Governance and Communities
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Growing your Community for Constant Change: Seeding Community Transformation in Real Time and Virtual international Time

New strategies, methods and ongoing examples for educational, economic and community transformation based on chaos, complexity and ecological theory used by the Center for Communities of the Future will be presented. The use of Second Life and new software that align community databases and virtual scenarios important to the creation of interlocking networks of diverse people, both internal and external to any community will be demonstrated. We will introduce why processes of transformation need to identify and involve early adopters, how to design and connect small networks of people in physical and virtual communities in order to create tipping points, and why new indirect methods of transformative leadership are necessary when seeking community transformation.

Who should attend: Community leaders, educators, elected officials, and anyone interested in how to shift citizens into new paradigms of thinking and action to prepare for a different kind of future
What you will learn: Three key ideas: (1) why the theories of chaos, complexity ad ecology theory are necessary; (2) concepts and methods of seeding innovative sues of technology that will help transform ways communities prepare for the future, and (3) examples from emerging experiences of those involved with this new approach to community transformation
How can this knowledge be applied: This new knowledge can help communities and organizations prepare for our constantly changing future 

Dave Baldwin, president, Aquarian Technology Systems, Inc., Lexington, Ohio
Rick Smyre, president, Center for Communities of the Future, Gastonia, North Carolina

key words: transformation, community
issue areas: Governance and Community

 A Program for Managing Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) by Future Governments

The management of information and communications technologies account for much of the discretionary spending in many governments. These investments are one factor in the slow transformation occurring in many governments. As governments attempt horizontal management as part of a “whole of government” approach to policy making, enforcement programs are becoming more complex. Partial or total failure is often the result. This presentation will identify possible changes in the management of ICT investments. Some of these are in place to some extent in other countries, such as the United Kingdom. In this discussion, we’ll highlight 18 building blocks to future management, including the future roles of CIOs, the changing role of systems integrators, the rebalancing of public–private partnerships, horizontalism, implementing complex systems, and developing future leaders.

Who should attend: Government managers, company management working with government programs.
What you'll learn: Participants will learn about the 18 building blocks to administer “whole of government” programs in the future.
How can this knowledge be applied: To improve the success rate of multimillion-dollar programs, the 18 building blocks can be adopted and implemented in each organization responsible for complex information, communication, or e-government programs.

Frank McDonough, former government executive with Department of Navy, Department of the Treasury, and the General Services Administration (GSA), Consultant, Analyses of Future Government, Washington, D.C.

key words: government, innovative structures
issue areas: Governance and Communities Technology and Science, Business and Career

The Future of Public Participation as an Input to Government Decision Making

Decision making by elected representatives is the best form of governance to date, but the decision makers should be better informed by public debate. This presentation draws on the presenter's personal experience in participative management and visioning processes. His most recent experience has been as president of the organization of the Government of Québec responsible for informing and consulting affected citizens on the economic, social and ecological impacts of proposed public and private projects input to government decision makers concerning these projects. This experience has confirmed his hypothesis that while representative democracy may be the best form of governance yet invented, in the future appropriate legally structured mechanisms other than referendums may reinforce citizen input to and acceptability of government decisions.

Who should attend: Public participation facilitators, organization development practitioners, government officials at all levels
What you'll learn: How an informed public through participation can contribute to better government decisions in the future.
How can this new knowledge be applied: The presentation will be focused on how citizens through participative processes can contribute to improved governance in the public sector and will illustrate the advantages of the process in management.

William Cosgrove, president, Ecoconsult Inc., Baie d’Urfé, Quebec, Canada

key words: processes, governance, citizenship
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Social and Cultural Trends, Values and Spirituality

Future Hotspots: East Asia

There are a number of places in the world where international conflict can occur in the near future. One such grouping is along the East Asia coast. This session will examine a number of the less known hotspots with a view to highlighting what the issues are, who the protagonists might be, and how we might identify signs of growing tension within the region.

Who should attend: Those interested in geopolitics, particularly with a view to East Asia and the more general Pacific region.
What you'll learn: What sources of international tension might arise in the region in the near future.
How can this new knowledge be applied: This session will enable those attending to assess the extent to which tensions in the region might lead to rising international tensions.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan, director of research, The European Futures Observatory, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK

key words: China, Japan, USA, Russia, conflict, resources, oil
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Resources and Environment, Social and Cultural Trends

Releasing Genius, Creating Knowledge: A Critical Challenge for Education and Society

Nations are advancing and economies are developing by abandoning the status quo and constantly creating new knowledge. How can we cultivate ingenuity? Are prepared to see paradox and controversy as an opportunity rather than a threat? Will we be able to develop creative solutions to persistent problems? Are we capable of imaging entirely new industries?

In his recent books, Sixteen Trends…Their Profound Impact on Our Future and Future-Focused Leadership…Preparing Schools, Students, and Communities for Tomorrow’s Realities, Gary Marx explores the importance of creativity, imagination, and invention and why we need to shape our education system to enable students to pursue their talents, interests, and abilities. He believes critical and creative thinking skills are basic; so is an enthusiasm for working, learning, and inventing across disciplines. Our ability to think, reason, and see possibilities is the engine of economies, civil societies, and interesting lives.

Who should attend: Educators; Business, Government, and Nongovernmental Organization Professionals; Futurists and Forecasters.
What you’ll learn: Success for many people and organizations is too often defined as defending what they have in front of them. In a fast-changing world, innovation is essential if we hope to maintain a sound economy and a viable civil society. Participants will be asked to consider continuous improvement, complexity theory, threats versus opportunities, renewal, flexibility, blocking versus enabling cultures, the constant need to seek higher ground, and the ongoing process of conceiving a better future. Our education system is faced with creating a climate that encourages creativity, ingenuity, imagination, and invention. That means learning across disciplines, integrating curriculum enough that students can see connections, applying what we know about cognitive research, triggering ideas, making education a partnership between students and teachers, encouraging students and staff to hatch next generation technologies, using critical and creative thinking skills, engaging the broader community, and demonstrating intellectual leadership.
How the New Knowledge Can Be Applied: Leaders at all levels in every type of organization or community can apply these principles and techniques in shaping and encouraging a climate that promotes knowledge creation and releases the genius of people. That genius is often the elephant in the room, our greatest unrecognized asset. Participants will need to decide for themselves whether or to what degree they accept, adopt, and adapt these ideas and suggestions for use in their education systems or other types of organizations.

Gary Marx, president, Center for Public Outreach, Vienna, Virginia

key words: leadership, education, business, government, futures methodologies, social sciences
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Learning and Education, Business and Careers

Hubs and Nodes, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Globalization

The emergence of globally linked value chains and global marketplaces has done more than just impact the economics of large and small companies; it is also changing the career dynamics of individual employees and influencing the communities in which they live. This session provides a framework upon which to model the impact of globalization and investigates some of the specific impacts on workers and communities.

Who should attend: This session describes strategies to cope with and benefit from globalization, and should be of interest to individual employees, senior management, and regional political leadership.
What you’ll learn: This session will provide a framework upon which to model the impact of globalization and will describe best practices in managing and benefiting from globalization.
How can this new knowledge be applied: This knowledge can be utilized by entrepreneurs and senior management of existing firms to strengthen local connections and leverage distant synergies. It can also be used by political leadership to plan for and accommodate the impacts of globalization.

Richard S. Seline, CEO and principal, New Economy Strategies, LLC, Washington, D.C.

key words: globalization, economics, clusters,
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Business and Careers

The Coming Decade in Air Travel: 2020 Visions from Two Blind Seers

Futurists are very much like the fabled "Blind Wise Men of Hindustan," who envisioned dramatically different descriptions of an elephant, based on the one part of the animal each had touched. As futurists, because we cannot actually "see" the future, we infer it based on the particular types of indicators with which each of us is "in touch." In this session, a technology forecaster and a trend extrapolator present dramatically different visions of air travel between now and 2020, after which the presenters will invite the audience to add the missing features that will fill in a complete picture of the "elephant" that will be the future of air travel.

Who should attend: Travel and tourism stakeholders, transportation planners, futurists and futures facilitators.
What you’ll learn: In addition to the principal factors shaping the near-term future of air travel, participants will learn the value/necessity of assessing the future from multiple points of view.
How can this new knowledge by applied: Industry stakeholders will have a broader validity base for their long-range planning assumptions; futurist practitioners will learn how to build more realistic future visions by conflating valid contradictory forecasts.

Jay Herson, senior associate, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, managing editor, FutureTakes
David Pearce Snyder, principal partner, The Snyder Family Enterprise, Bethesda, Maryland, and a contributing editor for The Futurist, the Trend Letter, On the Horizon and Innovate!

key words: air travel, transportation, scenarios, workforce demographics.
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Resources and Environment, Social and Cultural Trends

Collective Intelligence, Government Future Strategy Units, Methods Updates, and What’s New in the 2008 State of the Future

Synergies of humans, software, and hardware can produce collective intelligence that improves decision making. An example is the Global Energy Network and Information System (GENIS) designed by the Millennium Project of the World Federation of UN Associations. It will be discussed to illustrate the concepts that could be applied to corporations, nations, or even individuals. Insights from a review of 25 government future strategy units around the world will be shared, with suggestions for their upgrades. The new approach to Delphi the Real Time Delphi–will be demonstrated for its uses in World Water Scenarios for UNESCO and the State of the Future Index (SOFI) for the Republic of Korea. All this will be covered, plus a brief update on the 15 Global Challenges from the 2008 State of the Future will be discussed.

Who should attend: Futures consultants to governments and industry and teachers of future studies and global issues.
What you’ll learn: Concepts of collective intelligence and potential applications; status of a global collective intelligence system for energy; how futures research and foresight fits into heads of governments’ policy-making systems and ways to upgrade their capacities.
How can this new knowledge be applied: These concepts can be useful to corporations, organizations, and individuals to help with the decision-making process.

Jerome C. Glenn, director, Millennium Project of the World Federation of UN Associations, and co-author, of the annual State of the Future reports, Washington, D.C. E-mail: www.stateofthefuture.org
Theodore J. Gordon, senior fellow, Millennium Project of the World Federation of UN Associations, and co-author, of the annual State of the Future reports, Old Lyme, Connecticut

key words: government, decision making, global challenges
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Futures Methodologies

Network Using Small Groups for Large-Scale Dialogue

"Freedom of speech, freedom of petition, and freedom of assembly are hollow rights if people feel unable to be heard." [Preamble to Initiative 24 that created the Citizen Councilor Network.] This session presents details of the new Citizen Councilor Network of King County and how it is designed to engage large numbers of self-selected people in an informed and sustainable dialogue while remaining cost-effective. The Citizen Councilor Network was created by public initiative and adopted unanimously by the King County Council in September 2007. Its purpose is to enhance citizen participation, civic engagement and citizenship education in government. It expands the concept of public meetings to include networks of official Citizen Councilor volunteers who agree to meet physically, share their opinions, and provide feedback on regional issues.

Who should attend: Public participation facilitators, organization development practitioners, state, county, and city government officials at all levels.
What you’ll learn: How large numbers of people, meeting in small and distributed groups, contribute to better government decisions while rebuilding social capital in their communities.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Large-scale civic engagement need not be costly or logistically overwhelming. Save money, increase participation, and improve governance.

John Spady, deputy citizen councilor coordinator, Seattle, Washington; executive vice president, Forum Foundation, Seattle, Washington

key words: civic engagement, citizenship education, citizen participation, governance
issue areas: Governance and Communities, Social and Cultural Trends, Values and Spirituality

Security First: New Foreign Policy Approaches

A Security First foreign policy, drawing on the principle of the Primacy of Life, is both principled and pragmatic. At its core is the recognition that all people have an interest in and right to security, understood to include freedom from deadly violence, maiming, and torture. This right is more fundamental than all the others, including legal-political and socioeconomic rights, and ought to be treated as a class unto itself.

Who should attend: Business leaders, government and public policy officials, nonprofit managers, and educators concerned with global security and new ways of thinking about it.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will better understand the barriers to innovative change in foreign policy and how new approaches can bring about lasting global stability.
How can this new knowledge be applied: The United States or other nations in the free world would not be safer if their citizens gave up their various rights. The implications of a Primacy of Life–based foreign policy is not just for establishing security in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also for conflicts with rogue states (especially North Korea and Iran); for dealing with failing states (especially Russia); and for assessing under what conditions armed humanitarian interventions are appropriate.

Amitai Etzioni, director, Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies, George Washington University; author, Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy, Washington, D.C. 

key words: security, conflicts
issue area: Governance and Communities

For more information contact: World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814;
Tel: 1-800-989-8274 or 1-301-656-8274;  Fax: 1-301-951-0394;  Web Site: www.wfs.org;  E-mail: sechard@wfs.org.