I’m honored to have two chapters included in the recent new book, “The Future of Futures“, published by the Association of Professional Futurists. The book explores emerging issues in scenario planning and foresight. My first chapter, reproduced below, is about the effect of crowdsourcing, big data and the web on scenario planning and foresight. You [...]
Tag Archives: future
From Design Fiction to Experiential Futures
September 10 12
This is the second chapter I wrote for the book, “The Future of Futures“. It explores the role design fiction, experiential futures and visual media in foresight work. It also includes several examples of good design fiction, which are formatted nicely in the original publication. Download this chapter as a formatted PDF, here. I have [...]
3D Printing in the Mall: A Sign of Things to Come
May 16 12
Here is an interesting early arrival in the coming boom of 3D printing. The Dubai-based company Precise Concepts is offering a service called This Is Me, which sells 3D scanned and 3D printed copies of yourself. A 6-inch, full color statue costs about $300 – $400 USD, which they scan and print off-site. The statues [...]
Three Good Examples of Design Fiction
February 5 12
My last post, “On Glass & Mud: A Critique of (Bad) Corporate Design Fiction“, generated a lot of discussion about commercial design futures. Mick Costigan suggested that I was being too “high-horse” in my criticism. He (and several others) suggested that we should focus on the positive aspects of doing futures work in a constrained [...]
On Glass & Mud: A Critique of (Bad) Corporate Design Fiction
February 2 12
Asperger’s Design Fiction I’m a fan of design-based futures work (a.k.a. “design fiction“). Videos, in particular, can be a very effective way of engaging people in complex, subtle and nuanced explorations of the future. I always applaud companies that give it a shot, especially when it represents a big step away from “business as usual” [...]
Back to the Futurist Interview
January 27 12
Alexander Phillips was kind enough to interview me for the very cool “Back to the Futurist” series over at URBNFUTR. The series highlights some interesting ideas on the future of cities and those who think about them. Many thanks to @MelissaSterry and the entire URBNFUTR team for the recommendation. PS – Their bio is a bit outdated [...]
“A depression where people are afraid of the sky…”
July 25 11
I was just listing to an old DJ mix I did with Bruce Sterling as part of my NerdHouse Podcast. It’s from his famous Reboot 11 closing speech back in 2010. The speech is full of crushing lines, but the following ones really made me smile. Here is what the future looks like for your [...]
Oxford Future of Cities Scenarios
June 10 10
Last year I participated in a large scenario planning effort as part of the University of Oxford’s “Future of Cities” programme. The project interviewed a range of business leaders, property developers, environmentalists, community activists, political scientists, engineers, architects and designers from around the world. It then extracted a variety of themes and drivers in using a traditional [...]
Slides from my recent talk at MIT
April 21 10
I recently was back at MIT presenting some of my research on web-based techniques for collaborative foresight and online scenario planning. Here are the slides from my presentation. The presentation starts with a general overview of scenario planning, then provides an example from some scenarios work I did with the Oxford Future of Cities Programme (in [...]
What next for scenario planning?
January 24 10
How are online tools and social media transforming the practice of scenario planning? Recently I have been interviewing a variety of high profile futurists and up-and-coming strategists on how online approaches are transforming scenario planning and futures work. Although the questions have been largely open ended, conducted in person, over the phone and by email, [...]