David Smith is a wicked problem-solver, collaborative business leader, technologist, and innovative futurist. He has held executive roles in R&D, government, commercial, and academic organizations. David has been named one of the top seven global futurists in the Millennium issue of Business Week. In this conversation, David shares several concepts to help leaders keep up with the present and prepare for the future. He describes wicked problems, and how to bring a team together with the tools to solve them. He is one of two futurists who have been accurate for the first 22 years of the century and is still on track.     https://bit.ly/TLP-319   Key Takeaways [2:18] David and Jim first met in Austin and found they had a mutual friend in Steve Justice.[3:46] In David’s youth, as a long-haired roadie, he ran audio for the Beach Boys, the Carpenters, and others. David shares a story from that era. [6:18] David solves wicked problems, which are complex problems that have no known solution path. He once had a team of about 200 people over a year make a 45-year wicked problem roadmap for high-energy-density storage for the military. We can store energy now, but not yet at the density that we need. [7:53] Sematech was formed to regain the semiconductor industry back in the United States. They did it. Dave was one of the co-leaders of the first industry roadmap done in the United States. They worked with semiconductor manufacturers, suppliers, academia, and the government to create the roadmap. The commercial sector, academic sector, and government sector acted as a technopolis to enact change. [9:16] Solving wicked problems involves pulling the various stakeholders of commerce, academics, and the government to work together. [10:31] David explains the process of seeing fifty years into the future. He was one of seven futurists who predicted that this century would be defined by bio. All technology is becoming biological. At 22 years in, he’s been pretty accurate. Only one of the other futurists is accurate for today. All the other five have fallen off the table. David explains how he used a framework. [11:20] A leading futurist has changed his future every 14 to 20 months. That’s not forecasting, it’s predicting and then changing his prediction. David uses a method that includes six views of the future: as an extrapolator, a pattern analyst, a goal-setter, a counterpuncher, an intuiter, or an artist. Different techniques are used for each of the views. [12:27] Use people who can work in different views to optimize out errors. David shares a story of a satellite phone company that went to market using only an extrapolation view to forecast sales. In 12 months, they asked David to work with them and get them on track, because his multiple-view forecast of their numbers had been right. [15:32] How can global social issues be solved? David explains that his framework can be applied across the U.S. and even as far as Malaysia. People understand the value of different views. He tells why the front windshield of a car is larger than the rear window; where we’ve been is important but where we’re going is more important. You need to know where you’ve been to be optimized for the future. [18:36] When David interviews people, he asks a standard set of questions and also roleplays. One roleplay involves the interviewee being asked to defend his actions against “one of the world’s leading experts” who disagrees with what the interviewee is doing. That shows David the candidate’s potential for dealing with human dynamics. It reveals competencies and capabilities. [21:46] David suggests something for leaders: They and everyone in their company need to know that we are in a time of lifelong learning and the way we learn is dramatically changing. David is constantly learning and constantly looking at how to learn. One of the six views of the future is counterpuncher. A counterpuncher does a great job of current awareness.  A counterpuncher works scena