a Futures Basecamp
Futures Research, briefly
Futures ungrounded in reality are fantasies.
Possible futures are already in progress.
This means we can observe and measure the complex, numerous, and varied forces influencing how futures unfold.
These morphing forces seep or bang into each other creating black swans and emergent outcomes. Or even orthogonally go separate ways.
We need not venture into darkness. We can investigate current forces and then imagine the multiple ways futures might bloom.
wicked problems: complex, multifaceted problems that are difficult to define, have multiple causes, and no clear solution.
Futuring resembles the Hero's Journey
Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey
The Futures Process
PRESENT
01/ PROBE
Establish the theme. Gather and evaluate current behaviors and events that might signal a future already in progress. Prepare to parse signal to noise.
Why PROBE is essential to the process
Reality is where the future is in progress today. If our actions today will make a real difference, it’s because they are grounded in actual trends and drivers of futures already in progress. Here we use our futures lens to produce and evaluate studies, reports, and everyday observations of changes. Futures without reality are fantasy.
In an ongoing engagement, Futuists scan for signals of relevant changes in real conditions.
The idea here is to orient ourselves to emerging realities while allowing for creativity, not being strictly positivist.
POSSIBLE
02/ FORESEE
Consider trends and drivers of the present. From "what" to "then what". Genenerate scenarios arising from combinations of emerging conditions.
Why FORESEE is essential to the process
Here’s when we make sense of observed and reported signals. It has a name: “sensemaking”.
It’s critical at this stage to jettison our usual ways of seeing things. We have time-honored methods: frameworks, prompting card decks, and game-like exercises to approach this mental state.
Here we can begin to see the conditions that will influence possible, plausible, probable, and desirable futures, and guess timelines more clearly.
The ideal outcome of this stage is ongoing monitoring of conditions in relation to proposed futures to iteratively reassess goals and try new low-fidelity experiments – all to track alignment with emerging realities and calibrate follow-on actions accordingly.
POSSIBLE
03/ INHABIT
Feel the consequences. Immerse in scenarios to spark 'what if' dialogues. Create immersive environments, artifacts, and design fictions to inhabit each potential future.
Why INHABIT is essential to the process
Statistics and charts inform the intellect.
Something visceral spurs ideas for action when artifacts and immersive experiences ignite a sense that a certain future could be real and this is what real might feel like.
This feeling is more than empathy – it’s a change of consciousness. It’s closer to wisdom. It is powerfully persuasive.
Others experiencing a Design Fiction, Immersive Installation, or Speculative Design is an indirect form of taking action.
PRESENT
04/ ACT
Go from 'what if' to 'what now'. Lay out preferred and intriguing futures and the near-term conditions required to set them in motion.
Why ACT is essential to the process
A more open mind with an installed radar primed for sensing and making sense of signals is a valuable strength. But there’s more. There’s taking action.
The best rigid plan we might form now is an overall vision and mission.
Then, a strategy based on preferred futures with contingencies is actionable and realistic. Over time, that strategy morphs as conditions emerge and evolve.
Here’s where we try low-fidelity iterative experiments to learn what might work today to point the world toward a preferred future. Such experiments also help clarify the pervasiveness and intensity of signals.
Evolutionary equilibrium – regular progressions without disruptive events or substantial consequential drivers. "Business as Usual". More, bigger and more complex.
Multiple crises instigate ripple effects leading to global catastrophic decline of civilizations, mass migrations, and ecological degradation. Game over - thanks for playing.
Progressive uses of revolutionary technologies along with universal awareness of the benefits of socio, political, and economic stability and equity.
Evolutionary equilibrium – regular progressions without disruptive events or substantial consequential drivers. "Business as Usual". More, bigger and more complex.
Dator's Four Futures
Futures Resources
We look for direct and oblique frameworks, diagrams, methods, and tools with unflowery explanations that vividly illuminate the futuring ecosystem.
This curated list is an unsponsored public service.
Non-Fiction Books
How to Future by Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby
Speculative Futures by Johanna Hoffman
Imaginable by Jane McGonigal
Speculative Everything by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Foundations of Futures Studies v.1 by Wendell Bell
The Manual of Design Fiction by Bleecker, Foster, Girardin, and Nova
Operator’s Manual by Elliott Montgomery and Chris Woebken
Futures Brought to Life by Anab Jain and Gerald Bast
Sleeping Beauties by Andreas Wagner
Bibliographies and Resources
Carnegie Mellon University Transition Design Bibliography
IFTF Futures Thinking on Coursera
Futures Writings
Turning Foresight Inside Out: An Introduction to Ethnographic Experiential Futures - Candy & Weber
Alternative futures at the Manoa School by Jim Dator (PDF)
Learning from the Future - J. Peter Scoblic (Harvard Business Review)
Cultural Research Requires A Lab, by Tim Scott
Design & Futures, by Candy and Potter
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
Techniques of futuring: On how imagined futures become socially performative, by Oomen, Hoffman, and Hajer
Futures 101 Videos
Active Podcasts
Elena Leyes for Futures Probes at the Festival of the Future at Munich, Germany's Deutsches Museum, June 2024.
How ideas and assumptions shape futures
Why futures can’t be objective and are, in fact, just another battlefield