As individuals, organizations, and societies to take action we are required to think about the future and what may arise in the short and long term.
Thus effective foresight has always been important in human life, however today we find our world changing faster and with greater complexity unfolding.
The systems we form part of - our cities, our jobs, the natural environment, and technology - are all shifting radically, making it very difficult to look ahead and prepare for future challenges and opportunities.
The result is that we often become somewhat fatalistic, thinking that we cannot know or do anything about our future, that the future is determined in some way and out of our hands to shape.
The core purpose of futuring and foresight activities is to better make sense of a changing world. To think about how we may use an understanding of possible futures as an asset for shaping constructive stories that will enable us to take actions today to best meet these changes.
Futuring is the use of a systematic process to think about the future; framing and forming possible scenarios for the future to gain insight into the best actions to take in the present.
Futurists use what they see in the present as a view on to the future; they watch trends and try to envision what may happen, but they are also aware that the future does not yet exist and thus is something to be created through the stories we tell.
This course is here to help you learn the basic ideas and methods of futuring - it is particularly for those interested in transformational innovation.
The first section explores the foundational ideas of futuring and ways to turn the future into an open space for new stories of change.
The second section covers horizon scanning and the three horizons framework illustrating how horizon scanning helps us better make sense of complex dynamic environments.
The final section is on scenarios and narrative building to identify trends and try to use them to shape possible scenarios and narratives about the future.
