Association of Professional Futurists - Futures Festival

5/1/2019

by Maggie Greyson

Dave and I are consistently challenging our assumption that the future presents a greater feeling of certainty when you hold a piece of it in your hands.

When we were asked to participate in the Association of Professional Futurists annual virtual Futures Festival we took this as another chance to investigate the theory.

The APF promotes professional excellence and demonstrates the value of strategic foresight and futures studies, so it was already a great honour to be included, and hopefully challenged by the members. The theme of 2018 was Diverse Futures and featured foresight projects that prioritize inclusivity, arts and science fiction. Some of the high calibre presentations and provocations included VR experience of cities, African Futures, the Futures of Canadian Identities, and Teach the Futures in Schools.

See the recording here: http://futuresfestival.online/making-futures-present/

David led an online discussion with Maggie, about the origin of the Making Futures Present workshop and what impact it is having on people who take the workshop, and beyond. Here are 3 quick insights

giving the people the agency to author multiple futures seems to reduce their anxiety about "the perfect future"
a personal experience of the futures makes decision making more relevant
creating low-fidelity design fiction prototypes is fun, people want to see what others make, and hear the story

The intention of the workshop has become part of the key questions that we bring to every interaction.
1) How might we help people to get comfortable with uncertainty so that they can play a meaningful part in the future?
2) When you make an artifact of the future, and describe it in great detail, have you helped someone to reflect on their preferred future?