Isenberg's role is more that of the conventional strategist, using scenario planning to generate alternative views of the future. He describes it as a search for those areas of "critical uncertainty" facing the company. In AT&T's case, uncertainty might involve a major shift in regulations, the arrival of a new set of competitors, a restructuring of capital markets, or an unanticipated technology breakthrough, like a technique for achieving video compression at 10 times the present rate. Other scenarios are built around social changes, like a dramatic jump in the numbers of telecommuters.
All this is pretty new and controversial stuff for an industrial research lab that once saw its mission as extending the frontiers of basic science. And it's still not clear, even to those who are predicting the future, what the future of the Customer Expectations Lab will be.
"I'd say we're still in the process of developing credibility," Blonder says. Isenberg acknowledges that it's still early in the Lab's development: They have yet to figure out how to disseminate the Lab's findings or apply them to particular lines of business.
"We're on the edge of being unconventional, so we have to find more indirect ways of insinuating ourselves into the process," says Muller. "We can't just go around the building here and say we're really smart and we can help you. We tried that. It doesn't work."
Steven Pearlstein (pearlstein@washpost.com) is a business and economics reporter for "The Washington Post."
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
