Now and then we encounter future studies or so-called futurology. But academics and people in leadership positions should define this discipline differently. For academics, it is the study of postulating probable futures based upon a systemic understanding of the past and the present. For those in leadership positions, it should be an ideal state in the future guided by their views on life and on the world. The role of people in leadership positions is not so much to predict the future, but rather to consider peoples' happiness in order to envisage an ideal society and think of the ways and means of creating that society. Today’s world sorely needs this type of futurology.

By Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic