Few subjects stimulate the imagination like nanotechnology, so much even that one tends to forget about the many amazing things being developed within labs right now. Like the very large, the very small stretches the mind (cf. Eric Drexler‘s envisionings).
The EU Nanologue project – one of many projects focussing on public debate concerning new technologies – recently published its report titled ‘The future of nanotechnology – we need to talk’. The project stands for a Europe-wide dialogue on the social, ethical and legal impacts of nanotechnology, and also included a scenario-study resulting in three scenarios (time horizon 2015), i.e.:

“Scenario 1: Disaster recovery

A lack of regulation resulted in a major accident. Public concern about nanotechnology is high and technology development is slow and catious.

Scenario 2: Now we´re talking

Strong regulation and accountability systems are in place. The technology has been shaped by societal needs and strong health and safety concerns.

Scenario 3: Powering ahead

Scientific progress has been faster than expected and nanotechnology is making a real impact, particularly in energy conversion and storage.”

Beginning November, in the Liverpool area, BBC 3 Radio organized the fascinating Festival of Free Thinking with ‘the future’ as its central theme. A broad mix of people, ranging from academics and entrepreneurs, to advocates and cultural observers, thought freely about what might be next for technology and society, religion, urban planing, biotechnology, the UK, etc. Musical grandmaster and long time long term thinker Brian Eno (also of Long Now Foundation fame) gave the opening keynote.

Even electronic billboards were included in the crossmedial mix to engage a broad audience in the event. Future-related themes, discussed in the lectures or in lively pub discussions were transformed into fictional commercials for future products, future press releases etc. to be broadcasted on these e-billboards. These future designs, experiences were carefully crafted by IFTF’s Research and Design Manager, Jason Tester, and his team, who described it as “one of the most challenging experiments I’ve faced in the new discipline of futures design”. The reason was simple: there’s a big difference between an audience in context (e.g. a futures study) and an audience of random passers-by. Nevertheless, the creative results are definitely worth taking a look at.

At Pantopicon we like to see ‘futures design’ as an instance of experience design. One does not merely shape a ‘thing’, but an experiential envelope in which people will be wrapped and with(in) which they will interact. Futures design as are futures studies, are all about context in the first place, context not merely on a content-level, but also a communication level. Last but not least, every day we experience how useful it is to look at design as an attitude, an approach, with methods and techniques, also in terms of analysis of a situation, rather than in the traditional view of a ‘discipline of shaping things’. As such, and in many other ways, it blends seamlessly with futures studies, foresight and envisioning exercises.
Via IFTF’s Future Now

Among the names often heard in the context and history of scenariothinking, foresight and future studies are without doubt Shell and RAND. Along with several other organizations, they shaped significantly the approaches and methodologies used within the field.

The Insitute for the Future recently brought to attention once again a study published by RAND a few years ago, titled “Shaping the Next One Hundred Years : New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis” (pdf’s available on site). Alongside a historical overview of attempts to tackle the future, the report pays further attention to developments in computer science which might aid in long term policy analysis. From the study:

“This study proposes four key elements of successful LTPA:

• Consider large ensembles (hundreds to millions) of scenarios.
• Seek robust, not optimal, strategies.
• Achieve robustness with adaptivity.
• Design analysis for interactive exploration of the multiplicity of plausible futures.

These elements are implemented through an iterative process in
which the computer helps humans create a large ensemble of plau­
sible scenarios, where each scenario represents one guess about how
the world works (a future state of the world) and one choice of many
alternative strategies that might be adopted to influence outcomes.”

Via FutureNow

The horizon is a grateful metaphor within the context of foresight and future studies. It is a dynamic concept, it refers to something which is never fully attainable, which is always shifting, which is not always very crisp or clear, yet gives us a sense of time and distance, of what is yet to come, what we can expect. In a sense, it gives us a head-start.

Horizon scanning – the systematic search for opportunities and threats the future might bring – is used increasingly by countries and goverments to initiate timely foresight exercises and research.

As such, the dutch COS (cross-sectoral discussion platform), together with the Stichting Toekomstbeeld der Techniek (foundation for technology foresight) has launched the Horizonscan project (see website, in dutch) ‘to explore future problems and opportunities and signal ways in which science could deliver strategic knowledge and solutions on a timely basis. Furthermore, it is aimed at enabling and encouraging policymakers and politicians to take strategic decisions for the long term in stead of merely focussing on today’s challenges and tackling problems using ad-hoc solutions.’

The initiative follows in the footsteps of and links up with several other projects of its kind elsewhere in Europe (e.g. British horizonscanning centre).

Among other things, the website features a list of problems and opportunities the future might bring, to which everyone can add and respond as well as cast their vote in terms of importance and plausibility. This knowledge base can then be used by companies, researchers and policymakers to assess their developments from a broader, more integral/integrative perspective on the future.

Image via Wikipedia.

People in the foresight and future studies domains are always careful to note that they are not clairvoyant, that studying the future in their perspective has nothing to do with trying to ‘predict’ the future. The futures (note the plural form) they describe ought to be seen as mere thinking tools to explore possible situations. They do not know what the future will be like either.

In this context, a fascinating post on Knowledge Futures recently, points to the term ‘vaticination‘ as used in a book by remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle. According to the blog, McMoneagle foresees that the future will see the development of a science of futures studies.

“The scientists who specialise in it will be called ‘vaticinationists.’ Their primary concern will centre on the evaluation of the impact of current-day conceptualising and how it might affect the future. The science will not gain sufficient prominence or have a broad effect on world decisions until after 2028. By then, it will be apparent that changes in one aspect of social behaviour have decisive effects on unrelated fields of endeavour.”

Via: Knowledge Futures

A few days ago I came across a (somewhat older) blog entry mentioning futurist, author, blogger, viridian designer, … Bruce Sterling‘s lecture at the California College of Arts, titled Design Futurism. Steve Portigal was there and blogged his notes on Core77.

Bruce talked about similarities and differences between design and futurism, and what they could mean to each other. He sees sustainability as a major overlap, common ground between the two disciplines/attitudes.
An EU project titled Designing for future needs also looked into what the two disciplines/attitudes could mean to each other (read: a lot), researching “how design techniques for envisioning the future can benefit EC decision-makers’ foresight planning and policy work” (and vice versa).

As some of you might know, at Pantopicon, insights, methods and techniques from (participatory) foresight, future and envisioning studies and those from design and design research go hand in hand. From a pantopical point of view, both mindsets, ways of assessing the world can be considered to share a number of characteristics, such as a 360°, contextualized approach, people at the centre, an important time/process dimension, thinking in terms of alternatives, visualizing/making ‘experiencable’ that which does not yet exist, etc.
Via: Core77 and Steve Portigal’s blog AllThisChittaChattah