Institute For The Future

Meet Research Director Jeff Yang!

Jeff Yang, Research Director

Jeff Yang is mostly based in Los Angeles, but because he’s originally from New York, says he’s always going to be a New Yorker—because that’s just “how it works.” He brings his expertise in globalization, cultural analysis, marketing, and digital culture to IFTF.

Jeff found his way into the futures world when he made a career pivot from journalism to a company called Iconoculture (now part of Gartner), where he advised on globalization and U.S.-China relations. Right away he intersected with IFTF.

“I thought that I had seen futures work before but rarely in as clear and crisp and consistent a fashion,” Jeff says. “Something that really spoke to a much longer-range approach...that I had never seen before. I knew that at some point that was the kind of work I wanted to do.”

Jeff would become a VP at Iconoculture, where he helped Fortune 1000 clients better understand how Asian culture shaped American lifestyle—as well as a number of other roles including The Futures Company and The Wall Street Journal. Across all of his work, cultural analysis has remained at the core, which will be crucial as he takes the lead in growing the Digital Intelligence Lab at IFTF, where he hopes to broaden what we mean by “digital intelligence.”

“Digital intelligence has so far been really focused on things like digital manipulation [and] nefarious influence,” Jeff says. “The approach that I've taken in prior research has been focused a little bit more on things like digital subculture, fandom, and the cultural influence around social connection.”

 

See Jeff Yang's staff page here.