‘Unprecedented’ is a term that is changing how we understand complexity and foresight. One thing that often makes complex situations live up to their name is that there is so much going on at once in different directions, velocities, and timing; it’s hard to connect causes with consequences. We hear the term ‘unprecedented‘ being used …
The business of futures is to see what possibilities lay ahead to better anticipate how to meet them when or if they become reality. When this story line follows a linear path this is a lot easier; when it follows a more complex path reality can bite. Foresight models look at trends and curves in …
It is poetic irony on many levels that weeks after Leonard Cohen releases his album about the threat of death that he passes on, mere days after we saw the least poetic, most crass election campaign end in the United States with an equally dramatic outcome. This points to art, but also to the science of …
Evaluation is supposed to be driven by a program’s needs and activities, but that isn’t always the case. What happens when the need for numbers, metrics, ‘outcomes’ and data shape the very activities programs do and how that changes everything is something that is worth paying some attention to. Since the Second World War we’ve …
