I'll bet that Sheryl Connelly's title is one you won't often come across: she's a Futurist. <\/p>\n
Right?! <\/p>\n
Ms. Connelly's job is to inhale social, cultural, technological, environmental and economic trends, and use them to predict what consumers will want in both the near and distant future. Basically, she's a pattern-recognition machine. <\/p>\n
She then makes suggestions to her employer how they can best be prepared for the impact of these trends. That employer is Ford, the only automaker to keep such a person on staff. <\/p>\n
Trends move slower than we think, about three years at a time, while a fad comes and goes quickly. For example, jeans are a trend, while the style of jeans (skinny or bootcut) are a fad. <\/p>\n
Calling herself \"a polite contrarian\", we sat down together to chat about how Ford is preparing for the future. The automaker has a database of 200+ trends, and one she devotes much time to is our aging population. <\/p>\n
Because as consumers grow older, it impacts all facets of the car manufacturing process. <\/p>\n
Ford's Design Studio uses an \"aging suit\" to mimic an older buyer. <\/p>\n
The designers don rubber gloves to reduce feeling and mobility in fingers, scratched glasses to reduce visibility, a suit that restrict movement around the knees and hips, and a neck brace which makes it difficult to swivel the neck. Then off they drive, experiencing what it's like for an eighty-year-old to be behind the wheel. <\/p>\n
That's why the lip of Ford's newer cars are lower, because older people tend to enter the seat backwards, and then swing their legs inside. <\/p>\n
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Here is the original post:<\/p>\n
Fords newest exclusive feature: its "futurist"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I'll bet that Sheryl Connelly's title is one you won't often come across: she's a Futurist. Right?! Ms. Connelly's job is to inhale social, cultural, technological, environmental and economic trends, and use them to predict what consumers will want in both the near and distant future. Continue reading