tail, it will be too late to run away from it, while fighting back is useless. "If the goose honks high, fair weather. If the goose honks low, foul weather." If you eat a cucumber and drink milk, then... Well, and so on. Life experience was accumulated as an ability to predict with sufficient confidence the consequences of action or inaction in a given situation.
The so-called "acceleration of scientific and technological progress" called for new abilities: to predict successful innovations in various fields of human activity. Moore's law (“the number of transistors on an IC chip doubles every 24 months”) formed the basis for a forecasting method called Roadmapping. This method has successfully predicted product performance. According to the creators of the method, it worked well only within the "current paradigm". Where the paradigm shift took place, Roadmapping could not predict accurately.
When paradigm shifts (systemic crises) in various spheres of human activity began to occur more and more often, other principles of forecasting were born. The discovery and application of the Patterns of Evolution within the framework of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) facilitated prediction of "breakthrough" innovations capable of overcoming the systemic crises. Directed Evolution and Hybridization have become the most efficient technologies for such forecasting.
The next step in the development of forecasting technologies is FutureMapping (mapping of the future), which allows predicting systemic crises and identifying ways to resolve and prevent them.
Here you can read about what FutureMapping is and how it works:
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Security: Forecast
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Automotive Transportation: Forecast
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Radio- and TV-Ads: Forecast
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Contemporary Crisis