ABSTRACT

Predicting the future is a hazardous business. History is littered with prophecies that went awry. Take Charles Duell, the US Patent Commissioner, who in 1899 proposed shutting down the Patent Office on the grounds that ‘Everything that can be invented has been invented.’ Or Thomas Watson, the former CEO of IBM, who declared in the late 1940s that ‘there is a world market for maybe five computers’.1