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Downloads

I've made my first novel, Ventus, available as a free download, as well as excerpts from two of the Virga books.  I am looking forward to putting up a number of short stories in the near future.

Complete novel:  Ventus

 

To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as an eBook. You can download it from this page. Ventus was first published by Tor Books in 2000, and and you can still buy it; to everyone who would just like to sample my work, I hope you enjoy this version.

I've released this book under a Creative Commons license, which means you can read it and distribute it freely, but not make derivative works or sell it.

Book Excerpts:  Sun of Suns and Pirate Sun

I've made large tracts of these two Virga books available.  If you want to find out what the Virga universe is all about, you can check it out here:

Major Foresight Project:  Crisis in Zefra

In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario.  The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency.  The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.

If you'd like to read Crisis in Zefra, you can download it in PDF form.

Short Stories

I'll be adding new stories here periodically.  First of all, you can try my Aurora-award nominated short story "Hopscotch."  The year this was nominated, another of my stories was also nominated:  "The Toy Mill," which I wrote with David Nickle.  "The Toy Mill" won the award; but I've always been fond of "Hopscotch."  Here it is, in its entirety excerpted from my collection The Engine of Recall.

Personal tools

Forecasting and Designing the Future

I primarily write science fiction, but lately have become active in promoting green technologies as well as doing policy analysis on science and technology trends

For about seven years now I've been periodically engaged in doing foresight work, with clients such as the Canadian government and army; some of our conference findings went straight to the Prime Minister's office.  I've published a 27,000 word "fictionalization" of military foresight studies entitled Crisis in Zefra, given numerous talks and keynote addresses, and facilitated at conferences.  For instance, here's a 15 minute keynote address I gave at OSCON '09, O'Reilly Publisher's 2009 open source conference, held in July 2009 in San Jose, California:

Master's Degree in Strategic Foresight

From fall 2009 to Spring 2011 I'll be working towards garnering a Masters in Strategic Foresight from the Ontario College of Art and Design.  This will formalize my skills and experience in an area where I already do a good deal of work.

Here is the College's description of the program:

The Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation integrates knowledge and methodology from a number of disciplines: design, business, science and technology, and the social sciences. Design provides the crucial link between these areas, drawing on its essential competencies of design thinking, strategic and iterative methodology, and a deep commitment to understanding human needs, wants and behaviour. Through holistic thinking in a co-creative environment, the designer, the business person, the social scientist and the engineer will develop together the skills required for true socio-technological innovation.

The program will develop students’ expertise in research and innovation methodologies to a high level. . . With their creativity and ability to navigate complex systems and guided by strong social and environmental principles, graduates of this program will be well-positioned to make meaningful societal change.

What is Technology Foresight?

Flying carsForesight is a modern branch of futurism, but is less dependent on the opinions of professional consultants (futurists in the Alvin Toffler sense) and more reliant on open brainstorming methods.  Foresight exercises usually involve a number of stakeholders in a particular issue (say, health care) and the foresight experts work as facilitators in a structured brainstorming session to develop scenarios of possible future events--rather than to determine exactly what is going to happen, since that is impossible.

What does it look like?  Imagine a room full of people arguing and shouting and competing to get their ideas posted on the white board while the facilitators such as myself just scramble to capture all the good ideas. That's a foresight workshop.

Recognizing the debt that it owes to the generation of futurists such as Toffler who developed many of the techniques we use, Wikipedia describes the discipline this way:

Foresight . . . draws on traditions of work in long-range planning and strategic planning, horizontal policymaking and democratic planning, and participatory futures studies - but was also highly influenced by systemic approaches to innovation studies, science and technology policy, and analysis of "critical technologies".

Many of the methods that are commonly associated with Foresight - Delphi surveys, scenario workshops, etc. - derive from the futures field. So does the fact that Foresight is concerned with:

• The longer-term - futures that are usually at least 10 years away(though there are some exceptions to this, especially in its use in private business). Since Foresight is action-oriented (the planning link) it will rarely be oriented to perspectives beyond a few decades out (though where decisions like aircraft design, power station construction or other major infrastructural decisions are concerned, then the planning horizon may well be half a century).

• Alternative futures: it is helpful to examine alternative paths of development, not just what is currently believed to be most likely or business as usual. Often Foresight will construct multiple scenarios. These may be an interim step on the way to creating what may be known as positive visions, success scenarios, aspirational futures. Sometimes alternative scenarios will be a major part of the output of Foresight work, with the decision about what fuure to build being left to other mechanisms.

Progress

In the first term of the program, we studied human factors and design thinking.  In term two (ongoing) we are undertaking an in-depth research methodologies studio course, and are also studying Systems theory.  Together these skills will complement my existing experience and allow me to provide a broad range of services to clients.

Existing Skills and Experience

  1. Session facilitation, results capture and public presentation  I'm a good facilitator and have worked with diverse teams from government, industry and the military to create and refine scenarios in a variety of areas.  As part of this activity, I've become experienced with many aspects of scenario-based foresight, including:
    • Scenario development
    • Drivers analysis
    • Back-casting
    • Report writing and analysis
    • Conference planning
    • Public speaking, including giving keynote addresses
  2. Writing, including preliminary scenarios and summary reports  My unique contribution is the ability to craft fictionalized dramatizations of foresight findings.  Examples of this include the 27,000 word Crisis in Zefra, as well as shorter pieces such as the story "Community".
  3. Design of "serious games"  I've designed and overseen "red versus blue" scenarios involving future conflicts and future technologies. Such simulations can provide surprising insights into technical vulnerabilities and the effects of disruptive technologies.  They also generate tremendous enthusiasm in conference attendees, which can help move things forward.

Features of this site

I've designed this part of the website to feature this aspect of my work.  I've also chosen Plone as my website technology because it allows me to create secure sub-sites that clients can use to set up their workspaces.  I've done this in the past--last year with the Prospective Protective Futures conference, for instance, where we used a subsite of mine to develop the conference material and agenda.  This time around, I can provide many more features and services for such activities.

 

 

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