Futures Tools: Exploring

Possibilities and Implications

28 August 2010Dr. Wendy L. SchultzDirector, Infinite Futures

Fellow, World Futures Studies FederationFellow, Royal Society for the Arts

Scanning,Futures Wheels

(basic and augmented)and

Verge(Ethnographic Futures

Framework)

Monday, 30 August 2010

local; few cases; emerging issues

3rd horizon

Mapping a trend’s diffusion into public awareness from its starting point as an emerging issue of change.

Pockets offuture found

In present Time

“present” “future”

Number of cases; degree of public awareness

global; multiple dispersed cases; trends and drivers

scientists; artists; radicals; mystics

specialists’ journals and websites

laypersons’ magazines; websites; documentaries

newspapers; news magazines; broadcast media

institutions and government

system limits; problems develop;

unintended impacts

Monday, 30 August 2010

Scanning+ the 3rd Horizon

Scanning provides a starting point to monitor possible transformative / disruptive changes.3 Horizons let us organise and consider the interplay of trends and emerging changes.Uses:

Challenge system robustness;Enable plausible provocative scenarios;Get beyond incrementalism.

3

TIMELINESSYSTEMS MAPS

HORIZON SCANNINGTREND FORECASTSIMPACT MAPPING

USED & DISOWNED FUTURESFUTURES TRIANGLE

SCENARIOSINFLECTION POINTSDECISION HORIZONS

• How will emerging change affect people’s lives, lifestyles, belongings, houses, pets, communities, work, retirement, and investment patterns?

• How will different emerging changes intersect with each other to either amplify or constrain their related impacts?

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“3 Horizons” and Horizon Scanning

CURRENT TRENDS & DRIVERS

STATUS QUO, MOMENTUM, INERTIA

EMERGING ISSUES OF CHANGE

1st horizon

2nd horizon

3rd horizon

Time

Dominanceof paradigm / worldview

Pockets offuture found

In present

“present” “future”

Fading paradigms & technologies

Transition paradigms & technologies

Invent, Develop, Deploy

Research,Demonstrate,

Disrupt

Envision, Explore, Embody

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Futures WheelsMonday, 30 August 2010

Futures Wheels: Origins

Jerome C. GlennInvented futures wheels in 1971 as a method for policy analysis and forecastingAlso called Implementation Wheels, Impact Wheels, Mind Mapping, and Webbing.Reference: Jerome C. Glenn, “The Futures Wheel,” in The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodology 3.0 (CD)

Joel Barker“Cascade thinking:” go out at least three orders of implications to find big surpriseshttp://strategicexploration.com/implications-wheel/

Monday, 30 August 2010

Futures Wheel

Monday, 30 August 2010What are the first effects you can extrapolate would emerge from this shift in the computing infrastructure – and everything connected to, or depending upon, it? For example:•working – and education – environments noisier;•nobody needs to remember passwords anymore;•precipitous drop in incidence of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome;•market emerges for ”great voice” modules to personalize computer speech.These are just a few examples of primary effects. If your thinking gets stuck, look at the subdivisions in the futures wheel. These effects address the areas of work, education, daily life, health, and the economy – what about hobbies? our homes and family life? the arts? etc.Next, take each of these primary effects, one by one, and ask what effects they in turn will have on our lives:•working – and education – environments noisier:

•wireless ”earbud” headphones/microphones to communicate with your computer;•development of ”workpod” office and schoolroom furniture, with built-in sound barriers:

•people in the same room conversing through their computers’ wireless network;•”visual display” goggles for silent response, eye movement navigation through menus:

•accelerated development of augmented reality.While listing the secondary effects of the chosen primary effect, tertiary effects also emerged, as the indented, italicized items illustrate.

Augmented Futures Wheel

Monday, 30 August 2010What are the first effects you can extrapolate would emerge from this shift in the computing infrastructure – and everything connected to, or depending upon, it? For example:•working – and education – environments noisier;•nobody needs to remember passwords anymore;•precipitous drop in incidence of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome;•market emerges for ”great voice” modules to personalize computer speech.These are just a few examples of primary effects. If your thinking gets stuck, look at the subdivisions in the futures wheel. These effects address the areas of work, education, daily life, health, and the economy – what about hobbies? our homes and family life? the arts? etc.Next, take each of these primary effects, one by one, and ask what effects they in turn will have on our lives:•working – and education – environments noisier:

•wireless ”earbud” headphones/microphones to communicate with your computer;•development of ”workpod” office and schoolroom furniture, with built-in sound barriers:

•people in the same room conversing through their computers’ wireless network;•”visual display” goggles for silent response, eye movement navigation through menus:

•accelerated development of augmented reality.While listing the secondary effects of the chosen primary effect, tertiary effects also emerged, as the indented, italicized items illustrate.

Enter your assigned change in the inner circle of your worksheet.

Everyone take five minutes by themselves to imagine the possible impacts of this change.

Share your individual lists within your group. Which of these are immediate, or primary, impacts? Immediate primary impacts are the direct caused by the change. Write those down next to the appropriate “spoke”.

Some of the impacts on your lists may actually be the result of a primary impact, or occur after a primary impact - draw a line from the relevant primary impact, and write the suggested secondary impact in a circle at the end of that line.

Now consider each primary impact, one by one. Brainstorm two or three impacts it will have, and map those, connecting each to its primary impact.

Futures Wheels: Instructions

Monday, 30 August 2010Let’s create a futures wheel from the statement, ”By 2010, we talk to our computers, they talk back, and recognize us via biometrics.” This statement is a vivid way of expressing several related trends: 1) increasing multiplicity of input and display devices for computers, with consequent decline in use of keyboards; and 2) increasing use of “biometrics” – identifiers based on unique characteristics of living organisms, like our fingerprints, retinal patterns, blood type, or DNA.

secondary effects

work?

hobbies?

education?home/families?

travel?

communications?

economy?

environment?

primary effects

impact

impact

impact

criticalemerging change

Futures Wheel

Monday, 30 August 2010What are the first effects you can extrapolate would emerge from this shift in the computing infrastructure – and everything connected to, or depending upon, it? For example:•working – and education – environments noisier;•nobody needs to remember passwords anymore;•precipitous drop in incidence of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome;•market emerges for ”great voice” modules to personalize computer speech.These are just a few examples of primary effects. If your thinking gets stuck, look at the subdivisions in the futures wheel. These effects address the areas of work, education, daily life, health, and the economy – what about hobbies? our homes and family life? the arts? etc.Next, take each of these primary effects, one by one, and ask what effects they in turn will have on our lives:•working – and education – environments noisier:

•wireless ”earbud” headphones/microphones to communicate with your computer;•development of ”workpod” office and schoolroom furniture, with built-in sound barriers:

•people in the same room conversing through their computers’ wireless network;•”visual display” goggles for silent response, eye movement navigation through menus:

•accelerated development of augmented reality.While listing the secondary effects of the chosen primary effect, tertiary effects also emerged, as the indented, italicized items illustrate.

secondary effects

work?

hobbies?

education?home/families?

travel?

communications?

economy?

environment?

primary effects

impact

impact

impact

work noisier

“earbud” headphones to talk to/hear computer

office sound barriers

silent, eye-tracking menu navigation goggles

developed

voice input / output, biometric passwords

Futures Wheel

Monday, 30 August 2010What are the first effects you can extrapolate would emerge from this shift in the computing infrastructure – and everything connected to, or depending upon, it? For example:•working – and education – environments noisier;•nobody needs to remember passwords anymore;•precipitous drop in incidence of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome;•market emerges for ”great voice” modules to personalize computer speech.These are just a few examples of primary effects. If your thinking gets stuck, look at the subdivisions in the futures wheel. These effects address the areas of work, education, daily life, health, and the economy – what about hobbies? our homes and family life? the arts? etc.Next, take each of these primary effects, one by one, and ask what effects they in turn will have on our lives:•working – and education – environments noisier:

•wireless ”earbud” headphones/microphones to communicate with your computer;•development of ”workpod” office and schoolroom furniture, with built-in sound barriers:

•people in the same room conversing through their computers’ wireless network;•”visual display” goggles for silent response, eye movement navigation through menus:

•accelerated development of augmented reality.While listing the secondary effects of the chosen primary effect, tertiary effects also emerged, as the indented, italicized items illustrate.

secondary effects

work?

education?

travel? economy?primary effects impact

impact

impact

work noisier

“earbud” headphones to talk to/hear computer

office sound barriers

silent, eye-tracking menu navigation goggles

developed

voice input / output, biometric passwords

Futures Wheel

market for “great voices”

no passwords required drop in carpal tunnel

syndrome

increase in worker productivity

decline in worker compensation costs

collapse of keyboard wrist

rest market

new licensing opp’ty for

popular singers and actors

pirate market: great voices

“napsterized”

rather talk to your machine

than you…

home/families?

Monday, 30 August 2010What are the first effects you can extrapolate would emerge from this shift in the computing infrastructure – and everything connected to, or depending upon, it? For example:•working – and education – environments noisier;•nobody needs to remember passwords anymore;•precipitous drop in incidence of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome;•market emerges for ”great voice” modules to personalize computer speech.These are just a few examples of primary effects. If your thinking gets stuck, look at the subdivisions in the futures wheel. These effects address the areas of work, education, daily life, health, and the economy – what about hobbies? our homes and family life? the arts? etc.Next, take each of these primary effects, one by one, and ask what effects they in turn will have on our lives:•working – and education – environments noisier:

•wireless ”earbud” headphones/microphones to communicate with your computer;•development of ”workpod” office and schoolroom furniture, with built-in sound barriers:

•people in the same room conversing through their computers’ wireless network;•”visual display” goggles for silent response, eye movement navigation through menus:

•accelerated development of augmented reality.While listing the secondary effects of the chosen primary effect, tertiary effects also emerged, as the indented, italicized items illustrate.

Verge: an ethnographic futures framework

Michele Bowman and Richard LumFormulated in response to frustrations with STEEP/PESTE scan taxonomiesFocus on people and society: define; relate; connect; create; consume

Wide applicabilityas a taxonomy for scanning: organises emerging change by point of impact on people, rather than by point of originenriches futures wheels, strengthens scenarios, deepens vision, adds specificity to strategy.

Monday, 30 August 2010

Verge: how does change affect human experience?

“Human history can be dissected (and sometimes understood) as a series of eras or epochs – the Agricultural Era, the Industrial Era, the Information Age.  Common to each of these eras or ages is a set of culture points which define and shape each era and which are common to all of human experience. For instance, while the role (and even the flavor) of religion has changed throughout time, the common need of humans to have a framework for understanding their world has not.  Likewise, while our weapons, our choice of foods and structure of our families may change throughout time, the need for them does not.” Michele Bowman

Monday, 30 August 2010

The processes and technology through

which we create goods & services

The goods & services we create, and the ways in

which we aquire and use them

Social structures & relationships which link

people and organizations

The concepts, ideas and paradigms we use

to define the world around us

The technologies used to connect people, places and things

Verge in brief

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The Ethnographic Futures Framework - VERGE - was developed by Kaipo Lum and Michele Bowman of Global Foresight Associates, and any use of it should cite them as authors / designers.

Use it with futures wheels: brainstorm by Verge category

secondary effects

consume?connect?

define? relate?

create?

primary effects

impact

impact

criticalemerging change

impact

Enter your assigned change in the inner circle of your worksheet. Use the following questions to help you imagine possible impacts of this change over the

next twenty years: DEFINE: How will this driver affect the concepts, ideas and paradigms we use to define ourselves and the world

around us? RELATE: How will we live together on planet Earth? CONNECT: How will this driver affect the technologies / techniques we use to connect people, places, and things? CREATE: How will this driver affect the processes and technologies we use to produce goods and services? CONSUME: How will this driver affect the kinds of goods and services we create, and how we acquire them, use

them, and destroy them?

Map potential impacts outward as with an ordinary futures wheel.

Monday, 30 August 2010

Thank you.

Dr. Wendy L. SchultzInfinite Futures:

foresight research and trainingOxford, England

wendy@infinitefutures.comhttp:// www.infinitefutures.com

Monday, 30 August 2010