Futures Terms Concept Map

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.

As a student of Strategic Foresight, I identified the most important concepts and terms in FS and I related those terms to each other. The process was very simple, but it took considerable time and work to go through all of following phases:

1. I reviewed available futures terms and their definitions that I had submitted as part of my project, Futurist Terms.
2. I created a file of the terms, writing all the terms in bold (those that received three or more mentions and some that received two in my glossaries) on a card or slip of paper.
3. Then, I arranged the cards (7-14) on a large sheet of paper to show the relations of the terms to each other—which ones are the same; which are different; which are bigger or lesser scope; which cause or follow from others, etc.
4. Drawing lines and shapes to group the terms and show their relation to each other, I could label the lines and shapes to make the arrangement clear, such as "is a subset of" or "methods group."
5. I transferred the terms, line, shapes and annotations to a PowerPoint file to shape and publish my desired poster on my website.

Now, it is available to be downloaded by you and everyone who is interested in a concise map of futures terms. It covers more than 70 important futures terms arranged and connected to each other in a rational manner. It can be used as a model for teaching futures terms and their connections to the students of Futures Studies or Strategic Foresight.

I should offer my special thanks to my dear professor Dr. Gary for his constructive feedback and encouragement to publish the map as a tangible output of my studies. However, I think that the map is not a comprehensive one and only covers the most important terms that are usually used in futuring. It needs more work. Your comments and views are highly appreciated as they may help me revise the map, make necessary corrections and update it in the coming future.

You may download the “Futures Terms Concept Map” at:
http://www.futuresdiscovery.com/Newsletter/ConceptMap.pdf

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Alireza Hejazi is a freelance futurist. He is the founder and developer of “FuturesDiscovery.com” and the author of e-books: “Futures Discovery”, “ATLAS of futures links”, and “Top 10 Cases of Futures Studies Syllabus”. Hejazi is currently an MA-student of Strategic Foresight at the School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship at Regent University. His most recent e-book “Writing for the Future” is available at: http://www.futuresdiscovery.com