Few experiences awaken a dialogue with possible futures ahead of us, or renders them tangible via a change of perspective as well as describing ‘a day in the life of’ a person x years ahead in time.

At Pantopicon, we often challenge our clients (as well as students) to shed today’s skin and crawl into that of somebody else in a tomorrow’s world: a client, a citizen, a farmer, a dentist, etc. As they engage in describing as meticulously – and poetically – as possible, the events, actions and sensations throughout a day in the life of that someone in some distant future, their minds are stretched beyond the barriers of current-day assumptions, inspired by future possibilities, threats and challenges. While, as an exercise  already being a revealing and rewarding experience in itself, the results as such can be made tangible in various ways (e.g. illustrated maps, timelines, storyboards, videos, …), sharing, communicating with and feeding further reflection and dialogue.

Irene Pereyra & Tom Klinkowstein recently presented their “day in the life of a networked designer’s smart things or a day in a designer’s networked smart things, 2030″ at the Pratt Institute. The project was made for the Singapore Design Festival and deals with an imagined designer’s day, anno 2030. Irene & Tom created a diary like wall-sized map taking the viewer on a day’s journey through the life of a designer as if sitting on her shoulder and reading the world through her mind’s eye. A smart-tech-infused future comes to life through the experience of the designer via a fascinating, diverse yet integrated storyline.

The full map can be viewed as a pdf here.

In his new book, Ian Ayres describes the shift he observes in areas where we previously relied a lot on intuition to number-and-lettercrunching techniques and tools. He illustrates some of the staggering results organizations are achieving and new insights labs are gaining using advanced datamining techniques and tools.

Datamining took off as a hot topic in research labs in the nineties. Gradually more tools became available and more widely spread in the corporate and government world, increasingly powerful, increasingly smart. Successes were celebrated in various fields, it worked better in some  than in others because of the nature of the data, the complexity, descriptive power, completeness etc. Although computers are becoming more context aware, the difficulty still lies in notions such as ‘meaning’, ‘nuance’, ‘ambiguity’, ‘qualities’, ‘perspective’ etc. As in statistics you ask yourself: what does the data tell me and what does it not? How should I interpret what I see obscured as data and is that consistent with the reality it is trying to describe? The path from data to information (to knowledge to wisdom) is long, gradual, difficult and at times mysterious.

Also in trendwatching & patent-based innovation, use of data- and textmining tools is proliferating to enhance grip on the fast and vast global knowledge landscape, as the value of ‘knowing things and recognizing patterns first’ rises further. In futures studies, trends, certainties and ‘predictabilities’ are used, but a stronger emphasis lies on uncertainties and the different directions in which they might push us. Yet also in this area, number-crunching, modelling etc. belong to the favorite toolset of some practitioners.

Via PuttingPeopleFirst

The KnowledgeWorks Foundation developed an interactive map together with the Institute for the Future , depicting a series of potential forces shaping the future of education in the US (timehorizon 2016).

Trends, hotspots (key trends) and dilemmas (new challenges requiring – what we would call – a third alternative approach) of various kinds, which are considered to have a potential future (and often already current) impact on the educational context are laid out on a matrix-like map. As such, two axes form the framework for structuring the information: a series of 6 driver categories and 5 areas of impact.

drivers: grassroots economics, smart networking, strong opinions, sick hero, urban wilderness, the end of cyberspace

impact areas: family & community, markets, institutions, educators & learning, tools & practices

Each trend, hotspot or dilemma can be clicked upon for a short description, a real-world example and opportunity for discussion. Examples include: participatory pedagogy, unbundled education, new localism, networking IQ, cross mentoring for urban survival, bio-distress, the extended child, serious games, social cities, explosion of learning agents etc.

note: Over at MediaSnackers there is an interesting podcast-interview with Barbara Diamond, Senior Advisor to the KnowledgeWorks Foundation about the map (Thanks for pointing it out, DK!)

We all know that statistics can reveal interesting things. While their data might be revealing in itself, it is the information in terms of correlations and comparisons that best illustrate statistics added value. But the way in which we ‘communicate’ and ‘experience’ statistics makes all the difference.

Many books have been written on the topic of the visualization and communication of statistics, such as the marvellous works of Edward Tufte (e.g. the visual display of quantitative information, visual explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative). Statistics can tell stories and stories – because they contextualize, they bring closer and render abstractions tangible, experiencable – can influence actions, decisions.

In his second talk at TED, Professor of International Health at the renowned Swedish Karolinska Institutet, and co-founder of GapMinder (now part of Google Tools), Hans Rosling shows how statistics can tell their stories in a better way, touching heart and senses as much as mind and calculators.

Not only does he make use of his by now famous animated graphs (cf. Trendalyzer) showing the evolution of data and correlations over time, he also brings in a personal dimension by linking the data over time to for example family events, thereby enhancing the meaningfulness of the stats to its audience (cf. ‘grandma verified statistics’). Rosling also showed Dollarstreet, a project in which the annual income of families across time and the impact thereof on their life situation is brought to life. What does living on 1$ a day mean? How does it compare to 5$ or 10$? What does it mean? Look at the house, the sanitary conditions, the kitchen, the sofa … in the families’ houses and experience the meaning of sheer numbers.

From data and mind to sense and heart …
Image courtesy of gapminder.org

The ever-eloquent Marshall McLuhan once said: “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”

It is a quote we often refer to as we try to raise people’s awareness of our human tendency to explain today’s developments and trends in terms of the past or look at what might be tomorrow in terms of today or even yesterday. Past, present and future often appear as a tapestry woven out of assumptions based upon past experience.

At the same time, we make frequent use of techniques to bring possible futures closer to people and render them ‘experiencable’ by describing or visualizing them in a way that it seems as if they were our present context today. Diaries set in 2027 describing events of 2016 as past events, news-bulletins anno 2043, artifacts dug up from the year 2056, etc. … they instantiate, make ‘present’, that which is not there yet.

Brain imaging research at the University of Washington in St-Louis now sheds light on the regions of the brain we use to imagine future events. It turns out they strongly overlap with the regions we use to recollect the past.

“Postexperiment questionnaires indicate that while envisioning the future, subjects tended to place those images in the context of familiar places (e.g., home, school) and familiar people (e.g., friends).” In other words, to imagine the future, we remember the past and put our projection in that context.

When we use persona-like techniques to help people envision and get a grip on ‘characters’ in an altered future context, this is in a sense what happens. Part of the current persona context is taken along and reshaped based upon the effects of future influences, providing people with a grip to explore the unknown future context using present and past experiences.

Thanks to Mark for pointing out the link to me.

Shout-outs for an alternative way to measure progress, to move beyond the too-unilateral GDP, are sounding louder throughout the world. Spurred by the need to decouple the link between economic progress and ecological disaster, as well as a growing awareness of socio-democratic unequality, of the gap between wellbeing vs. welfare … all elements slipping under the radar of or hiding behind the gross domestic product index, call for alternative ways to measure and compare progress in the world.

The past decades several attempts have been made to change the way we measure, compare and see progress, but none of the instruments so far has managed to achieve a worldwide accepted and objective status. The underlying methodologies continue to be up for debate.

To mention but a few examples: the happy planet index, the UN’s Human Development Index, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, the General Progress Indicator, etc.

When assessing future scenarios many discussions related to measuring, monitoring and comparing evolving situations often come up. Often people feel the urge to connect qualitative and quantitative data. What one wishes to measure, what one really measures, how one does it, what it means, how relationships possibly change over time, etc. make these discussions interesting but also very complex.

The Dutch Waag Society together with CyberspaceSalvations are organizing a series of seminars titled ‘Science fiction, science faction’, dealing with the crossroads between science and science fiction.

First up yesterday were Bruce Sterling and Peter Pels, moderated by Sally Wyatt.

On the program for the coming months are (April 11th) cyberpunks RU Sirius and Rudy Rucker, moderated by Giselinde Kuipers, and (May 2nd), the lovely Brenda Laurel, Bruce ‘Avatar’ Damer and Galen Brandt moderated by Christian van ‘t Hof.
Videostreams of the events will be available on KillerTV soon.

Our friend Nicolas over at the ever-insightful PastaAndVinegar, also blogged a line or two about the relationship between science fiction and foresight today, after also spotting this article in Information Week, which quotes John de Lancie (Q in Star Trek) saying:

“today’s technology, whether it’s cell phones or Second Life, is feeding off the fictional technology dreamed up by science fiction writers years ago“

We couldn’t agree more when Nicolas points to the strength of the story in bringing the future to life, increasing its impact and leaving a stronger mark on many people’s minds than traditional ‘futurist’/foresight writings. He correctly arguments:

(a) narratives are good way to give a flavor of the future, of things to come,
(b) Scifi folks write about problems, why things work, do not work, lead to crisis, create social issues (or social issues that create innovation),
(c) they put things in context, [...]
(d) they have their own rules.

To some extent, reading scifi is somehow like opposing “critical foresight” to “futurism”.

Stories form a powerful, subtle, experiential envelope which invite listeners and readers to join in on a co-creation journey to visualize another world. As our experiences show, they are a fantastic tool to render the future ‘experiencable‘ and to get higher qualitative response from people in terms of what the ‘storyboarded’ future awakens in them, emotionally as well as rationally.

PS. For those of you interested in the power of storytelling in an organizational/learning context, you might want to check out Steve Denning‘s books.

Via our dutch friends from ExtendLimits

One approach to bring the future to life is by taking elements present in our real lives today and turning them into or replacing them by ‘futurized’ alternatives (cf. something we also ask people to do in FFWD>>. btw join in on this month’s theme: education). The friction caused by a combination of a familiar element and a completely new one enhances the ‘future’ effect on the observer. Take for example advertising. In the future ads will promote different brands, products and services (cf. artifacts of the future), but also advertising itself will change.

Motion graphics company Foreign Office, put a showreel online of their fictional advertising (and other) work for the fascinating movie Children of Men. The reel shows in more detail what are environmental elements in the movie, all designed as subtle ways to wrap both the scenery and the viewer experience in an envelope of the future.

Via PSFK

People often associate memory with the past, yet memory also plays a central role in looking at the future. Not only do past experiences or knowledge thereof influence the way people look at tomorrow, also the memory of shared experiences during the process of exploring and/or (en)visioning futures plays a role in how people look at and act upon their views of the future.

At Pantopicon we go about futures exploration and (en)visioning in participatory ways. Time and again we realize how much added value(s) is to be gained in paying qualitative attention to documenting the participatory, often multi-stakeholder, process in various ways (cf. steps, atmospheres, ‘dramatic moments’, products, perspectives, different media, etc.), value for ourselves but most of all also for the client and participants. It allows to increase the group’s mnemonic grip upon the trajectory, makes certain group-dynamic related processes and events explicit, enhances learning (collaboratively and also in terms of methodology),  allows to capture valuable ‘working material’ for later reflection and/or use, helps to manage generated knowledge and share experiences with and beyond the group thereby increasing participatory motivation, strengthening common ground, common purpose,  etc. to name but a few. The trap of classical project management is often to limit documentation of the process to in-between deliverables, often also purely textual or ‘bullets-and-arrows’-prose as a friend calls it. Once beyond that barrier, the notion of ‘seeing is believing’ gets a whole new meaning.

The Ford Motor Company recently embarked on a journey in which the process’ ‘documentation’ was used in such a tool-like, purposeful fashion. FordBoldMoves.com documents a year of ‘open‘ futuremaking, “a year of meeting challenges and creating opportunities” at Ford Motor Company. ‘Open’ – in the contemporary fashion – because the company pulled back the curtain, gives people an in-kitchen view as well as a voice in their journey to answer the question “how can Ford be successful in the future?”

“Ford Bold Moves is a video documentary series that takes you inside Ford Motor Company as it attempts one of the largest corporate turnarounds in history. With candid interviews from Ford executives, employees, industry experts and even Ford detractors, Bold Moves approaches each segment from every angle and keeps asking the question: Will Ford succeed?

Bold Moves also involves you in the actual corporate decision-making process—allowing you to engage, debate and discuss what you think is relevant.”

Although the project received quite a bit of criticism (e.g. being overdesigned/window dressing, too Ford-centric, more campaign than open experiment, etc.), some rightfully, some not, do take a look at a fascinating experiment to document, show, envision, build capacity, involve stakeholders, etc.

In order to trigger people to think about the future from a variety of perspectives, futurists often use the mnemonic acronym steep, which stands for: socio-cultural, technological, economic, ecological, political. A slightly less well known alternative is ‘pinchastem‘, which stands for political / governmental, information / communication / media, nature-related / macro-environmental, conflict, health / biological / micro-environmental, artistic / cultural / recreational, social, technological / electronic / mechanical, economic, moral / ethical / religious.

Last year, the foresight department of the British global design and engineering firm Arup, published a deck of inspirational cards, meant to inspire people to assess how certain developments might change their future. The cards deal with major drivers of change that are likely to alter the face of business in the coming 50 years (time-horizon 2050). They are divided into five subsets, each dealing with a different ‘steep’ category.

Some of you might know Jan Chipchase from his blog Future Perfect, one that sounds like music to our ears for obvious reasons. At Nokia Design, Jan is involved in envisaging new product concepts with a timehorizon of 3-15 years.

In one of his recent blog posts, Jan writes:

“Delivered a presentation to the S.E.T. studio in Tokyo – in a funky, and funkily-wired building just off Harajuku’s Takeshita Dori – a working environment that also functions as a test-space for ‘living’ new ideas. “

This sounds like a wonderful ‘future room’ which we’d love to know more about.

Worth mentioning on the methodological front: recently Jan gave two presentations, wonderfully documenting some of his/their recent experiences with user-centred, field-based methods to scanning into emerging trends happening out there in the world and taking inspiration from these observations to think about possible alternative futures that might arise in time. However, the presentations appear to focus more on the design research part of the process, than on the part in which alternative futures are explored.

Via our friends at Putting People First

We are happy to notice that there are several other likeminded future(s) explorers and designers out there, who as we do, feel strongly about the importance of giving the many possible futures that might await us a face. In our foresight and (en)visioning activities at Pantopicon we continuously invest in new, different, better ways to create, use and study ‘experiencable futures‘, experiences carefully designed to enable people to reflect upon and respond to what certain future scenarios might look and feel like, might mean to them, their organizations, their environment, their products/services, policies and strategies etc.

Besides the different ways and means to bring the future to life (e.g. diaries of the future, future newsbulletins, future advertising, vision movies, future artefacts to name but a few of the ones we are using in our projects), there are also methodological issues involved in crafting and using them in foresight and (en)visioning activities, that require attention and study. Our overseas colleague Jason over at IFTF did a great job in describing their evolution and realization of the need for more structural discussion and collaborative learning on the topic of what he calls ‘human future interaction‘, or what we sometimes refer to as ‘experiencable futures‘ or ‘futures experiences‘.

As the environment warms up to the future, we look forward to further fascinating endeavours and discussion in this area, so stay tuned.

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

Most of you will know EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference) by now. At least one paper presented at this year’s event discusses an ethnographic approach within a foresight context. Andrew Greenman and Scott Smith talked about “Embed: Mapping the Future of Work and Play: A Case for ‘Embedding’ Non-Ethnographers in the Field”.

The abstract to their paper reads as follows:

This paper reflects on an experiment to combine an “ethnographic walking tour” with futures and foresight methods, as a means of enhancing and validating foresight exercises through the addition of valuable first-hand observation. The project, entitled Embed, was created to familiarize senior strategists, product developers, foresight specialists and marketers with the potential of ethnographic research to inform decision making. We introduce the concept of “embedding” to describe the process of placing non-ethnographers into fieldwork situations.

There is no doubt about the added value of observation, real life context, ‘embedding’ oneself in the world … within foresight and beyond.

Via: Pasta & Vinegar

In an artistically and technologically fascinating way, the Khronos Projector, developed by Alvaro Cassinelli and his colleagues at the Ishikawa-Namiki-Komuro Lab at Tokyo University, allows one to travel through time within moving imagery. By touching a deformable projection screen, one is able to move parts of the image forward or backwards in time. Space and time become mixed.

In a more practical, yet perhaps less artistic way, think of time for a minute not as video timestamps but as physical time. It could lead to fascinating interactive applications of the khronos projector (in slightly modified form) in the area of future exploration and participatory foresight. At Pantopicon, we often take clients on a trip through time to give them a look and feel of the dynamics of time, velocity of change etc. (see Time Inspiration Journey). Imagine standing in front of the Khronos Projector and watching the camera walk down your street. By touching your neighbour’s house, you see it morph into the house that used to be there before. In terms of making people experience the future in a nearly physical way, it would mean you shift forward in time and see part of what the future scenario holds for the space where your neighbour’s house is located now.

Endless possibilities …