Maree Conway: Episodic foresight

Exploring the use of foresight for unpacking issues on justice, injustice, and inequality. Today I am joined by Matt Finch, Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and strategy consultant at Mechanical dolphin.

The basis of competition is changing. Rivalry is shifting from well-defined industries to broader ecosystems that deliver expansive value propositions. Industry boundaries are collapsing everywhere we look, emergence is around the corner, and this trend is just accelerating. Today I am delighted to talk to Ron Adner, on ecosystem strategy and the value underpinning the design of such. Ron is professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth.

The way we frame our thinking highly influences the very way we reason. The way we act is consequently influenced by the way we think. And then, we give a meaning, we define our surroundings based on such framing. The combination of framing and reasoning affect the way we create hypotheses of the future, whether this is considered probable, possible, plausible and so on. Today I am grateful for the opportunity to welcome Peter Scoblic at The Briefing.Today to talk about long term anticipatory thinking. Peter is co-founder at Event Horizon Strategies.

Time goes by and elements of the past are carried over into the future becoming heritage. Decisions are made on what to carry and what to leave behind, maybe some will be forgotten. How do we make such a decision on what to carry across? What do we as humans look for in making a heritage decision? Today we will talk about the concept of heritage mindset with Richard Sandford, Professor at UCL in Heritage Evidence, Foresight and Policy. Richard has a diverse array of experience: coding, education, futures studies, futures literacy, policy, ethnographic research.

How do we apply futures studies? Why do we need to look into different futures? What is the impact in the present? Today I am thrilled to be joined by Nicklas Larsen, Senior Advisor at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, one of the oldest think tanks studying the future, in the world.

Biases are part of our day-to-day thinking and decision making. There are also futures fallacies which sways us from envisioning, using Dorr’s terms, “realistic” futures in an effective and efficient manner. These are common errors we fall trap while reasoning about futures. Today I am joined by Ivana Milojević, director at Metafuture and Metafuture School, who has extensive experience researching and experimenting on the subject matter.

Episodic foresight is identified as the primary neural mechanism that enables humans to construct images of the futures, providing explanatory power to further define and understand the processes that are invoked in futures studies and foresight activities. These enlightening words are from Maree Conway who joins us to chat about How humans can imagine and construct images of the future, and what happens in our brain. Maree has extensive expertise on foresight in practice, and she is founder of Foresight Futures, a consultancy studio on strategic foresight.

Technology and innovation are constantly shaping our lives, often for the better. Yet, today’s security landscape is volatile, subject to unexpected shock. From terrorism to cybercrime, unparalleled criminal activities can quickly emerge on the radar. I am pleased to be joined by Director of INTERPOL Innovation Centre, Anita Hazenberg to explore police futures. Anita has extensive experience in policing and brought the discipline of foresight into law enforcement

Mission-oriented innovation and market-shaping policies have recently been adopted by policymakers around the world in international bodies like the EU and UN, national governments, and institutions. Missions can be designed and implemented as a policy tool. Using missions to drive national strategy or innovation means focusing less on sectors, but more on problems that matter to all. The mission must set clear objectives that can only be achieved by a portfolio of projects and supportive policy interventions.The mission approach is useful for thinking about how to redirect strategies (or realize futures scenarios) so that it fosters new forms of collaborations across different forms of organizations and a wide variety of sectors. Mission-oriented thinking requires understanding the difference between (1) broad challenges, (2) missions, (3) sectors and (4) specific solutions.Hence, complex and fast changing environments, and the uncertain causal relationship of consequences demand a radical shift in mindset. Today I am joined by Susann Roth, Chief of Knowledge Advisory Services Center at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Susann’s focus is on anticipatory thinking and design thinking in the context of resilient development strategy.

“Chaos and catastrophe by their very definition do not repeat but it is important to realise that there are different types and levels of uncertainty that we need to be aware of. It is not always about being rational or having a process in place: being aware of our limits in what we are able to see and comprehend as possibilities is as important as planning. Indeed, in some contexts, planning may make us more vulnerable than improvising, as it exposes us to inattentional bias” writes Dave Snowden and Alessandro Rancati. Today I am here with Dave, founder at Cognitive Edge, who designed the Cynefin [ku-nev-in] Framework and expertise sits at the intersection of knowledge management, complexity science and system theory.