Plans for Tomorrow Already Happened

It seems like just yesterday we were planning for the future,
which we decided would take place in NYC. In case you missed the news,

Future Unincorporated has relocated to New York City.

After months of preparation and worry, we made our big jump. Without skipping a beat,
the future has been happening for four weeks already.

Not to worry, we are still very concerned about Finland, but from the control center of the world, we feel like we are in the center of everything. In fact, we can worry about the futures of many different countries and people that exist outside of NYC, because now everything else seems fictitious.

Our classifications and analysis of former clients is now much simpler because they now seem like characters from a fairytale. It makes our consultations and predictions much simpler if we are just working with the idea of people rather than real ones.

We are now ready to present the rest of our research from our extended business trip to Haukivuori, Finland. Please be patient as we take our time to present you with our strategic analysis of what is going to happen based on what already did.



We are so open for business. Make an appointment with a consultant for a report on your status.

Mark today in your calendar as a very important day to remember in the Future!!!

Today was a great day for our understanding of the Future. As previously advertised, it was an Official Open House at the Office.

Due to yesterday's wonderful beautiful snowfall (the weather has been worse than glum for weeks), the general spirit of the staff was lifted, and business proceeded at a happy skipping pace.

Last night (Saturday) we installed a sign at the local gas station to draw locals to the office for the open house. We didn't expect anyone to come, but we thought it was a good gesture.

On the walk back from the gas station, the advertising department had a great idea: we could make invitations for consultations and tie them to the doorknobs of all the neighbors. So like a goodwilled swat team in the night, at midnight we divided and delivered invitations everywhere we passed on our one hour neighbor search. We didn't forget the forest people and gypsies in the forest either- we hung invitations on the trees at eye level.

This morning we began by preparing the office for openness. We packed our usual box with the usual tea and safety lamp, but because today was a special day, we also packed a few pieces of cake. In the future, we think people will need to eat less cake, but we decided to serve it anyway just to lure the locals.

The lure of the cake didn't really work, and neither did the advertising campaign or the invitations. However, the snow blew in a local man named Lucien, and by chance he had time for an interview. Details on the consultation to come.

It was clear that he really appreciated the cake. The expensive humidification system in the office caused his glasses to fog up a little, but he continued the interview with blind perseverance. Thank you Lucien!

After that meeting, before darkness ended the possibility of visitors, the entire staff from the Future decided that we needed to approach our consultations differently. With more spirit, more action, more CORNERING.

Like a used Bible Sales staff, this Sunday we began to go door to door to offer at home consultations. We began with a neighbor, Rauni, who is the village's General Physician. She invited us in for a home visit/ consultation.

Before it was dark, we departed for Ana's house where we demanded an interview also. She is the art teacher at all the local schools in the village.

We will give a profile of all three interviews in the days to come.

The final news of the day comes to us from the administrative desk... There has been a promotion! We would like to announce that Miyuki Kido, previously a part time secretary for The Future Unincorporated, has been elevated to the title of

Permanent Executive Presidential Secretary.
Congratulations Miyuki, and thanks for all your hard work!

Office Policies for Tomorrow

As we approach the end of the Finnish office, we just want to remind our clients of a few things.
1. Tardiness rushes our conversation about the future.
2. Cancellations stop time from happening in the office.

We will forgive all cancellations and tardy clients up until this point. We prepare tirelessly for all our meetings, and an abrupt change of plans complicates our schedule and keeps us from serving our other customers with the same grace and preparation that we aim to give to each individual. Thank you for understanding.
Please come to our office party next Tuesday.

Interview Profile: Kaick

We met Kaick on our first day in Haukivuori. We were introduced at a Christmas Fair in the village gym, and Kaick drove us back to the office and gave a quick tour of the area on the way.

Kaick is a psychiatric nurse. He drinks coffee for breakfast. It is preground coffee, bought at a local market imported from Germany. He explained many expectations for Haukivuori, Finland, and the world in terms of population, natural disasters, food politics, and he also has a plan for what he will do in his own personal future.Predictions of Kaick:
1. Population of Finland doubles in 30 years due to Western European migration out of urban areas.
2. Food production ban/ import-export ban: This includes sea fishing worldwide. This is one of Kaick's hopes- he expects that it is possible in 25 years (that we need that much time to realize the necessity of the ban).
3. In 10 years there will be much larger natural disasters than we have experienced before, where millions of people die.
4. Kaick will work at his job for 10 more years and then retire. He will travel in the winters, saving February and March for ice fishing.

Please click on the notes below to read my expansion on the original notes.

Notes on meeting with Kaick

Originally uploaded by cassieshotz

Interview Profile: Birgitta

CONSULTING WITH A CONSULTANT
As some of our loyal readers might recall, in the infant stages of the Future Uninc., we had come across a fellow consultant from the area while taking a video course at a local university. We had lunch together the day we met and we learned of our mutual passion for consulting (it made her late for her next meeting). She helped us to develop our ability to communicate about our important work with Finns by translating important business terms. Last week Birgitta came for a site visit/ interview. We were impressed with her professionalism and with HOW MUCH ADVICE she had for us!!

Click on the paper above to see our notes on the consultation.
We anticipated some friendly competition with our new acquaintance, but it turns out our fears and excitement were unnecessary. Birgitta had no interest in a competitive relationship, she took us on as any good entrepreneur would: she used the term collaboration when describing some hypothetical business plans for our two firms, but what she was referring to is called a congeneric merger, which occurs when two merging firms are in the same general industry, but they have no mutual buyer/customer or supplier relationship. She is a sly business tycoon.

Here is one of the plans she surprised us with:


This was a map of a plan for expansion that could happen in several stages to the Future Unincorporated office. No plans were agreed upon. With a little EU support, she planted all sorts of ideas for future expansion. Click to enlarge.

She also brought some gifts: from her corporation to ours. There was a lot of fast talking and numbers being thrown around. We are not sure if anything was agreed on, but we are not sure because we don't speak the same language as our clients.

Yesterday and Today and then Tomorrow

Today as we were going through some of our old files, we came across some ancient designs from back when the Future Uninc. was just a concept.

We thought some of our longtime customers might appreciate this-- a reminder of the time BEFORE the Finland office existed (as if). At this time we were concentrating more on the idea of making as much paperwork as possible, so understandably we were looking to masterminds like Terry Gilliam (especially in Brazil) for descriptions of a well oiled corporation.

Now that we are fully established as the predominant consulting firm in the forest, we have adapted our design a bit to embody the spirit of our type of consulting. We try to mask the paperwork, the deadlines, the neck to neck competition brought on by the crashing stock market, and our struggle to maintain ourselves as our home economy struggles with a looming recession-- all so we can get down to business with our customers in the forest-- with hot tea, warm conversation, and cool advice.

Call it a friendly conversation, we call it consulting.

Save the Date!
Sunday, January 20 Open House at the Office
(daylight hours-- advertisements posted at gas station)
Tuesday, January 22 Closing Office Party
(after dark- please rsvp for details)
refreshments will be served!!

Tell us how we're doing.

We want to know what you think of Future Unincorporated.

We are refining our web presence and we want to know what you think about it.

Please visit www.futureunincorporated.com
and drop us a note to let us know if we did a good job.

It is hard to tell if the new site looks good when the computer screen keeps fogging up-- the dehumidifier in the office cannot keep up with the high temperature and the consequential melting snow.

Also, if you have any questions about the future, please send an email to cassie.thornton@gmail.com; it turns out that the email address posted previously (info@futureunincorporated.com) is malfunctioning, so we will temporarily be using one of our employees home addresses. The old email will be working soon, as soon as we can get ahold of the IT person.