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Designing the Future Zone 6 – beyond the boundary - ‘to infinity and beyond’ 11 th May 2002 Northern Permaculture Gathering Version 1. Overview. “It is clear that the future is in our hands – or, rather, our minds.” Peter Russell, 01983 “Future considerations should dwarf the present”
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Designing the Future Zone 6 – beyond the boundary - ‘to infinity and beyond’ 11th May 2002 Northern Permaculture Gathering Version 1 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Overview “It is clear that the future is in our hands – or, rather, our minds.” Peter Russell, 01983 “Future considerations should dwarf the present” “How do we make long term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare ?” Stewart Brand, 01999 “We are all inescapably responsible for our collective future” Barbara Adam, 01998 “Designing the future” Edward de Bono, 02001 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Content The design challenge Time and future generations The time dimension The design context Situational awareness – fitting perceptions to reality Designing the future - ‘Mindscapes’, Landscapes and Timescapes Thinking about the future Anticipating the external environment Designing with futures On vision and foresight Multiple alternative futures Foresight What if ? – from crisis management to strategic action Design process Design context Futures-orientated design strategy Future-proofing the design process Permaculture designers as futurists? Community leaders? Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the design challenge Our journey in the ‘infinite space’ - landscapes Personal Community of place / interest Neighbourhood Locality / Bio-region Region ‘Nation’ Continental Global Universal GLOCAL Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Permaculture – the design challenge • Permaculture • “the conscious design of sustainable systems” • Founded on ‘Earthcare’ • LANDSCAPE focused – Local place specific solutions • Design model – ZONING through space • Zone 00 – Personal development • Zone 0 – Home / Building • Zone 1 – Domestic sufficiency {Garden} • Zone 2 – Small domestic stock and orchard • Zone 3 – Main crop, forage, stored food • Zone 4 – Gathering, forage, forestry, pasture • Zone 5 – Wilderness • Zone 6 – beyond the boundary… Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Permaculture – the design challenge • BUT • Permaculture also includes the concept of permanence • ‘Permanent culture’ • - continuity and adaptability through time ? • A perma-culture includes people and their harmonious co-evolution within nature… • Ackoff - "A system is not the sum of its parts but rather the product of its interactions.” • About relationships between VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE elements of life… Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Social Economic Equity Social Economic Health Wise resource use Environment Environment TIME Fragmentation Integration Vision & Foresight Sustainable Development – the design challenge Meeting the challenge of ‘improving the quality of life of present and future generations’ THE FUTURE THE PAST Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – time & future generations • Capitals – Social and intellectual (People), Natural (Ecology), Financial • capital stocks flowing through time… • ‘Ecological stewards’ and ‘Time guardians’? • Evolution over time – timescapes • “a timescape perspective stresses the temporal features of living”, • Adam 01998 • The future…future generations…our legacy…foresight…futures…future-proofing… • eg UNESCO – Declaration on the Responsibility of Present Generations towards Future Generations, 01997 • http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001108/110827eb.pdf Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the time dimension Our journey in the ‘infinite game’ - timescape Today – ‘right here, right now’ Tonight Tomorrow Next week Next month Next year Next decade Nextcentury … Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the time dimension • Multiplicity of times • Clock time, timeless time (no-time), glacial time – Castells, 01997 • World time, standard time and globalised present - Industrial time – machine, laboratory, economic – Adam, 01998 • Seasonal, rise and fall, dramatic, mythological, expansion / contraction, cosmic, linear, social-cyclical, timeless (‘out of time’) – Inayatullah, 01996 • Linear time – Quantitative, technical, electric, institutional, generational, leisure, bureaucratic • Cyclical time – death, lunar/solar, biological, sexual, geological, cultural, mythological, religious, life cycles • Other time – cosmic, spiral, spiritual • Timescapes - ‘enable us to see the invisible’, Adam 01998 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the time dimension Pace layers of civilisation – Stewart Brand, 01999 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the time dimension ""Now" is the period in which people feel they live and act and have responsibility. For most of us, "now" is about a week, sometimes a year. For some traditional tribes in the American northeast and Australia, "now" is seven generations back and forward (350 years). Just as the Earth photographs gave us a sense of "the big here," we need things which gives people a sense of "the long now." (That phrase comes from British musician and artist Brian Eno.) Stewart Brand, Re-framing the problems, 01996 See http://www.longnow.org "Long-termism rejects the hedonism of Keynes, who famously proclaimed, 'In the long run we are all dead'. When Keynes voiced his familiar epigram, the formidable Joan Robinson replied, 'No Maynard, in the long run run each of us is dead'. A ready awareness of the connections between past, present and future can be found in subjects as homely as botany. To live with the inheritance of public policy, Britain needs fewer specialists in making policy by sound bites and more trained in forestry, or at least having the temperament to plant trees" - Richard Rose, Demos 6/1996 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the time dimension “With respect to sustainability, it is therefore not sufficient to to think in terms of reproducing the past without simultaneously implicating in our concerns the innovative and open future”, Adam 01998 “the future cannot be managed on the bases of past experiences”, Adam 01998 “Time-lags and indeterminacy…Trans-generational, invisible, additive and cumulative effects are rarely studied and tested for in their temporal extension – how could they be?”, Adam 01998 “Our relationship to time is centrally implicated not only in the industrial way of life but also in any conscious construction of a sustainable future”, Adam 01998 Sustainability may require “…a new revolutionary temporality” in which we actively take control over time, Castells 01997 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Sustainable Development – the design context • Complex, dynamic, interconnected world • ‘Connexity’ - Mulgan , 01997 • Turbulence in whole system • Uncertainty, fluidity, unpredictability, navigation vs proof, certainty, prediction and control • “Hazard society” - Adam 01998 • Mindscapes – assumptions, perceptions, mindsets • “…what you see depends upon what you thought before you looked“, Tribus • Situational Awareness - “…simply, it’s knowing what is going on around you.” Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Situational Awareness - SA Research on SA has mainly been concerned with how people acquire and maintain SA during correct task performance. The drawback of concentrating solely on correct performance is illustrated by Kletz (1991). He describes several incidents, mainly from the chemical industry, in which the operators generated a theory to explain an abnormal state of the system, and then developed a mind-set, or Einstellung, which prevented them from identifying the real state of the system. The operators simply accepted the first solution they found as the way to deal with that particular problem. In so doing they failed to consider whether their solution was the best possible, and whether it utilised an efficient strategy. Furthermore, they ignored the possibility of unwanted side effects arising from the solution they had discovered. http://www.searchtech.com/articles/hics98.htm Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Situational Awareness - SA “SA depends on the operator’s perception of the situation’s elements. There are three possible types of situation: the real world situation; the perceived situation; and the desired, or expected, situation (Boy, 1987). However, SA cannot be based on perception of all of the elements that exist in the real world situation. If operators had to control complex systems—often consisting of thousands of elements—by separately monitoring and controlling each of the individual elements, they would simply be overwhelmed by the complexity.” People “learn to successfully handle complexity by mentally decomposing the real system into a number of quasi-independent subsystems (Moray, 1987). The complexity is reduced to manageable proportions by adopting many-to-one mappings between the real system and a … mental representation of that system.” http://www.searchtech.com/articles/hics98.htm Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Situational Awareness - SA • “SA is fundamentally concerned with the awareness of the current (and future) state of the system, any degradation in SA must naturally fall under the category of an active failure” • Each of the three levels of SA (Endsley, 1995c) has a category of breakdowns associated with it: • Level 1 SA: Failure to correctly perceive the situation • Level 2 SA: Failure to comprehend the situation • Level 3 SA: Failure to project the situation into the future • SA is highly context-dependent, and the context extends far beyond what the operator can perceive in the immediate environment. • http://www.searchtech.com/articles/hics98.htm Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Designing the future Mindscape Foresight Insight Timescape Landscape Hindsight Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Thinking about the future • Beyond the “tyranny of the present”, “culture of immediacy” and the “culture of urgency” – ‘no future, no roots, only the present’ • “People use their ideas about the future to direct their actions in the present”Dator, 01998 • Explicit awareness to how we conceive, value or discount the future • Early warning systems – ‘forewarned is forearmed’ – but • often requires response as ‘world’ evolves and change occurs • degree of speculation, imagination and uncertainty • disruptive, unsettling, out of ‘comfort zone’, • social (political) acceptability, leadership & ‘requisite hierarchy’ • Unthinkable, Unspeakable • Unbelievable, Unexpected, Unimaginable • Unpalatable, Unpopular ? Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Thinking about the future • Mindfulness – ideas-diversity to mirror bio-diversity • Memes and 6 billion different opinions ! • Watch out for the Seventh Enemy • “Political inertia and individual blindness” – Ronald Higgins, 01978 • Thinking about the Future • “…at the moment fear and uncertainty are leading to some strange reactions. We have few institutional frameworks for serious thinking about what the future is bringing. But a more uncertain world makes it all the more essential to lock future{s?} thinking not only into firms' {organisations?} strategies but also into the thinking of governments.” • The new enterprise culture, Geoff Mulgan & Perri 6, Demos 8/1996 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Anticipating the external environment • identifying and monitoring change • Certainties • Cycles • Trends & events • Emerging issues • Wild cards & surprises • considering and critiquing the impacts of change • imagining alternative possible futures • visioning preferred futures • planning, team-building & implementing desired change • Schultz, 01997 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Designing with futures • Situational awareness • Environmental and political context • Vigilance & ‘early warning’– constant attention and alertness • Adaptability and transition management skills • Environmental / horizon scanning • Breadth and depth of intelligence gathering • STEEP – Social, technological, economic, ecological, political • Foresight • Appraisal of consequences – ‘whole-life cycle’ analysis • Anticipation, preparation and preparedness • Vision, alternative futures, options, strategy and tactics Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
On vision and foresight • Vision: “…imaginative insight, statesmanlike foresight, political sagacity, {practically wise} • Concise Oxford Dictionary • "Foresight is the ability to see what is emerging.“ • Irene Sanders (01998) • Foresight – “to illuminate the choices of the present in the light of possible futures” • Government Foresight Programme • “Fortune favours the prepared mind” • foresight.gov.uk Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Multiple alternative futures • The future or futures… • Multiple futures • Possible {art} • Probable {science} • Preferable {politics} • Roy Amara, 01978 • Contested futures • Brown et al, 02000 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Futures • Decisions have long term consequences • Future alternatives imply present choices • Forward thinking is preferable to crisis management • Further transformations (surprises) are certain to occur • Slaughter, 01996 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
What if ? – from crisis management to strategic action • ‘Strategic conversations’ • "A modest up-front investment in planning avoids the need to think through every crisis situation from scratch.“ • Kees van der Heijden, 01996 • “If you spend your time solving problems and resolving crises, you will have little time for innovation” Ashley & Morrison , 01996 • ‘Memories of the future’ -Time paths and options • “We need to build ourselves a series of ‘memories of the future’ – anticipation of events that might or might not happen” • “The only relevant questions about the future are those where we succeed from shifting the question from whether something will happen to what we would do if it did happen" • Arie de Geus via http://www.shell.com Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
What if ? – from crisis management to strategic action • "Artful scenario spinning is a form of convergent thinking about divergent futures. It ensures not that you are always right about the future but--better--that you are almost never wrong about the future.“ • Stewart Brand, 01999 • “We increase our chances by widening the range of alternatives we consider.” • Graham May, 01997 • "The result of remaining on the edge is a wider range of strategic options and a better sense of which option to choose." • Competing on the Edge; Shona Brown; 01998 HBS Press • "For too long, our strategic thinking has kept us confined to the box. It is now time to jump out of that box, to jump out and grasp the future, not as something which is inevitable and beyond our control, but rather, as something we actually create." • The Knowledge Dividend; Rene Tissen; 02000 FT/Prentice Hall Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
B R R M E I D Design Process Process – methodology e.g. BREDIMR – a planning wheel Boundaries Resources Evaluation Design Install / implement Maintain Review & Learn Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
B B R R R R M M E E I I D D Design Process • Evolution through time • the wheel moves forward – linear progress Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Design Context Environment - Opportunities & Threats STRATEGY Resources - Strengths & Weaknesses Values E-V-R Congruence – Lead with Vision, John L Thompson, 01997 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Futures-orientated Design Strategy External threats, external opportunities… K. Eric Drexler, Chairman, Foresight Institute There are no good excuses for lack of foresight. We've got to be pro-active, not just reactive. Environmentalist-architect William McDonough wrote the following about environmental disasters, but it applies just as well to Sept. 11 or a future abuse of nanotech: "You can't say it's not part of your plan that these things happened, because it's part of your de facto plan. It's the thing that's happening because you have no plan...We own these tragedies. We might as well have intended for them to occur." http://www.foresight.org/Sept11/index.html Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
B R R M E I D Future-proofing the design process • Active environmental / horizon scanning & foresight • ‘Continuous iterative interaction’, Adam, 01998 External opportunities External threats Contingency & continuity planning Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Futures-orientated Design Strategy • Consequences, successes, failures, liabilities, precedents, legacies • Critical thinking, fuzzy logic (‘reasoning with vague concepts’, Kosko, 02002), ingenuity, vulnerability and hazard management and ‘unknown unknowns’ (Homer-Dixon, 02000) • ‘Real danger comes from surprises we never expected and that in turn demands 'preparation and preparedness’’ • Displaced problems and “unintended consequences and revenge effects” Tenner, 01996 • Resilience, adaptability, redundancy, relative permanence (Yeomans) • Contingency and continuity planning • The future: ‘a matter of choice and chance’ • Responsibility with ‘cautionary optimism’, Worpole, 01997 • “We have no choice but to live cautiously and precautiously” Adam, 01998 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Developing scenarios - assessing design strategies Futures Wheel Using the "futures wheel" tool will help you explore the consequences of a trend, event, emerging issue, or decision. You will discover first-, second- and third-order impacts of a particular trend, event, or emerging you identified from your environmental scan through the use of a futures wheel. It will help you organize your thinking concerning the future and will increase your understanding of the results of your research including, but not limited to, an environmental scan. Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Developing scenarios - assessing design strategies Steps to developing scenarios (Schwartz, 01999) High uncertainty Low impact High impact Certainty Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Developing scenarios - assessing design strategies • Scenarios - Groundrules • Lateral thinking (de Bono) – • Exaggerate a trend or pattern of change • Wishful thinking • Challenge an assumption about the present or the accepted way things are • Distort the normal or mundane; try combining two things never before combined • Reverse constraints and current operating conditions Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Developing scenarios - assessing design strategies • Scenario Building : the basic process • identify three trends of change or emerging issues • brainstorm the impacts of each trend, one by one • review the list of impacts from all three trends for two or three minutes • Cross-impact analysis - consider potential collisions of trends; brainstorm their impacts for fifteen minutes • consider the entire list – what is missing ?; cluster groups of impacts of particular interest • characterize your infant scenario – Hot news from 2030 ! • 1) try to imagine two or three headlines that sum up the tenor of its times, conflicts, major new players, futures history… • 2) think of a bumper-sticker phrase that captures its essence • 3) if this were a short story, what would be its title? • Wendy Schultz, 01997 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Permaculture designers as futurists ? • “The ability to live both in the present and a handful of imagined but uncertain futures is the basic skill of foresight, planning and responsibility” • Stewart Brand, 01999 • The ‘agent provocateur’ – provocative futures - critical futurist • Wendy Schultz, 01997 • Irreverance - Court Jester / Monarch’s Fool • Story-tellers and guides – see speculative fiction writers / sci-fi • ‘Time rebels’ , Rifkin, 01987 • Futures scouts – pioneers & cartographers of the last ‘wilderness’? • A voice for future generations ? • Who will speak for those yet to be born? Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Permaculture designers as futurists ? • “A key role for futurists is therefore to inspire decision-makers with alternative futures and choices, demonstrating their technical feasibility, and warning of the consequences of inaction. But behind every corporate decision there is a battle for hearts and minds - and they have rules of their own.” • Closing the deal: how to make organizations act on futures research • Jerome C. Glenn; Theodore J. Gordon; James Dator, Foresight - The journal of future studies, strategic thinking and policy, 2001 Vol. 3 No. 3 Page: 177 – 189, Emerald Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Permaculture designers…community leaders? • A key role for permaculture designers? • “identifying and anticipating the forces that are transforming the world in we live in and helping people to respond to them. It must involve and prepare people and communities, at home and at work, so that they can be partners in change and not its innocent victims…trying to shape …global, social and economic {and environmental} changes…” • DTI – role for government • Avoid over-promising and under-delivering • - be pragmatic • Focus on the big picture and long term • - be visionary and hopeful Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
It’s a people thing… • Passion - Vision, inspiration and imagination • Purpose, processes, people • Coherence • Social ingenuity • Social capital and governance • Democracy, politics and governance • Community and political leadership • Learning and intellectual capital • Education for sustainable development • Citizen 2000 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Social Ingenuity The Ingenuity Gap, Homer-Dixon, 02000 “Complexity of problems outrunning our social/technical ingenuity” “Social ingenuity is supplied by people at all levels of society…much of it consists of ideas for solving various kinds of collective action problems…We need social ingenuity to set up and maintain public and semi-public goods…social arrangements – social ingenuity, essentially – are immensely important… The challenges we face…are tangled, dynamic and barely understood. Our responses to them require careful deliberation …the real problem is our inability to resolve key political struggles over what we want, where we should go and who should benefit… Great ingenuity is usually needed to design, implement and operate the political institutions…that enable society to deal with their political struggles” Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Social Capital & Governance “What is the …bond which will glue the social order together amidst all the centrifugal forces which are tearing it apart ?” “Social capital, meaning that stock of shared values and behavioural norms which make everyday life (and work and markets) possible. For example, trust, honesty, mutual respect, adherence to commitments undertaken, acceptance of obligations, reliability, concern for personal reputation - all these things, and many more, are the preconditions for successful cooperation between individuals under any system.” David Howell, 02000 Governance “Governance is the process by which we collectively solve our problems and meet our society’s needs. Government is the instrument we use” (Reinventing Government, Osborne & Gaebler, 01992) Community Cohesion “...the need to generate a widespread and open debate about identity, shared values, and common citizenship as part of the process of building cohesive communities.” Denham Report, 02001 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Democracy, politics and governance • The evolution & re-designing democracy, ‘political’ institutions and processes • “The concrete and challenging task of defining the kind of society that might be possible if we were to make the right political decisions” • M Taylor, 02001 • “Sustainability – which is…a dilemma of collective action – is first and foremost a political challenge…What sort of politics will most enable humanity to choose its future?” • The Local Politics of Global Sustainability – Thomas Prugh et al, 02000 • Politics • “Politics can simply be defined as the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share of power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and survival of the whole community” • A Political System • A political system “is that type of government where politics proves successful in ensuring reasonable stability and order” • Bernard Crick, 01962 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Community and political leadership “A very different model of leadership, which does not simply pull the levers at the top, or command…in times of trouble…Its role in other words is to steer when steering is necessary, but also to strengthen the capacity of citizens and communities to govern themselves.” Connexity, Geoff Mulgan, 01997 “When it comes to defining modern political leadership, this illuminating quality, this ability to peer out into the darkness and make some sense of it, so as to help people at least prepare a little for what is to come, is the prime quality, by which aspiring and incumbent leaders should be judged.” David Howell, The edge of now, 2000 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Learning and Intellectual Capital Learning “The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people...In times of drastic change, it is the learners inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” - Eric Hoffer “Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.”- W.Edwards Deming Learning agenda – from ‘static’ dogma to open-mindness with critical thinking Intellectual capital – personal, organisational, civic Values and ethics Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Education for sustainable development “Education for sustainable development enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in decisions about the way that we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will improve the quality of life now without damaging the planet for the future.” • UK Sustainable Development Education Panel, 02000 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Citizen 2000 Working out what’s really important Making intelligent life choices Acting as well as thinking Using people power for positive change Fighting for the right to know Understanding the bigger picture Expecting the unexpected Practising give and take Knowing happiness Respecting the living world Manual 2000 Life choices for the future you want, John Elkington and Julia Hailes, 01998 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Designing the Future • Contact • Jamie Saunders • Foresight@futuresedge.info • http://www.futuresedge.info • Tel: 01274 501610 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info
Some resources: • The Clock of the Long Now, Stewart Brand, 01997 • Contested futures, Nik Brown et al, 02000 • 2020 Foresight, Hugh Courtney, 02001 • The Living Company, Arie de Geus, 01999 • Competing for the future, Gary Hamel & C.K. Prahalad, 1994 • Scenarios, Kees van der Heijden, 01996 • The Ingenuity Gap, Thomas Homer-Dixon, 02000 • The Edge of Now, David Howell, 2000 • The Seventh Enemy, Ronald Higgins, 01978 • Heaven in a chip {fuzzy future}, Bart Kosko, 02000 • The future is ours, Graham May, 01996 • Scenario Planning, Gill Ringland, 01997 • Why things Bite Back, Edward Tenner, 01996 • Lead with Vision, John L Thompson, 01997 • Strategic Thinking and the New Science,Irene Sanders, 01998 • http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~wendy/if.html - Wendy Schultz,01997 • The art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz, 01999 • Futurist Tools – Creating Preferred Futures - http://www.cpfonline.org/cpf/f_tools.html • LGA Futures Toolkit for Local Government, LGA, 02000 • A Futurist’s Toolbox, Cabinet Office, PIU, Strategic Futures Team, 02001 • A practical guide to regional foresight, FOREN, 02001 • ‘Your Future in Business – the Foresight Training Toolkit’, 02001 Jamie Saunders – http://www.futuresedge.info