It looks like rain

I want to propose two umbrella terms (brutal pun intended) for ways of looking at things that I find highly interesting playmates: embodiment thinking and ambience thinking.

In embodiment thinking, crystallised elements are reopened up as distributed in space and time (a conceptual analogue of the visual technique of the exploded view). The object is at the centre. In ambience thinking, a process may be deliberately distributed to enable more organic, interactive results. The subject is at the centre. They seem to be reciprocal or complementary concepts that have in common a manifest sensitivity to the complexity of systems. In that sense they are perhaps each subsets (or offshoots) of systems thinking, and natural partners of futures thinking. Let's consider each in a bit more detail.

Embodiment thinking looks at objects as somehow containing or condensing the processes that produced them. Hence, embodied energy is "the quantity of energy required to manufacture, and supply to the point of use, a product, material or service". The spreading awareness and use of ideas such as the ecological footprint, and the related carbon footprint, are encouraging instances of embodiment thinking because their uptake heralds a way of perceiving the ecological impact of our choices, more holistic and nuanced than before (the rise of "products of service" is part of the same trend, I'd say). Variations of this way of seeing have been around for a while; for instance, Marx wrote in the 19th century, "all commodities are but definite measures of congealed labor-time." To see a machine as "congealed labor" is a clear example of embodiment thinking.

Ambience thinking looks at environments and detects (or arranges) a distribution of salient elements therein. As with embodiment thinking, it takes a certain "ecological" cast of mind to see things this way. Ambient music (invented by artist Brian Eno in the mid-70s) was intended to suggest a kind of sonic environment, rather than a linear, narrative-like musical structure. In recent times, there has been a rash of similar neologisms in both commercial and academic settings: ~ intelligence, ~ computing, ~ findability, and ~ gaming. My colleague Jake Dunagan and I have been calling for the cognate notion of ambient foresight to be developed by embedding futures thinking -- or the ingredients for it -- in one's informational environment.

The complementarity or overlap here is rather intriguing. Objects expressing or invoking possible scenarios (eg "artifacts from the future") could be regarded as embodied futures thinking. But, deliberately placed so as to systematically provoke it, such objects (like information, such as forecasts) could be said to engage ambient foresight. It seems to depend whether you focus more on the "object" itself, or on the experience of the person who encounters it.

Anyway, I was prompted to this line of thinking by a product going on sale this week, which pulls off the neat trick of blurring these tentative lines completely. Reuters reports:

Ambient Devices, which specializes in integrating Internet information into everyday products, has devised an umbrella with a built-in radio receiver in its handle that receives weather data for 150 U.S. locations from forecasting site Accuweather.com via a proprietary wireless network.

If the forecast is for rain in the next 12 hours, the umbrella's handle lights up. Soft, intermittent pulses mean you can expect light rain while a very rapid, intense pattern signal thunderstorms ahead.

It seems to me this invention actually embodies ambient foresight rather well. First, it's a networked object, so the information communicated by the flashing handle is the visible tip of an iceberg, namely the complex underlying system of meteorological models and ICT. Second, it takes and augments a useful physical object, rather than an ornamental, experimental or speculative scenario (as usually embodied in the artifacts noted at this blog). And third, it renews and builds on an existing symbol of future-oriented thinking. The following is from a briefing on futures concepts by consultant and scholar Richard Slaughter for one of his clients:

Foresight is, first and foremost, a human capacity. It is used in many ways to protect the organism from harm and to guide it on a moment-to-moment, hour-to-hour and day-to-day basis. People exercise foresight when they take a raincoat or an umbrella (even though the sun is shining), make an appointment or put money aside for a new car. Foresight is one of the basic skills that protect us from making certain kinds of errors and suffering the consequences.

Futurists often introduce their topic by pointing out that all of us have, and exercise to a greater or lesser degree, a capacity for foresight in everyday life: the umbrella is rather a good icon for this type of habitual future orientation on which the study of futures seeks to build.

Now, I don't want to oversell this idea -- it's not exactly a first. A neat extant example of ambient foresight implemented can be seen in cars which forecast approximately how much further you can expect to drive on petrol left in your tank ("feed-forward", as opposed to feedback). But to be implemented for more significant purposes than just short-term and low-level planning, it would need to be quite a bit more sophisticated, e.g., forecasting contingent alternatives and what-ifs; and what such a system should look like is a conversation to which all are welcome, and many of us in the futures business are already taking part. Meanwhile, if I put aside the umbrella's $140 ticket (at that price, I expect Manoa Valley raindrops to keep falling on my head for some time to come), I see here a kind of icon for embodied ambient foresight -- of which we can expect, and hope, to see much more in years to come.

Learning the trade: the futurist's apprentice

I'd like to propose an idea for the futures community. The idea is that each and every professional futurist consider taking on an apprentice to mentor through to independence.

Not a new concept, I hasten to add -- as far as employment is concerned, it's one of the oldest ones there is, dating back to the late middle ages. It is not even a new idea for the futures community. There seems to be plenty of talk about "mentoring" in a broad sense, and many of the futurists I know can name one or two people that taught them "everything they know" -- or at least, most of what they knew at one time -- and with that, the inspiration and example which allowed them to go on to carve their own niche. There may even be future-oriented organisations that have a more or less established mentoring or apprenticeship system. I can't name any, but such may exist, and if this is the case, more power to them.

What I'm suggesting is that this be developed as a more habitual, and more widely known, mechanism for getting into the field -- because assuredly, at this time, getting good training in futures is not easy. And it needs to be easier, in the sense of lowering barriers and providing opportunities, if it is to catalyse the culture-changing work that needs to be done.

I've been contemplating this in light of the recent discussion of "The future of futurism" which suggested to me both that serious futurists aren't getting their message across to journalists and, by extension, the general public as effectively as they might like; and that certain people who are marketing themselves (in some ways more effectively) as futurists are simply making it up as they go along. (The predictive mode is almost antithetical to learning, because if it were really about learning, one of the first things it would have learned is that prediction doesn't work very well.) The upshot is that mechanisms to teach and learn real futures still require our close attention; which is the proximate reason for this piece.

As suggested above, then, mentorship is already a key part of accumulating practical experience in futures. To the extent they're not self-taught (the default situation) many futures practitioners can trace the steepest part of the learning curve to university courses like those at Houston, Swinburne, or Hawaii. Some win their spurs in organisations like GBN, Futuribles, or Royal Dutch/Shell. Some just attend conferences, do a lot of reading, and figure the rest out for themselves. The optimal situation for the neophyte would seems to be to experience a mixture of these. But the sine qua non of doing futures well appears to me to be lots of experience (generating, elucidating and pursuing future possibilities), and lots of conversations with people who know what they're talking about.

This gestures back to the long-standing discussion over whether futures is more an art or a science. To my mind, there's no longer much usefully to say on this: it's a mixture -- try to fit it into one hole exclusively and you miss the other. Is it a profession or a trade? Again, it strikes me as a bit of both. (I'm doubtful that it's worth getting hung up on the distinctions, which can detract from actually doing anything useful. In this regard, I often think of Canadian futurist Ruben Nelson's observation at the 02005 WFSF conference in Hungary, to the effect that "future studies isn't 'the work'; improving the world is the work, and futures is a means to do that").

But the field, to the extent that it's still not entirely consensually clear to itself what kind of enterprise it is at heart, can certainly stand to learn from comparison to more established activities. Take the practice of law, for instance. In law, the principles and content (the stuff you can learn from books) are important, but simply to master this corpus at an academic or intellectual level does not a lawyer make. There's a certain emphasis on content mastery in law -- lawyers are in large measure the gatekeepers of a parallel universe (perhaps I mean a microcosm, although it sure can feel like a parallel universe) ... one of arcane language and complex procedure. But, where lawyers are expert tour guides, who interpose themselves between the client and render safe the incomprehensible-or-even-dangerous unfamiliar surroundings, futurists are more like expedition advisors, because they co-navigate and map with their clients terrain that no one has ever seen. Yet, if they do it well, in the process they'll impart some of their skills. It's more of a collaborative learning process. In law, the lawyer may learn, but as a content "expert" it generally behooves her to keep that ignorance a secret. Lawyers' repeat business is predicated on the unspoken notion that the law is far too complex, and the stakes too high, for regular people to be trusted to do anything much for themselves. Navigating change, while being both as complex and as high-stakes as anything imaginable, is however something that in my experience, many futurists would really like to teach the world to do. A highly desirable scenario for the future of futures may be, I think, one in which designated "futurists" are no longer necessary. (Come to that, so would a scenario in which lawyers are no longer necessary -- but that's another story.) A wise culture, or as Slaughter puts it, a "social capacity" for foresight, would obviate most of the need for a futurist specialisation: but that's some time off yet.

Meanwhile, my point is that aspiring lawyers, who have relatively more content-mastery emphasis than futurists (for whom process is at least as important), are required, in Australia and the UK at any rate, to undergo a period of traineeship or clerkship before they are licensed to practice in their own right.

Now, someone else might like to use this to make an argument for registration and regulation of the futures profession, but that's not my point. I'm suggesting this because it seems to me to be a rather crucial step in "learning the trade". If, as I would argue, futures is more about process than content, but structurally provides fewer opportunities for aspiring futurists to learn process (from example, on the job), then a major chance is being missed. On the other hand, if practising futurists as a group were to put this realisation into practice, the whole field could benefit from making that kind of semi-formal learning opportunity more common.

So why do I make this suggestion? My motivation is largely my own experience of trying to become a futurist. I first encountered the field formally at the World Futures Studies Federation biennial conference, in Brisbane in 01997. It was my final year of high school. I wound up studying for a BA (history and philosophy of science) and an LLB concurrently at the University of Melbourne. Richard Slaughter was unfortunately no longer there, and so there was no opportunity to study the field formally with an experienced academic futurist. In the final semester of my arts degree, I persuaded a lecturer with an interest in the sociology of technology to supervise me in directed reading on futures studies, however my efforts were rewarded with the lowest grade I received throughout the whole degree. It wasn't so much that my essay was awful, although it probably was -- but the lesson I gleaned was that working within a different paradigm is like swimming upstream. It's hard work. Support is as rare as it is valuable.

I attended another WFSF conference, in 02001, and Budapest Futures Courses in 01 and 03, and worked in two futures related projects in England the following year -- on the first, I was a futurist lone ranger in an education-oriented organisation; in the second, I had the privilege to be working alongside Wendy Schultz, an exceptional academic and consulting futurist whose mentorship during the project was invaluable.

It was not until last year that I had a chance to start learning "the content" of futures formally, in Hawaii (which was is no small measure due to Wendy's encouragement and support). But in fact it wasn't so much the content I came for; I had already discovered that this can be learned independently. What I came to Hawaii for was the chance to build on the kind of mentorship I'd briefly experienced in that role in England -- to spend time in a community of philosophically rigorous, alert futures-oriented people, with whom I wouldn't have to patiently explain the basics of futures, and field an hour of questions every time, before getting into deeper discussion. (Working with the unintiated is an indispensable part of the job, but it gets lonely.) So that's what I went to Hawaii for, and that is what, to my delight, I have found; not simply a community, but one interested in improving itself and delving more deeply into the many questions opened up by the unique Datorian perspective on the world.

At the same time, though, I have come to believe that by far the most important part of the learning process occurs in "doing" futures (rather than just reading or talking about it, though these are also essential); ideally under the supervision of someone who's been doing it for much longer. I've been fortunate to find that in Hawaii; but there are so few comparable opportunities, that a broader solution is required. Hence the apprenticeship suggestion. Of course, the problems to which I've alluded are well known, but it sometimes seems that everyone's so busy trying to make a living that they don't necessarily have much time left over to address the structural reasons that make it difficult for them to make a living!

The reasons I see for a more regular futurist apprenticeship scheme are, then, in sum:

- Academic courses don't necessarily involve hands-on work, which I see as self-evidently essential to being a useful, effective consulting/community futurist. (We're upscaling our activity in Hawaii, partly in recognition of the fact that this is the kind of experience students are hungry for).

- Apprenticeship is a sensible pedagogical arrangement, given the commercial in-confidence of much crucial futures work. With a junior futurist present to support the senior one, even in circumstances of confidentiality I believe "the futures field" would learn more effectively, retaining and transmitting "stories from the front" longer and better. Post-client debrief is also one of the best learning experiences for the junior futurist. Without one there, the opportunity to have that vital conversation is, quite simply, passed over.

- Futures consists of a relatively small number of workers, widely distributed around the world. Good quality futures courses (academic or otherwise) are few and far between. Many countries have no such thing, although most would at least have a few consulting futurists: why not capitalise on the learning opportunity that does exist, and thereby help compensate for the relative paucity of university futures programs? This is a sound response to the distribution problem.

- Practising futurists, especially those that don't teach, ought to find some way to at least "replace themselves", without which they may risk becoming an endangered species. The field needs them to do this, and so does the world in general.

- The apprentice would get a chance to absorb the philosophy and practice of a fully fledged futures practitioner, and in so doing, hone their own sense of the field, the dynamics of change, the methodologies, and grow their own priceless reservoir of applied experience.

- The reputation, work and personal qualities of the practitioner play a large part in this line of work (as Peter Hayward, Director of the Swinburne Masters' program in strategic foresight, pointed out in a futures salon given in Hawaii earlier this year). At this point in time, people don't tend to hire "a futurist" generically the way they might hire "an accountant" (nor am I implying that they should -- just observing that they don't). It's a rare enough position, and particular people are usually sought by name. Training with established individuals is a way for the field generally to leverage and broaden the "equity" in their work and reputation.

- It would help legitimate the field, and pass its learning down through time.

- From the senior futurist's perspective, an apprentice would be far more useful and rewarding than simply having a personal assistant. They would need to be paid, of course; but not a vast amount, on-the-job training being the focus of the relationship.

So, who could take it forward? This is an idea that might be benefit from the considered attention of the Association of Professional Futurists, but would undoubtedly touch on the interests of people in the World Futures Studies Federation, the Institute for the Future, the World Future Society, and so forth. Again, I'm not suggesting that there aren't elements or examples of this already afoot -- there surely are, which is a reason to consider making it more widespread and well known; a conventional mechanism to advance an unconventional field.

Details remain to be worked out (the "indentured servitude" model, for example, may not be quite so viable today as in times past; and the traditional seven year period seems like rather a long time) but the essential idea remains viable as it has been for centuries. I'd be interested to know what others make of this.

The meming of futures

The first novel by a former ad-man, James Othmer, has been published, with a soulless corporate bastard as the protagonist. It's called The Futurist. Here's a partial synopsis from a recent book review:

"At one time, Yates was an idealist, an optimist who really believed in the futures he spun for people. But he's become morally malleable and, under the surface, it's starting to bother him."
. . .
"Working the Futureworld conference in Johannesburg, Yates drains the hotel minibar and gives a speech in which he recklessly tells the truth, admitting that he doesn't know anything -- that we don't. He declares himself the founding member of the Coalition of the Clueless."

The Coalition of the Clueless? Sign me up.

To professional futurists, if this book has a broad impact, it may well be seen as largely negative, adding to what some experience as a serious drag of having constantly to reassert their legitimacy against the taint of charlatans and frauds using the same labels. So, two responses occur to me.

First, even if that's the case, there may be a silver lining here, in that the book has apparently been optioned to be made into a film, with screenwriting genius Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich; Adaptation; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) rumoured to be considering the project. Anything with Kaufman's name on it is bound to be worthwhile, even if it inadvertently were to rain disgrace on my chosen profession.

Second -- and for real now -- it opens up the mainly interesting, only slightly arcane debate ("latent tension" may be a more accurate phrase) in this field between those who embrace the term futurist, and those who shun it. For instance, Paul Saffo, with whom I discussed this as recently as yesterday, prefers the term "forecaster" for his own job title, because "futurist" to him implies advocacy of a particular outcome, which he wants to avoid. I'm sympathetic to this rationale, but have a different sense of the two terms. To me a futurist is someone engaged in thinking about futures broadly; while it's forecasters who have a special commitment to projecting "the right future".

Anyway, it's not that I don't understand or even share the strong impulse to dissociate oneself from self-appointed soothsayers and gurus, and to insist on quality and rigour in futures work. (Quite a few of the futurists I know actually err on the side of paranoia about being seen as careful thinkers.) Academic values are inseparable from how I have gone about learning the trade. Professor (of Foresight) Richard Slaughter's article concerning the three categories of depth in futures work, which are vastly different in scope and intention -- pop futures, problem-oriented futures, and critical/epistemological futures -- clearly underlines a need to look deeper than the advertised labels. Futures ain't futures.

Ultimately the qualities ascribed to or associated with the terms must depend to a fairly high degree upon the characteristics and qualities of the people using them. That's the main point: be sure you're doing good work. We'll come back to that. Because I'm not entirely indifferent on the labelling issue. Yes, the contents matter more than the label, the steak more than the sizzle, and the book more than its cover -- but in each case the latter is not so easily separated from the former, and nor should it be. I think it's not good enough for well-meaning "futurists" (whether they like that name or not) to abandon a swath of space -- words like "futures" and futurist" -- which is prime mental real estate in the popular discourse, to cynical corporate drones or syrupy seers. The world needs those words, because the ideas they represent belong to us all. In my opinion, it's incumbent upon thoughtful practitioners and advocates of foresight to take back these memes, refusing to let them be held hostage by whoever it is that they think is giving them a bad name.

I say, take back the meme "futurist", so that unless you're discussing 20th century painting, the meaning "professional futures thinker" eclipses any association with the defunct quasi-fascistic Italian art movement. I say, take the word "futures" back from the corporate world, so it comes to be more commonly associated with the systematic exploration of possible worlds to come, than with contracts to buy and sell non-existent commodities (this link is currently the top google hit for "futures").

Other contenders in the labelling of the field? "Foresight" is apparently becoming a more popular term, particularly in Europe; but I think the privileging of the sight metaphor may be a problem. There's more to the future than "vision"; we have five senses -- and that's not including humour (which frequently trumps the others on the count of usefulness, in futures as in other things). "Futures studies" is fine, but anything "studies" sounds a bit like a hodge podge or a plea for special interests, rather than the mature, coherent perspective in its own right, which futures certainly is if you know where to look. "Future studies"? Singular -- scratch that. It misses what to me is the main point of looking ahead; helping to make meaningful choices between alternatives. "Futuristics" and "futurology" are both so absurdly retro they're actually kind of cool. I might look for chances to engineer a comeback for them in the next few years. Meanwhile, though, my sense is that simply the term "futures" says pretty much everything that needs to be said in a name for the study, invention and design of alternative possibilities.

Now, as implied above, at one level what you call it all doesn't matter. The quality of the work -- including a distinct and deliberate lack of astrology, Nostradamus references, and overblown predictive pontification -- should speak for itself. The big challenge for those of us who would help create a wiser culture through working in this field, whatever you call it, lies partly in earning respect by doing good work. The other part of the puzzle is in lending that reputational capital to the (I trust we all agree) wrongfully and unfairly discredited enterprise of thinking ahead, by not avoiding the use of perfectly good words, like futurist. There seems to be a complex economy at work here, whereby the prestige and content of the name, and the work carried on under its auspices, are in tension. If being a "futurist" were universally regarded as vacuous and silly, then the charlatans wouldn't bother using the term. But to the extent that they do, it may deter good thinkers from referring to themselves that way. The meming of futures (whatever) remains unfinished, with perhaps frustrating results at times; but paradoxically it can be taken as an encouraging sign that it's resisted disciplinisation, ossification, and is to that extent still a conversation space worth exploring.

Zia Sardar (editor of the top scholarly journal Futures) observed at the WFSF conference in Budapest last year, that futures is much like philosophy, in that anyone can do it, and there's no formal patrolling of the label; yet there's evidently a world of difference between the best and the worst. You can't stop bad philosophers from using that job description, even as the geniuses and world-shaping intellectuals use it too. Language being as irreducibly treacherous as it is, the best we can do may be to ensure the quality of our work makes the case for us.

So, I look forward to a chance to read this new novel, and to the many future conversations that it is sure to feature in, ready or not, if a film adaptation gets made. And if it were to wind up promoting widespread contempt for self-proclaimed futurists; well then, misconceptions, unfortunate though they may seem in one respect, always present a great learning opportunity. At least it would make futures a more prominent subject of discussion. Oscar Wilde: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."