Steve Jobs once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. That's a clever way of dancing around the dangers inherent in the business of long-term forecasting. History is littered with the detritus of crystal-ball watchers. There are the dead-wrong predictions -- usually underestimating technology. The 1899 U.S. patent chief declares that anything that can be invented has been; 20th-century prognosticators follow with confident claims that the automobile is nothing more than a novelty, TV won't last, and space travel is a wild-eyed dream. Then there are the predictions that should have been made -- but weren't: the Arab Spring, the euro crisis, 9/11.
A small handful of business leaders like Jobs may indeed be able to invent the future. Most executives (and journalists) are condemned to react to it. Of course that doesn't mean companies, universities, and other institutions shouldn't strive to figure out where the world is heading in 10, 20, or even 50 years -- so that they can deftly deploy resources and develop products and services that anticipate change. To produce Fortune's guide to the future, we talked to dozens of researchers, forecasters, security experts, and analysts whose jobs are to peer around corners, and we asked them to paint a picture of the world 10 years out. The portrait sometimes turned dark: cyberterrorism, resource shortages, and political instability around the world are all inevitable. But the experts offered a mostly optimistic view of the future, based on the mind-boggling scientific and technological advancements that will improve the way we learn, work, and play. Even the U.S. economy, which seems stuck in the doldrums, should come back strong in the second half of the coming decade -- partly on the strength of some of the innovations highlighted in this report. "I'm optimistic that the U.S. will come out the other end in a position of strength," says Peter Nolan, managing director in FTI Consulting's global risk and investigations practice.
The coming changes will be uncomfortable for some. Bosses will need to adjust to a democratization of the workplace. Hierarchies may disappear; some teams may function without leaders. The best ideas may come from the most junior person in the company -- or from outside the organization altogether. "It used to be that your most important asset headed out the elevator every night," says Don Tapscott, co-author of Macrowikinomics. "Now your most important asset may never go up the elevator at all."
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is already using social media to harness new talent. "What if a 13-year-old could contribute to a cure for cancer?" asks Regina Dugan, director of the agency. DARPA runs a public computer game called Foldit, in which competitors try to fold proteins, one of the most difficult biochemistry impediments to curing disease. Misfolded proteins lead to diseases such as mad cow, Alzheimer's, and cystic fibrosis. Since Foldit launched in May 2008, more than 236,000 gamers have registered, their contributions helping decipher the structure of an enzyme responsible for causing AIDS in rhesus monkeys -- the first example of a major breakthrough in crowd-sourced science, Dugan says. "Innovation," she notes, "benefits when the number and diversity of people participating goes up."
