Ariadne

It’s complex

Robert Hickson • Jul 29, 2020

• adaptive governance,
• autonomous vehicles,
• complex systems,
• complexity,
• energy transition,
• foresight,
• governance,
• politics

An article in the EETimes suggests that advances in autonomous vehicles are not moving as quickly as expected because those working on them have confused complicated problems with complex ones. Engineering can only take you so far in complex worlds. Complicated systems tend to have fairly predictable inputs, processes and outputs. Complex systems (like city streets) not … Read More

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The long and winding rivers of social change

Robert Hickson • Jul 06, 2020

• demographics,
• futures thinking,
• Planning,
• protest,
• social change,
• Values

 I like Andrew Curry’s succinct and insightful futures blog The Next Wave. His most recent post is about social change. In particular, the decadal-long periods usually required for changes in values. He highlights a 2016 paper by Inglehart and Norris, who examined whether economic … Read More

The “Great Reset”

Robert Hickson • Jun 07, 2020

• capitalism,
• carbon neutral,
• climate change,
• economic change,
• energy transition,
• Pandemic,
• societal change

The World Economic Forum has launched a new initiative that they are calling “The Great Reset”. Its purpose is to help “guide decision-makers on the path to a more resilient, sustainable world beyond coronavirus” At first glance it can look like virtue signalling by some of the world’s elite. The WEF’s … Read More

Building the bridges to the future

Robert Hickson • May 17, 2020

• change,
• climate change,
• futures thinking,
• government,
• Pandemic,
• strategy,
• Sustainability

In a previous post I noted that futures thinking usually tries to identify what people think will change and what they think needs to change. As lockdown constraints ease, we are seeing a lot of opinions about both. There is no shortage of shovel ready points of view and aspirations. Aspirations … Read More

A day at the pandemic races

Robert Hickson • Apr 27, 2020

• foresight,
• futures thinking,
• literacy,
• Pandemic

A friend came up with a useful analogy the other day. Much of the commentary about getting ready for opening up the lockdown seems like a set of racehorses at the starting gate. Different ideas and special interests in fine fettle, champing at the bit waiting for the gates to open. Meanwhile those thinking longer … Read More

Thrivable

Robert Hickson • Apr 20, 2020

• foresight,
• innovation,
• New Zealand,
• Pandemic,
• scenarios,
• Society,
• uncertainties

In my previous post I set out some simple techniques to help explore the future. Here I give a worked example. Most of the space I have devoted to one scenario, since that probably is the more interesting part for readers. Scenarios don’t predict what will happen. They are a method … Read More

Getting in futures shape 

Robert Hickson • Apr 03, 2020

• foresight,
• futures methodology,
• futures thinking,
• scenarios,
• strategy

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now. Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing the rounds with discussions of … Read More

After the Pandemic

Robert Hickson • Mar 26, 2020

• #COVID19,
• foresight,
• futures thinking,
• Pandemic,
• scenarios

It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future.   Opinions and uncertainties Some current headlines … Read More

The futurist’s metaphorical menagerie

Robert Hickson • Mar 16, 2020

• black swans,
• complexity,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• foresight,
• futures methodology,
• futures thinking,
• Uncertainty

  Futures folk like animal metaphors for uncertainties. “Black swans” is a favourite one, and currently doing the rounds with opinions about COVID-19. The term “black swan”, popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book of the similar name, refers to unanticipated events with big impacts. However, COVID-19 and other epi- or pandemics aren’t black swans. They … Read More

The speeds of life

Robert Hickson • Mar 08, 2020

• foresight,
• futures methodology,
• History,
• pace of change,
• technological change,
• Victorian Era

  Many people think that the speed of change today is unprecedented. That’s just because we have short memories. Historians focused on Western civilisation, like Vaclav Smil, point back to the late 19th and early 20th Century when electricity, radio, the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, cars, planes, anaesthetics, and (a bit later) antibiotics emerged. Smil … Read More