Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future, spoke at the Advertising Research Foundation annual Re:think convention about leadership in challenging times with a focus on how understanding the future can help companies compete better in the present.

What external future forces will affect advertising research as it transforms over the next ten years? Futurist, Bob Johansen, a ten-year forecaster at the Institute for the Future — the only futures group ever to outlive its forecasts— provided a taste of those forces through a series of digital “what if” stories from the future. Bob is a social scientist by training, with a continuing interest in world religions and faith.

He is the author of Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present.