What my working week looks like
What do I do besides running, watching Netflix and going on trips with my family?
Hey there,
“What do you actually do?” is a question I often get after a lecture or when I tell people at a party that I am a futurist.
In this newsletter, I therefore share the 3 most important parts of my working week.
Enjoy reading,
Peter
P.S. Prefer watching? I also made a video about this (in Dutch, but with English subs):
This is what my work looks like
On average, I am on stage two to three times a week to give lectures and presentations. But what do I do besides that? Certainly fun things, such as going out with my family, running or watching Netflix. But when I zoom in on work, it is mainly about keeping up with what is going on (1), doing specific research (2) and preparing lectures (3).
1. Keep up
A large part of the week I try to keep up with everything that is going on in the field of technology, science and futures research.
I mainly do this by reading newsletters, books, and research papers, browsing websites such as Wired, Hacker News and The Economist, watching documentaries and movies, and going to conferences*.
Some periods of the year, I have not many lectures. Then I do bigger deep dives on topics. But on busy weeks, I only keep up with the most important news and developments.
*) More about this in my next newsletter.
2. Specific research
If I am not yet familiar with a specific field that I will give a lecture in, I do more research. To give you an idea of some recent assignments:
Lecture at the South Limburg Safety Region;
Lecture at the Dutch Association of Orthodontists;
Lecture at the municipality of Zevenaar.
In all these cases, the client provides me with relevant documents and articles to read further. I also use tools such as Ecosia, Google or Perplexity to do further research.
Finally, I sometimes call or email acquaintances who have experience in that field. Like with the orthodontists: from a previous assignment, I know a dental hygienist who is doing his PhD on the role of AI in his work. I then ask him if he has noticed anything recently that I can use in my talk.
3. Preparing lectures
The third step is preparing the lecture. For this I use the input from my general research (point 1), and the specific information that fits the theme, industry or audience (point 2).
The part I like the most is thinking about how I can best present this content for the audience. Usually short stories or interactive working methods. In this way, I increase the chance that my message will stick.
During this phase, I often have contact with the client again to discuss my plan. I often get ideas for hooks in my story that tie in nicely with things that are going on at the organization or the conference day.
What do I like most?
Some people ask me what I like most about my job. For me, that is the variety.
I love sitting at home, reading reports and articles about things like the role of sensors and AI in detecting forest fires.
But also, if I get on stage with a lot of energy and expression, that also gives me an energy boost.
In short, I am very happy with my work!
Deep dive
Articles, books, podcasts, videos, documentaries and more on this theme.
1. READ / The book Excellent advice for living by Kevin Kelly is a colorful mix of inspiring quotes, practical tips and thoughtful ideas.
I was reminded of the passage below from the book. As a child, I already liked to read a lot of books, and tried to be a researcher. Actually, I still do that in my work now.
2. WATCH / The nice thing about my work as a futurist is that I can be inspired by science fiction films. For example, I recently (finally) watched the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (8.3 on IMDb).
A classic from 1968 is still a source of inspiration for contemporary science fiction. My verdict: impressive, but sometimes quite slow and pretty confusing.
🙏 Thank you for reading
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