If you’re only listening to yourself or your community, you’re deaf to the future

Posted by Adam Gordon on Aug 19, 2010 in all, foresight tools & methods, lifestyles & values, politics of the future, strategic foresight

Today I offer a rather naked punt for a site called “Global Voices,” but there is a solid foresight methods reason for doing it.

In its own words: “Global Voices is a community of more than 300 bloggers and translators around the world who work together to bring you reports from blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media. Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard.”

There are of course other places to get local-blog perspectives on current issues and concerns, but this site appears to be the broadest and best, at least at the moment.

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Why is this important for thinking adequately about the future?

The biggest problem we have in foresight work is the double-whammy that (a) people, on aggregate, choose and make the future, and (b) we don’t know what they will choose because we don’t adequately listen to their concerns and motivations, or worse, are we are deaf to their motivations because they are outside of our frame of reference.

(a) Yes, the future is influenced by new capabilities, driven by new technologies, but technologies come out of societal perspectives (what are we going to invest in or research towards?) and then adoption (which technologies “make it”) is all about social and economic choices. So what defines the future is what most people want. (Not everyone wants the same thing: that’s what politics is about.)

(b) Share of voice is political too, and in our world some people and companies have vast sway over media channels, but most have no voice. But just because they have no voice doesn’t mean they are not making choices as to (a) above. All it means is that if you’re not listening, the future will surprise you.

A “surprise future” = a lack of mental preparation. Without exception.

It is easier both practically and ideologically to listen to ourselves and our micro-communities of associates online or off, which confirms what we think and how we think. It’s much tougher to absorb alternative perspectives. Global Voices is not perfect. It is still, naturally, the preserve of the literate and educated. But it is a first step out of the frame.

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The Age of Stupid viewed from 2055. Dystopic futuring meets activist journalism

Posted by Adam Gordon on May 15, 2009 in all, lifestyles & values, politics of the future

Apocalyptic predictions are designed to be wrong. The point of doing them, as with “1984,” “Brave New World,” “When the Wind Blows,” etc., is to raise consciousness to negative outcomes and engender action so that the prediction, by succeeding in purpose makes itself incorrect in fact. “The Age of Stupid” is this all over. See the trailer here:

There is also a documentary about how the movie was funded and made.

Set in 2055, post the environmental global climate change collapse, it features last-man-on-earth (Pete Postlethwaite) as an archivist in a tower refuge somewhere in the Arctic north of Norway sifting through records of human life before it was wiped out, trying to find out why people did nothing to stop the eco-catastrophe that was imminent. The plot device allows filmmaker Franny Armstrong, (director of McLibel, 2005, about environmentalists who successfully challenged McDonalds) to showcase a selection of real reportage and news clips from today to withering effect. Like any good scenario it gives granularity: dates, names, actions, timelines. It points fingers and mentally readies the reader-watcher to act.

By all accounts this is a punchier movie than Al Gore-fronted “An Inconvenient Truth (2006),” and punchy is what is required to effect the goals of a future-influencing forecasting, that is, an assault on the powers that be and/or on public complacency.

By the way, if you want to see the best activist consciousness-raising movie (ever!) see Pete Postlethwaite in the anti-Thatcherite “Brassed Off.”

Sir Fred Goodwin and the Imperative for Looking Long and Rewarding Longer

Posted by Adam Gordon on Feb 26, 2009 in 2025, all, decision-making, economy & finance, forecast filtering, leadership, lifestyles & values, management, policy, politics of the future, risk management, social change

Publication of the Institute for the Future’s “Map of Future Forces Affecting Sustainability” on the same day that it is revealed that Sir Fred Goodwin (50) of failed & baled Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will get a £693,000 (about $1,000,000) a year payment for the rest of his life, gets me thinking about short-termism and its entrenchment.

The IFTF’s full map is available for download here.  Quick aside: these maps, putting complex forces into visuals, have defined IFTF’s public (and client, one presumes) communications for over five years, and have raised the bar of excellence in the foresight communications. The company has produced many such outstanding maps, some publicly available.

The new map and Sir Fred-gate are unrelated of course. But here was the connection for me: The IFTF map lists six “Key Driving Forces” (2007-2017) in the area of sustainability, and the first is:
“An Imperative for Looking Long: The 21st century will test our ability to grasp the future impacts of present choices, but even as we struggle to incorporate future knowledge into our day-to-day decisions, we’re tuning up our bodies and minds and even our cultural frameworks for a much longer view.”

My question is, “really?” Is the long view really a driver – something that will drive change and shape the future? Or do we hope it is. Are we trying to talk it into being?

No question that the long-term view is crucial. Solving just about any social, technological, or environmental problem requires sustained long-term action. And everyone who works in foresight keeps evangelizing long-termism. But, in fact, what we have in industry and government is rampant short-termism and there is no indication this will change, despite the crisis and many heartfelt calls.

Linking big to long

The problem with Sir Goodwin’s package (in career and in retirement) is that the reward numbers were based on short-term company returns. “Hey, we made lots of money this year, so you get a big bonus, and you get a big bonus,” etc. But a few years down the line  – in the long term – it turns out that no bonuses were valid (if a bonus is, truly, a reward for success).

Put it another way: in finance, as in other aspects of society, technology, and the environment, we don’t know if we’ve succeeded or failed until the long-term numbers are in. Few would have a problem with handsome rewards for a valuable job well done, but those rewards must surely be delayed, and delayed, until we are in command of the long view of the performance.

Easy in theory, hard in practice. Perhaps impossible in practice when most politicians and legislators are themselves on a short 3-7 year cycle, like CEOs. I have some inkling from the IFTF map that the thinking is that life-extending technologies will improve to the point where people will really see themselves in for the long haul, and so adopt a longer perspective on benefits and rewards.

Time on the clock

Perhaps. But, life-technologies aside, plenty of decision-makers – Goodwin included – still have a lot of time left on the clock and that doesn’t appear to stop them chasing and cashing in short-term incentives at the expense of the future. Or legislators (and the public who votes them in) structuring performance rating on our immediate perception of their performance.

What we have, and what we have increasingly had (the trend) over the past few decades, is systemic short-termism. Winning in the next annual report or the next election is what what leaders’ rewards are based on. Incentives for politicians or business leaders or even scientists or engineers to make a better world for 2025 or 2050 are negligable.

Until there is reason to anticipate that this fundamental underlying short-term incentive structure and mentality changes (that is – convince me – who will change it and how?) the future savvy perspective must say that the “long-term imperative” remains a nice sound-bite, but not a material driver of anything.

The next 5,000 days of the Web

Posted by Adam Gordon on Dec 3, 2008 in 2015, all, emerging technologies, failed predictions, forecast filtering, innovation, technology change, trend tracking

I finally got to look at Kevin Kelly’s TED presentation on “the next 5,000 days of the Web,” and bring it up here because it’s really worthy of comment from a foresight quality – Future Savvy – point of view.

Kelly needs no introduction. He’s the executive editor of Wired and a core who’s-who in the new media technology world. The first lesson he has to share is a key one: the Web is only about 5,000 days old – that’s about 13 years (the Internet, DARPA, etc., is older) – and all the stuff we have and now take for granted, from online investing to social networking to Wikipedia has happened in this short time.

The video is available here:

As Kelly says, and he’s undoubtedly right: “if I had predicted all this would be there (and free) nobody would have believed it. It’s impossible. The lesson is that very big changes do occur in fast-moving industries when considered over a decent-length (e.g. 10-15 year) timeframe. So let’s not kid ourselves: mere extrapolation of current trends doesn’t take us to the future. A leap – a paradigm shift – a willingness to anticipate fundamental shifts in technologies, institutions, and business models, is required.

So, against this, it is interesting that much of what Kelly predicts for the next 5,000 days of the Web is fairly conservative… but he does build in the idea of a new, fundamental shift.

The Web in 2020

What does he see coming in the next 5,000 days?

1. First thing is what Kelly calls “Embodiment” of the Web, by which he means that every device, every screen (laptop, phone, iPod, sat-nav, etc) becomes a “window into the machine” rather than a stand-alone device. There will be one Web, one machine, and everything will go through it. Part of this is that the Web will be embedded into the physical world – inanimate objects from cars to shoes to will have connectivity. Whether through RFID or other technologies, “there will be an Internet of things.”

Hello? We’ve heard this all before. Many times. In fact we were hearing it in the 90s. This doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact if we’ve been hearing it for so long, and the trend is still clearly in this direction, the forecast is probably right. What’s interesting is how non-radical it is.

2. Next he talks about “Restructuring” which is his term for the “Semantic Web” or what some call “Web 3.0” The idea is: first we linked computers (the Net), then we linked pages (the Web), and next we will link all the data or information or ideas anywhere on the Web to all relevant data /information/ ideas elsewhere on the Web. (This made possible by technologies such as XML, RSS, OWL, API, RDF)

One of the payoffs of this, says Kelly in an illuminating example, is that we won’t have to “re-friend” in each social networking platform. The technology will know we’re “friends” with Warren Buffet and Tom Peters and Malcolm Gladwell (…lol) as we move from Linked-In to Facebook to Technorati, and so on.

3. Kelly’s final point is that humans will be co-dependent with the Web. It will be always on, always there, ubiquitous, and the single fundamental tool we depend on to do everything.

Again, there’s nothing new in these points. It’s all been said before. In fact, as is often the case in good futures thinking, the value in Kelly’s forecast is that it is a carefully considered “cut” from what is usually forecast, leaving behind the wilder things that are said. Kelly on Web 2020 doesn’t say “expect digital human implants; ‘conscious’ devices; retina-as-screen,” and so on – the beam-me-up-Scotty kind of foresight that unfortunately often gets the headlines.

The next stage
Nevertheless, he is equally not saying the next 5,000 days will be “like the Web, only better.” The capabilities, the embodiment, the dependency, imply a new stage, he says. What that new stage will look like at the business and institutional level – what products/services/delivery will be possible via Web 3.0 – what the Yahoo or Google or Facebook or similar iconic institutions will there be, Kelly does not get into.

Fully thinking through the next 5,000 days of the Web involves going from the capabilities to what is built on them. But all in all this is a classy, integrated piece of future thinking (that easily fulfills the Questions to Ask of any Forecast checklist in Chapter 11 of “Future Savvy”) and is a solid foundation on which to consider future business and organizational implications.

Media Futures Conference, 2008: How value will survive into the future

Posted by Adam Gordon on Jul 17, 2008 in 2015, all, emerging technologies, failed predictions, forecast filtering, innovation, systems dynamics, technology change

I was at the recent Media Futures Conference 2008 in London where a lively cross-section of delegates spent their time – as to be expected, this is the topic-du-jour – pondering the impact of social networking-based “citizen journalism” on the traditional media. In the era where everyone can “publish” all the time, what is the role and purpose of, for example, the BBC? As major news sites are scrambling to allow reader’s views, or eyewitness pictures and so forth, do they become dissolved in a sea of chat, blog, and tweet?

I don’t think so. There are many new communication modes to explore as established media outlets get to grips with the micro-publishing and social networking technological possibilities and consumer preferences, but the fear that traditional journalism or traditional media is “under threat” is, to me, overblown. Yes, anyone can publish news and views anytime, but most strive to put their 2c worth on the media sites associated with the major newspaper and electronic media brands. Why? To benefit from (a) the visibility, that is, presence of many readers, and (b) the editorial quality – the brand promise – of the established media outlet. A submitted picture that is seen, for example, on The Guardian site, is worth a thousand pictures on mynonameblog.com. This is all-the-more true if the publication editors flag readers attention to the citizen journo contribution: giving it an editorial stamp of approval.

The power of hubbing has been talked about a lot, not least by management guru Michael Porter, and there can be no doubting the reinforcing feedback loop at work in hubs. In this case, where more readers are that’s where more writer-contributors want to be, which makes the hub more valuable to readers, etc. What’s most valuable to readers in a world of a billion potential journalists? Little doubt it is what has always been valuable to readers, that is, the activities of editors providing oversight and quality control: filtering, choosing, framing and balancing information and viewpoints. Any content that is not subject to oversight is, well, just someone yapping.

From origination to “hubbing”
What will surely happen to the main media outlets is that the percentage of own-originated content will go down as the percentage of publicly contributed content goes up. They will have to adjust their game to include wider information quality management. In addition to providing what they always have (quality and timely and relevant content) they will need to be able to function less as own-content originators and more as hubs – providing editorial-quality oversight and therefore attracting many readers in the virtuous-cycle spoken of above. But they will still be in business, and still in essentially the same business of information collection, editorial processing and oversight.

The citizen journalist may effect what the media outlets says and does – for example by providing evidence that must be included in a story – but this does not change the balance of power. The value of the editorial oversight and synthesis is higher than ever. This is what branded media providers offer and the citizen journalist cannot. The principle of anticipating the future here is this: where a service provides a value, the service-provider will continue to exist into the future. Nothing has changed in the value of editorial oversight, in fact, it is more valuable than ever. That’s why major media outlets will be part of the future.

This is not to say the current major media brands will survive – they may well miss or mismanage the transition to information quality hub function – and fold, as brands or as companies, as new ones emerge. The general news brands may also, over time give way to narrower topic niche brands. But the concept of a centralized quality-enforcing media hub is not dissolving into citizen yapping any time soon.