1. Futures Research Methodology
Second Semester, Class 3
Environmental Scanning
Wild Cards
Prediction Markets
The Azerbaijan State Economic University
March 8, 2013
Reyhan Huseynova, AFSS & ASEU
Jerome Glenn, Executive Director
Theodore Gordon, Senior Research Fellow
Elizabeth Florescu, Research Director
Jose Cordeiro, Venezuela Node Chair
www.millennium-project.org
2. Semester 2 Course Schedule
READ: https://themp.org/content/methods-table-of-contents.html
•February 22, Class 1: Review Semester 1, Introduction to futures methods,
individual and class projects
•March 1, Class 2: Delphi, Real-Time Delphi (RTD) (Future Day!)
•March 8, Class 3: Environmental Scanning, Wild Cards, Prediction Markets (IWD!)
•March 15, Class 4: State of the Future Index (SOFI)
•March 22, No Class: Spring Festival, Happy Novruz!
•March 29, Class 5: Data Mining, Cross Impact Analysis and Trend Impact Analysis
•April 5, Class 6: Scenarios, Interactive Scenarios, Normative Forecasting
•April 12, Class 7: Mid-term Exam (Status Report); Gaming and Simulations
•April 19, Class 8: Statistical Modeling, IFs, Chaos and Non-Linear Systems
•April 26, Class 9: Collective Intelligence, Futures Wheel
•May 3, Class 10: Participatory Methods
•May 10, Class 11: Frontiers of Futures Research
•May 17, Class 12: Final Exam (written reports, briefing presentations and videos)
3. Review of Class 2
• Delphi and Real Time Delphi (RTD)
• Azerbaijan SOFI
• Review Az-SOFI 2011
• Real Time Delphi online access
• Peace Scenarios (Middle East example)
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/rd1-mepeace.html
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/rd2-mepeace.html
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/MEPS-rd3.html
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/study04.html
• Review literature and treaties
• Real Time Delphi online access
4. Set up RTDs for Class Projects
• Use the administrator login: student@FScourse.net
(but do not change the password)
• For editing, please access: https://themp.org/rtd/
Az-SOFI 2013
https://themp.org/rtd/azerbaijan_2013_sofi/
Peace Scenarios
https://themp.org/rtd/azerbaijan_peace_scenarios_study
5. Assignments for Class 3
• Reading of chapters in FRM v3:
https://themp.org/content/methods-table-of-contents.html
• Environmental Scanning (Chapter 2)
• Wild Cards (Chapter 10)
• Prediction Markets (Chapter 26)
• Preliminary results of the RTDs set up
• List of variables and historic data for Az-SOFI
• Discussion on the peace preconditions
• List of experts to be invited to participate
• Selection of Topics for Individual Projects
6. Final Class Projects
Individual research on Class (2 groups) reports
a specific topic on Future of Azerbaijan
Choose a specific subject, e.g.:
economy, energy, technology, State of the Future Index Peace Scenarios
governance, environment, health, (SOFI) for Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh conflict)
international relations, etc.
and show how its evolution could
impact the future of Azerbaijan
Written report and Written report, Written report,
briefing briefing and video briefing and video
Optional: contributing, writing or editing an article in Wikipedia or GFIS
(Global Futures Intelligence System, The Millennium Project)
7. Individual Research Topics
Examples (4-5 pages for final class, including graphs):
• Improving innovation in Azerbaijan
• Alternative energy futures for Azerbaijan by 2025
• Alternative economic drivers for Azerbaijan by 2025
• Post-oil futures for Azerbaijan
• Employment distribution by 2025
• Social demographics of Azerbaijan to 2025 and beyond
• Geopolitical futures for the Caucasus region by 2025
• Health in the future
• Artificial biology and its effects on Azerbaijan
• Tele-Azerbaijan
8.
9. Environmental Scanning
• Everyone does environmental scanning
• Vital to futures research – as Crow’s Nest on a ship
• “Environmental Scanning” used in the 1960-1980s
• Other terms used today:
• Futures Scanning Systems
• Early Warning Systems
• Horizon Scanning
• Futures Intelligence Systems
• Increasingly the output is being called “Collective
Intelligence”
10. Purposes of Scanning Systems
1. Identify threats and opportunities
2. Monitor information sources about these threats and
opportunities that can provide early warning
3. Support the analysis of the information to produce intelligence
and incorporation into an information system
4. Respond to feedback about the utility of such early warnings in
order to change information sought; and hence, continually
improve the system and the collective intelligence for strategic
planning, policies, and decisionamking in general
Horizon scanning capability - ‘systematic examination of information to identify
potential threats, risks, emerging issues and opportunities, beyond the
Parliamentary term’
Jon Day, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, UK
11. Scanning Steps
• Determine the theme and key words
• Choose sources
• Recognize signal of noise
• Identify issues
• Identify patterns
• Recognize strong and weak signals
• Examined the issues separately and in context
• Use ICT tools to expand knowledge (collaboration,
social networks, tweets, blogs, etc.)
12. General Model of Scanning
• Category/Domain/Theme
• Sources (news, reports, papers, etc.)
• Leading issues
• Leading sources (most reliable and complex)
• Data availability (indicators, databases, etc.)
• Knowledge gaps
• Significance to the future (timeframe,
importance, scope and spectrum of impact)
• Objectives
13. General Model of Scanning (cont.)
• Relation to other issues/domains
• Current status and potential trajectories
• Actors
• Potential strategies
• Timeframes
• Who is observing the issues (subscribe,
establish contact)
• Write report
14. Tools for Scanning
• Feeds (RSS) , news listserves, Google News,
tweets, etc.
• Social network analysis (blogs, facebook, etc.)
• Wikies
• Bookmarklet
• Data Mining
• Use of aggregators
• Computer-augmented collaborative systems
• Create your own files with categories and scores
• Personalize collective intelligence software
16. Aggregation
Use ICT to aggregate:
• News
• Expert opinions
• Identify clusters
• Find agglomeration of items, or items that are
“outsiders”
• Identify patterns
• Update present situation
Open Source frameworks make data available on the
emerging semantic web using sets of conventions
17. Experts and those with Insight
• Candidate panelists can be identified through literature searches,
nomination by two or more peers, "daisy chains” and
recommendations of professional organizations
• Panelists should be compensated
• Important qualifications of panelists are their discipline, experience,
work, and interests, creativity
• Questions of fact should be directed to panelists who are experts;
panelists should be able to excuse themselves from answering
questions beyond their expertise
• Panelist responses should be anonymous when fed back to the
group as a whole, although the list of participants should be known
to all
• In any practical design, the number of respondents will be small;
therefore, an environment "lookout" panel cannot produce
statistically significant results.
18. Environmental Scanning Example
• Emerging Environmental Security Issues
(http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/env-
scanning.html)
• Monthly
(see also http://www.aepi.army.mil/reports)
• Organized by themes (e.g. ES-2010-11.pdf)
19. Monthly Scanning Report
www.aepi.army.mil (click reports)
Item 1. An Emerging Nordic-Baltic Alliance Might Have Security Implications……………1
Item 2. International Air Cargo Screening Cooperation Requested…………………………1
Item 3. Fuel efficiency standards are changing around the world…….……………………...2
Item 4. Prosecution of Pillage of Natural Resources as War Crime………………………….2
Item 5. Technological Advances with Environmental Security Implications………………..3
5.1 Flexible Supercapacitor Could Power Wearable Environmental Sensors……..…….3
5.2 Nanoimprint May Create Synthetic, Chemical-Free, Anti-Bacterial Surfaces……....3
5.3 Potential Bioweapon Countermeasure against Ebola and Marburg Virus……..…….4
5.4 Charged Particle Generators Produce Desert “Rainstorms”……...…………………..4
5.5 New Detection and Cleanup Techniques………...………………………………...…4
5.6 Environment-friendly Cement Processes………..………………………………...…6
Item 6. Updates on Previously Identified Issues…………………………………………….....6
6.1 UN Review of Sustainable Development in Preparation for Rio+20 in 2012……….6
6.2 More Aggressive Action Needed to Curb Ozone Depletions………………………..7
6.3. The Battle for Rare Earth Elements Continues…………………………………...…7
6.4 EU to Set Resource Efficiency Targets………………………………………………8
6.5 NATO Continues to Develop Cyber Defense Policies……………………………….8
6.6 India Urges Strengthening Outer Space Treaty……………………………………....9
6.7 Climate Change………………………………………………………..……….…….9
6.7.1 Scientific Evidence and Natural Disasters……………………………………..9
6.7.2 Food and Water Security……………………………………………………..10
6.7.3 Melting glaciers and sea ice…………………………………………………..10
6.7.4 Health…………………………………………………………………………10
6.7.5 Computer Modeling and Scenarios…………………………………...………11
6.8 Nanotechnology Safety Issues……………………………………………………....11
Item 7. Reports and Information Suggested for Review……………………………………..12
7.1 Comprehensive Assessment of Environmental Security……………………………12
7.2 New Global Land Cover Maps……………………………………………...………12
7.3 Evolution of Environmental Management Philosophy in China……………...…….12
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………….…………..14
20. Example of a Scanning Item
Item 3. Fuel efficiency standards are changing around the world
UNEP in cooperation with other agencies has developed guidelines on sustainable procurement
of vehicles for the UN. Recent reports by international organizations are pointing to the need for
globally harmonized standards for assessing the efficiency of different fuels and relevant new
technologies. The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) report Motor Systems
Efficiency Supply Curves notes the lack of a transparent methodology for quantifying the energy
efficiency of motor systems and insufficient data for documenting present and future cost
effectiveness potentials. The International Energy Agency’s 50by50 Prospects and Progress
report calls for global fuel economy reduction to about 8L/100km with emissions halved in new
automobiles by 2030 and in all automobiles by 2050 (by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative). A
European expert group states that alternative fuels could replace fossil fuels by 2050. A RAND
Corporation study Alternative Fuels for Military Applications concludes that the military should
direct its efforts more towards increasing energy efficiency rather than investing in alternative
fuels.
Military Implications:
It is fair to speculate that the UN procurement guidelines might be expanded to peacekeeping
operations and therefore affect the military and its contractors. At the same time, fuel efficiency
standards are increasing around the world, which increases the likelihood of global standards with
assessment methodologies eventually affecting the military. The opportunity for military-to-
military programs in fuel efficiency should be explored.
Sources:
Buying Better Vehicles for the UN
http://www.greeningtheblue.org/news/buying-better-vehicles-un
New report gives green light to the feasibility of halving carbon emissions from new cars by 2030
http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1775
Clean Transport Systems
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/urban/vehicles/road/clean_transport_systems_en.htm
RAND study concludes use of alternative fuels by US military would convey no direct military
benefit; recommends energy efficiency instead
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/01/rand-20110125.html
23. Collective Intelligence
• It is an emergent property
• from synergies among
• data/info/knowledge
• software/hardware
• experts and others with insight
• that continually learns from feedback
• to produce (nearly) just in time knowledge
for better decisions
• than these elements acting alone
29. Wild Cards
• Surprise events that:
• are “barely possible” according to conventional thinking
• have low probability of occurring
• would have high impact if they would occur
• act as “disruptors”
• shock the entire system
• have consequences that not obvious
• Black Swans
• rare/surprise event
• extreme 'impact‘
• retrospectively (not prospectively) predictable
30. Types of Wild Cards
• Known or unknown
• Predictable or unpredictable
• Announced by weak signals or not
• Single or cascading event(s)
• Avoidable or unavoidable
• Simple or complex
• Positive or negative
• Immediate impact or prolonged
• Monitorable or non-monitorable
31. Examples of Wild Cards
• Past: 9/11; stock market crash; discovery of
DNA; understanding the “unknowables” in
chemistry; man-made or natural disasters;
• Potential: SIMAD; asteroid strike; shift of
system of values; worldwide famine; UN
system collapse; energy revolution; satellites
system collapse; faster-than-light travel;
hackers take over online banking and/or
information dissemination; immortality;
revolution of robots; extraterrestrial contact;
etc.
• www.iknowfutures.com
33. Monitoring Wild Cards
• If monitoring is possible:
• Identifying areas of vulnerability
• Discipline the wild card
• Increase resilience
• Unconventional methods:
• Intuition
• Systems thinking
• Creativity training
• New theories and techniques
• Reference Impact Grid (RIG)
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40. Prediction Markets
• Prediction markets are competitive betting games designed to tap
collective intelligence to predict the future.
Lumenogic http://www.newsfutures.com/
• Participants rewarded function of accuracy (precision and timeline)
• Help:
• improve forecasting
• gain customer insights
• create idea markets
• evaluate uncertainty about expectations
• focus attention to some weak signals or wild cards
• Predictive power increased by:
• cognitive diversity
• informed contrarian opinions (non-informed ~ loss)
• Increased cognitive performance
41. Accuracy of Market Prediction
More accurate than other common forms of predictions such as
polling, surveys, and expert opinions
42. Examples and References
• Lumenogic http://www.newsfutures.com/
• Predictocracy: Market Mechanisms for
Public and Private Decision Making,
by Michael Abramowicz
• The Foresight Exchange Prediction Market
http://www.ideosphere.com/ Top 10 Claims:
• Cold Fusion
• US President Visits Cuba
• Collapse of US Govt. by 2025
• US non-Christian President by 2016
• Humanly mobile robot by 2036
• Operational fusion reactor
43. Assignments for Next Class
• Read about State of the Future Index (SOFI)
• SOFI and Interactive SOFI (FRM, Chapters 34 and 38)
• SOFI in the 2012 State of the Future (2012 SOF, Chapter
2)
• Az-SOFI done in 2011
• Review Status of the RTDs
• Status of RTDs set up
• List of variables and historic data for the Az-SOFI 2013
• Discussion on the peace preconditions
• List of experts to be invited to participate
• Discuss Status of Individual Projects
