Foresight Snippets – No. 23
[Originally published in] prospect no. 8, June 2002
- “War driving” and the coming of Wi-Fi
- Look out, Prime Minister, that napkin could be dangerous!
- Forget bio-tech, what about neuro-tech?
Category: Method
FuturePod “re-interview”
My “re-interview” over at FuturePod is now up.
My old foresight co-conspirator Peter ‘Captain Foresight’ Hayward and I catch up on what’s been happening since the first FuturePod interview more than two years ago (ep.18). Of course, I am now a post-academia ex-academic since becoming one of the “COVID redundancies” imposed upon the Australian university sector last year. It should come as no surprise that the current scanning retrospective and the concept of “futures intelligence analysis” feature pretty strongly in that chat.
It was a great deal of fun to do, and hopefully will be interesting both to FuturePod listeners, as well as readers of this blog who head over there. If you are one of the latter, do have a look around on FuturePod. Apart from Peter, they’re all former students of mine (and Peter’s), so it’s wonderful to see the ‘next generation’ of ‘foresight folks’ coming up…
There’s a science-fiction tie-in there, surely: “FuturePod, The Next Generation…”
https://www.futurepod.org/podcast/ep-109
Scanning Retrospective, No. 22
Foresight Snippets – No. 22
[Originally published in] prospect no.7, March 2002
- Warp Drive? Make It So! (Maybe)
- A(nother) Force of Nature?
- Risk-Free Babies?
Scanning Retrospective, No. 21
Foresight Snippets – No. 21
[Originally published] February 2002
- The History of Utopian Thought
- The Image of the Future
- The Principality of New Utopia
- This is probably the final email issue of the Foresight Snippets
Scanning Retrospective, No. 20
Foresight Snippets – No. 20
[Originally published] January 2002
- The Limits to Growth and Beyond
- The Tragedy of the Commons
- Natural Capitalism Explained
Scanning Retrospective, No. 19
Foresight Snippets – No. 19
[Originally published] December 2001
- The Hydrogen Economy Experiment
- Digital Continuity and the Rosetta Disc Project
- Back to the Future 3: 2001 — A Space Odyssey
- NORAD Watches for Santa Claus
‘Modes’ of scanning
In the earlier posts in this series I have described various aspects of scanning practice. Here I want to describe the four main ‘modes’ of scanning that are generally recognised by theorists and practitioners, and how they differ from each other. It also then allows me to ‘frame’ the retrospective to date and to explain the particular modes of scanning that were being used two decades ago to select and report on the hits that are being re-published here. It will also help to frame the change in character of the scanning hits once the initial set of 25 Snippets are done and we move into the more ‘serious’ scanning hits that were reported in the Foresight Bulletin, prospect.
Scanning Retrospective, No. 18
Foresight Snippets – No. 18
[Originally published] November 2001
- Scenarios for the New War
- The Ultimate High Ground
- Waging Peace
Scanning Retrospective, No. 17
Foresight Snippets – No. 17
[Originally published] October 2001
Special Issue: Wild Cards
- Suddenly, the World Changes…
- Britain Says It Is Taking Asteroid Impact Threat Seriously
- Searching for ET at Home
Scanning Retrospective, No. 16
Foresight Snippets – No. 16
[Originally published] September 2001
- The 200-Year Present
- Life Extension and Immortality
- Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies
Scanning Retrospective, No. 15
Foresight Snippets – No. 15
[Originally published] August 2001
- Feeling Poorly? It Could Be Affluenza
- Tired of Fast Life? Try “Slow Food”
- The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Children — Truax vs The Lorax
- The Ghost in the Machine
Scanning Retrospective, No. 14
Foresight Snippets – No. 14
[Originally published] July 2001
- An Increasingly Thirsty Future Leading to Water Wars?
- Privatising the Water of Life
- Cloud Catchers
Scanning Retrospective, No. 13
Foresight Snippets – No. 13
[Originally published] June 2001
[The Snippets moved to a monthly schedule as from June 2001]
- Back to the Future 2: 2001 — Memories are Made of Glass
- You’ve Heard of GMOs; What About GMAs — Genetically Modified Athletes?
- Thunderbirds are GO!
‘Futures Intelligence’
In an earlier post I mentioned the term ‘futures intelligence’ in the context of the activity of gathering information about the future and undertaking what I like to call ‘futures intelligence analysis’. (Obviously, this is done with a view to utilising it for decision-making processes, such as setting strategy or developing policy, which is generally the end goal of any sort of intelligence analysis, futures or otherwise.) Here I want to expand briefly upon the multi-faceted concept of ‘futures intelligence’ itself, and two complementary ways that I think the term can be used.
Scanning Retrospective, No. 12
Foresight Snippets – No. 12
[Originally published] 15 May 2001
- The Hot New Medium: Paper
- The Antibiotics Crisis
- Homeopathy — Thanks for the Memory
Scanning Retrospective, No. 11
Foresight Snippets – No. 11
[Originally published] 30 April 02001
- Memes and Cultural Evolution
- The OECD Environmental Outlook is Released
- The Clock of the Long Now
Scanning Retrospective, No. 10
Foresight Snippets – No. 10
[Originally published] 12 April 2001
- Trends Affecting Education for the Next 10 Years
- Dolly Cloners Abhor Human Tests
- An Oath for Scientists?
Scanning Retrospective, No. 9
Foresight Snippets – No. 9
[Originally published] 30 March 2001
- Einstein.tv
- Waves Run This Power Plant
- The Singularity
Scanning Retrospective, No. 8
Foresight Snippets – No. 8
[Originally published] 15 March 2001
- Research in the Business World
- Cashing In on the Future
- Privatising the University — the New Tragedy of the Commons
Scanning Retrospective, No. 7
Foresight Snippets – No. 7
[Originally published] 28 February 2001
- Would You Like a Mobile Phone With That?
- Cloning: Could Humans Be Next?
- A Framework for Making Sustainability a Practical Reality
The Voroscope 