Foresight

Walking backwards into the future

Marshall McLuhan once said that “We look at the present through a rear view mirror; we walk backwards into the future.” I was reminded of this quote as I was drafting a guest blog post for the Canada Council website. The post highlights a tension I felt at both Jacob Zimmer’s Unconference on Change and the Future(s) of Toronto Performance and the Canada Council’s Inter-Arts Office’s consultations I helped to frame  – a tension between an arts organization’s reliance on the past (i.e. an organization’s past practices and performance, so-called best practices based on other organizations’ past experiences, etc) and…

Future Londoners – Nesta

See on Scoop.it – Chaos and Uncertainty Zan Chandler‘s insight: Future Londoners is a series of imaginary London residents of the future that were created as a collaboration “between Arup, Social Life, Re.Work, Commonplace, Tim Maughan and Nesta.”  The series of future Londoners was created as a way of exploring and informing the design of a smarter London. While much popular futures exploration likes to focus on technologies of the future, this work looks at the lives of future Londoners. It’s a great way of understanding the implications of future developments. This work reminds me of a foresight project I…

According to Andy Hines, the best foresight clients have 4 key characteristics.

See on Scoop.it – Chaos and Uncertainty This question came up in a recent discussion with a professional colleague. Despite my hesitation to engage in a “best” discussion, let’s see, and take into account the appropriate cautions that “best” is in the eye of the … Zan Chandler‘s insight: I agree wholeheartedly about these key characteristics of “best” or ideal clients. They respect you and your abilities. They have thought carefully about what they want and why. They challenge you, in a good way, by piquing your interests and inspiring you to grow in new directions. All this while continuing to…

Isaac Asimov’s 1964 Predictions About What the World Will Look 50 Years Later — in 2014

See on Scoop.it – Chaos and Uncertainty When New York City hosted The World’s Fair in 1964, Isaac Asimov, the prolific sci-fi author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, took the opportunity to wonder what the world would look like 50 years hence — assuming the world… Zan Chandler‘s insight: I’m not a fan of predictions. However, it’s interesting to see what Asimov foresaw of life in our world today. See on www.openculture.com