Consultants like Coates, who have long specialized in corporate forecasting projects, have been joined by experts in everything from POP culture to computer technology. We often had to explain that we didn't accept divination or any other supernatural leanings in our membership. Utopias were a popular topic in the late '60s. The burning worry was how we would spend all the leisure time we would have in the future. And there waiting with an assortment of answers is a crowd of futurists, some newly anointed.
Nobody minds being called a futurist if they are getting paid big.
At Forecasting International in Arlington, Va., President Marv Cetron says the high-tech revolution has made forecasting extremely sophisticated. Because of the speed and capability of computers, we can do trend extrapolation, trend correlation, gaming models and simulations. With virtual reality you can take a look at things before the fact. Morrison-who is booked through October 1997 by clients including the Direct Marketing Assn. We come in and rattle a few sticks and say some mantras.