Category: Foresight

A few weeks ago I was in Canberra to teach into the Advanced Futures course run by the Futures Hub at the National Security College (NSC), which is part of a joint initiative between the Australian Commonwealth Government and The Australian National University (ANU).

This was my third trip to NSC, so – according to the Goldfinger Principle – this now constitutes “enemy action” 😉

I taught into the opening morning session and, later that afternoon, took part in recording an episode for the National Security Podcast. The two other guests were Dr Ryan Young, the Director of Research & Methods at the Futures Hub, and Odette Meli, a fellow member of the NSC’s Futures Council. We were hosted by Dayle Stanley, the Director of Strategy & Engagement for NSC. The topic was: “Mapping the future: how strategic foresight can supercharge policymaking.”

It was a wide-ranging discussion, covering a lot of territory, and was focused primarily on helping people who may not be familiar with futures analysis understand how futures can be useful in their strategic,  policy and decision-making contexts. We were asked to give concrete examples of how our work has been useful, and it was very interesting to hear the other guests’ experiences – very often we carry out our foresight engagements in isolation from other practitioners, so hearing from others about their work is always fascinating and valuable.

As ever, I hope it is both interesting and useful.

https://play.acast.com/s/the-national-security-podcast/mapping-the-future/

While at the AusCERT Conference back in May, I recorded a podcast interview with my old friend, tech aficionado and general tech fan-boy all-rounder Anthony Caruana. We’ve known each other for nearly 30 years, and our paths have criss-crossed many times over the course of our careers, so it was kind of fun to catch up once again for a chat.

As you might imagine, Anthony and I did a fair bit of reminiscing before the microphone went live, some of which is made reference to (but a lot is not!). The interview was recorded over lunch a couple of hours before my keynote preso later that afternoon, and actually went on for much longer, too, but the miracle of editing (and AI-powered software?) makes both of us sound fairly eloquent. It’s now published on the AusCERT web site as well as via the usual suspects channels. AusCERT call their podcast “Share Today, Save Tomorrow”, and this episode – number 25 – is entitled What Does the Future Hold?

As ever, I hope it is both interesting and useful.

https://auscert.org.au/podcast/podcast-ep-25-what-does-the-future-hold/