The Drive to Make Futures Thinking Pragmatic
I’ve writen a fair bit over the years about the need to move futures thinking out of a theoretical approach and into a more applied model.
Recently I’ve come off a 6 month project working with the Asian Productivity Organisation, an entity that brings together 20 member countries and their core government policy makers. The main focus of that project – how to make policy decisions that take into account emerging issues. This is, as the saying goes, ‘right in my wheelhouse’
Policy without future awareness is expecting the same kiond of unchanged future is likely. Future awareness without alignment to operational and policy decisions is just pie in the sky dreaming. Teaching these Government Ministers and Policy directors how to work through tieing both aspects together has seen plenty of ‘ah haaa’ moments and it’s been a dleight traveling to Tokyo, Manila, Bangkok and Colombo to work closely with these groups. The hosts were always generous, the multi country participants always engaged and the outcomes thus far have been surprisingly influential.
There’s more to come later this year too with Fiji hosting representatives from another 8 countries. Strategic Forsight is the pragmatic and applied approach to engaging with the emerging issues so that we can help shape the future towards the kind we want.
Over at The Australian Strategic Planning Institute an observation has been made about the so called Top Ten Trends for 2013 and whether, with deeper consideration, the trends suggested deserve their place as new, or emerging or whether in fact, by relying upon them you might be chasing a ship that has long since sailed.…
Read More >Creative Commons is an approach that attempts to ensure that information in its various forms, can be shared by others for free. That is my take on it at least. And over time we’ve seen some major organisations shape the idea of ‘free’ to ‘free with conditions’ and ‘free for a fee’. The last one…
Read More >Some topics are too big to cover in a few minutes on radio. In this brief snapshot, the ABC Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan and I chat about energy costs, causes and the future ahead for places like Darwin You can download the media file here: Marcus Barber Future of Energy
Read More >What does a City tell you of itself, by how it shows itself? There’s much to be learnt by noting the small yet ‘obvious’ signs of life in any city you visit, that reveal to a certain extent, it’s ‘true self’. I’ll mention a few cities here but will focus on my most recent visit…
Read More >Okay the time has come again where people ask me, as a professional futurist, for my tips for the Melbourne Cup. As always I advise them that my area of expertise does not reside with horse racing so really, I have as much chance as anyone and their own system, of selecting a winner. That…
Read More >ABC Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan and I chat about the future of dentistry – is it possible to grow you own teeth? Are dentist visits going to become a thing of the past? And in the second of today’s updates, we also chatted about the Future of Parenting – is it time that you needed a…
Read More >Organisations like CleanUp Australia and Take3.org have (along with many others) taken a leading role at identifying and removing waste that has entered our environment. Their efforts are fantastic yet have one clear problem – they rely on volunteers to clean up the mess of others, after the fact – it’s a ‘playing catch-up’ strategy.…
Read More >The Retail sector in Australia is slowing coming to grips with the fact that for the past 50 years, they’ve had a captured market and enormous profit margins. and that now, the times have changed. Whilst many point to the internet as a cause of their woes, others are pointing out the apparent high cost…
Read More >he many people who’ve been through one of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s workshops over the past six years, will know how much emphasis is placed on the need to pay attention to things going on around you. In particular as part of the idea of tracking your progress toward your desired future (your Vision).…
Read More >As a Futurist I’m often asked what I think about certain social media tools (and most technology for that matter). My answer is always aligned to the thought that ‘if the technology is working for you, and not against you, it’s probably a good thing. Here then are my thoughts about building up a useful…
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