Futurist Amy Webb explains how to tell a fad from a trend.

Amy Webb is an author, futurist and Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading future forecasting and strategy firm that researches technology and answers “What’s the future of X?” for a global client base.The seeds of FTI began in 2003 when Amy founded a future of news R&D shop. Now in its second decade, the Institute advises Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, government agencies, large nonprofits, universities and startups around the world. Webb is an adjunct faculty at the NYU Stern School of Business, where she teaches a popular MBA-level course on futures forecasting. She was a 2014-15 Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and her researchon the future of education reformreceived a national Sigma Delta Chi award. Webb was also a Delegate on the former U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, where she worked on the future of technology, media and international diplomacy.

She is the author of three books, including The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream (PublicAffairs, December 2016) which explains how to predict and manage technological change. It was selected as Amazon’s best book of December 2016 and was a #1 Bestseller. Her bestselling memoir Data, A Love Story (Dutton/ Penguin 2013) is about finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 5 million times and has been translated into 32 languages. Data is being adapted as a feature film, which is currently in production. Webb originally attended the Jacobs School of Music to study classical clarinet. She holds a B.A. in political science, game theory and economics from Indiana University and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism