“My job is the corporate equivalent of looking out of the front window,” says Ian Pearson, futurologist at BT. “It is about seeing what is out there, seeing how software and technology will develop in the next 10 to 15 years and assessing what the threats and opportunities will be.”
Pearson was not always a futurologist. After a spell working as a rocket scientist – therefore granting Ian two of the flashiest job titles that any curriculum vitae could ask for – he ended up at BT in the mid-1980s. As a firm with a strong interest in long-term research and development, it was part of Ian’s role to look 15 years into the future and see where network technology may be heading.
