by Suzanne Whitby | Jan 7, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
For a long time, I tried to decide whether I was an introvert or an extrovert. When I am facilitating, I am extrovert: full of energy, constantly keeping people going, occasionally the “life and soul of the party”. But given the choice between going out and...
by Suzanne Whitby | Dec 17, 2023 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
In futures and foresight, we often talk about scenarios, or multiple plausible futures, that offer structured uncertainty and a way to think beyond prediction. Scenarios are powerful. I use them often. And if memory serves, they are probably the most popular futures...
by Suzanne Whitby | Nov 19, 2023 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
In futures work, hope is often misunderstood. It’s sometimes treated as optimism, a belief that things will turn out well. But in complex systems, that kind of hope rarely survives contact with reality. The kind of hope I’m interested in is different. It’s the...
by Suzanne Whitby | Nov 7, 2023 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Power in futures work doesn’t just show up in who sets the agenda. It shows up in who feels able to speak. When futures processes reward confidence, speed, and verbal fluency, they amplify voices that already carry power. In parallel, they quietly (and sometimes not...
by Suzanne Whitby | Oct 7, 2023 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
We often talk about futures work as if it happens in a room. But place is never neutral. Every futures conversation is shaped by where it happens: what people can see, hear, smell, remember, and move through. Place carries histories, power, exclusions, habits, and...
by Suzanne Whitby | Sep 27, 2023 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Most futures work still treats imagination as something that happens in the head. But the brain doesn’t work that way. What neuroscience shows, and what experiential futures make tangible, is that imagination is embodied. We think with our whole nervous system, not...
