Emerging Futures Emerging Futurists Symposium 2012

In late November (Nov 30 2012) I had the incredible pleasure of spending good time with the folks at the Manoa School of Futures Studies, who brought an eclectic and dynamic group of emerging practitioners together from around the world.  I feel very grateful to the Manoa gang for their invitation to speak, and I learned a lot from everyone there. Many people made this happen but my understanding is that Aubrey Yee and John Sweeney drove the process.

The EFEFsymposium2012 brought together about 20 people experimenting on the edges of futures (Warning: not all the people on the attached schedule actually spoke, I believe this was a preliminary schedule). We got to learn from each other in a semi-formal/informal environment and I got this bad ass T-shirt! (Which I believe according to John Sweeney is Jim Dator’s fists with the tattoo “manoa school” written across:)

I was asked to speak about new directions for futures and futurists. I decided to run an exercise in Maoist self criticism, dredging up as many personal acts of “reflection”, along with some general ones, (and the random ‘dob in your neighbor’:) to use as fuel for the fire. I identified “five stupidities” as well as some emerging issues. The talk was by no means a definitive, exhaustive, universal or everlasting statement on futures studies. But it was really fun to think about and explore the issues and play the role of the provocateur. Here is my 40 min talk. Comments welcome…