Afleveringen
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Kia ora and welcome to episode thirteen of The Futures Workshop!
Most of the tools weâve looked at so far rely on scenarios - imagined future scenes which we then use to work out the implications for us and our organisations.
But todayâs guest Andrew Curry says scenarios arenât always the best approach. It can be cognitively tricky to get groups to fully embrace a speculative future and make the leap to where they fit into it. Sometimes, says Andrew, itâs better to stay in what he calls the âthick presentâ, using a tool known as Futures Landscapes.
Andrew is another significant voice in our global futures community. He is the director of Futures at the School of International Futures, and has led projects that span everything from net zero mobility to the impacts of geopolitical events on food and energy.
We hope you enjoy this episode on the Futures Landscapes tool. You can find some of the resources Andrew refers to below.
Thanks to The Beths and (The Boss) for their beautiful music.
Further resources:
An abstract on Futures Landscapes which Andrew created for the Discovery of the Future conference
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:0123fb5a-75aa-4f5d-8b4d-6450f21d35df
An urban food environments report to show how the tool might work in practice. Andrew tells me that the âdomainsâ part is a little harder to find in this report, but they are listed out on p13 and the supporting systems loops and analysis are at the back as an Annex
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:0fc744c1-7940-40a0-988b-1581f2b21d78
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Welcome back to the Dubai Future Forum podcast lounge, from which Iâm delighted to share another special episode of The Futures Workshop.
For this episode I was joined by former Head of Foresight and Futures Literacy at UNESCO Riel Miller, who shared his reflections on the Forum before taking a deep dive into âfutures literacyâ - a concept with which he has become synonymous. We talk about the importance of futures literacy, what it is and is not, and how to create an effective literacy lab.
I hope you enjoy the conversation with Riel as much as I did! Thanks so much to the Dubai Future Forum 2024 for hosting us and as always thank you to The Beths for the beautiful music.
You can find further resources in this Futures Literacy Playbook, which is free to download. These slides introduce the futures literacy lab methodology.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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This week, a special episode of The Futures Workshop: my conversation with Professor Paul Saffo, recorded in front of a live studio audience at the Dubai Future Forum in November 2024.
Also special is todayâs topic. After ten episodes exploring different tools and how to use them, Paul challenges us to think about the proper place of tools in futures work. He says we should use them in the same way a drunk uses a lamp post: for support, rather than for illumination.
Paul is a deep thinker, a rock star in the futures world and has a real gift for communicating complex ideas. He shares some beautiful and clever metaphors to help get his message across, and we think this episode will be of great interest not just to future thinkers but to anybody who uses tools in their day to day practice.
Please enjoy this special episode. Thanks to the team at Dubai Future Foundation for your hospitality and expertise, and thanks of course to Professor Paul Saffo for your generosity and intellect!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
This week weâre following up our conversation with Ivana Milojevic with an imagined workshop. We show you how you might use the Futures Triangle tool with a group - guiding them to identify the pull, push and weight forces that affect the way we work towards a preferred future. We then look at how those forces might interact with each other - particularly where the tensions or obstructions might lie. Then we conclude with some final insights and briefly talk about how to turn those insights into practical next steps for action.
Youâll benefit from listening to Episode Nine: Ivana Milojevic on The Futures Triangle, before you take on this workshop episode. And as always, if youâre more of a casual listener to the podcast, feel free to skip over these even-numbered workshop episodes which are focused more on the day-to-day work of futures practitioners.
Whatever your background, we hope you enjoy this episode and as always welcome your feedback!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Today weâre in conversation with Ivana Milojevic, another of the worldâs leading voices in the area of futures. Ivana has worked extensively around the globe, and shares some of her most memorable experiences in a wide ranging discussion, with a focus on the Futures Triangle tool.
In this interview Ivana explains how by understanding three invisible forces - the weight of the past, the push of the present and pull of the future - we can deepen our understanding of an issue, as well as spot particular challenges, and opportunities to make progress.
Along with being an accomplished futurist, Ivana specialises in peace studies and conflict transformation. We spend some time in this episode talking about how these three disciplines intersect to create meaningful change.
I hope you enjoy Ivanaâs humour, warmth and intelligence as much as I did! Let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback on this conversation and as always Iâll be back in the next episode putting these tools to practical use in an imagined workshop.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Welcome to our latest episode, in which we take the tool introduced by Jake Dunagan in Episode Seven, and try it out in a workshop setting.
Jakeâs specialty is âexperientialâ (or âdesignâ) futures and central to this is the Create-a-Scene tool, which uses various facilitation techniques to bring a future scenario to life. In this episode we imagine a dystopic âcollapseâ scenario, and then a more optimistic âtransformedâ scenario.
Weâve telescoped this workshop more than usual - spending less time on the administrative and practical aspects of the workshop (like thinking time and Post It notes), to give us more time to explore two different scenarios with this tool.
Thanks for listening, and remember to subscribe if youâd like to get fresh episodes direct to your inbox when they drop.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
In this episode I talk to one of the pioneers of design futures (or if you prefer, âexperientialâ futures) about how to emotionally engage people in futures thinking. By creating immersive scenarios, Jake says we can help people connect with what theyâre imagining.
We talk about some of his most memorable scenarios, how to bridge the âcognitive gapâ that stops people emotionally connecting with the future plus the challenges of facilitating design futures workshops and how to overcome those challenges.
Apologies for the poor audio in this episode - you wonât have trouble following the conversation but we wish it was of a higher quality. Thank you for bearing with us as we work to get the best out of our equipment and our software!
Thanks again to The Beths for their beautiful music.
Youâll find more detail on the 2x2 matrix for scenario planning that Jake referred to here, and a selection of resources heâs provided in the pdf below.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Welcome to episode six, another workshop episode weâve created to assist facilitators and practitioners.
In this episode we imagine a workshop where the goal is to eliminate food deserts in Auckland by 2050. Using backcasting, we imagine our goal then work our way backwards, looking at the series of steps and milestones it would have taken to get there.
We hope you enjoy it! If youâre a facilitator and youâd like to feed back about what is and isnât helpful in these workshops, please send us an email.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Iâm excited to share our next conversation in The Futures Workshop series: my interview with Sarah Mecartney (Regional Director of Melanesia for the Pacific Community).
Sarah has chosen to talk about Backcasting, one of my favourite futures tools. She makes it sound much less intricate than this diagram! But as a visual aid it may be helpful for you to refer to during or after our conversation.
We also have a good chat about the unique futures skills of indigenous populations, many of whom have traditional worldviews and practices that align perfectly with the ânewâ futures thinking recently embraced by the Global North.
I chaired a panel featuring Sarah and other indigenous leaders at the Dubai Futures Forum last November, where we talked about some of these commonalities and opportunities to link old and new. Sheâs a warm, smart, engaging speaker and this podcast interview could have gone on for hours!
We mention the Pacific Pathfinder toolkit - you can find more on that here.
Please enjoy this episode, and as always Iâll follow it up with a practical workshop episode in a few days time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Following our episode three conversation with Professor Sohail Inayatullah on his Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) tool, in this episode we imagine using it in a workshop setting.
Like all our even-numbered episodes, this one is aimed at practitioners and facilitators who want some practical examples of tool-use to assist with their own skill-building. If youâre a general listener you may wish to skip these workshop episodes and enjoy our interview episodes instead.
Thanks for the feedback from practitioners here and on Linked In! Please keep it coming, we enjoy working with you to make these workshop episodes as useful as possible.
Useful links:
https://www.metafuture.org/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
In this third episode we chat with Professor Sohail Inayatullah, who is one of the planetâs biggest names when it comes to futures studies (actually, when it comes to any sort of studies - heâs in the top two per cent of scientists worldwide as measured by citations).
CLA, or Causal Layered Analysis, is a tool Sohail created to get to the hidden layers that drive our thoughts, beliefs and actions. In this conversation he talks about why he created the tool, how it works in practice and tips for facilitators. He peppers this advice with plenty of real-world examples from his work with organisations around the globe.
In our next episode Victoria will take this conversation and turn it into an imagined workshop. Until then please enjoy our interview with Sohail!
Music for this episode created by The Beths
Produced by Jesse
Logo design by Hazel Mulligan
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Something I often hear from international practitioners is that they want more access to futures tools - to find out whatâs new, whatâs working and how it might work for them.
Thatâs one of the reasons I created this podcast - to âspread the wordâ about the amazing things happening in the futures space globally, and to share my interpretation of how each tool might be used in a workshop setting.
Weâre in deep at this point! While episode one (and all our interview episodes) are designed to be enjoyed by the general listener, the workshop episodes like this one are aimed squarely at practitioners and facilitators who might benefit from hearing the tools used in practice.
If youâve signed up to The Futures Workshop out of a general interest in futures thinking, feel free to skip these alternate episodes. But if you are somebody who works with groups (or aspires to), Iâm hoping these imagined workshops will be a unique and useful sessions to listen in on.
As I mention in the episode, this is an experiment! Weâll keep tinkering with the format in the hope we can create something genuinely valuable for futures practitioners around the world. Your feedback is very welcome throughout - thank you for your support of episode one and we hope you enjoy this follow up on Bill Sharpeâs Three Horizons framework.
www.futurestewards.com is the home of the 3H Network. There you will find:
* Practice Network page has links to organisations using 3H, and in particular to the resources made available by the main originators of the practice: International Futures Forum and H3Uni
* The Resources page has more resources, particularly the Ten Tools for Systems Change with accompanying introductory videos.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
In episode one we meet Bill Sharpe, who tells us about his Three Horizons tool. We talk about the origins of the tool, how Bill uses it in practice and what tips he has for faciliators and practitioners looking to adopt Three Horizons in their own work.
This was an interesting and inspiring conversation! As with all our interviews itâs designed with the professional futures practitioner in mind, though if youâre new to the area this is a great place to start - Bill tells me Three Horizons is a great âfirst toolâ, to help audiences understand futures, but also to equip somebody hired into a future facing role to hit the ground running on day one.
We hope you enjoy this episode. Weâre new to podcasting so please bear with us through any technical bugs or oversights - most importantly please let us know what you think of the podcast, good or bad, and weâll work on incorporating your feedback into future episodes. To our Northern Hemisphere listeners including Bill, thank you for hanging in there with this thick New Zealand accent!
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Bill Sharpe.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com -
Hello and kia ora to futures thinkers around the world.
Iâm Victoria Mulligan from Aotearoa-New Zealand launching, with great excitement, my new futures podcast out into the world.
In the coming weeks Iâll share my conversations with the worldâs leading futurists, challenging them to each select one futures tool to share with our global audience of practitioners.
Each episode will feature a new one-on-one (two-on-one if you count my producer/husband who sometimes chips in) with an international guest, followed by a second mid-week mini-episode in which youâll have the opportunity to experience the tool in practice, using what weâve learnt from our interview.
This podcast is aimed at existing futures practitioners of all levels, at people running strategic foresight in companies and other organisations, and at anyone whoâs heard about this area of âfutures studiesâ and wants to find out more.
I chose this format because, as a futures consultant myself, I often hear that people want to incorporate more futures thinking into their work but arenât sure where to start - or theyâve come across a certain tool or approach but donât quite have the knowledge, experience or confidence to make sure theyâre doing it right.
This podcast is for you! (And, for me!) Here they are, the tools you need to imagine and shape the future, presented to you with love by the people who created them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com
