Blogs

Yesterday I got to see Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., conveniently located across from the Judiciary Square Metro stop.

That’s the title of our pre-conference workshop at the World Future Society conference in Vancouver next month (C-8 on July 8), but what does that title really mean? High-falutin’ words, but will there be substance?
We (workshop leaders Ufuk Tarhan and Verne Wheelwright) think so. This workshop will take you places you’ve thought about and wanted to explore, but haven’t taken the time to actually tackle.

Organizing my thoughts about the futures, I did a little concepts exercise. The exercise helped me identify what I think is most important in Futures Studies (FS): Developing my mental model of FS; or a futurist’s futures thinking, or strategic foresight diagramed as an organizational function. Now, the output is a concept map that can be downloaded for free.

A journalist contacted me about race and racism in South Korea, and I summarized some of my thinking (and prognostications) for him. You may not believe it, but I think some of the most interesting (and potentially positive) things are happening right now with attempts to address race and multiculturalism in South Korea.

The last two weeks I have spent many hours on conferences listening to some great speeches on how to implement sustainability in business. First out was a conference called Sustainable Business Outlook where Nordic companies presented their best practices.

About three months ago, I embarked on a less-than-epic, although very entertaining, quest to confirm or deny the famous Six Degrees of Separation experiment, originally conducted by Stanley Milgrim. My goal was to send out letters, as in the original experiment, and have those recipients do their best to get those letters to a named someone in Boston. Each link in the chain would write down their name on the letter, and, by the end, we’d have a list of how many people the letter went through to get to that final person.

Well, it’s time to report out on that experiment. Get ready to have your mind blown.

Not one letter made it to my contact in Boston.

Why did this happen?

The popular revolts erupting in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and other Arabic nations surprised us, but they are another reminder that bold change is always a shock. Think of the similar changes that also shocked us when the USSR imploded, when women gained power, when the environment turned sacred, when blacks became accepted, and gays were liberated.

What can stop eco-disasters? Advanced technology? Perhaps, but the savior also might be a 40-million-year-old plant… Bamboo is shooting into prominence as a flexible friend of humanity. The skinny stalk with the whispering leaves and white roots is exhibiting a husky talent as a cure for multiple planetary illnesses.

Sure Ross Dawson is a futurist and lives in Sydney, New South Wales - but don't call him an "Australian futurist." In his view, future-focused mindsets had best not get hung up on terms like "domestic" and "international" if they want to see what's coming.

Since I have a little background in gaming folks are always asking me, "How do I get in?"

Which is usually followed by, "Is it worth it?"

First of all, it is. Definitely.

It's all that you think it is and more. The best part being that all your colleagues are huge fans so it's like one big gaming fest.