This file provides additional content for the forecasting paper assignment in TECH 3020: Technology Systems in Societies, at BGSU.

1. February 5, 2013
Volti, Unit 1 information, chapters 1-3
• The Nature of Technology
• Winners and Losers: The Differential Effects
of Technological Change
• The Sources of Technological Change

2. February 5, 2013
Forecasting
• Any individual or organization affected by
technological change inevitably engages in
forecasting (financial, economic, etc.)
• Goal is not always to predict future
• examine trends
• predict likely scenarios
• develop contingency plans

3. February 5, 2013
Methods of Forecasting
• Summarized from Martino’s Technological
Forecasting: An Introduction handout (PDF
available in Course Documents area)
• Examples may overlap with more than one
method

4. February 5, 2013
Extrapolation
• Projecting a pattern that has been found in
the past, to anticipate potential outcomes in
the future
• Examples: Moore’s Law / El Nino
• Examples?

5. February 5, 2013
Leading Indicators
• Using one time series to anticipate / obtain
information another time series
• Assumption is that both time series share
similar behaviors, but with a time-lag
• Example: “What the barometer is doing today
is what the rain clouds will do tomorrow”

6. February 5, 2013
Causal Models
• Finding cause and effect relationships
• Contextualizing first two methods
• Example: understanding why the barometer
itself works, in order to better understand why
there will be rain clouds tomorrow.

7. February 5, 2013
Probabilistic Methods
• Forecasting using any combination of the first
three methods, then arriving at a range of
possible values
• Example: 70% chance of showers