InfiniteFutures.com
Title
Infinite Futures: Foresight Training and Facilitation.
Description
Since 1980, my futures work has focussed on facilitating futures fluency: helping groups of people explore -- and celebrate! -- the myriad possibilities that change creates. This focus on process, rather than output per se, has resulted in over a decade of participatory futures work: designing sea-level-rise/environmental management workshops for leaders in the Republic of the Marshall Islands; helping U.S. court administrators envision the future of justice; exploring alternative futures for human endeavours in space with participants at the International Space University; and building alternative scenarios for dental health policy in Great Britain. While such projects required every aspect of futures research -- identifying emerging issues of change, imagining the alternative futures arising from various trends, envisioning preferred futures as goals, planning strategies to create those visions, and monitoring progress towards the vision -- my focus, and the focus of Infinite Futures, is on workshop design, facilitation, and documentation.
Futures researchers track technical innovations, value shifts, geopolitical tides, environmental perturbations, economic developments, demographic patterns, and other trends of change. From these data they create scenarios of possible alternative futures, which are then used as contingencies within strategic planning. Working as facilitators, futures researchers can help communities and organizations envision their preferred futures and compare those visions with current trends and scenarios of possible futures. The process leads to practical planning and policy-making.
Bio: In July 2002 I had the great fun of drafting three essays for TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow ; I am currently adapting Catalog content into interactive foresight exercises for this website. From December 2001 through May 2002, I had the honor of joining my colleagues at the Finland Futures Research Centre for a six-month stay as a Fulbright Lecturer and Researcher. I am very grateful to the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Finland Fulbright Committee, and my colleagues in Turku for this opportunity, and am currently organizing and writing up the resulting research.
Contact
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