Visitors to the U.S Capitol building are issued tickets in the form of stickers that they are required to wear on the tour of the building. While the relatively new visitor center (opened 2008) is full of modern tour conveniences and security features, what it lacks are well-positioned garbage cans. The image at the left…
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In the late 1990s, I wrote a series of articles covering scenarios for the future of tourism. They included the idea of underwater hotels, projected for 2010. “Nights are beautiful. Pale, shimmering shafts of moonlight filter down through the waves, revealing ghostlike fish. The piped-in sounds of the sea lull you to sleep,” I wrote.…
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In a previous post (Brainstorming for Introverts, Part 1) I talked about the limitations of traditional group brainstorming, which has been shown to be less efficient in gathering ideas than having participants work individually. According to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop Talking, there are at…
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I recently finished reading Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. (As an introvert myself, I found it refreshing and full of hope. We introverts have a lot to offer!) One of the topics that Cain deals with at some length is a question we’ve been pondering at…
DetailsJust after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, my colleagues and I sat down and considered their likely impacts, in the short and long terms. The short-term list was based mostly on observation: what was happening around us. The long-term list was provoked by people’s assertions that everything would be changed for a very…
DetailsIn case you may have missed it in our Twitter feed, Foresight Alliance’s Christopher Kent was interviewed for a story in the Washington Post on what it means to be a futurist. As Kent says, the critical role of the futurist is that “We don’t predict the future. We help clients understand: What are the…
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Journalists often write lazy articles compiling forecasts that have not come to pass, attributing them to futurists. Real futurists always respond, “Futurists don’t make predictions!” That is true in theory: the goal of futurism is not to make predictions. In any case, the mockery-inducing forecasts are usually by non-futurists. (Defensive futurists might also note that…
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In an earlier post I described how Ernie and Mr. Hoots, of Sesame Street fame, reminded me of an important strategy principle. Ernie is having trouble playing the sax while holding onto his rubber duckie, and Mr. Hoots tells him (in a wonderful musical number), “You gotta put down the duckie if you wanna play…
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I recently had the opportunity to be futurist in the “ask a futurist booth” at the American Association of Museums conference. The intent of the booth was to pose alternative scenarios that would encourage museum folks to think about different possible future environments and what changes they might suggest for the museum experience. The theme…
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I’m finishing up Iain McGilchrist’s brilliant journey of a book The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, looking for (and finding!) implications for futures studies and foresight. (I have a forthcoming article exploring the “I” of the beholder in relation to our discipline). But more on that…
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