Morning keynote presentation at the 2010 Earthquake Engineering Research Institute annual meeting. Focus is on futures thinking tools, along with an overview of key drivers for the next few decades.

1. INFLECTION POINTS
Jamais Cascio
Research Fellow, Institute for the Future
February 4, 2010

3. What’s Our Vision of The Future?

5. “Legacy Futures”

7. Photo by Jason Tester

8. Is there, perhaps, a more structured way to do this?

9. Is there, perhaps, a more structured way to do this?
Yep. “Strategic Foresight.”

10. Scenario Planning

11. Scenario Planning…
Tells stories about the future
Forces divergent thinking
Allows straightforward comparison of outcomes
Creates memorable examples
But…
Tends to over-simplify
Becomes obsolete quickly
Tends towards the “cinematic”

12. Foresight Mapping
10

13. Foresight Mapping…
Emphasizes connections
Allows complex relationships
Focuses on “signals” and early indicators
Tends to remain useful over time
But…
More difficult to understand at a glance
Less likely to elicit surprises
Doesn’t demand internal consistency

14. Immersive Futures

15. Immersive Futures…
Trigger visceral reactions
Emphasize experience
Create “plausibly surreal” artifacts of the future
Use provocation as a way of eliciting insight
But…
Can be a challenge to do well
Require time to “live in” the future experience
Can provoke unexpectedly strong reactions

16. 50 YEARS

17. What we often think of...

18. GLOBAL CLIMATE DISRUPTION
climate disruption

19. PANDEMIC DISEASE

20. ECONOMIC DISLOCATION

21. RESOURCE COLLAPSE
resource collapse
Photo by Stuart Candy

22. TERROR
the rise of the post-
hegemonic era

23. GROWING STATE POWER

24. WAR

25. AND EVEN...

26. AND EVEN...

27. But we have to also imagine...

28. NEW WAYS TO LIVE

29. CHEAP, DISTRIBUTED ENERGY

30. “LEAPFROG” DEVELOPMENT

31. NEW ECONOMIC MODELS

32. EMERGENT POLITICAL NETWORKS

33. NEW TOOLS FOR WATCHING THE WORLD

34. COLLABORATIVE CREATIVITY

35. NEUROSCIENCE BREAKTHROUGHS

36. HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION

37. ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPARENCY
filters and awareness
• AR

38. TRANSFORMATIVE MATERIALS

39. REVOLUTIONS IN MANUFACTURING

40. REVOLUTIONS IN COMPUTING

42. CRITICAL TENSIONS
FOR THE NEXT HALF-CENTURY

43. Tension #1:
new innovations undermine core institutions
Bottom-up drivers enable greater collaboration
and participation, but also greater instability.
This is a future of Open Source Design and
Global Guerillas. This is a world where power
comes from the Commons.

44. Tension #2:
new technologies co-evolve with new rules
Technology-driven changes enable more sharing of
information and ideas, but abandon the remnants of old
intellectual property and privacy rules.
This is a future of the Smart Cities and Augmented Reality.
This is a world where power comes from Connections.

45. Tension #3:
big-picture challenges force radical choices
Catastrophe and Opportunity combine to drive the
creation of new economic, political, and social models.
This is a future of Massive Disruptions and Unanticipated
Consequences.
This is a world where power comes from Creativity.

46. CO THE COMMONS
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47. Using Foresight Thinking

48. AS A “WIND TUNNEL”

49. AS A “WIND TUNNEL”
Testing Strategic Options
Seeking Adaptation
Evolving within a Dynamic
Environment

50. AS AN “IMMUNE SYSTEM”

51. AS AN “IMMUNE SYSTEM”
Testing Implications
Seeking Points of Influence
Uncovering Longer-Term
Results of Present Choices

52. AS A CHALLENGE

53. AS A CHALLENGE
Clarifying Goals
Offering Perspective
Connecting Purpose and
Intent Over the Long Term

54. Jamais Cascio
cascio@openthefuture.com
Twitter:@cascio