Future Newspaper Tool

Poiesis & Praxis, 2012

Looking back on the many prophets who tried to predict the future as if it were predetermined, at first sight any forward-looking activity is reminiscent of making predictions with a crystal ball. In contrast to fortune tellers, today's exercises do not predict, but try to show different paths that an open future could take. A key motivation to undertake forward-looking activities is broadening the information basis for decision-makers to help them actively shape the future in a desired way. Experts, laypeople, or stakeholders may have different sets of values and priorities with regard to pending decisions on any issue related to the future. Therefore, considering and incorporating their views can, in the best case scenario, lead to more robust decisions and strategies. However, transferring this plurality into a form that decision-makers can consider is a challenge in terms of both design and facilitation of participatory processes. In this paper, we will introduce and critically assess a new qualitative method for forward-looking activities, namely CIVISTI (Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation; www.civisti.org), which was developed during an EU project of the same name. Focussing strongly on participation, with clear roles for citizens and experts, the method combines expert, stakeholder and lay knowledge to elaborate recommendations for decision-making in issues related to today's and tomorrow's science, technology and innovation. Consisting of three steps, the process starts with citizens' visions of a future 30-40 years from now. Experts then translate these visions into practical recommendations which the same citizens then validate and prioritise to produce a final product. The following paper will highlight the added value as well as limits of the

Making Futures School Newspaper, 2020

Making Futures Bauhaus+ is an action research project that addresses questions of architecture as a collective form and architecture as a resource. Departing from these two perspectives, it operates as an experimental research unit that advances future paths for architectural practice and education. It was initiated in 2018 as a cooperation between raumlabor and the Berlin University of the Arts on the occasion of the Bauhaus’ centenary. The newspaper edited together with Fiona Shipwright was received by every participant and visitor at Haus der Statistik.

Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD11, 3-16 Oct 2022, Brighton, United Kingdom., 2022

Is what’s over the horizon a bit blurry for you? The future presents a greater feeling of certainty when you hold a piece of it in your hands. Making Futures Present is a one-hour personal experiential foresight and design thinking workshop that helps to review and rethink the future by co-creating multiple scenarios. It is very tempting for us to turn our gaze away from the future when it looks blurry, seems unknowable, and feels menacing. However, strategic foresight is a practice of low-risk thought experiments to reflect on the capacity to manage complex and turbulent scenarios. This is an experiential learning workshop to help us envision preferred futures via design fiction objects. As a result, participants will increase their comfort level with uncertainty and take steps in the present toward the future that they want. Making Futures Present was awarded the Next Generation Foresight Practitioner award from the School of International Futures in 2018. It was also awarded the Most Significant Futures Work by the Association of Professional Futurists in 2019. It has been adapted for high school students, seniors, artists, writers, journalists, and people who are in career transitions. In 2020 it was adapted for youth anti-vaping research with the University of Toronto School of Public Health and recreated as an online research tool called Nod from 2050 in 2021. Most recently, it was adapted again for anti-vaping training onsite at a high school in Toronto.

Aspirational Futures: Integrating Aspirations and Fears in Collective Futures Building, 2015

Global Environment Outlook – GEO-6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People, 2019

The challenge of sustainable development offers the opportunity for more effective integration of global and local scenario approaches in environmental assessments and outlooks to support decision-making for all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at all levels (i.e. local, national, regional and global) (established, but incomplete). A bottom-up perspective on the future, which is based on local scenarios and practices offers potential benefits for exploring alternative futures that are grounded in local realities and start with existing practical action that can be appropriately scaled. Linking top-down and bottom-up approaches to multilevel scenario development provides an opportunity for global processes to inform local actions and for taking account of local actions in global agreements. Co-developing approaches with diverse stakeholders will help to overcome the current limitations in scaling innovations up, out and deep, and in transferring valuable lessons and results from local to both regional and global levels, and vice versa {23.1}. The bottom-up approach engages a broad range of scientific and action-oriented knowledge, perspectives and opinions about a desirable world in the future and the ways to get there, including pathways to achieve long-term sustainability goals (e.g. the SDGs) (established, but incomplete). Since there is no single answer to achieving sustainability, having multiple perspectives is essential for defining different desirable futures. Through a combination of crowdsourcing platforms, participatory workshops in different regions of the world, analyses of existing sustainability solutions and an assessment of regional outlooks, novel methods for linking the generic results of global models with complementary information and insight from the local level can be undertaken. The outcome from the implementation of such an innovative framework provides useful and relevant information and knowledge for policymakers and practitioners to make more informed decisions about how to achieve a sustainable future {23.4, 23.6}. A groundswell of bottom-up efforts to realize the SDGs and other multilateral environmental agreements is currently under way, as are efforts to support and facilitate collaboration among them (established, but incomplete). Reviewing platforms of bottom-up initiatives provides a preliminary understanding of the breadth and depth of ideas, actions and programmes that seek to help achieve sustainable development objectives. The clear majority of the platforms have a global level of coverage, drawing on examples and encouraging connections from all over the world. Most of the platforms facilitate knowledge-sharing and the identification of solutions in two ways. First, this is through the collection of examples, solutions and best practices (e.g. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] Momentum for Change Lighthouse Initiative, PANORAMA Solutions for a Healthy Planet; WOCAT; see Annex 23-1), and, second, by creating forums for sharing technical or regional tools and know-how for on-the-ground activities (e.g. Biofin Knowledge Platform, ClimateTechWiki). Other platforms use contests or crowdsourcing to generate and synthesize solutions to challenging questions (e.g. VertMTL, MIT Climate CoLab). These platforms highlight the importance of involving a wider variety of people to complement government policies and initiatives {23.9}. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core at www.cambridge.org/core "The sixth Global Environment Outlook is an essential checkup for our planet. Like any good medical examination, there is a clear prognosis of what will happen if we continue with business as usual and a set of recommended actions to put things right. GEO-6 details both the perils of delaying action and the opportunities that exist to make sustainable development a reality."-António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

2022

This handbook responds to the increasing urgency for reimagining futures beyond dystopias and utopias. It features essays that explore the challenges of how to think about compelling futures, what these better futures might be like, and what personal and collective practices are emerging that support the creation of more desirable futures. It will be a valuable resource for researchers and students of leadership studies, social innovation, community and organizational development, equity studies, policy studies, futures studies, cultural studies, sociology, and management studies. It will also appeal to educators, practitioners, professionals, and policymakers. The volume includes well known contributors including Ziauddin Sardar, adrienne maree brown, Autumn Brown, Báyò Akómoláfé, Riane Eisler, AnaLouise Keating, Fritjof Capra, Arawana Hayashi, Jeremy Lent, Kenneth J. Gergen, and many more. 20% Discount Available CODE FLE22

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2008

Thinking about and planning for the future may be among the most signature aspects of being human. To the best of our knowledge, no other species contemplates the future the way we do, and attempts to make one future more likely than another. Planning is a basic human activity, something that everyone does. Further, assisting communities to plan for their futures or clients to think and act on behalf of a desired outcome is what planners are associated with, and what plans are widely believed to address.

Design as Democracy: Techniques of Collective Creativity, Island Press, 2017

The Community Innovation Forum (CIF) is a mobile workshop and exhibition that initiates a visioning dialogue in and between local communities confronted with significant socioeconomic, demographic, or environmental problems. Where residents lack awareness and confidence and are skeptical of interacting with outside experts it serves to spark bottom up development potentials, energize networks of neighbors already working on the ground, stimulate creativity, and increase local knowledge of community assets. These are important enablers for later, more systematic visioning processes. The CIF is run by a design team, but the designers' role is one of enabler, working with local instigators to organize events and identify participants. Key elements of CIF are discussion forums where non-expert but seasoned citizen innovators from nearby neighborhoods are invited to share their experiences that inspire and impel the host or "base" community to take action. These are followed by town walks that start in the base community and expand to other neighborhoods where revitalization has occurred. In community mapping sessions participants create an analogue exhibition that presents knowledge collected during the workshop. The co-learning process creates social capital, a more positive sense of self-efficacy, and shared problem awareness. In this way community innovators expand their network, while the dialogue creates new innovators, and together they have confidence to take on new collaborative projects. Instructions 1. Make an agreement to work with a group in your base community-local people who have realized there are problems and want to do something about it. Within the group you will need to identify key participants or local organizations that can serve as intermediaries between the base community, innovators from other neighborhoods, and the design team. They are crucial to mobilizing the event but will also play a vital role in moving the dialogue forward after the CIF. At the same time begin to identify the human and place resources that can be knit together to create a cross-community dialogue about positive change. 2. Next select an appropriate workshop venue. It should have a strong meaning for residents in the base neighborhood and should not be monopolized by the corporate or government sectors. The space should be big enough to hold community discussions and to work in small groups. The space also needs to be big enough for a mapping exhibition that will become the record of what is learned.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of CIFOR, ASB or ICRAF. The information provided is, to the best of our knowledge, accurate although we do not warranty the information nor are we liable for any damages arising from use of the information.