She admits it's the coolest job ever.

Sheryl Connelly is the staff futurist for the Ford Motor Co. For more than a decade she's been analyzing trends and trying to understand where we are going and what it will be like when we get there. Her work is not at all confined to the automotive space, but she says she exists at Ford to "slow the conversation," and challenge assumptions.

In a conversation on a visit to Los Angeles, Connelly told our Wheel Thing guide, Susan Carpenter, about some of the trends and concepts she's following. Among them, 'time poverty,' which she says is the result of all our digital devices and interconnectivity robbing us of free time. She sees a society that moving away from trusting traditional leaders, such as politicians, in favor of regular, everyday people who are doing small things to make stuff better.

And she did have some thoughts about cars, when pressed. She seems to agree with others that the development of self-driving vehicles will happen faster than many expect. But she also believes it's more likely to take hold in China and India before it becomes common in the US. That's because, she says, in those locales, traffic is truly horrific, and the road infrastructure is poor, so drivers there are more likely to accept an autonomous solution that promises to ease their pain.