Your thoughts on communicating foresight and language are welcome here. Please reflect and build on our foreskype conversation! Thanks.
Your thoughts on communicating foresight and language are welcome here. Please reflect and build on our foreskype conversation! Thanks.
January 8, 2007 at 8:52 pm |
The term “futures” is widely understood to refer to financial and commodity traders. I’ll use the unscientific Google Page Rank method to support this: Type “futures” into google and the first foresight website (World Futures Society) is ranked 18 – the bottom of the second results page – behind 17 financial trading related websites. Contrast this with “foresight”, where the first result is actually a foresight program of the UK government, with many of the subsequent links foresight/’futures’ related.
January 8, 2007 at 8:58 pm |
Hello all,
While we were in the skypecast I was taking live-notes in a document online at google docs & spreadsheets. Those of you who have also been taking notes might want to add theirs to this doc (Jan?) (or the other way around). Everyone else can also add new notes of course.
You will need to register with google docs and spreadsheets to be able to work on the document online (the link below will take you to the right starting place). I think it is a pretty nice system, the best part is that you can take notes live and people can see what is being added or changed in almost-real-time.
Looking forward to more, thanks again to all of you for an interesting start to the week, looking forward to the next instalment.
Greetz, M
You should be able to find the document on: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=drq3nd9_1hk23j9
January 9, 2007 at 8:44 am |
Some thoughts on last night’s Skype conference…
1. I had some technical problems at the beginning (microphone not working online, though OK on the local computer), so may have missed out on something – and had never used Skype before last night – but I couldn’t work out how to communicate with the facilitator. Sometimes I had the impression that others were looking at a web page that was different from mine. Some clarification on this would have been helpful.
2. I found the whole experience a little disappointing. I suppose it’s inevitable that the first discussion in a series should focus on process issues, but content seemed lacking. Maybe next time we can start getting into the meat of what we want to do. Clearly articulating our goals should be the next step, I think – we seemed to skip over that last night, and jumped into talking about audiences.
3. I’m not sure how the written chat works – I was able to communicate with Jose, but if it’s also possible to communicate with the whole group, this could add a dimension that can’t be done in plain conversation.
3. I’m not sure who wrote the circulated article on “communicating the future” but to me it typifies what’s wrong with the concept of corporate communication. The unstated implication is that this “communication” is a one-way street, and that We, the experts, are telling You, the great unwashed, to mend your ways. Deluged with such “communication” the “audience” is likely to ignore or shrug off our message. I’d prefer to see a much more participatory and inclusive approach. The principle mentioned by (I think) Peter of “influence your own group first” is much more promising.
4. I don’t think the semantic issues need impede us. As Tony said, futurists have been arguing about this for decades, but whether we think of ourselves as involved in future studies, futures studies, foresight, prevision, or prospective, the differences are marginal. Like several others, I’ve found that when I use the term “foresight” to describe what I do, people are much less confused. The problem with “foresight” though is that most people see it as a short term thing – e.g. taking an umbrella to work because rain is forecast for this afternoon. So along with the term “foresight” needs to be an occasional reminder that we’re looking 20 or 50 years ahead, not a matter of hours.
5. My special interest is in mechanisms of change. I’m working on an article that I think of as How Things Happen – having collected about 200 mechanisms and trying to group them in some manageable way. I think a promising mechanism for this group is the bandwagon. Specifically, how we could tie into the growing bandwagon of awareness of climate change. How can we extend this new public awareness of climate change into social change?
I’d better stop, before this gets out of hand!
Dennis
January 11, 2007 at 1:21 pm |
Thanks Maya, a record of the conversation is great for those like me who could not be there.
The word “futures” is a total loss when it comes to searching or finding people in the futures field (just try finding a job using futures!). But even ‘foresight’ in the jobs market doesn’t do so great either – every personal assistant is required to have foresight!
When speaking to people I use both futurist and foresight (e.g. foresight practioners, foresight studies) in the same sentence and either one of those, or both, will elicit an ‘ah’ from the person, in my experience.
February 4, 2007 at 10:03 am |
A belated contribution…. sorry, everyone. We’ve been overwhelmed by a family emergency for the past few weeks. (And the next few.) However I have been wanting to address Dennis’s comments — in the second point 3 — about “what’s wrong with corporate communication”.
Specifically, Dennis, you say that “the unstated implication is that this ‘communication’ is a one-way street”. In fact, the principle of reciprocity has been embedded in communication theory for so long that sometimes we forget we might have to explain that to others. My mistake – not making it explicit – but perhaps if you read the work again in the knowledge that reciprocity is fundamental to communication you might feel differently about it. You can talk or write or broadcast without reciprocity, you can even listen without reciprocity, but you cannot “communicate” without reciprocity.
I’m not sure if everyone wants to continue this conversation. I’ll check in when I get a chance and see what’s happening. Meanwhile, please excuse us for our total absorption in family affairs in recent weeks…. j