Posted on by José Ramos

Mutant Futures Program

Quick Details

What: A personal-professional development program and process

Location: Melbourne CBD (with limited experimental online / remote intake)

Initial session times: Session 1, Wed 22nd Nov – 6:30-8:30 pm. Session 2, Wed 13th Dec – 6:30-8:30 pm. (further times to be arranged as a group)

Program duration: 12 months (approximately 10 once-a-month sessions) (2 hours in length), plus a weekend retreat

Cost: $200 for year and $100 for retreat

Expression of interest link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KCGV6ZK

**WE HAVE FILLED ALL SPOTS AND ARE NO LONGER TAKING EOI FOR 2017-2018. HOWEVER, YOU ARE WELCOME TO PUT IN AN EOI FOR 2018-2019. 

Introduction

The Mutant Futures Program supports people in developing their hybrid and futures oriented professional practices. Jose Ramos conceived the program, after several years of his own soul searching and the writing of this essay “Mutant Futurists in the 21st Century“. Inviting four others (see testimonials below), a pilot program was run between 2016 and 2017, and was very valuable for all, so it is now being opened up as a program to be run for others.

The program is meant to help us unearth deeply purposeful and creative practices that can have unpredictable, surprising and of course positive impacts on the world and ourselves. It aims to help people to develop their ‘mutant futures’ thinking and practices through a variety of approaches. It is a self discovery process and a business discovery process that intends to support the creative development of the inner and outer alignment of our work.

 

Premise

We are moving into an era of trans-disciplinary and multi-modal practices that are not segmented specializations. Increasingly practitioners combine a number of talents, knowledge domains and fields to create hybrid approaches. This can be daunting, because people are playing in the space of the unknown, but is also deeply creative and central to the capacity for people to realize their true potential to contribute to the world and general wellbeing.

Many people undertake professional development processes, but have difficulty enacting personal change, because our inner narrative (what we tell ourselves about ourselves) is not aligned with what we are consciously trying to create in the world. Often, while we consciously strive for a particular future, at the level of our unconconscious we lack alignment. We may therefore not actually believe what we are saying, or there is a conflict or double bind, or there exists some other mental aspect that contradicts our outward expression. The process we take in this program works toward an alignment between the inner and outer dimensions of our practice, such that who we project ourselves as in the world (our personas) are deeply aligned and supported by our life narrative and our sense of purpose.

What happens

The program is an integration of “Ying” and “Yang” movements, both letting come (emergence) and making happen (pushing). Participants gather once per month (for 2 hours) over a year to relate and learn together. We discuss readings and ideas, and we talk about our aspirations, intentions and progress. We also give and get coaching from each other. We take a “no one left behind policy”. We understand that in the nexus of personal and professional development there is an ebb and flow, and life’s context and circumstances can create challenges. Through this we allow ourselves and each other to be at different stages of development, but aim to continue to support each other and hold each other to account.

The following is a rough guide to the process that we take:

  • We draw on the work of Joseph Campbell to begin to explore the role of myth and metaphor and their role in forming a dialog with the unconscious.
  • We do the “CLA of the Self” process developed by Sohail Inayatullah (CLA stands for Causal Layered Analysis) to explore core life narrative and create deep shifts.
  • We work on our practices to develop: clarity of purpose, self expression, service prototyping / experimentation and visibility.
  • We use the Futures Action Model to help us conceptualise potential enterprise models and the partnership ecosystems needed to support innovation.
  • We use FuturesLab as a processware fablab to help us test new services and products through an open experimentation ecosystem.

We draw on a variety of literature and ideas to help us in the inquiry and to build our practices.

  • On myth (the works of Joseph Campbell)
  • On inner selves (the works of Hal and Sidra Stone)
  • On narrative (the works of Sohail Inayatullah, Ivana Milojevic and John Hagel)
  • The 5ps (Key Person of Influence) method (Daniel Priestly)
  • Start With Why (Simon Sinek)
  • Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)
  • The War of Art (Steven Pressfield)
  • The Artists Way (Julia Cameron)
  • many others

Dates, Times and Places

  • We meet once a month for a year in the Melbourne CBD area.
  • There are approximately 10 meetings, each about 2 hour long.
  • The program will begin October 2017 and run 12 month until October 2018.
  • We have one weekend retreat in the program, sometime in late January / early February, which is 2 days, in country Victoria (Elms Retreat).
  • While we were all Melbourne based in the last course, we are open to having a few remote (non-Melbourne based) participants in this one using web-based communications. However this stream would be experimental.

Who can join?

Anyone who wants to build a hybrid practice that brings in foresight / futures in some shape or form.

How much does it cost?

We have tried to keep the cost as low as possible. It is $200 for the year (not counting the retreat costs which is an additional $100), which goes toward program administration to to make everything go smooth.

How do I join?

Please fill out this Expression of Interest as soon as possible: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KCGV6ZK

**WE HAVE FILLED ALL SPOTS AND ARE NO LONGER TAKING EOI FOR 2017-2018. HOWEVER, YOU ARE WELCOME TO PUT IN AN EOI FOR 2018-2019. 

Testimonials

“I have always held a deep belief in the adage that a learning journey can be best judged by how much it challenges and shifts how we see the world. With this as my yardstick, the Mutant Futures program has been one of the most powerful learning journey’s I have experienced to date. Among the plethora of practical insights around building my foresight craft, was the surfacing of the often unconscious dimensions of self. This program is an intimate voyage of self discovery and deep reflection and is delivered in poetic and reflective grace that asks you to challenge your conventional framing of self to better understand how this this framing underpins (consciously or otherwise) what we do, and do not do (and why) in the context of better understanding and developing our foresight/futures ‘craft’.” Reanna Browne

“I was deeply grateful to be part of this program. The mutant futures program itself is an emergent journey enacted through our own personal reflective rediscovery of the ‘authentic self’. Harnessed through enriching source material and practices, by focussing the lens to understand the interior of ones self. The discovery is the catalyst that drives our craft and professional pathways into our own ambitions of the future. The journey allows us to understand the weight of the past by looking back at our experiences travelled, the push of the future in having the encouragement to acknowledge our own true potential and the pull of the future is explored through personal metaphors and narratives that guide us into the future that we want to create and participate. This developmental program assists us to unearth our true value of contribution, enabling professional emergence and development within a supportive collaborative environment.” Charmaine Sevil

“The Mutants Futures Program has been a “game changer” for me. It has been a unique, deep and powerful learning experience that has enabled greater clarity of purpose and internal alignment. Unearthing certain personal narratives and metaphors embedded deeply in the unconscious was incredibly challenging and confrontational at times. However, the genuinely safe, inclusive and collaborative learning space created by fellow participants encouraged me to embark on a deeply reflective journey that has led to me identifying and securing work that is meaningful to me.” Mahesh Kandasamy

“The Mutants program gave me an opportunity to develop the skills, theories and understandings I acquired during my time completing the Swinburne Masers in Strategic Foresight. Expertly and gently guided by Jose, we worked coherently, challenging my biases and exploring my own personal narrative, within a safe and supportive environment, to develop my pitch to more clearly communicate my unique proposition and focus my own mutant foresight practice.” Stephen Reimann 

“The Mutant futures program confirmed a number of intuitions for me. One, we are better off working together to support each others emerging practices. Two, there is a real link between inner narrative and metaphor and outer professional practice – doing pro dev without inner work misses much of what really supports us in bringing forth our future selves. Three, it is possible to experiment and bring the future into the present.” Jose Ramos