Powerpoint for the talk I gave at the Strategic Innovation Lab at OCAD University on July 31, 2012 - Zhan Li, USC

1. Rabbit Holes into Wind Tunnels:
The Transmedia Storytelling Potential of
Foresight Scenario Innovation
Zhan Li, Ph.D. Candidate (Communication),
University of Southern California
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
zhanli@usc.edu
July 31, 2012
sLab @ OCADU, Toronto

2. Where I’m coming from…
• Video games studies, participatory & convergence culture, online fan communities
(Henry Jenkins, Comparative Media Studies, MIT); spreadable media, participatory
civics, transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, USC)
• Organizational narrative and strategy, sensemaking, network studies
• How can transmedia storytelling enhance foresight scenario practices it adapts
to the participatory new media landscape?
• How can foresight scenario practices enhance the strategic conversation of the
field of transmedia storytelling (and beyond?)?
• FoE conference exercise/ Futures of Transmedia initiative

3. The Question
Why and how might transmedia storytelling help adapt foresight scenarios
for the participatory new media era
Goals:
• Give a thumbnail sketch of scenarios… for Transmedia Storytellers
• Explore the narrative gap in foresight and why its important for its new media
adaptation
• Highlight examples of existing transmedia storytelling forays into foresight
• Suggest starting points for thinking about how transmedia storytelling can help
empower foresight scenarios

4. Foresight in a (very small) nutshell
• Foresight, Futures
[Studies]… and
Futurology?
– Techniques for
enhancing, instilling and
structuring mental model
habits re: multiple
possible futures;
practical/plausible;
visionary; subversive
– Decision support for long-
term and/or VUCA
conditions
– Applied and/or Critical
– ‘family relations’: design,
strategy, urban planning,
contingency planning,
trend

5. Scenario Planning vs. Scenarios?
• The ‘Classic’ Scenario Planning Matrix Process
– Can be resource-intensive
– Ideally, Extended Process
• Change org. culture
– Expert networks-driven
– Story = delivery vehicle
– Not the only way
Source: GBN/Monitor, 2004

6. Scenarios in Foresight: A Mystery
“No matter how it is constructed, how full and rich or meager and lean, how factual or fictional,
how particularistic or universalistic, the 'scenario' gives methodological unity to futures
studies. It is used by all futurists in some form or another and is, thus, by far the most widely
shared methodological tool of the futures field.” (Wendell Bell, 2003)
“Scenario development is the heart of futures studies. It is a key technique that distinguishes the
work of professional futurists from other professions who deal with the future. With its
popularity, however, has come confusion about what exactly scenario development is, and
how futurists actually produce scenarios” (Bishop, Hines & Collins, 2007)

7. What Scenarios Are
• A scenario is a story (usually short, text-based (~1p); sometimes with
figures/illustrations/video but can be up to novel length) set in a plausible/valid
future world that an organization or a community may face (5-50+ years ahead);
scenarios typically come in sets.
• Scenarios describe the progressive interactions between different actors, trends &
events that drive opportunities and challenges facing an organization, community,
industry, country etc.
• A traditional foresight scenario exercise typically centers around data gathering,
face-to-face interviews, and workshops for decision-makers/stakeholder
representatives
• At heart, scenarios are just structured, plausible (research-based), imaginative
stories told about the various long-term futures that we face, in order to aid
decision-making.

8. What Scenarios Are Not
• They do not all stem from one technique
• They are not meant to be predictive, and may not even be aimed at
planning
• They may not solely about preparing for the future e.g. organizational
learning, networking, ideation, branding; a way to talk about the
sensitivities of the present through the safe space of the future
• They are not meant to simply endorse a single future vision

9. Four Metaphors for
Scenario Methods
• Wind Tunneling – Scenario methods as offering a structured thought experiment
context for testing organizations’ future decisions and decision-making processes.
• Memories of the Future – Scenario exercises create memories of how decision-
makers reacted to hypothetical future situations. These memories enhance
responses to those situations when they occur in reality.
• The Surprise Machine – Scenario practices generate discussions about unexpected
or less considered issues, so expanding the situation awareness of organizations
and reducing risk/opportunity blindness.
• The Gentle Art of Reperceiving – Scenario methods encourage people and
organizations in the intuitive habits of challenging their assumptions,
understanding and discussing situations from multiple perspectives; of considering
the less probable seriously; and of seeking out alternative and less known
explanations for events and trends.

10. A Mildly Forgotten Mystical Art?
Cynthia Selin (2007): Pierre Wack’s “gentle art of reperceiving” is “mildly forgotten” –
the classic lengthy, resource-intensive process has been mostly displaced by
“atomized” “stunt scenario”/”scenario in a day” quick and cheap methods (both
have their uses but…)
“In my experience, scenario planning is an interpretative practice – it’s really closer to
magic than technique…. We are not trying to enable everyone to create scenarios
but to understand scenario-thinking…. ” (Napier Collyns, 2007)
1970s 1980s

11. A ‘Magic Circle’ view of the early history of
Scenario Planning
1950s Leo Rosten
Herman Kahn

12. The Cultural Cringe
“The danger of
entertainment scenarios…
The very use of the word
‘scenario’ can prove
dangerous for long range
planning: there is a risk of
being swamped by media
successes or being limited to
amusing businessmen, with
little or no scientific
grounding.”
(Godet, Roubelat, 1996)

13. The Opportunities and Challenges
for Foresight Scenarios
Opportunities Challenges
Increased global change and Existing foresight specialists’
uncertainty today means growing capacities challenged by increasing
need and demand for foresight demand/need
In foresight, the Internet revolution The foresight field needs innovation
is still in its infancy momentum
Storytelling in foresight Foresight field’s profile and
communication represents a major connection with
market & theory gap mainstream/popular culture has
faded since ‘futurology’ era

14. The Emergence of New Media
Foresight Initiatives
 Extending and complementing, not replacing, the face-to-face foresight consulting
experience with new media storytelling.
 In 2006, Jamais Cascio wrote an groundbreaking blog post° which imagined how
Web 2.0 technologies and open source culture could transform traditional
scenario planning with a open database of scenario exercise elements for foresight
practitioners. He imagined how “open source scenario planning” would be:
 More open, less hierarchical – breaking down the behind-closed-doors
‘elitism’ of the conventional scenario experience
 An ongoing knowledge community – using the Web to create permanent and
public online databases of scenario elements and analyses that easily support
ongoing scenario processes anywhere in the world
 Massively expansionary – an online community would support consideration
of scenarios on a massive, unprecedented scale
° http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004246.html

15. Pioneering examples of Transmedia
Futures Projects
 World Without Oil (2007) by ITVS (US); online Alternate Reality Game
created by Jane McGonigal (before she went on to join Institute For
the Future and collaborate with Jamais Cascio)
 Collapsus (2010) by SubmarineChannel (NL)/VPRO (NL); directed by
Tommy Pallotta (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) – transmedia energy
crisis/peak oil futures campaign, developed for Dutch public
broadcaster in connection with TV documentary series.
 16 Juin 2014 (2011) by Various (Tunisia) – Participatory futures/civics
campaign by ad agency, broadcasters, newspapers during post-
revolutionary uncertainty
 Wicked Solutions for a Wicked Problem/Pandemic 1.0 (2011) by The
Workbook Project(US)/FreedomLab (NL) – Lance Weiler’s
collaboration with Dutch futures/scenarios think tank; attempt to
apply transmedia storytelling & futures to complex social problems
and media strategy.

16. Starting points for furthering new media
foresight with transmedia
 Engaging ‘Real World’ multi-platform media ecologies rather
than closing off the foresight exercise space or treating the
outside web merely as a data stream.
 Embracing the power and inventiveness of popular
participatory storytelling forms to motivate participation and
co-creation across media
 New media communication design that is narrative
experience focused rather than e.g. code/game-focused
 Helping Make Foresight an Everyday Habit For All

17. Transmedia as a Guide to a Turbulent ‘Multi-
channel’ Futures Universe
How can Foresight Scenario communication work most effectively
with an ever more noisy media landscape with a difficult attention economy?

18. Transmedia Storyworlds as a Collective
Intelligence Paradigm
Going beyond the Library metaphor of conventional collective intelligence models,
and imagining a collective intelligence as a Transmedia Storyworld instead
(Ryan, 2011)

19. Transmedia as a model for understanding ‘the
middle ground’ of participatory culture
Learning how to leverage the new amateur-expert power relations of co-creation and circulation

20. Some final rabbit holes… Jenkins’
7 Core Concepts of Transmedia Storytelling
How might Jenkins’ Transmedia Storytelling concepts lead to enhancements to Foresight Scenarios?
World-building Seriality Subjectivity Performance
Transmedia’s Transmedia would Transmedia’s focus on Transmedia’s
participatory culture & expand scenario users experiencing inspiration of users to
collective intelligence communication to different perspectives produce and perform
know-how can help multiple media blends well with their own storytelling
create immersive & channels, engaging foresight’s focus on would help
persistent scenario many different kinds expanding mental democratize and
storyworlds co-created of audiences over the models and exploring invigorate scenario
by user communities long term alternative possibilities innovation
Spreadability & Continuity & Immersion &
Drillability Multiplicity Extractability
Transmedia expertise Transmedia design Transmedia immersion
can increase the reach could maintain enhances the impact
and power of foresight scenario storyworlds of scenarios;
by helping spread and over long term whilst extractability enhances
deepen scenarios for also encouraging many the usefulness and
different kinds of more alternative portability of scenario
audiences versions to develop knowledge as a tool