Forgetting the Past: The Key to Predicting the Future
R. P. Beaulieu, Kevin G. Love

Abstract
Historically, the prediction of and preparation for future events use a perspective which is rooted in the past. Organizations make plans for the future by (re)assessing what has already taken place. Benchmarking is a good example. An organization analyzes the practices of one or more high performing companies, often times within their own industry, then adopts those historically based processes when preparing for the future. The implied assumption is that the future will be only some variation of the past. This paper argues for a changed paradigm for prediction. New approaches to predict and prepare for the future are discussed.

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