The Muse of Futures Studies

Futurists are, in some fundamental sense, dilettantes: they must forever graze lightly over fields established by scholars, researchers, and writers with more profound and focussed expertise. Perhaps a better metaphor is that of the butterfly -- we move from flowering idea to flowering idea, not only gathering information about change and its potentials, but also cross-pollinating ideas.

• virtuous circles for futures studies —
  • the imagination/innovation nexus:
    • Innovations from Imagined Futures
    • Futures Studies and Science Fiction
    • Scenario Archetypes
  • the education/outreach nexus:
    • Accessibility: Plausibility vs. Provocation
    • Global Futures Education and Training: The Devil is in the Details
    • Conceptual Clarity: One Overview of Applied Futures Studies
• articles, lectures, and presentations on futures studies:
  • Strengths and Weakness in Common Futures Research Methods
  • Holistic Scanning
  • Frameworks for Consistent Scenario Analysis
  • Subjectivity - Objectivity Issues in futures: Was It Good For You?
  • A comparison of group process approaches to articulating vision: Essential Visioning (1996; undergoing update).
  • Exploring the uses of creativity as critique and provocation (themes similar to those explored above in reference to Science Fiction): Sidling into Our Futures (1993).
  • From research product to participatory process: Words, Dreams, and Action
  • Using foresight approaches to limn our cultural frameworks: Unpacking Our Cultural Baggage
  • A management-based critique of the World Futures Studies Federation, circa 1991: Visions R Us (1991).