Prediction addiction in an uncertain time: A conversation with Margaret Heffernan

Business of Government Hour

The Business of Government Hour

Prediction addiction in an uncertain time: A conversation with Margaret Heffernan

Has our discomfort with uncertainty given rise to forecasting industries that profit off our “prediction addiction”? Why election predictions, polls, and su...

November 30, 2020 2:28 pm

2 min read

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The Business of Government Radio Hour, hosted by Michael J. Keegan, features a conversation with a federal executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations. Guests include administrators, chief financial officers, chief information officers, chief operating officers, commissioners, controllers, directors, and undersecretaries.

ON THIS WEEK’S SHOW:

Has our discomfort with uncertainty given rise to forecasting industries that profit off our “prediction addiction”? Why election predictions, polls, and surveys won’t tell us who will win? To what extent are predictions really just hypothesis that need to be challenged? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Margaret Heffernan author of Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future.

LISTEN TO THE FULL SHOW:

GUEST BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programs for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness : Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Transmission Prize for A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and How We Do Better, described as “meticulously researched… engagingly written… universally relevant and hard to fault.” Her TED talks have been seen by over twelve million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Her most recent book, Uncharted: How to map the future was published in 2020.

She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and continues to write for the Financial Times and the Huffington Post.