Forecasting and Designing the Future
Strategic foresight is not about predicting the future, it's about resilience in the face of major surprises
What is Foresight?
A 1997 study by Royal Dutch Shell found that the average lifespan of a large company is about 50 years. Companies often fail at the height of their success because of a failure to anticipate change. (How big was Kodak just 10 years ago?)
Strategic foresight assists companies, governments and other organizations in building the kind of resilience that will allow them to weather unexpected changes. It is a component of long-term corporate and governmental planning.
My Role
For ten years now I've been periodically engaged in doing foresight consulting, 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:
(You can find more videos here.)
Master's Degree in Strategic Foresight
In October 2011 I was awarded the degree of Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University (our building was recently hailed as one of the 13 "strangest buildings in the world" by TravelandLeisure.com). This has formalized my skills and experience in an area where I already do a good deal of work. My Major Project was the design of a technique within the general methodology of scenario development. The project is entitled Fiction as Foresight: Presenting Foresight Findings as Fiction, and is about the use of storytelling to highlight, synthesize or present the findings of some given foresight activity. (This makes it an activity distinct, for instance, from Brian David Johnson's notion of science fiction prototyping.) Copies of my formal report are available upon request.
Skills and Experience
- Foresight project design I initiated and helped manage numerous foresight and innovation-related projects over the two years earning my Master's degree. These projects included business model analysis and design, product and service design. I've also participated in project design for clients such as the Canadian army.
- Scenario-based forecasting I have extensive experience with the scenario methodology, going back ten years in my own private practice. This includes:
- Horizon scanning
- Drivers analysis
- Scenario development and writing
- Back-casting
- Wind-tunneling
- Session facilitation, results capture and public presentation I'm a good facilitator and have worked with diverse teams from government, industry and the military. As part of this activity, I've become experienced with many aspects of scenario-based foresight, including:
- Conference planning
- Break-out session lead, results capture and summary
- Public speaking, including giving keynote addresses
- 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".
- 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--in 2006 with the Prospective Protective Futures workshops, 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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