Who are the best Futurist Keynote Speakers in the world? How to choose one of world's best Futurist Keynote Speakers for Your Event. Tests before booking any Futurist Keynote Speaker

Dr Patrick Dixon: Futurist Keynote Speaker - Futurist Keynote Speakers - Book a Keynote NOW

All the best Futurist Keynote Speakers are visionary, high-energy experts on the future: professional, full-time communicators who entertain, inspire and motivate with a huge vision of an exciting future.

* "Life with AI - How to survive and succeed in a super-smart world" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books.  It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including the impact of AI on the workplace, corporate events and keynote delivery.

Trends Analysts will often cost you nothing but are usually boring

It’s not enough for a proposed speaker to be an accurate trends analyst.

Yes, a solid, proven track record of correct forecasting is absolutely vital to credibility, but that will not enough on its own to wow an audience.

What’s the point of being right, if no one is listening to the lecture, and half the audience is doing their email or surfing the web?

Most lecturers on industry trends are deadly speakers – dull, boring, with endless slides of graphs and tables based on old data.  

Such speakers can suck the energy right out of your event in their first 60 seconds.

Typically such speakers are analysts from consulting firms or banks, giving their time for free as a favour to a client.

They are not professional communicators. 

How can I choose the best Futurist Keynote Speakers for my event?

All the best Futurist Keynote Speakers change how people think, open minds, inspire innovation and change horizons.

That is what they do.

World-class Futurist Keynote Speakers take people far beyond their own 5-year business strategies to see a broader picture.  

They open people’s eyes with stunning customer insights, and breath-taking revelations about what’s already here and what will be soon.

By definition, such professional Futurist Keynote Speakers are on the road constantly as world-class celebrities, and will require a substantial fee to give keynote at your event.

A world-class Futurist Keynote Speaker is your insurance policy, underwriting the success of your entire event.

You will sleep well at night knowing that you have a super-charged rocket to launch your whole event, creating a stunning start, and creating a framework into which everything else will make sense.

That's why at most of the events I speak at, the organisers ask me to give a Futurist Keynote as part of the opening session, sharing the platform with the CEO.

The CEO usually comes on first to set up the whole event, explaining where we are, where we've come from and where we are going (strategy).

And then I come on and explain why - the wider visionary context in which the entire strategy makes compelling sense.

How do I choose the right Futurist Keynote Speaker for my own event?

Here are four things to really focus on:

1. Brilliant communicator

You should be able to see a large range of recent keynotes online - typically on YouTube or the Futurist Keynote Speaker's own website.

Look for a wide range of industry topics - NOT just keynotes on your own industry.

Take a look at this website for example - press the YOUR FUTURE button in the drop down menu and browse around.

You will find around 15 different industry sub-websites - each packed with Futurist Keynotes and industry-specific forecasts.

The best forecasters are usually all-rounders who place your own business and industry in a far wider context.

The future is a highly interwoven, complex cluster of related trends in our hyper-connected world - so a big danger sign is if a Futurist Keynote Speaker is working mainly in one or two industries eg digital and health, or energy or banking.

Don't be seduced by a bio section on a Speaker Agency web page.  

Or by a recommendation from a Speaker Agency by email or in a phone call.

Check out the Keynote Speaker's own web profile.  Take a deep look.

No video can capture what actually happens to a live audience, but you should be able to get a feel for style, approach, audience engagement, and tone.

Tone really matters - is this Futurist Keynote Speaker the kind of person you would be proud to represent your own company?

I've seen some embarrassing disasters here - for example a pair of Futurists who bounded onstage and embarrassed the CEO and board with sexist humour, testosterone-fuelled banter and other inappropriate comments.

I've seen other Speakers who were disrespectful to certain nationalities, and made very unfortunate jokes and comments which were offensive to some present.

When you invite outside speakers onto your own platform, you can be sure that to some extent your company and leadership team will be judged by what they say.

So make sure the chemistry is right: that the personality / brand and approach of the Futurist Keynote Speaker is one you are proud to associate with.

The best Futurist Keynote Speakers rewire the brain.

I’m a physician as well as a Futurist so I know how the brain works.

To create new ways of thinking and seeing means building new connections between neurones inside someone’s head.

And to do that at an event means wiring up new mental connections in hundreds of people at the same moment.

I often say this: once you have seen something you can never unsee it – you are changed.

So that is a key skill of all world-class Futurist Keynote Speakers.

They take their entire audience on a journey into the future, to a place of new revelation and insight.

So making a choice about which Futurist Keynote Speaker is about far more than data or clever slides or eye-catching video clips.

It’s about more than telling stories or delivering information.

Moments of revelation are about suddenly recognising what the future will be about.

You can see that wave of recognition sweeping right across a large audience.

“I get it”.  

“I heard about all these things before but I see it now.”

“It all made perfect sense.”

“As if a big light came on – everything fell into place.”

“All the thoughts I had already about the future suddenly fell into place.”

“It was so clear – all the things you see in the media – just part of the bigger picture.”

“The moment he said it, I realised it was obvious, and the way ahead was absolutely clear”.

2. Proven track record in accurate predictions

Some say the future cannot be predicted - but that is just lazy thinking.

And obviously wrong when you think about it.

If that really were true that forecasting is a waste of time, and that people who claim to do it are deceiving themselves, then it would of course be impossible for any business to have a logical basis for a 3-5 year strategy.

For example, a number of my global clients are Pharma companies.

If the future can't be predicted, no pharma company could ever develop a new drug - because it takes typically 10 years and $1 billion investment to bring a drug to market, with 15 years remaining of patent life to reclaim costs and make a profit.  

So in 2025, every pharma board has to have a detailed strategy that will take them right up to and beyond the year 2050.

Same for an oil or gas company, or a builder of airports and so.  Long term strategies and investment is needed.

In any event, I can prove myself that the future to a large extent CAN be predicted.

I have been successfully forecasting major trends in every industry for over 26 years.

You can see on this website posts and videos going back over 20 years so you can judge for yourself.

When I wrote the Future of Almost Everything in 2015 (First Edition) I went back and read again what I wrote in Futurewise in 1998.

I contacted the publisher because there was so much in that 50 year view that was still current, so many trends still in play, that I wanted to borrow the structure and much of the main themes and apply them from the 1998 book into the 2015 book.

The truth is that the future will continue to be driven mainly by evolving megatrends, which have been tracked for decades.

While media will often focus most on disruptive events, history clearly shows that such events are usually mere blips on the horizon of these longer term factors.

The trouble is that anyone can claim to be a Futurist Keynote Speaker, pop up a new website, post a couple of video clips of recent events and try to develop a new career – at your expense maybe.

And making sensational headlines as a Futurist Speaker is easy – just come out with some wild predictions and a PR company will do the rest.  

In fact the more media headlines a Futurist Speaker Generates, the more likely it is that their predictions are often controversial – far from the consensus of global experts on the future.

That’s why the life expectancy of many less experienced Futurist Keynote Speakers is so short.

The future rapidly proves them wrong, not just on one thing, but on a whole raft of predictions.

So all the best-qualified Futurist Keynote Speakers by definition have been on the speaker circuit for a long time.  

Their accuracy has been proven over and over again.

You should be able to pick up any book written by a reputable Futurist Keynote Speaker maybe more than a decade or two ago, and be wowed by page after page of extraordinarily perceptive and accurate forecasts about what life would be like by today.

3. Willing to Listen to Your Unique Brief

Your own event is very important, your audience is unique, your messaging matters.

So pay very close attention to how well the Futurist Keynote Speaker actually listens to your briefing.  

Are they deeply curious about your organisation, strategy, priorities, audience, themes?  

Do they really intend to co-create their content with you and your team, to create a unique audience experience, or are they just rehashing existing material?

The most toxic thing for any event is a professional outside speaker who is so full of self-importance that all they really want to do is deliver their favourite material.

Life’s too short to tolerate working with self-appointed experts on what is right for your own business and your own event.

A good test is the email they write back to you following an initial call / briefing.

Do they really get what you are aiming for this event?  

Are they serving you or are you going to end up serving them?

Another good test is to take a good look at a wide range of videos of Futurist Keynotes on their website - how similar are they?

If the person genuinely is customising extensively then that should be obvious as you take a look around.

On this website for example you will find links to over 650 videos across every industry and sector, each one designed for a unique event.

For sure, there are components that may work across many audiences - especially in the early part of a Futurist Keynote, talking about common principles and errors in forecasting, how to counteract GroupThink and other forecasting hazards and so on.

But the whole theme should feel tailored to each audience and event.

4. Generous heart

Is your proposed Futurist Keynote Speaker going to stick to the letter of their contract or will they be generous with their time and attention?  

This really matters not only in the run up to the event, but also in time given to sit down and check things through on arrival (more than a tech test).

Are they going to run for the earliest flight they can possibly get home afterwards or are they going to linger, making themselves available to those who want to chat?

Are they willing for you to make a video of their entire keynote and to use it however they like without extra charge?  

Are they willing to give media interviews, meet VIP sponsors and so on?

In other words, are they committed to making your event a huge success or are they only interested in their own moment of glory on your platform?

It can be hard to be sure about this, just by looking at a website, but you can easily check by talking to previous clients or to a Speaker Bureau who has used that speaker a lot before, because they will know what the working relationship is usually like.

Join the Debate! What are your own views?

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