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Alex Burns (aburns@swin.edu.au) 20 April 2006 Smart Internet Technology CRC

Communication Futures. Alex Burns (aburns@swin.edu.au) 20 April 2006 Smart Internet Technology CRC. Agenda. Part 1: Communication Futures (CF) History Discourse: Futures Studies (FS) and Applied Foresight (AF) Contexts and Frameworks Part 2: Methodologies

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Alex Burns (aburns@swin.edu.au) 20 April 2006 Smart Internet Technology CRC

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  1. Communication Futures Alex Burns (aburns@swin.edu.au) 20 April 2006 Smart Internet Technology CRC

  2. Agenda • Part 1: Communication Futures (CF) • History • Discourse: Futures Studies (FS) and Applied Foresight (AF) • Contexts and Frameworks • Part 2: Methodologies • Individual methodologies and practices • Part 3: Applications • Part 4: Professional Development • Professional Development issues The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  3. Part 1: Foundations

  4. Why Study The Future? • Foreseeable Dangers and ‘Mega-Events’: • ‘Challenger’ space shuttle disaster (Roger Boisjoly) • Enron and corporate governance (Sherron Watkins) • September 11 and counter-terrorism (John O’Neill) • Cassandra Archetype: ‘early warnings’ yet ignored • ICT History and Future Visions • J.C.R. Licklider and ‘human-machine’ symbiosis • Doug Engelbart and interface design (GUI) • Ted Nelson and Xanadu • Tim Berners-Lee and the ‘Semantic Web’ The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  5. Challenger Launch Decision • Roger Boisjoly discovers leaks in primary seals. Morton Thiokol pressure about O-ring warning (Jan. 1986) • NASA and Morton Thiokol engineers discuss temperature forecasts. NASA over-rides ‘no launch’ decision (27 Jan. 1986) • At T+73 seconds Challenger explodes—killing all 7 crew members (28 Jan. 1986) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  6. Sherron Watkins & Enron • Warned Enron’s Kenneth Lay of ‘an elaborate accounting hoax’ (15 Aug. 2001) • Enron files for Chapter 11 (2 Dec. 2001) • Individual investors lose millions, Arthur Andersen collapses • Corporate Governance and Triple Bottom Line (TBL) • The Smartest Guys In The Room (2005) book and film • A Conspiracy of Fools (2005) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  7. John O’Neill & Al Qaeda • FBI began tracking Al Qaeda in mid-1990s • Investigated first WTC (1993) and USS Cole (2000) bombings • Warned US Government of global terror networks • May have prevented September 11 terrorist attacks on United States • PBS Frontline episode ‘The Man Who Knew’ The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  8. Anticipatory Not Predictive • Futures Studies is popularly believed to be about prediction • Retro-causal (‘what if?’) rather than predictive (‘this will happen by x’) • ‘The cause lies in the future’ – Heinz von Foerster • Future ‘possibility’ space to consider implications for now • Conjectural thinking about evaluated possibilities (Bertrand de Jouvenal) • The ‘sense of context’ to model different choices (Mihai Nadin); our ‘sixth sense’ (Kees van der Heijden) • Epistemology (ways of knowing) becomes crucial The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  9. Strategic Foresight and Futures Studies • Strategic Foresight: • ‘The ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent, and viable forward view whose insights can be used in organizationally useful ways.’ (Richard Slaughter, Swinburne University) • Critical Futures Studies: • ‘The attempt to generate new knowledge about the construction of human futures.’ (Richard Slaughter, Swinburne University) • A type of transdisciplinary strategic thinking rather than traditional strategic planning (links with Governance and Knowledge Management) • Futures Studies is not crystal ball-gazing, pop imagery or linear extrapolations • Goes beyond ‘future of . . .’ studies and single-point forecasts The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  10. Futures Studies: Introductory Examples • The following are introduced early on in Swinburne University’s Strategic Foresight program: • The 200-Year Present (Elise Boulding) • The Futures Cone: possible, probable and preferable futures • The Clock of the Long Now (Stewart Brand) • The Calvert-Henderson indicators (Hazel Henderson) • ‘Tsunamis of Change’ (Jim Dator) • Mindsets: open versus closed thinking (Milton Rokeach) • The sustainability ethic as an FS practical realm The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  11. Futures Studies: Key Texts • The following are often used in Swinburne University’s Strategic Foresight program: • Richard Slaughter’s Futures Beyond Dystopia (2004) and Futures for the Third Millennium (1999) • The multi-volume Knowledge Base of Futures Studies (3rd edition on CD in 2005) edited by Slaughter, Sohail Inyatullah & Jose M. Ramos • Sohail Inayatullah’s Questioning The Future (2nd edition, 2005) • Peter Schwartz’s The Art of the Long View (1991) on scenarios • Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline (1990) on systems thinking • Ken Wilber’s A Theory of Everything (2001) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  12. Communication Futures: Definition • Interdisciplinary discourse to examine ICT strategic landscape • A strategic context and problem domain that draws on Futures Studies (theory) and Applied/Strategic Foresight (application) • Places activities in forward-looking context • Inputs to corporate strategy and policymaking cycles • Major themes: • The evolution of socio-technical systems • Technology trajectories and their social impacts • Responses by societies, culture and political actors The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  13. Communication Futures: Key Studies • Influential CF Studies: • SIT CRC’s Smart Internet 2010 report (2005) • ACA’s Vision 2020 scenarios exercise (2004) • Networking the Nation (1997) • Networking Australia’s Future (1994) • Telecom Australia’s Telecom 2000 Report (1975) • Policy Briefs (Communication Futures & Futures Studies): • DCITA’s Digital Action Plan for Australia (2006) • Communications Policy & Research Forum • Australian Treasury’s Inter-generational Report (2002-2003) • CSIRO National Energy Scenarios The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  14. Technology Foresight • Technology Foresight • Domain application of national Science & Technology Foresight • Mobilisation for ICT sectoral development • Builds collective vision and social imaging for growth • Regional trade blocs and comparative advantage (David Ricardo) • Battelle Science & Technology • Singapore Infocomm Foresight 2015 • Malaysia Multimedia Corridor • OECD Foresight Forum The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  15. Major Institutions • ‘Big Science’: Bell Laboratories, NASA space program, Atlas rockets, ARPANET, Human Genome Project • Defence and Civil Society Planning: RAND and Hudson Institutes (Herman Kahn on nuclear war: ‘thinking about the unthinkable’), Arlington Institute, Institute for the Future, Global Business Network • Technology Research: Xerox PARC, MIT Media Lab, AT&T Labs, Microsoft Research, BT, Google Labs • Thomas P. Hughes’ Rescuing Cassandra (1998) as key study • Stewart Brand’s The Media Lab (1987) on MIT’s initiatives • Michael Hiltzik’s Dealers of Lightning (1999) on Xerox PARC The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  16. Contexts and Frameworks: Overview • Three introductory paradigms: • Normative: pragmatic, goal-directed, conventional planning • Critical: evaluates agendas, norms, values and worldviews • Emancipatory: idealist and identity, oppositional to normative • Three CF outlooks (Warren Wagar): • Techno-liberal (libertarian and ‘free enterprise’) • Radicals (Democratic Left and Social Marxist) • Countercultural (New Age and Eco-feminist) • Each gives a ‘true but partial’ map of reality (Ken Wilber); however, ‘the map is not the territory’ (Alfred Korzybski) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  17. Framework 1: Pragmatic Futures • Dominant context in Western Futures Studies work • The norm for business and commercial applications • Timeframe: 3-5 years • Knowledge Interests: Technical-Instrumental • Discourses & Methodologies: Trends, Environmental Scanning, Scenario Planning, Business Intelligence • Example Book: Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad’s Competing for the Future (1995) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  18. Framework 2: Progressive Futures • Emerged in late 1960s and early 1970s in the West • The norm for academic applications in arts/humanities and ‘post-normal’ science (Jerry Ravetz) • Timeframe: 20-50 years and longer • Knowledge Interests: Emancipatory • Discourses & Methodologies: Critical Futures Studies, Science & Technology Studies, Simulations, Systems Thinking • Example Book: Hazel Henderson’s Building A Win-Win World: Life Beyond Global Economic Warfare (1996) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  19. Framework 3: Alternative Global Futures • Emerged in late 1970s and 1980s in the West • Anthropological, cross-cultural, post-colonial and postmodernist • Timeframe: 50-100 years and longer • Knowledge Interests: Emancipatory, Multitude • Discourses & Methodologies: Causal Layered Analysis, Anticipatory Action Research and Anthroplogy, Post-Colonial Studies • Example Book: Ziauddin Sardar’s Rescuing All Our Futures: The Future of Futures Studies anthology (1999) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  20. Framework 4: Civilisational Futures • Cyclical themes from 1960s to present • Deals with civilisations, cultural scripts, social imaging • Timeframe: 100 years, cyclical/spiral models of temporality • Knowledge Interests: Deep Time, Gaian, Macrohistorical, Dominator/Partnership paradigm (Riane Eisler) • Discourses & Methodologies: Causal Layered Analysis, Social Imaging, Macrohistorical, Peace Studies, Deep Ecology • Example Book: Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah’s Macrohistory and Macrohistorians (1997) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  21. Framework 4: Integral Futures • Cyclical themes from 1960s to present • Breadth and depth, different ways of knowing, ‘transcend yet include’, All quadrants all levels (AQAL) • Timeframe: The extended Now • Knowledge Interests: Transpersonal, Integrative, Pluralistic • Discourses & Methodologies: Transpersonal and Integral Psychology, Integral Methodological Pluralism, Metascanning, Contemplative/Meditative practices • Example Book: Ken Wilber’s Sex Ecology Spirituality (1995) and Integral Psychology (1998) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  22. Framework 5: Embodied Foresight • Has emerged over 2003-2006 as novelty and synthesis • Meta-methodology: Individual practitioner as holonomic • Timeframe: Self-reflexive awareness of the Aion/Aeon • Knowledge Interests: Anticipatory, Enactive, Self-Reflexive • Discourses & Methodologies: Anticipatory Action Learning, Enactive Cognition, Integral Futures, Self-Reflexive methods, Trialogues, Presence • Example Book: Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers’ Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (2004) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  23. Part 2: Methodologies

  24. Methodology History • 1950s Forecasts & Trends Analysis • 1960s Delphi Method & Social Indicators • 1970s Global Forecasts & Systems Models • 1980s Scenarios & Risk Management • 1990s Layered & Depth Methods • 2000s Integral, Multi-Civilizational & Embodied The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  25. Strategic Landscape • Defined by critical uncertainties, compounded risks and systemic crises (Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Arjun Appuradai) • Risk as defining factor in globalisation (Beck) • Structuration model of agency-structure debate (Giddens) • Liquid modernity and reconnaissance zones (Bauman) • Socio-, techno- flows (Appuradai) • Neo-liberal globalization, deregulation and privatization • ‘Information is bound up in uncertainty’ (Norbert Wiener) • ‘Knowns, known unknowns & unknown unknowns’ (Donald Rumsfeld on the 2003 Iraq War and WMD debate) • Hardin Tibbs’ model of business insight and competition The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  26. Taxonomy of Futures Methods • Predictive (‘expertise and colonization’): • Forecasting (linear/extrapolative), Trends, Data-Mining, Simulations, Delphi Method, Social Indicators, ‘Inevitable Surprises’ (Ageing, Demographics, the Realist tradition in Geopolitics), Technology Mapping, Pattern Recognition • Interpretative (‘agency, structure, relationship’): • Environmental Scanning, Scenarios (technology/user), Technology Assessment, Strategic Anticipation, National Science & Technology exercises, Business Intelligence, Blind-Spot Analysis, Wild Cards (‘high impact low probability’ events), Visioning • Critical (‘undefining the future by questioning assumptions’): • Causal Layered Analysis, Critical Futures Studies, T-Cycle, Macrohistory, Integral Studies, Action Learning The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  27. Methodological Issues • Futures Studies has a transdisciplinary knowledge base • Potentially an ‘infinite toolkit’ of resources (Richard Slaughter) • Integral Methodological Pluralism as framework (Ken Wilber) • The emergence of meta-methodologies • ‘Methodological renewal’ as an imperative (Richard Slaughter) • Challenges: • Difference between method, methodology, process, and practice • Role of commercial interests and secrecy • Cultural transmission of methodologies between practitioners • ‘True Believer’ (Eric Hoffer) interpretation that frames specific methodologies as the solution to problem domain The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  28. Creativity Techniques • Problem domain application of Applied Foresight • Synergies with humour, pattern recognition, visualisation • Lateral Thinking, Six Thinking Hats, Po (Edward de Bono) • Mind Mapping (Tony and Barry Buzan) • Synectics (William J.J. Gordon) • Brainstorming and Concept Mapping • Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner) • ‘Flow’ states of optimal psychology (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  29. Forecasting and Trends • Forecasting developed in 1940s and 1950s • Econometrics: linear, extrapolative, time-series, statistical • Trends developed in 1950s and 1960s • 3-5 year time-span rather than fads • Social Indicators movement in 1960s sociology • Cross-impacts, social impacts • Applications • Demographic/psychographic profiling and data-mining • SRI’s Values and Lifestyles monitor (VALS II) • John Naisbitt’s Megatrends (1982) • Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  30. Environmental Scanning • Environmental Scanning developed in 1960s and 1970s • Links to business strategy, portfolio management, competitive intelligence and media monitoring • Organisational ability to track external signals and ‘hits’ • Swinburne Foresight Planning & Review (FPR): • Established in 2000 to conduct university-wide ES • 15 to 20-year timeframe: long-term trends and impacts • Maree Conway (www.universityfutures.org) was FPR head • Major scenario planning exercise (2002) on higher education • Prospect bulletin, scanning ‘hits’ database and workshops • Replaced by Strategic Planning and Quality (SPQ) Unit in 2005 • Statement of Direction 2015 (Swinburne) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  31. Wild Cards • ‘High impact low probability events’ (i.e. deals with blind-spots, warning signals) • Can be foreseen: pre-September 11 intelligence hearings • Surfaces blind-spots and assumptions in trends analysis • Popularised by Arlington Institute and John Petersen’s Out of the Blue (1999) • Links to Beck’s risk sociology, chaos/complexity sciences, simulations and systems thinking • Used to test decision-making under stress and in high-velocity environments (Cass R. Sunstein) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  32. Scenario Planning • Different models in early 1960s, early 1970s and 1980s • Synonymous with Futures Studies and Visioning for many • Key figures: Herman Kahn, Pierre Wack, Peter Schwartz • Popularised by the Global Business Network, Royal Dutch Shell’s unit and Schwartz’s Art of the Long View (1991) • Extended by Art Kleiner, Stewart Brand and Jay Ogilvy • Different traditions: Prospective (France), ICT Use Cases • Problems: GBN’s scenario logics deal with 2-3 key factors, chaos/complexity models are a challenge, groupthink (Irving Janis), mirroring, ethical dimensions in application The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  33. GBN’s Scenario Planning Process • 1. Identify the focal issue or decision • 2. Identify key forces, trends and scanning ‘hits’ • 3. List the driving forces • 4. Rank key factors & driving forces by importance and uncertainty (choose 2 or 3 that will form 2x2 axis) • 5. Select scenario logics: create axes for key factors • 6. Flesh out the scenarios: narratives • 7. Explore implications, assumptions, blind-spots • 8. Select leading indicators and signposts The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  34. Causal Layered Analysis • Developed by Sohail Inayatullah in the early-to-mid 1990s • Post-structuralist theory of knowledge (Michel Foucault, William Irwin Thompson, P.R. Sarkar, Fred Polak and others) • Useful to ‘surface’ hidden assumptions and current frameworks • Can be used to evaluate and validate scenario ‘logics’ and narratives: provides vertical depth to horizontal tools • Four layers: • Pop: ‘litany’, sound-bites, media imagery • Social Causes: problem-oriented analysis and policy • Epistemes/Worldviews: ways of knowing, truth and values • Myth/Metaphor: Deep symbols, narratives and structures The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  35. Simulations • Developed with computers in 1960s and 1970s • Jay Forrester’s work on systems dynamics as pivotal influence • Donella and Dennis Meadows’ World-3 model in The Limits To Growth (1972) created controversy for The Club of Rome • Domain applications in econometric modelling, environmental sustainability, financial services • Adopted by business for innovation and war games • Michael Schrage’s Serious Play (2000) on innovation cases • Videogame designers: Will Wright (Sim City and The Sims), Sid Meier (Civilization), Peter Molyneux (Black & White) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  36. Systems Thinking • Deals with large-scale complexity, emergent behaviour, interdependencies, whole-systems views, cybernetics • Links with action learning and simulations • Surfaces assumptions, mental models and cause-effect relationships (balancing and reinforcing loops) • Ludwig van Bertalanffy’s General Systems Thinking (1968) • Popularised by Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline (1990) which also dealt with action learning and organisations • Systems archetypes such as ‘overshoot and collapse’, ‘shifting the burden’, ‘fixes that fail’, ‘escalation’, ‘accidental adversaries’ and ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  37. Action Learning • Has evolved from anthropology, cybernetics, education • Adopted in MBA and postgraduate programs as pedagogy • Concerned with ‘learning how to learn’ and knowledge transfer • Theory Action Review cycles (aka Kolb learning loop) • Skills: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence and conscious competence (Argyris) • Key figures: David Kolb, Donald Schon, Chris Argyris, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer • Enactive Cognition consciousness model (Maturana & Varela): ‘All knowing is doing and all doing is knowing’ The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  38. Macrohistory • Histories of social systems, patterns of change (nomothetic, diachronic): individual, social, civilisational, world-systems • Deep structure models of what changes and what doesn’t • Linear, cyclical and spiral metaphors/models of temporality • Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah’s Macrohistory and Macrohistorians (1997) compares 20 macrohistorians • Exploration of different cultural-historical epistemes • Each can be used to isolate key variables for discussion • Imposes limits on what can be created in the future The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  39. Part 3: Applications

  40. Yourdon, Edward. Death March (2nd ed.), Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River NJ, 2003. Death March projects: ∙ The norm for IT not the exception ∙ High-profile BHAG projects ∙ Budget, resource & estimation limits ∙ Unrealistic deadlines by 2x or more ∙ Critical Chain and Systems Thinking ∙ Project ‘flight simulators’ The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  41. Disruptive Technologies • Professor at Harvard University and founder of the consulting firm Innosight LLC • ‘Thought leader’ on Disruptive Innovation • Promoted by Intel’s Andrew S. Grove • Author of The Innovator’s Dilemma (1999), The Innovator’s Solution (2003), and Seeing What’s Next (2004) • Focuses on industry and market analysis • Disruptive vs. Sustaining Technologies • Applies insights to e-health, financial services, and telecommunications domains • Deals with firm resources allocation and decision-making, not just ‘killer app’ technologies The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  42. Pattern Recognition • Mercer’s Adrian Slywotzky has collated over 20 generic patterns in Value Migration (1996), Profit Patterns (1998) and subsequent books • Pattern Recognition and ‘learning how to learn’ • Business Designs: “a totality of customer selection, market positioning, business processes and profit capture” • Challenges the idea that markets/industries are caught in macro patterns such as Disintermediation: value networks are fluid, signalling, counter-moves • Provides a context to integrate environmental scanning and organisational learning • Applied in financial services as Strategic Anticipation The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  43. Augustine, Sanjiv. Managing Agile Projects, Addison Wesley, Upper Saddle River NJ, 2005. • Agile Project Management rules • Organic Teams • Guiding Vision • Simple Rules • Open Information • Light Touch • Adaptive Leadership The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  44. Cockburn, Alistair. Crystal Clear, Addison Wesley, Upper Saddle River NJ, 2005. • A methodology for small teams: • Frequent Delivery • Reflective Improvement • Osmotic Communication • Personal Safety • Focus • Easy Access to Expert Users • A Technical Environment with Automated Tests, Configuration Management, and Frequent Integration The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  45. Part 4: Professional Development

  46. University Postgraduate Courses • Postgraduate programs: • Swinburne University of Technology • Sunshine Coast University • Central Queensland University • Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Sydney • Tamkang University (Taiwan) • University of Houston, Clear Lake (US) • Manoa school at University of Hawaii (US) • Survey of Futures in Higher Education (2003) by Jose M. Ramos (Swinburne University alumnus, WFSF) The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  47. Professional Organisations • Futures Studies has several professional organisations: • World Future Society (WFS): US-based, pragmatic, technology, 50,000 members at peak in late 1980s • World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF): diverse global membership, critical/emancipatory and civilisational, several hundred members • Association of Professional Futurists (APF): US-based, spearheaded by Dow’s Andy Hines, professional development • Swinburne University’s AFI Alumni group The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  48. Professional Models • Professional certification in specific methods • Proprietary-based, e.g. GBN’s scenarios methodology • European classical model of study with Teacher • Access to domain experience and insights • Often reflects the Critical/Emancipatory tradition in FS • Medieval Guild model of professional development • Closer to an artistic craft than an empirical science • Novice, Journeyman and Master phases • Links to Action and Self-Reflexive modes of research The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  49. Professional Qualities • Communications Futures practitioners will hopefully develop the following professional qualities: • Cognitive complexity and pattern recognition • Insights grounded in both intellectual inquiry and practice • Appreciative inquiry, multiple intelligences, ways of knowing • Radical doubt and conscientization (Paulo Freire) • Can deal with ambiguous information without polarisation • Self-reflexive awareness of biases and blind-spots • Awareness of the ‘knowing-doing’ gap, groupthink, mirroring The Disruptive Internet Stream (NGIU)

  50. Questions?

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