Lindkvist says we’re starting to see what life could be without health clubs, because apps can package the same knowledge T
he coming decade in the fitness industry will be more exciting than the last three put together,” says
Magnus Lindkvist, the Swedish-born trendspotter and futurologist. “In the last three decades it was a continuum. We saw more and more
people become engaged and go to fitness clubs. We went from serious bodybuilders in very manly clubs to a more feminine, cool, hip nightclub-like atmosphere – sometimes in a budget environment, sometimes in a premium model – but physically going to a health club was the thing.
WHAT IS FUTUROLOGY? ‘‘S
imply put, a futurologist is someone who tries to figure out
what the future may hold and suggest how we could possibly shape it,” explains Lindkvist. “But I would say that there are two kinds of futurologists: those who can predict the future, and who are therefore ridiculously rich, and the rest of us. “My view is that we can
speculate broadly and accurately about the world over the next 30 years. We see urbanisation happening – we can take a 30- or 40-year view on that. We know exactly how many 90-year-olds there will be in 30 years – they’re already here but they’re 60. So we
February 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
can make quite broad portraits of the coming few decades. “But we can never know
how many ideas a girl being born today will have in 17 years’ time, or what they will be. We can never predict how a confused 19-year-old guy carrying a knife might change world history on Tuesday afternoon in June next year. We shouldn’t even try, because for me futurology isn’t about accurately predicting things. It’s exploring how we think about the future – trying to get people to rewrite their own first drafts of the future. “Because we all make
assumptions that the future is probably X. My role as a futurologist is to say: ‘What if
it’s not X? What if it’s everything but X?’ That’s what intrigues me. Even though it sounds like futurology is only about the future, it’s not. It’s intellectual acupuncture. It’s exploring opposites and contrarian ideas and changing my own mind and maybe other people’s too. “People tend only to notice
trends in what I call the ‘suddenly moment’ – the moment when something dramatic happens, like a business going bust or the Berlin Wall falling – but trends actually come gradually, and identifying them before the ‘suddenly moment’ is key. “However, if we’re going to
have a chance to think about the gradually part, we can’t just live
in the here and now. We have to start looking at archives. We have to start zooming out on Google Earth to see what earth looks like at night, to discover urbanisation and how it’s spreading around the world. We have to start thinking in terms of secrets, because most new ideas are secrets before they’re articulated and become a trend: they might hide in a laboratory somewhere, or in the head of an entrepreneur. “So I would argue that, if you
want to be a successful, long- term trendspotter and possibly forecaster, you should live less in the here and now and start looking for secrets, looking at long-term shifts, going more to the library than the newsagent and so on.”
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 45 “Now for the first time we see what
life could be without clubs. Because a fitness club is essentially one thing: packaged knowledge. A machine is packaged knowledge. A personal trainer is packaged knowledge. The club and how it’s laid out is packaged knowledge. And similarly an app is
PHOTO:
WWW.SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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