Futuring

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.

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?

I am just returning from a two-day trip to South Korea. My purpose there was to remind communications ministries around the world that while the gadgets may be stylish and entertaining, the technology could be used to improve the lives, productivity and future of countries without the resources of South Korea and South Koreans.

There was a great interaction on Twitter this weekend I just happened to overhear regarding the following question:

"What is more pompous, calling yourself a 'guru' or a 'futurist?'"

Every now and then I need to pick up a back issue of THE FUTURIST to check a quotation, reference, or some idea that's being discussed in the issue we're working on now.

After more than a year of writing, editing, and design, I am proud to announce the publication of my latest book entitled How to Predict the Future...and WIN!!!

As someone who’s spent her entire career and the majority of her life at THE FUTURIST, I smile when I think of myself as the “new” editor. So let me first thank Edward Cornish, our Founding Editor, for his mentorship and for having confidence in me.

The neuropsychologists are studying the ability of remembering the past, present, and imagining the future, i.e. “Chronesthesia”. Their tangible results may affect our decisions in life, yet there are questions over practical aspects of Chronesthesia.