Vol.
2, No. 10 | August 2016 | AAI
Foresight
As partisan politics
and its inherent short-termism vacated Washington, D.C., for the
summer, futurists found an opportune time and place for thinking
together about thinking ahead.
The
main attraction for this brief Summer of Futuring was the World
Future Society's
summit (July 22-24), with approximately 530 total attendees. Also
conferring in D.C. were the Public
Sector Foresight Network,
the Association
of Professional Futurists,
and members of the editorial board of World
Future Review,
the
publication formerly serving professional members of the World Future
Society and now edited by James
Dator for
Sage Publications. Other venerable futures institutions on the scene
included The
Millennium Project,
led by Jerome
C. Glenn,
and TechCast
Global,
led by
William Halal.
 |
| Julie Friedman Steele with Kimbal Musk. Photo by C.G. Wagner |
Worldfuture
2016 marked the World
Future Society's 50th anniversary with the introduction of board
chair Julie
Friedman Steele.as
the new (interim) executive director. Steele made herself visible and
accessible to conference goers throughout the event, serving as host
and principal discussant for all the keynote presentations: space
entrepreneur Bob
Richards,
co-founder and CEO of Moon
Express;
poet Sekou
Andrews;
restauratur and food activist Kimbal
Musk;
animal rights leader Wayne
Pacelle,
president and CEO of the Humane
Society of the United States;
and MacArthur Foundation managing director Cecilia
Conrad,
who described the 100&Change
grant initiative.
In
the “box of chocolates” that is the WFS conference, sometimes you
really do know what you're going to get. Attendees flocked to such
popular speakers as the family of Future
Hunters,
Edie
Weiner, Jared Weiner, and
Erica
Orange;
techno-philosopher and futurist Gray
Scott
of Serious
Wonder;
and deans of the Futures School, Kedge
partners Frank
Spencer
and Yvette
Montero Salvatico.
One predictable
aspect of the conference was the frustration generated by multiple
sessions being scheduled concurrently, and the tightly packed meeting
rooms were also hard to discreetly escape to sample other sessions.
 |
| The "unconference" in action. Photo by C.G. Wagner |
An innovative
solution to the concurrent session scheduling problem was the
introduction of an “unconference” format—essentially a cross
between poster sessions and roundtable discussions, wherein
presenters had their own tables for 90 minutes and could chat more
informally with a small group of participants.
Session
Sampler
Twenty-One
Trends for the Twenty-First Century:
Gary
Marx,
president of the Center
for Public Outreach,
based his presentation on his new book
of the same title, which surveys broad trends in demography,
technology, the environment, the economy, and global relations, as
well as how these trends will be affected by big data, geriatrics,
neuroscience, nano/biotech, security, robotics, the share economy,
the gig economy, DIY, the Internet of Things, drones, and more. Many
opportunities may be found at the convergence of two or more trends,
he said.
The
Learning Revolution:
Parminder
K. Jassal
of the ACT
Foundation
and
Katherine Prince and
Jason
Swanson
of KnowledgeWorks
presented a variety of emerging paradigms for learning and education.
For example, individuals could use the blockchain technology
underlying Bitcoins to keep track of their learning experiences and
submit their achievements to school systems for credit or to
employers as a credential for employment. The blockchain will keep
track of classroom experiences as well as on-the-job experiences that
qualify for learning. This is a step away from central control of
education toward individualized learning, the speakers claimed.
The
Age of Illumination: The Coming Revolution in Discovery, Innovation,
and Productivity:
Deborah
Wince-Smith,
president and CEO of the U.S.
Council on Competitiveness,
outlined the variety of ways in which the new technologies will
unleash new powers in the future—and unleash tsunamis of data that
will double every two years. Increasingly cheap mobile computing
empowers us to handle this flood of data, she said, transforming
retailing, public health, agriculture, and disaster response.
The
Future of Work:
Journalist, HR consultant, and lifelong futurist Alexandra
Levit
offered an overview of trends shaping the future of work
relationships. The declining birthrate in the developed world is
leading to talent shortages that will lead to the “rise of the
seniors, take two,” she said. It will also require the large cohort
of millennials to move into leadership positions a decade earlier
than their elders did. Levit also disputed the notion that job losses
are due to automation; rather, new technologies have generated more
opportunities. The social media manager, for instance, is a category
that didn't exist 20 years ago. Look for more occupations requiring
human skills, such as interpreting big data.
Emotional
Machines:
On the subject of human-computer relations, Richard
Yonck
of Intelligent
Future Consulting reminded attendees that “emotion was our
first interface,” and to work effectively with our technological
partners, we need to make our machines more like ourselves than the
other way around.
Public
foresight programs:
Several speakers offered overviews of their initiatives in applying
futurism in public agencies, including Aaron
Bazin and
Mehmet
Kinaci
on NATO's Framework
for Future Alliance Operations;
Steven
Gale on
the U.S. Agency for International Development's Global
Development Lab;
Byeongwon
Park on
the Center for Strategic Foresight at South
Korea's Science
and Technology Policy Institute;
Peter
Padbury
on Policy
Horizons Canada;
Prabhat
Ranjan
on India's Technology
Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council;
Leon
Fuerth, director
of the Project
on Forward Engagement
(and former national security adviser to Al Gore); the U.S. Marine
Corps Warfighting Lab's Futures Directorate,
represented by Patrick
Kirchner, Jesse Cook,
and James
Trahan;
and Kira
Hutchinson on
the U.S.
Army's Mad Scientist initiative to
explore the operational environment of 2030-2050.
 |
| Photo by C.G. Wagner |
The
future of WFS: Two
back-to-back sessions gave attendees an overview of the private
member network
that replaces The
Futurist magazine
as the organization's principal membership benefit. While moderator
and board member Deborah
Peacock
tried to steer the discussion toward chapter development,
participants at the first of the two mirror sessions pressed for more
details on the benefits WFS is now offering. Many expressed concern
about the lack of a publication to distribute to prospective members
as a recruitment tool, noting that The
Futurist had
always been an "ambassador” for the Society.
Peacock
emphasized that the suspension of the magazine was a financial
decision and that the new WFS—whose membership now numbers “almost
3,000,” according to membership concierge Abby Tang—is
very much in a formative stage. Peacock encouraged all members
to provide feedback and ideas.
Note:
Shortly after the conference, WFS announced a fundraising campaign to
pursue a number of member-generated ideas, including “bring
back The
Futurist.”
Public
Sector Foresight Network
Also
drawing nearly 100 foresight professionals to D.C. was a meeting July
22 that joined the international Public Sector Foresight Network
(PSFN) and the U.S.
Federal Foresight Community of Interest (FFCoI). The goal of the
joint meeting was to “share knowledge on best practices in
identifying emerging trends and discuss issues such as how foresight
can be incorporated into decision making,” according to PSFN
co-founder Nancy
Donovan
of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Both networks
decided to combine forces to organize a joint meeting in 2016 in
order to facilitate the exchange of diverse views and best practices
by U.S. and international foresight officials.”
The
participants shared their experiences bringing foresight work to
their government agencies, including a strategic foresight project
for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a work technology study
for the Basque Country, and work toward formulating an aspirational
component for meeting Sustainable Development Goals.
A
more detailed report on the meeting prepared by Lane
Jennings
will be posted on the AAI Foresight Signals blog.
Association of Professional Futurists
Also
meeting ahead of the WFS conference July 22 were members of
Association of Professional Futurists, who held their annual
professional development program. Although AAI Foresight did not
attend personally, we enjoyed following the event on Twitter (and
hearing the praises of attendees reporting back to us during the WFS
conference).
A
few tweets:
Andy
Hines @futurist_Ahines: @profuturists
Opening session on "purpose" followed w/ Jim Dator's
amazing futurist journey; always fascinating to learn why we do
futures!
Maree
Conway @MareeConway: Recurring
theme at APF #pro2016 is need to have people and their needs at
centre of our work; appeared in many ways today #4futr
Jennifer
McDougall @mcdougalljennie: Can design thinking make you a more
innovative and effective futurist? #prodev16
APF
@profuturists: Breakout sessions: identifying needs over wants,
values & beliefs, responding to feedback #ProDev16 #4futr
APF
@profuturists: Breakout sessions: consulting through multiple
perspectives & operating environments #ProDev16 #4futr
APF
@profuturists: Breakout sessions: content must prompt inquiry,
curiosity and response. Medium is (still) message #ProDev16 #4futr
incognito
sum @incognitosum: Futures & futurists can't be separated from
theories of social change @jimdator speaking at @profuturists
#ProDev16
Maree
Conway @MareeConway: Talking about prediction - big data helps you
predict the future for the next 30 seconds Jim Data #prodev16
Christopher
Bishop @chrisbishop: #prodev16 #4futr @profuturist put #futurist on
your passport so you can have a teachable moment with a border
guard/customs official
APF
@profuturists: It is always the duty of futurists to think about
what's next, to be able to talk about what could be vs what's
expected @jimdator #ProDev16
Marti
Ryan @martifuturist: @pinnovation "Strategic planning is a waste
of time in an era of disruption. Use strategy as a process of
learning" #prodev16
Marti
Ryan @martifuturist: Super grateful for the opp to bump brains w
@profuturists #prodev16. The energy, thinking, leading &
creativity continue to inspire me.
World Future Review Editorial Board
Several
members of WFR's
editorial board also met informally over breakfast during the WFS
conference: Antonio
Alonso Concheiro, Guillermina
Baena Paz, Guillermina Benavides Rincon, Clem Bezold, Stuart Candy,
Jay Gary, Jerry Glenn, Fabienne Goux-Baudiment, Sirkka Heinonen,
Andrew Hines, Lane Jennings, Claire Nelson, and Wendy
Schultz.
Editor
Jim Dator
solicited ideas and fielded concerns from participants over the
logistics of publishing the journal independently of WFS and in
digital form only. He announced that
the title of the journal would soon be changed to World
Futures
Review
to emphasize the multiplicity of futures studies, and to indicate
that the publication was no longer affiliated with the World Future
Society.
Dator
explained that
SAGE’s strategy of bundling online subscriptions to social science
journals (of which WFR
is one) made past and current issues available through several
thousand university library systems worldwide, and that the publisher
had no objection to authors using their articles in books or for
other purposes provided they did not simply copy the text exactly as
it had appeared online.
Suggestions
for changes and improvements in the journal were many but uniformly
positive. Everyone present applauded Dator’s achievement in getting
the journal back on schedule, and agreed with his goal of featuring
articles about the field of futures studies itself and not possible
futures for society or some specific aspect of it.
One
goal that several of those present stressed was to get WFR
recognized as an accredited journal, which would allow articles
published there to count toward academic tenure. Exactly how this
might be achieved is not clear, but the topic will certainly be
pursued in future discussions.
Acknowledgments
Thank
you to Clem Bezold, James Dator, Nancy Donovan, Jay Herson, and Lane
Jennings for their contributions to this report. --CGW
__________
Send
us your signals!
News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on
Foresight
Signals.
Contact
Cynthia
G. Wagner,
consulting editor.
Feel
free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any
stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon
that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight
community.
__________
©
2016 AAI
Foresight
Foresight
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Foresight
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