FuturePod

Anita says that ethics is how we work with our power and support others. She works across corporate clients who wish to operate with sensitivity to their impacts, and also how community resources, like water, are shared.

Joining us in this special episode are our past guests, Richard Slaughter and Tom Lombardo. They share their memories and experiences of Wendell Bell, a giant in the field of Futures.

Kimberly discusses both the challenges and rewards of development work in West Africa, and explaining foresight to your mother. She also walks us through the Houston Foresight Framework to exploring the future.

Thomas teaches his students to be Philosophers-in-action. He believes that there is no learning without emotional shock and he wants us to deepen our conversations to decomplexify our physical reality.

Roope places Arts at the centre of his futures work. He is seeking a joyful and sustainable transformation of democracy and our institutions.

In this latest podcast, Maree Conway and Peter Hayward return for a conversation. Five more questions were asked from our FuturePod audience.

Richard is a pattern finder who is passionate about our relationship to technology. He believes our times are calling for a new mythology in our relationship with technology.

Ruben thinks we are between dreams and that we need to escape modernity which has delivered much but now imprisons us by de-emphasising our interdependence with the natural world and each other.

Dada takes you through his distinctive journey from business and economics, to becoming a yogic monk. He discusses the yoga of restraint and how we need to minimise the disparities in life but simultaneously maximise the diversity too.

Jerome discusses where the Delphi came from and why is so useful, the invention of the Real-Time Delphi and the self-actualization economy and how it could operate.

Njeri explains how the Rwanda genocide for her was a turning point where she realised how important agency was rather than just awareness.

David walks us through his ideas that Futures projects should be seen to do something in the real world and that he believes that now is the time for a FOPP - a Future Orientated Political Party. He believes that we lack high quality images of possible futures.

Gill discusses a wide range of her experiences using Foresight. She tells us about the European Commission’s decade long engagement with Foresight and how it became comfortable in using it.

Sara talks about the correlation between fossil fuels and authoritarian governments, how using the empirical futures frame helps her work in very normative spaces and how the distillation of crazy in extremist groups can be a force for reversing their support.

Cherie believes that people should be allowed to experience timescapes in ways that make sense to them and that ‘Futurity’ speaks better to the indigenous understanding of the future.

Tyler believes that our values are key in moving forward in the face of uncertainty. That through synchronizing the minds of groups all work, especially foresight, starts from the best place with the best contents of consciousness.

Alex is passionate about better understanding how to use the methods we employ to assist people. He believes that through collaborating with other disciplines, we can become more influential in the public discourse.

Lidia believes that our active engagement through death and grief, what she calls Death Consciousness, is a vital and energetic capability, especially helpful in our current times.

Conversation Question: “Should the field abandon preferred futures?” Riel Miller and John Sweeney return for part 2 of the conversation and are joined by another former guest, Josh Floyd.

Chris is a synthesizer of culture, and has been influenced by Lovelock's Gaia thesis and ideas of Deep Time. Listen to him speak about dark ecology, global weirding and non-Western Futures.

Richard has been thinking about narrative management and how it is used to attempt to control society.

Tracey Follows is a UK-based strategist and futurist, CEO and Founder of Futuremade, a strategic foresight and futures consultancy. Tracey looks for the clues to the future. She argues for the value in talking to a wide range of people about their thoughts and expectations about the future.

Paul is a foresight consultant based in Melbourne Australia. Paul has been studying how strategy can emerge from structure, relationship and good people doing good work.

Michael is a Futures Architect and Futures Steward. As radical uncertainty undermines how we make sense of the world, ourselves in that world and what we do, Mike has three principles that help us navigate.

Susanna Carman is a strategic designer with an eclectic educational background who weaves disparate yet related disciplines together to create something new. From her base in Northern Rivers, Australia she creates learning experiences for design, leadership, and change practitioners to enhance their reflexivity and lean into this time between worlds.

Sylvia Gallusser is a futures researcher based in Silicon Valley. Her practice is grounded in philosophy, futures and strategy. Her research company studies our human nature and our social future and how technology is helping or hindering that. Her research topics include the future of health, well-aging and social interaction, the future of work and life long learning, as well as transformations in mobility and retail.

Erik Overland is the President of the World Futures Study Federation and is an academic researcher based in Norway. He lead the Norway 2030 project in which he experienced working across international and knowledge disciplines. He has a strong Philosophical foundation to his futures research, especially Constructivism. He sees scenarios as a powerful aid to developing futures focused policy

James H. Lee is an award-winning investment strategist with over 30 years of experience. He is also the founder of StratFI, a boutique advisory firm that focuses on “What happens next?” In his new book, Foresight Investing: A Complete Guide to Finding Your Next Great Trade, Jim finds opportunities in the emerging technologies of tomorrow, including the internet of things (IoT), augmented reality, cryptocurrencies, automation, artificial intelligence, longevity science, and new sources of energy

William (Bill) Halal is Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology, and Innovation at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He is an authority on emerging technology, strategic planning, knowledge, innovation, and institutional change. He is the founder of TechCast, a web-based system that pools the knowledge of experts to forecast breakthroughs in technology, social trends, and wild cards to assist decision makers in managing a changing world. His latest book is Beyond Knowledge - How Technology is driving an Age of Consciousness.

Luke is the Programme Director of the Professional Studies Program at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is passionate about futures studies, foresight as an innate human capability, the criticality of foresight in leadership and the development of social foresight. Luke’s primary research interests are in the areas of futures research, human futures, systems theory, foresight and the strategic thinking of organisational leaders.

Allison is the president of Foresight Institute where she leads the Intelligent Cooperation, Molecular Machines, Biotech & Health Extension Groups. She co-edited the book Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy, and is collaborating on another book on Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation. Her futures journey started as a child when she realised that she did not want to die. The pathways she followed after that included Existentialism, Transhumanism, and finally the Foresight Institute. She speaks extensively about the Big Three - Biotech, Nanotech and Computer Science

Keiran is a foresight practitioner who is working with young people to support them making a difference through the approach of “Head, Hearts and Hands”. We find out what he has learned since we last spoke to him and what he is working on now. Find out more about Kieran’s Crazy Ideas College

Tamás was raised in a family of pedagogues. He grew up wanting to be a music conductor but ended up as Research Director at the Budapest Business School. He is interested in what wants to emerge in the world and what emerged for him after a decade of leading the Strategic Foresight program was a pivot to retraining as a primary school teacher.

Bridgette is a Strategic Foresight and Design educator. Bridgette discusses futuring as an act of rebellion and how that tries to coexist with respect. She also shares her latest spice nut “lockdown” recipe.

Derek is the President and Chief Futurist of The Futures Lab, a foresight consultancy he founded in 1996. In addition he is an assistant Prof in the ICT Dept of the Engineering and Science faculty at the University of Adger in Norway and an Adjunct Professor in the University of Houston Foresight program.

Joe’s is revisiting his earlier work as a Futures Intelligence Analyst. He explains how futures intelligence has to be in service of something.

Dr Karen Newkirk has lived and worked in Brazil, Peru and Indonesia (for 4 years) and on the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in central Australia (for ten years). Global human development has driven her passion and led to a degree in Adult and Community Education, a Master in Business; Strategic Foresight and a recently completed PhD in Business, on the market for Indigenous Australian knowledge.

Marcus talks about his futures leadership journey since we last spoke to him; leadership models and institutions, expectations of colleagues and wisdom embodiment. Marcus also speaks of how he follows people dedicated to practising life and reflecting on their own life critically.

Catching up with Richard Slaughter. He has been wondering why it seems so hard for our societies to change in order to prevent difficult futures for themselves. He has been thinking deeply about what are our ‘skewed narratives’ and how these prevent us from taking the necessary action.

Dr Thomas Mengel is Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He holds degrees in theology, adult education, history, and computer science. He has worked and consulted in project management and leadership in Europe, Asia, and North America, and is also a professional futurist and writer.

Sarah Dillon and Claire Craig provide a theory and practice for gathering narrative evidence that will complement and strengthen, not distort, other forms of evidence, including that from science.

The continuation of the ReInterview started in podcast 113. Richard discusses his new book, Deleting Dystopia: Re-asserting human priorities in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Kristin describes how she uses foresight frameworks and methods in the creation of exhibits for young people, using levels of adult development to design content that is relevant for both children and young adults.

Heather Benoit and JT Mudge shared the Association of Professional Futurists Student Recognition Award award for 2021. They are also both studying at the University of Houston. They both found Futures and Foresight, or it found them. They describe their journey to date and what they hope for themselves and the field as a whole

Dr Jacqueline Conway is the founder and Managing Director of Waldencroft – a specialist consulting practice working with CEOs and their executive teams. Central to this is facilitating executive teams in strategic foresight and grappling with complexity.

The FuturePod team get together to look back on the first 100 conversations, look forward to where FuturePod might be going, and farewell one of our founding members. Interviewed by: Peter Hayward, Meredith (Mendy) Urie, Rebecca (Bec) Mijat, Amanda Reeves, Reanna Browne