by Suzanne Whitby | May 17, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
In many futures conversations, the most important futures are the ones no one names. Sometimes they’re avoided because they feel too political, too uncomfortable, or too implausible. Sometimes people assume others don’t want to hear them. Sometimes they’re hard to...
by Suzanne Whitby | Apr 30, 2024 | Notebook, Short. Honest. Human., To export
Thought-provoking. Evidently, children must be protected from stories about wolves in fairy tale forests (that may have been used to warn young women in factories to be wary of wolf-ish men). Obviously, no need to worry about guns. The text below the two girls says,...
by Suzanne Whitby | Apr 27, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Curiosity is often treated as a personality trait, a thing that you either have or don’t. But in futures and foresight work (and no doubt in other creative practices), curiosity functions more like a muscle that can be strengthened, weakened, or neglected over time....
by Suzanne Whitby | Mar 27, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Planned obsolescence is often discussed as a moral problem, and so it is. It does real damage, socially and ecologically. But it’s also something else: a future assumption baked into design. Products designed to fail, wear out, or become obsolete rely on a very...
by Suzanne Whitby | Mar 17, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Futures work asks people to question assumptions, imagine alternatives, and sit with uncertainty. None of that happens when participants are passive for too long. One of the most useful ideas I’ve borrowed from teaching and learning design is Wes Kao’s State Change...
by Suzanne Whitby | Feb 17, 2024 | Faciliating Futures, Notebook
Futures don’t become actionable because they’re clever. They become actionable because people recognise themselves in them. That recognition only happens through participation. That means participants speaking, listening, reacting, disagreeing, building on each...
