Quotable quotes
About futures, foresight, imagination, play, storytelling, experiences and more.
What if we all took small but consistent action to tackle today’s sustainability challenges?
The “protected status” of heritage buildings means that solar photovoltaic panels are seldom seen on roofs, but does this make sense in our changing world?
What “spiky” means in futures facilitation
Wes Kao wrote a piece about“spiky points of view”, and it got me wondering what a spiky point of view might be in futures facilitation.
Sitting with uncertainty longer than feels comfortable
One of the hardest parts of facilitating futures work is knowing when not to move the group on.
A thought about used futures
Many futures conversations fail not because people lack imagination, but because they’re trapped in “used futures”. These are inherited visions that feel familiar and inevitable. Changing the question when facilitating futures can be enough to change the future that becomes imaginable.
Never surrender a good question
Jane Hirshfield tells a story about a man who travels far to ask a wise teacher a question. When he finally asks it, the teacher slaps him. The lesson, his students explain later, is simple: never surrender a good question for a mere answer.
Using framing to unlock change
Research into the science of framing and how it can help us to be heard and understood. When we change the story and how we tell it, we can change the world. [Fran mentioned this in Storytell.] #framing #conversations #facilitation #scicomm #climate
Make BIG changes by starting a tiny push
Let’s talk about physics and how one small action (yours) can end up making a significant difference (for yourself or the world).
Place vs space
One of my favourite questions in place-based futures work is simple, but deceptive. I ask, “Whose futures are visible in this space, and whose are missing?”
What if public transportation was free & effective?
Michelle Wu, Boston’s new mayor, and her focus on free public transportation prompt some “what if” and “why not” thinking.
What if we cut down on food waste?
Some musings on food waste.
Whose futures are visible here?
One of my favourite questions in place-based futures work is simple, but deceptive. I ask, “Whose futures are visible in this space, and whose are missing?”
What if?
I am privileged to be able to spend my days working with scientists who want to learn how to turn their academic findings into information that the “general public” can understand and hopefully act upon. Many of the people I coach and train are natural scientists who have an up-close-and-personal view of human-caused climate change and global heating. Not only are they witness to what is happening now, but thanks to modelling, they have insights into what is likely to happen in the future. And frankly, for many of them, the future is at best worrying and at worst terrifying. They are continually perplexed at the disinterest in the problems they are uncovering by politicians, policy makers, the media, and us, the “general public*”.
I mention this because when I watched “Don’t look up” last night, I was overjoyed that someone in Hollywood had finally created a film that captured what scientists tell me that they experience. Sure, it’s a satire, but the basic storyline is one that I’ve heard time and again in my workshops and talks.
Hope is not optimism
In futures work, hope is often misunderstood. It’s sometimes treated as optimism, which is a belief that things will turn out well if we just think positively enough. That kind of hope doesn’t survive contact with complexity for very long.
When infrastructure assumes constant uptime
A lot of modern infrastructure quietly assumes constant uptime. The internet. Our power systems. Our payment systems. Our GPS-powered navigation tools. When any of them stutter, even if only momentarily, things start to unravel quickly.
What facilitation makes possible in futures work
Good facilitation in futures work isn’t about adding polish. It changes what becomes possible.