Title: Futures Research and the Millennium Project as Tools to cope with Global Challenges Bled Forum 2006
1Futures Research and the Millennium Project as
Tools to cope with Global ChallengesBled Forum
- 2006
- Jerome C. Glenn
- The Millennium Project
- American Council for the UN University
2Outline
- Purposes of Futures Research
- Overview of Scenarios
- Futures Intelligence Systems
- The Millennium Project as an alternative system
- How to Make Futures Research more effective in
decision-making
397 pages in print 3,800 pages in the CD
www.acunu.org
JGlenn_at_igc.org
4Highlights
- Organized crime is more than twice that of all
military budgets worldwide - Internet connects 1 billion people - 15 of the
World - 60 of the environmental life support system is
gone or unsustainable - 24-7 ubiquitous computing accelerates
decisionmaking - IQ as competitive advantage in the knowledge
economy - Indo/Chinas hightech/low wage forces rest of
Third World to re-think trade-lead growth
strategies - 500 environmental agreement faster implications
Chart on Page 87 rising global environmental
consciousness - Nanotech health/environmental impacts rapidly
being assessed.
5Purpose of Futures Research
- To systematically explore, create, and test both
possible and desirable futures to improve
decisions - Provide a framework to help understand the
present and its potential - Expand mental horizons
- To understand the extent that policies can change
trends
6Purpose of Futures Research (Continued)
- Enhance ability to act faster or earlier making
the an organization more effective in dealing
with changing conditions in the world (media
lost billions by not understanding its
opportunities back in the 1980s, and early
1990s.) - Get early warnings which in turn give extra time
to - better understand threats opportunities
- develop more creative strategies
- create new product opportunities
- create and share vision for organizational change
- To help understand what might be, what could be,
and what ought to be
7Futures Research Methodology V2.0
- 1. Introduction Overview 15. Simulation and
Games - 2. Environmental Scanning 16. Genius
Forecasting, Vision, and Int. - 3. Delphi 17. Normative Forecasting
- 4. Futures Wheel 18. ST Road Mapping
- 5. Trend Impact Analysis 19. Field Anomaly
Relaxation (FAR) - 6. Cross-Impact Analysis 20. Text Mining for
Technology Foresight - 7. Structural Analysis 21. Agent Modeling
- 8. Systems Perspectives 22. SOFI
- 9. Decision Modeling 23. SOFI Software
- 10. Statistical Modeling 24. The Multiple
Perspective Concept - 11. Technological Sequence Analysis 25. Tool Box
for Scenario Planning - 12. Relevance Trees and Morph. Analysis 26.
Causal Layered Analysis - 13. Scenarios 13.5 Interactive Scenarios 27.
Integration, Comparisons, and - 14. Participatory Methods Frontiers of
Futures Research Methods
8Generalizations for judging futurists and their
research
9Definition of a Scenario
- A scenario is a story with plausible cause and
effect links that connects a future condition
with the present, while illustrating key
decisions, events, and consequences throughout
the narrative.
10A Scenario is not
- A projection although projections are included
in a scenario. - A discussion about a range of future
possibilities with data and analysis It is like
confusing the text of a play's newspaper review
with the text of the play written by the
playwright.
11Classic Herman Kahn Scenarios
- Surprise-free, business-as-usual, reference,
base-case scenario is a simple extrapolation of
current trends and their interplay - Worst case scenario based on mismanagement and
bad luck - Best case scenario based on good management and
good luck.
12Scenario Space Defined by Axes
13Exploratory vs. Normative Scenarios
- Exploratory Scenarios vast majority of
scenarios are exploratory scenarios, also call
descriptive scenarios - Normative Scenarios Middle East Peace Scenario
set and Normative 2050 Scenario. Can be
proprietary to an organization (normative
scenario for corporate strategy) or government
(Military invasion scenario)
14Scenarios have been developed and utilized to
- Discover what is unknown that ought to be known,
before making decisions - Understand the significance of uncertainties
- Illustrate what is possible and what is not
possible - Identify what strategies might work in a range of
possible scenarios - Make the future more real for decision makers to
force new thinking and new decisions - Learn what has to be avoided and discover new
opportunities
15Weaknesses of Scenarios
- Can limit thinking to the official scenarios
- Writers model of how the world works transferred
to the reader - The struggle to be interesting and the dynamic of
the story can make it difficult to include
important but boring details of connecting cause
and effect. - To be accepted, far out can be edited out
16What we think is possible should change
as change continues to accelerate
- 25 Years ago there was no
- Internet, World Wide Web, PCs, or mobile phones
- EU, WTO, ICC, or NATO in Eastern Europe
- AIDS, talk of globalization, cloned sheep,
genetically modified food and drugs, and stem
cells repairing and enhancing the body - Asymmetrical warfare and most believed that a
nuclear WW III would have destroyed the world by
now
17 in the next 15 years
- Human intelligence becomes the competitive
advantage in the global knowledge economy
(personalized food, regressed stem cells
re-inserted in the brain, genetic engineering,
computer enhanced learning) - Stem cells from pigs, cows and goats to produce
meat - Nanotechnology reduces pollution, raises living
standards of the poor - Life extension begins to look like a realistic
option while the aging population increases
economic concerns - Genetic engineering and artificial intelligence
creates new life forms that achieve awareness and
evolve - A global brain(s) emerges from Internet evolving
later into Conscious-Technology
18Conscious-Technology (Post-Information Age)
When the distinction between these two trends
becomes blurred, we will have reached the
Post-Information Age
HUMANS BECOMING CYBORGS
BUILT ENVIRONMENT BECOMING INTELLIGENT
2030
2015
2000
1985
19Simplification of History and an Alternative
Future
20Future Mind Artificial Intelligence
Merging the Mystical and the Technological in the
21st Century
by Jerome C. Glenn
1989
21Futures Intelligence System
Periodicals Press Releases
Key Persons Tracking
Conferences Seminars
Key Word Internet Searching
Monitor Specific Websites
SCANNING
Also called environmental scanning and early
warning systems
Analysis Synthesis
Individual
Staff
Management
Weblog-Database
Feedback New Requirements
Decisions Future Oriented Understanding and
learning for organization
Management
22Millennium Project
May become a TransInstitution
23Millennium Project Nodes... are groups of
individuals and institutions that connect global
and local views in
Helsinki
Ottawa
Berlin
London
Calgary
Moscow
Paris
Prague
Seoul
Washington, DC
Silicon Valley
Rome
Tehran
Tokyo
Istanbul
Cairo
Mexico City
Beijing
New Delhi
Kuwait
Madurai
Caracas
Cyber Node
Sao Paulo
Pretoria/Johannesburg
Buenos Aires
Sidney
- Nodes identify participants, translate
questionnaires and reports, and conduct
interviews, special research, workshops,
symposiums, and advanced training.
2415 Global Challenges
- 1. Sustainable development for all
- 2. Sufficient clean water for all without
conflict - 3. Population growth and resources brought into
balance - 4. Genuine democracy emergence from authoritarian
regimes - 5. Policy-making more sensitive to global
long-term perspectives - 6. Globalization and convergence of information
and communications technologies works for
everyone - 7. Ethical market economies reduce rich and poor
gap - 8. Threat of new and reemerging diseases, and
immune micro organisms reduced
25Global Challenges (continued)
- 9. Capacity to decide improved while the nature
of work and institutions is changing - 10. Shared values and new security strategies
reduce ethnic conflict, terrorism, and mass
destruction - 11. Changing status of woman improves
civilization - 12. Organized crime stopped from becoming more
powerful and sophisticated global enterprises - 13. Growing energy demand safely and efficiently
met - 14. Scientific and technological breakthroughs
to improve the human condition - 15. Ethical considerations more routinely
incorporated into global decisions?
26Millennium Projects Current Activities
- Global Energy Scenarios
- Futures Research Methodology - V 3.0
- Monthly reports of international environmental
security issues - Futures Dictionary/Encyclopedia
- Up-dating Annotated Scenario Bibliography
- Middle East Peace Scenarios dissemination and
discussions - National State of the Future Indexes (SOFIs)
- Updating Improving Global Challenges and
publish 2006 SOF - Women Issues Organizations and their Research
- Experiments with Collaborative Software
27Making Futures research effective in
decision-making
- Make sure DM understands was FR is and is not
- Formal link to strategic planning
- Work with champion within the organization
- Show complexity to DM via workshops, computer
models - Integrate DM into the FR process as much as
possible - Make the future more real to the DM via
subjective descriptions - Include the full range of stakeholders
- If goals not clear, then add their identification
in the process - If actor on FR not clear, then add that to the
process - Use at least one formal method all understand
- Demonstrate crisis
- Demonstrate what is possible with success stories
- Connect options to goals in political, cultural
and social (non-technical) terms - Show technical feasibility of recommendations
- Connect the costs to the benefits
28Continued.
- If the information and data are inaccurate,
unreliable, conflicting, and/or insufficient,
then expose the problem, collect best judgments,
and suggest ways of making decisions within the
uncertain environment. - Include the intended actions of related
institutions - Develop and popularize appropriate indicators
- Use testimony of eminent scientists
- Clarify the forecasted condition with and without
action - Link to other FR activities so that diverse
inputs are possible - Avoid information overload.
- Use workshops to give time to integrate the
concepts in a group setting. - Consider how to include the media to popularize
concepts - Make the work continuous and cumulative.
29Previous Sponsors
- Corporations
- Applied Materials
- Deloitte Touche LLP
- Ford Motor Company
- General Motors
- Hughes Space and Communications
- Monsanto Company
- Motorola Corporation
- Pioneer Hi-Bred International
- Shell International
- NGOs and Foundations
- Alan F. Kay Hazel Henderson Foundation for
Social Innovation - Amana-Kay
- Foundation for Social Innovation
- Foundation for the Future
- Government Organizations
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Army
Environmental Policy Institute - U.S. Department of Energy
- Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
- Kuwait Oil Company
- Kuwait Petroleum Corporation
- UN Organizations
- UNDP
- UNESCO
- United Nations University
30- The Millennium Project
- WWW.STATEOFTHEFUTURE.ORG
- Jglenn_at_igc.org