Futurology

ORGANIZATIONS

Acceleration Studies Foundation Applied Foresight Network Association of Professional Futurists Australian Futures Foundation Club of Amsterdam Club of Rome Global Business Network Global Scenario Group Hudson Institute International Institute of Forecasters Long Now Foundation

Millennium Project NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts RAND Corporation Shaping Tomorrow School of Futures Studies and Planning Swedish Morphological Society Tellus Institute The Arlington Institute UK Futures Analysts Network World Future Society World Futures Studies Federation

Futurology

Periodicals and Monographs

Five Regions of the Future[58] Forecasting Foresight[59] FutureOrientation[60] Future Survey Futures Futures Research Quarterly[61] Futuribles Futurics[62] Futurist[63]

GTI Paper Series Integral Futures[64] International Journal of Forecasting[65] International Review ofStrategic Management Journal of Futures Studies[66] Long Range Planning State of the Future Technological Forecasting and Social Change WFSF Bulletin[67]

Futurology Books

BOOKS

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence Bold New World Brave New World The Communist Manifesto Future Frequencies Future Primitive Future Shock Futurewise Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead Limits to Growth

Macroshift Our Final Hour Phoenix: A Tale of the Future The Revenge of Gaia The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology The Skeptical Environmentalist The Third Wave (book), Alvin Toffler Visions of the Future in the Last Century Analyzing and Modeling Global Development

FUTURISTS

FUTURISTS AND FORESIGHT THOUGHT LEADERS

Joel A. Barker[42] Arthur C. Clarke[43] Edward Cornish[44] Jeff Cornish[45] Scott W. Erickson[46] Frank Feather[47] Fabienne GOUX-BAUDIMENT[48] Herman Kahn Arthur Harkins[49]

Stephen Hawking[50][51] Sohail Inayatullah[52] Earl C. Joseph, Sr.[53] Richard Lamb[54] David Passig[55] John Tomsyck[56] Natasha Vita-More Joseph Voros[57] Ray Kurzweil Kim Stanley Robinson

Futurology

Fashion and design

Fashion is one area of trend forecasting. The industry typically works 18 months ahead of the current selling season. Large retailers look at the obvious impact of everything from the weather forecast to runway fashion for consumer tastes. Consumer behavior and statistics from companies such as Datamonitor for a long-range forecast are also important.

Artists and conceptual designers, by contrast, may feel that consumer trends are a barrier to creativity. Many of these ‘Startists’ start micro trends but do not follow trends themselves.

RESEARCH CENTERS

• Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies [1]
• Futures Studies Department, Corvinus University of Budapest
• Department of Futures Studies, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India^[30]
• Futures Research Committee of Hungarian Academy of Sciences^[31]
• Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration
• Foresight and Futurology Unit, a BT Group think tank
• Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa
• Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia
• Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, California
• Laboratory for Investigation in Prospective Strategy and Organization, CNAM Paris^[32]
• National Intelligence Council, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington DC, ^[33]
• Tellus Institute, Boston MA
• UK Horizon Scanning Centre, London^[34]
• World Future Society
• The Futures Academy, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
• Futuribles,^[35]
• SUBITO! Research&Futures, Europe/Norway^[36]
• Zukunftsinstitut, Europe/Germany ^[37]
• proGective, Europe/France ^[38]
• World Futures Studies Federation, world ^[39]
• Instiute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment, Europe/Germany ^[40]
• Future-Institute, Europe/Germany ^[41]

Futurology

APPLICATION OF FORESIGHT TO SPECIFIC FIELDS

Practical foresight

The most significant trends affecting organisations know no borders or markets and affect every part of society today. Global trends, uncertainties and wild cards have the potential to significantly change the way the world works tomorrow. They may impact on you far faster, and more profoundly, than you might think.

Organisations too face additional new challenges including:

• Severe competition
• Market convergence
• New entrants
• High volatility in all aspects of their activities

Greater prospects for global, national and local disruption and shock are increasingly in evidence. Forecasting models projecting past patterns can therefore no longer be relied upon to predict the future. Shaping the world we want to live in means being more aware of the future and seeking better approaches..

A new, more agile and resilience focused, approach is being led by smart, forward-thinking organisations. They have learned that searching for emerging trends, tipping points and weak signals is a vital intelligence tool to help them survive and thrive in an ever more competitive future.

What can be done? In a world where only uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity seems to be the norm these days organisations need wider global knowledge obtained from many more external sources and a new set of cognitive skills to determine their best future responses.

The following critical cognitive skills need to be mastered:

• Trend assessment: the competency to understand trend directions, weak signals and wildcards, assess their likely impact and effect on one another and respond in a timely and appropriate manner
• Pattern recognition: the ability to see patterns rather than individual factors
• System perspective: the capability to envision the entire system rather than the isolated components
• Anticipation: to anticipate short and long term consequences over time, novel situations and geography
• Instinct and logic: to rely on a combination of instincts and logic rather than purely rational analysis

Organisations that inspire, engage and enable their people to use foresight through developing their strategic competencies can acquire and maintain a sustainable futures-orientated edge in their global marketplace(s).

Next practice Leading organisations use systematic, collaborative and strategic foresight capabilities to see what's coming next and respond ahead of the competitive curve. This guide serves as a documented description of how our clients, and others well known to us, achieve successful outcomes, avoid upcoming risk, innovate and thus create next practice through practical foresight.

Source: First chapter - 'Practical Foresight': www.shapingtomorrow.com

(Wikipedia)

Futurology

Evolving the field - Programs in Futures Studies(by region)

North America

1975 saw the founding of the first graduate program in futures studies in the United States of America, the M.S. Program in Studies of the Future at theUniversity of Houston-Clear Lake;^[24] there followed a year later the M.A. Program in Public Policy in Alternative Futures at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.^[25] The Hawai'i program provides particular interest in the light of the schism in perspective between European and U.S. futurists; it bridges that schism by locating futures studies within a pedagogical space defined byneo-Marxism, critical political economic theory, and literary criticism. In the years following the foundation of these two programs, single courses in Futures Studies at all levels of education have proliferated, but complete programs occur only rarely. 

As a transdisciplinary field, futurology attracts generalists. This transdisciplinary nature can also cause problems, owing to it sometimes falling between the cracks of disciplinary boundaries; it also has caused some difficulty in achieving recognition within the traditional curricula of the sciences and the humanities. In contrast to "Futures Studies" at the undergraduate level, some graduate programs in strategic leadership ormanagement offer masters or doctorate programs in "Strategic Foresight" for mid-career professionals, some even online. Nevertheless, comparatively few new PhDs graduate in Futures Studies each year.

EDUCATION

Education in the field of future studies has taken place for some time. Beginning in the United States of America in the 1960s, it has since developed in many different countries. Futures education can encourage the use of concepts, tools and processes that allow students to think long-term, consequentially, and imaginatively. It generally helps students to:

1. conceptualise more just and sustainable human and planetary futures
2. develop knowledge and skills in exploring probable and preferred futures
3. understand the dynamics and influence that human, social and ecological systems have on alternative futures
4. conscientize responsibility and action on the part of students toward creating better futures.

Thorough documentation of the history of futures education exists, for example in the work of Richard A. Slaughter (2004).^[26]

While future studies remains a relatively new academic tradition, numerous tertiary institutions around the world teach it. These vary from small programs, or universities with just one or two classes, to programs that incorporate futurology into other degrees, (for example in planning, business, environmental studies, economics, development studies, science and technology studies). Various formal Masters-level programs exist on six continents. Finally, doctoral dissertations around the world have incorporated futurology. A recent survey documented approximately 50 cases of futures studies at the tertiary level.^[27]

The largest Futures Studies program in the world is at Tamkang University, Taiwan. Futures Studies is a required course at the undergraduate level, with between three to five thousand students taking classes on an annual basis. Housed in the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies is an MA Program. Only ten students are accepted annually in the program. Associated with the program is the Journal of Futures Studies. The founder of the program is Clement Chang.

As of 2003, over 40 tertiary education establishments around the world were delivering one or more courses in futures studies. The World Futures Studies Federation has a comprehensive survey of global futures programs and courses. The Acceleration Studies Foundation maintains an annotated list of primary and secondary graduate future studies programs.^[28]

^(Wikipedia)