UNESCO Advanced Seminar: Recent Developments in … · and emergent, inertial and ... Slide 39 c1...

Riel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2009

UNESCO Advanced Seminar:

Recent Developmentsin Futures Thinking:

Connecting Foresight to Decision Making---------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------

Riel Millerxperidox futures consulting

UNESCOParis, July 1, 2009

Photo credit: Mark Schacter ©

Nous sommes encore aveugles au problème de la complexité. … Cet aveuglement fait partie de notre barbarie. Il nous fait comprendre que nous sommes toujours dans l’ère barbare des idées. Nous sommes toujours dans la préhistoire de l’esprit humain. Seule la pensée complexe nous permettrait de civiliser notre connaissance. Edgar MorinL’âge d’homme, 1986, p. 269‐274


Outline• 9:30 – 10:30 Introduction – Overview of Futures Studies, Introduction to Recent Developments in Anticipatory Thinking and the Learning Intensive Soceity

• 10:45 – 11:30 Thinking about the Future in UNESCO and the Future of UNESCO

• 11:45 – 12:30 Introduction to Futures Literacy and the Link between Anticipation and Decision Making

• 12:30 – 13:00 Discussion of a Futures Literacy Agenda



Does it matter how we think about the future?

What difference

does it make?


• After all everyday life goes on.

• So why bother?– For truth?

– For imagination?

– For method?

– For potential?


A bit of history• Industrial era – Wells, Verne…

• Cold war ‐ weapon systems and wars– contingency through simulation

– optimization through scenarios

– RAND Delphi for pooling expert knowledge; Herman Kahn for stories that could be used for contingency and optimization

– Futuribles in France, WFSF, Club of Rome, Shell Scenarios, OECD InterFutures Project, Japan’s 5th

Generation Computing, US Office of Technology Assessment, IPTS, EFMN, ForLearn


European Foresight

• Many national initiatives throughout Europe– Finland, Ireland, France, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, etc.

– Recent work by EFMN Mapping Foresight

• The Shift in Europe from Sector Specific to General Diffusion– Framework Programmes move from sector specific to general diffusion

– Future of Research in the ERA

– IPTS and FTA also move towards integration


• European Foresight Monitoring Network

• Rafael Popper and the team in Manchester


Over time the FP’s focus extends to encompass more sectors and to seek joined up –

socio‐technical view of

technology


Changes in the Conditions of Change: The Context for Futures Literacy

1. Changes in the way we think about the future – anticipatory systems

2. Changes in our collective capacity for spontaneity – the emergence of the Learning Intensive Society

3. Futures Literacy – connecting the future to decision making, leadership and policy innovation


1. Living with fundamental indeterminacy – an

emergent paradigm for anticipatory systems

Embracing complexity and fundamental indeterminacy – the present does NOT

determine the futurePhoto credit: Mark Schacter ©


Bugs Bunny Anticipates


Make your bets – now (in the present)


Anticipatory Systems are a Fundamental Attribute of Biology

S : object system

M : model of S

E : effector system

Source: Robert Rosen, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, & Methodological Foundations., Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1985.Slide by A. H. Louie, Mathematical Biologist


Imagining the Future:

Distinguishing three

dimensions of the potential of the present


Contingency futures: winning the lottery

Optimization futures: chess, farming, assembly line

• Goal is given• Rules are given• Resources are given



Exploratory futures: imagining the potential of the present


Linking Ontology and EpistemologyAll Phenomena Contain Three Dimensions of Potential

• Contingent – the potential to be acted upon by an outside force– Functioning of AS: simulation and practice, learning by doing, early warning, transparency

• Optimization – the potential to be subject to control– Functioning of AS: Better calculation – models, projections, clarity and “certainty” of rules

• Exploratory – the potential to be without precedent,arising from inspiration, creativity and discovery– Functioning of AS: non‐teleological imagining of changes in the conditions of change, rigorous imagining and enhanced narrative capacities for spontaneity


How and why to engage in exploratory (non‐teleological)

anticipation?• Can we gain perspective?

• Can we use complexity?

• Developing “futures literacy” – the capacity to distinguish, create and use the distinct ontological dimensions of the potential of the present to generate multiple and constantly changing imaginary anticipatory stories


Actualization, instantiation,

the simultaneity

of variably thick

presents in variable and

multiple chronotopoid

states

Cloud of latencyCloud of latency

Riel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2009Photo credit: Mark Schacter ©

Perpetual re-invention of the sense-making narratives of the thick present as it reassembles at each moment in swirling clouds of latent and emergent, inertial and spontaneous phenomena


2. Changes in the Conditions of Change

Imagining a Learning Intensive Society


Macro-level definition of the LIS

Transition scale societal change involves:• Compositional change in the weight of

different sources of wealth creation… but what are other sources of wealth?

• An increase in the society wide average learning intensity of every day activity… but what is a more learning intensive

society?


Industrial(goods & services,public & private)

Craft/Creative

Household

Agriculture

Agricultural

IndustrialSociety

LearningSociety

Compositional TransformationShare of total wealth creation by source


Metrics for learning intensity

Learning in every day life is more intense if people day-by-day, over a lifetime generate (flow) and accumulate (stock) more:

– know-how

– know-who

– know-what

– know-why


What is a learning intensive society?

Average intensity of know-whatAverage

intensity of know-how

Average intensity of know-who

Average intensity of know-why (decision making capacity)

Agricultural SocietyAgricultural Society Industrial SocietyIndustrial Society Learning SocietyLearning Society

c1

c2

c3

c4

Source: Riel Miller, XperidoX Futures Consulting; [email protected]

c1 Procedural knowledge (methods/processes)ccruz; 23/02/2007

c2 Declarative knowledge (facts)ccruz; 23/02/2007

c3 Networking knowledge (contacts, resources)ccruz; 23/02/2007

c4 Causal knowledge (foundations, reasons)ccruz; 23/02/2007


Systemic Economic Transformation

“Next stage” of market economy – beyond mass‐production and mass‐consumption

• Nature of production & consumption• Organisational attributes of wealth

creation• Predominant type of economic activity• Scope of transaction systems


Sequential Production, Consumption, Resource Deployment Process


Micro-Evolution – process/product change

The Firm – Bounded Unit for Organising Production

Allo

cativ

e ch

oice

s

Entre

pren

euria

l spa

rk, i

nitia

tive,

ge

nius

, cha

nce Conceptual Labour

(imagination, design, choice, problem solving, assessment, evaluation – “management”, engineering)

Execution Labour (following plans, orders, routine, pre-determined tasks)

Physical inputs (raw materials, energy, transportation, physical infrastructure, machinery, etc.)

Startup

Tran

sact

ion

spac

es –

ex

chan

ge –

the

mom

ent

of tr

uth:

pric

e, sa

les a

nd

prof

it

Output Signals

To new sectors, new activities

Supply Demand

TIME

Redesign, new markets, new products, efficiency

Macro-Evolution – compositional change

Teasing the Imagination: Tools for Unique Creation



US Army mobile rapid parts replacement pilot project

Castle Island, Worldwide Guide to Rapid Prototyping


Users will design and create their own objects instead of shopping for existing products. Cybercrafting started in 1998 when students at MIT's How to Make (Almost) Anything course set outto fulfill their “individual desires rather than merely meeting mass-market needs."

Unbundled (individuals)

Top down

Personal creativity

Bundled (firms)

From Hierarchy to Heterarchy

Mass-era worker and consumer

Empowered team-worker,

informed shopper

Artist

Future consumer/ producer - cyber

creator

Unique Creation: Beyond supply & demandRiel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2009


Clouds of value creation – transformation of the anticipatory conditions of the economy & society

The cornerstone of the Physiocratic doctrine was François Quesnay's(1759, 1766) axiom that only agriculture yielded a surplus -- what he called a produit net (net product). Manufacturing, the Physiocrats argued, took up as much value as inputs into production as it created in output, and consequently created no net product. http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/physioc.htm



“The relative ease with which past developments can be rationalized after the fact is misleading. The evolution of the division of labor is a complex process we do not at all control, cannot predict, and only half understand. Yet, some of the emerging determinants that will change our world can be discerned. And one thing that can be said with considerable confidence is that the “stylized facts” … {of the industrial economy}…are not permanent features of our world.”Axel Leijonhufvud, The Individual, the Market and the Division of Labor in Society, Capitalism and Society, Volume 2, Issue 2 2007 Article 3, http://www.bepress.com/cas/vol2/iss2/art3


Changing Composition of Output100%

80%

Perc

enta

ge S

hare

60%

40%

20%

0%1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040

Time

Industrial products Innovation (S&T/R&D)Personal products Creativity (Refinement of taste)

Systemic Social Transformation– Identity:

– Who am I? – How do I define myself?– Which networks, communities give me my sense of

identity?

– Choice:– What kinds of choices do I make?– How often do I make them?– When do I make the choices? – What is the range/depth of choice?



Hetero-geneous/small

Homo-geneous /large

Decisions - what, where, when,

with whom, how

Less choice

More choice

Scale of social

affiliation/identity

Identity & choice

Mass-era

Learning society

Beyond the dualism of individual vs collective


Systemic Transformation of Governance

• Internalization not socialization

• Planning causes failure and fails to reduce risk

• Experimentalism not administration

• Learning by doingPhoto credit: Mark Schacter, www.luxetveritas.ca

Capacity to make & implement decisions

Experimentation & learning

Transparency & access to

information

Limited & fragmented

Extensive & unified

Mass-era

Learning society

Limited Continuous

Capacity for spontaneityRiel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2009


21st Century Transitions: Synergy Conditions and the Policy Challenge

02468

10Ease of use

Range of uses

Task unpredictability &predictability

Autonomy

Heterogeneity & smallerscale of affiliation

Extent of choices

Transparency & access toinformation

Experimentation & reflection

Mass-era Learning society

Technological dynamism

Economic dynamismSocial dynamism

Dynamic governance

Scale of the transition: towards a learning intensive society

• Wealth, rules, governance, values– Physical/financial vs human capital– Simple vs complex property rights– Ex-ante vs real-time allocation of power– Shared values as basis for transaction trust (Universal

Declaration of Human Rights)

• Quality of life– Mass production vs production for self/community– Life organized for work vs work organized for life– Hierarchy vs autonomy – Imposed identity vs self-generated identity– Sen’s definition of “freedom”



Anticipation: Context makes a difference

Exploration

Degree of complexity

Complex

Degree of Openness

SimpleClosed Open

Optimization

(chess game)

When to simplify, forecast, plan and when to embrace complexity, imagination and spontaneity?


Less manageable – less clarity

of goal

More reflexivity

More manageable

– more clarity of

goalLess reflexivity

Greater freedom and ambiguity -spontaneity

Regime 1 (Agriculture)

Regime 2 (Industrial)

Regime 3 (Learning society)

Management/Optimization Contexts, Reflexivity and Freedom

Over time & in different contexts the appropriate mix of methods of anticipation change

Different contexts and times?


“La condition humaine peut presque être résumée par l’observation selon laquelle, tandis que toutes les expériences relèvent du passé et que toutes les décisions portent sur l’avenir, l’image du futur est déterminante pour tout comportement privilégiant le choix. Le caractère et la qualité des images qui prédominent dans une société constituent en conséquence l’indice le plus important de sa dynamique globale.”Kenneth Boulding

UNESCO: Thinking about the Future

• How is foresight used at UNESCO?

• Has foresight played a role in policy formation, diffusion, innovation?

• What role do you see for foresight in UNESCO?

• What do you think about the future of UNESCO?



• reconcile greater freedom with collective choices?

• embrace greater diversity without inviting fragmentation & chaos?

• foster greater creativity without increasing burn‐out & stress?

• inspire responsibility?

• motivate change without resorting to fear?

• manage risk without hierarchy?

• combine respect for complexity while still gaining depth of understanding?

New Motivating Questions for Decision Makers


3. What is Futures Literacy?

FL: a deepening of our understanding of our anticipatory systems

• The capacity to distinguish different dimensions of the potential of the present and use the appropriate methods• The capacity to systematically and continuously engage in rigorous imagining • Continuously inventing and telling new stories about the potential of the present to enable improvisation and spontaneity.



Learning by doing• Level 1 futures literacy

– Temporal awareness, values, expectations

• Level–Rigorous

• Level– Strategic

Not “a method”,

2 futures literacy imagining

3 futures literacy scenarios

but a way of thinking and futures processes

about the learning take – mov

process that all futurists ing

to more refined anticipatory systems


Deliberate Thinking: de Bono’s TEC method

Target and Task

Contract and

Conclude

Expand and

Explore


Level 1 Futures Literacy

Temporal awareness, values, expectations


Thinking about the future: How to select which stories to tell

Imaginable Futures

Potential futures

??

?

?


Bear Scenarios: Papa, Mama and Baby


DemographicsPopulation

Time

Baby

Mama

Papa


Forecasting Oil Prices Fails: Shell – Scenarios: An Explorer’s Guide

Riel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2009Ennio Morricone


The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Global Warming:

Scenarios

Adopt Kyoto Agreement(good)

No agreements(bad)

Muddle through(ugly)

Human impact on climate

change reduced

Massive climate disruption

Moderate human induced

disruption of climate

Build composite scenarios combining trends & preferences


The Good, The Bad and The UglyBear Scenarios Knowledge

DrivenCommercially

DrivenMixed Model

Low rate of tech change

Low enrollement Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3growth

Scenario 5 Scenario 6Scenario 4Medium enrollment growth

Scenario 8 Scenario 9Scenario 7High Enrollment growth

High rate of tech change

Scenario 10 Scenario 11 Scenario 12Low enrollement growth

Scenario 13 Scenario 14 Scenario 15Medium enrollment growth

High Enrollment growth

Scenario 16 Scenario 17 Scenario 18


Level 2 Futures Literacy“Rigorous Imagining”: How to link thinking about changes in the conditions of change (imaginary future outcomes) to

policy formation and implementation

1. Telling good stories – rules set the assumptions for the narrative frame

2. Rigorous imagining – a model sets parameters for the analytical frame

3. Form/function scenarios – operational stories within the frames (constrained iso‐probable, iso‐desirable)


Telling good stories –five narrative criteria for framing scenarios

1. Purpose/genre

2. Point‐of‐view

3. Temporal‐chronological frame

4. Protagonists

5. Causal rules – the “physics of the situation”


1. What is the type or purpose of the story?

Not tragedy or comedy, thriller or romance;

but basic types:

• contingency planning/simulation training

•optimisation testing

•discovery ‐ exploration ‐imagining


2. What is the point‐of‐view? Not first or third person, stream‐of‐consciousness or dialogue; but is the story told in terms of:

• the choices people make in their everyday lives (micro) or

• aggregate outcomes (macro) – or • both explicit relationship between micro &

macro


3. What is the temporal or chronological frame?

Not beginning, middle and end; but

• comparative static (two or more cross‐sections)

or

• dynamic/path (time‐series) or

• backcasting (reverse engineered)


4. Who are the main protagonists?

Not hero and villain; but who makes the decisions

• a specific institution (sub‐unit) or

• a social/economic system (nation, sector, etc.) or

• institutions nested within a dynamic

socio/economic context ‐ interaction


5. What rules apply to the action?

Not is time travel allowed or Matrix like

suspension of the rules of physics; but what

arethe assumptions that provide the

analytical definitions and causal

relationships that make for robust social

science.


Analytical Frame: using a possibility map to describe an

imagined future outcome?Select: topic, its attributes, its attributes in terms of change (variables)

An example: – Specific topic: electricity

–Dimension of change: pervasiveness

–Possibility space of pervasiveness:

a) ease‐of‐use

b) range‐of‐uses


Technology possibility space

Ease of use

Simple

Difficult

Limited & homogeneous

Unlimited & heterogeneous

Range of uses

Electricity

Analytical Description of Imagined Outcomes


Dual frame for the scenarios: analytical and narrative –then develop different

scenarios (ways of achieving the same outcome) within the frame (iso‐probable, iso‐

desirable)


Stories within the frame: form and function

stories

Level 3 Futures Literacy

Strategic scenarios– Using the contrast between imagined futures and the present assumptions:

– Reintroduce values and expectations

– Focus on the assumptions and how choices are or are not consistent with present values and what is actionable now.


LEARNING SOCIETY

FORESIGHT

National Economic and Social Development Office NESDO



From vision to action

Diversity and level ofParticipation

A few decision-makers

Citizen participation

Large societaldebate

Stakeholder expert groups

Phase I:Diagnosis

Vision How to get there

+ recommendations

Measures, actionsDiagnosis

Phase II: Exploration

Phase III: Strategic orientation

Phase IV: Making choices

Phase V: Implementation and coordination

From vision to action

Diversity and level ofParticipation









Phase I:Diagnosis

Vision How to get there

+ recommendations

Measures, actionsDiagnosis Vision How to get there

+ recommendations

Measures, actionsDiagnosis

Phase II: Exploration

Phase III: Strategic orientation

Phase IV: Making choices

Phase V: Implementation and coordination

Da Costa, Foresight Impact on Policy Making, IPTS, 2006

HSSLevel 1

HSSLevel 2

HSSLevel 3

Hybrid Strategic Scenario Method for Developing Futures Literacy


Don’t build a bridge to nowhere (or look for keys lost in the park under the street light or get trapped by the success of models appropriate to the industrial era).

Instead of teleological planninguse anticipatory imagination to embrace greater complexity, heterogeneity, network density and capacity for spontaneity. Mine the potential of the present.


it changes the policies we invent and the decisions we

make.Image: Sempe

How we anticipate matters...

THANK YOU

UNESCO Advanced Seminar: Recent Developments in … · and emergent, inertial and ... Slide 39 c1...

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