Venessa Miemis: Open Foresight and the Future of Facebook

This is the third interview in this series on foresight in the network era. Venessa Miemis is one of the originators of the Open Foresight concept. In some regards it is a re-iteration of an older idea, Anticipatory Democracy, developed by Clement Bezold, Alvin Toffler and others, but the deliberative and generative nature of the anticipation is squarely situated in our current peer to peer revolution. Venessa is an outstanding proponent of developing new anticipatory processes for societal transformation.

In this interview she discusses the origins of the concept, she details the methodological approaches she has used to make foresight a public processes, and she reflects on the deeper principles involved in creating Open Foresight as an inclusive and replicate-able processes.  There is a very strong organic connection between the Open Foresight approach and the drive / listening for societal transformation. As the complexity and challenges of the 21st century deepens, this is one approach that will provide people with ways to make sense of their worlds in empowering and creative ways.

Jake Dunagan: The Institute for the Future and Gamification for Social Foresight

This is the second part in a series on network based approaches to foresight. I was fortunate to catch up with colleague Jake Dunagan, director of research at the Institute for the Future (IFTF). IFTF is doing absolutely remarkable work bringing together social media, gaming, and foresight (among many other things). Significant is IFTF’s social focus, on addressing sustainability, poverty, security, food, and many other important issues. Jake is a brilliant mind and eloquent voice, and gives us a great window into the work at IFTF. In interviews to come, I really hope to follow up with him on his Doctoral dissertation work in neuropolitics, governance design, alternative futures, and the communication of foresight,  and looking forward to learning about other works in progress.