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A Report on the 2016 Meeting of the Public Sector Foresight Network and the Federal Foresight Community of Interest

Interest in how government looks at the future is undergoing a renaissance in governments around the world, and the role of networks in facilitating the exchange of information is critical. The integration of networks is particularly important in order to leverage knowledge.

Two government foresight networks were formed in recent years in response to growing interest in developing a critical mass of those working in government on foresight in the U.S. and around the world. In 2011, futurist Dr. Clem Bezold of the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) and Nancy Donovan of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) convened a government foresight breakfast in Vancouver, Canada, which has since evolved into annual day-long meetings and the creation of an international Public Sector Foresight Network (PSFN) open to those in and working with government on foresight issues. In 2013, James-Christian Blockwood, then with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), organized the Federal Foresight Community of Interest (FFCoI), which has since conducted quarterly meetings drawing officials from over 50 U.S. federal agencies. Both networks decided to combine forces to organize a joint meeting in 2016 in order to facilitate the exchange of diverse views and best practices by U.S. and international foresight officials.

The trouble with virtual reality (VR) is that science fiction and other popular media have so raised expectations that people are always disappointed, because they all think that fully functional VR is already here. But what VR is really good at is storytelling, simulator games, and training of all sorts.

With the possible exception of interestellar propulsion, science fact is now outpacing science fiction. Now, when we scientists meet with science-fiction folks to discuss possible scenarios, we end up giving them ideas more often than not.

One hundred trillion dollars is a lot to pay for toilet paper. Utterly ridiculous! But I have a piece of such toilet paper in my office to remind me of the importance of including wild cards – low probability, high impact events – in thinking about the future.

People have been thinking and dreaming about self-driving cars for a long time. Paleofuture.com’s article about the “Driverless Car of the Future” (Novak 2010) features a 1957 magazine ad depicting a family playing Scrabble in a bubble-topped car as it cruises down a six-lane freeway, the steering wheel pointedly unattended. The ad copy reads in part, “One day your car may speed along an electric super-highway, its speed and steering automatically controlled by electronic devices embedded in the road. Highways will be made safe—by electricity!

Wool is one of man’s oldest materials. It’s been in use for at least 3,400 years, but it was not effectively utilized until selective breeding reduced the hard outer layer (known as kemp) that protects the usable fleece. While the industrial uses for this material have grown over the years, the potential now is rapidly expanding. Wool is both water retentive and water repellant, fire resistant up to 1,382 degrees Fahrenheit (and does not melt, unlike synthetics).

Much has been said about clean coal, and how it is a “wave of the future.” Clean coal refers to reducing or neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions at the burn point, but regardless of China’s continuing commitment to coal-powered electrical plants, the United States has a natural gas glut and increasingly cost-competitive wind and solar power. As well, mountaintop leveling, destructive chemical processing, and byproduct disposal challenges continue to complicate any solutions that billion-dollar U.S. projects such as the recently canceled FutureGen might have produced.

(Adapted from a post originally published March 16, 2013)

It is beyond the scope of this blog to discuss the globe in 2030 on a country-by-country basis, but one dramatic shift in employment opportunities is likely to center on the continent of Africa. Between now and 2030, population growth rates in Africa will be greater than for any other country, including China (which has in fact reversed its growth trends through its political one-child policies). Africa is expected to quadruple in population over the next 90 years, with its greatest economic and political growth likely in North Africa.

Older workers are a burden and a salvation for the economic future. We are all aware that the graying populations in developed countries now, followed by developing countries, are a demographic force whose impacts will be felt over the next 50 years.

Problems such as poverty, global health, basic education, and environmental quality are systemic in nature, have both political and technical dimensions, and tend to require cross-sector and cross-profession collaboration. But there is a knowledge gap in developing and implementing viable solutions.

During my last year as president of the World Future Society, I had a very interesting experience concerning people’s feelings about the future. I had been asked to talk about the future of communications technology to a group of senior corporate vice presidents, largely U.S. based. After delivering what I thought was a rather effective (and well received) analysis on the growth of “white noise” in modern society and response strategies, we came to the Q&A discussion, which turned out to be 20 minutes or more.

It has long been a given that the Chinese commitment to saving 40 percent or even more of gross family income would be a continuing element of that nation’s economic profile. While consumer spending is skyrocketing in many developing countries, Chinese citizens have tended to tie their wealth up in savings and real estate, in part because of the lack of social safety nets that are offered by many developed countries.

As it was for many futurists, science fiction was my “gateway drug” to the world of alternative futures. I was hooked by age nine or ten. We always had stacks of sci-fi lying around the house because my mother was a member of a science fiction book-of-the-month club. I devoured everything I could get my hands on.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - A World on Fire: New Report from AAI Foresight

While I have written in the past about the revolution that the world of retail is undergoing, one interesting thing about the future is that it keeps unfolding. Like any lively crossroads of converging technologies, the principles of retail choice (or should I say persuasion) brings psychology, behavioral economics, and even neuroscience together with digital technology to change the mechanics of human decision making.

One of the most encouraging trends in medicine in recent years is the growth of systemic approaches to problem solving, much like approaches in foresight. In other words, a range of factors often affect an outcome, each requiring a solution that must work effectively in combination with other related solutions.

Over the years, I have written concerning the unexpected consequences for companies of moving into technologies completely new to them, encouraged by their success in other, unrelated arenas. The illusion that success is a quality that travels with its recipient to new endeavors is a form of hubris that seems most endemic to areas like Silicon Valley in California.

Electric vehicles (EVs) continue to climb in attractiveness, with the Tesla Model S winning acceleration comparisons hands down. Their environmental advantages are clear, but the cost and recharge requirements of automobile batteries continue to stand in the path of broad market acceptance of EVs. Breakthroughs in this area are announced regularly; however, any celebrations might be followed by an “Oops!” announcement, or the “breakthrough” may gain no real momentum and just fade away quietly.

The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative in the Hawaiian Islands would seem to be the poster child for the increasing market penetration of solar power. KIUC has quintupled utility-scale solar capacity over the past year and soon may approach 80% of peak power generation for solar on the island, as MIT Technology Review contributing editor Peter Fairley recently reported.

The auto industry is clearly convinced that the question of autonomous vehicles is “not if, but when,” writes Motor Trend technical director Frank Markus, reporting from a forum on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Detroit. Lux Research projects $87 billion in revenues by 2030. But the view is not so clear concerning how the longstanding legal guidelines around automotive liability will be affected.

Toward a Freakier Mind-Set

Finding and interpreting signals or outliers in the landscape is not simply a matter of visual prowess, but of thinking differently about what is seen or even sought. It is part of the job for foresight professionals, which may be why many of us self-identify as geeks or freaks.

The practical realities of building sustainable networks are coming to life in Oakland, California, under the stewardship of a nonprofit group called Bay Localize as part of its Rooftop Resources Project.

Defense Department historian Michael Warner's timely book The Rise and Fall of Intelligence: An International Security History (Georgetown University Press, 2014) offers an academic but accessible overview of a topic naturally veiled in secrecy and cloaked in misconceptions.

It is often stated that productivity-enhancing technology may eliminate jobs, but innovation will create more. The experience of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean offers an illustration and test case for this principle.

Fundraising like a seasoned politician, President Raynard Kington of Grinnell College recently delivered a report on the state of the college to local alumni in Washington, D.C.— a savvy constituency he jovially called “my people.”

In my strategic briefings around the country, I routinely ask my audiences (largely managers and professionals), whether they have heard the term "Big Data," and most of them raise their hands. But, when I ask how many of them know exactly what "Big Data" means, almost no hands go up.