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Monday, January 4, 2010

Workshops, etc.

My initial Personal Futures workshop was not a roaring success, at first.

The local Chamber of Commerce helped set up and promote the workshop, but only six people showed up. Half were Chamber staff. It was actually a good workshop. Everyone got involved, asked questions and participated. They learned about their futures, and I learned quite a bit about conducting workshops.

The real payoff came about two weeks later. One of the participants from the workshop came up to me after a local meeting and made the whole workshop experience worthwhile when she said, “Your workshop has changed my life!”

My next workshop was for a World Future Society meeting in Toronto. This time there were a dozen participants, all paid! Not financially exciting for WFS, but exciting for me. Again, everyone who attended became involved in the discussions, and along the way I gained some experience in dealing with people who wanted to take the session in different directions, but I was able to keep the group on track. I still get emails from people in that group.

One lady came from Turkey to attend that workshop, then flew home the next day. Didn’t stay for the WFS conference. Within months, she started a business to teach Personal Futures to high school and college age students. She translated and adapted my workbook to Turkish culture and wrote a book of her own. Another year later, she organized Turkey’s first international conference “Futuristler Zervesi.” I was invited as one of the main speakers.

I could see that my workshops were in fact changing lives. Quite a responsibility. Very rewarding.

At that conference in Istanbul, I spoke about Personal Futures, explaining futures concepts and methods. All of this was translated to most of the audience, although I learned later that there were a large number of English speakers in attendance. The PowerPoint slides were displayed on two large screens, one in English and one in Turkish. I spoke a little bit more slowly and paused for the interpreter at each slide, There was very little lag and the audience was quite responsive.

I learned early with my workshops and lectures that right after a presentation, everyone is enthusiastic and congratulatory, which is gratifying for the speaker, but brief. What surprised me in Istanbul was the number of people, largely English speaking students, who sought me out in the hallways during the breaks and at the end of the conference. They had clearly understood my message, and asked questions. Good questions.

Since then, I have been working on a book, It’s YOUR Future…Make It a Good One! which will be published during 2010. Although the book is for all age groups, I had young people in mind as I wrote. Partly because this is an age group that is making big decisions about their lives, and partly because of the enthusiasm of the university students I met in Istanbul.

Once the publishing details for my book are sorted out, I plan to return to speaking and conducting workshops. I expect to make a specific effort to contact Community Colleges and Universities and offer to speak to students and faculties about the future and, of course, about their personal futures.

If you know someone who is looking for a speaker to talk about the future, anywhere, I hope you will keep me in mind. I can be reached at verne@personalfutures.net.

Personal Futures: Gateway to a long term perspective.

If you work in nearly any medium or larger size organization, you have probably been exposed to Strategic Planning, and maybe even Scenario Development. Unfortunately, as you may well be aware, exposure is not the equivalent of in-depth understanding.

Personal Futures offers an opportunity to learn and use a number of methods, tools and techniques practiced effectively by futurists and long term strategic planners. The critical element is scale. Personal Futures teaches futures methods on the scale of an individual life, a scale that anyone can learn, understand and use effectively. You can try this at home!

Once learned, the knowledge of these methods and how they work is scalable to any size operation. This is not to suggest that individuals who read a book or attend a workshop are qualified to lead a corporate strategic planning team, but they should be much better prepared to converse, understand and participate in the process at any level. That understanding is valuable, anywhere in an organization, to the development and implementation of a strategic plan.

Beyond scenarios, strategies and plans, Personal Futures teaches individuals the concepts of long term thinking or long term perspective. Kouzes and Posner state that their research found that long term perspective was second only to honesty in traits critical to leadership.

That raises the question, "How does one learn long term perspective?" As a researcher and writer about Personal Futures, I may have a bias, but how else? Personal Futures.

Some people seem to be born with that skill, the ability to think and understand how things may work out in the years ahead. Most of us aren't.

About a year and a half ago, Jeff Gold (of Leeds Metropolitan University) and I presented a paper on Personal Futures and how those concepts relate to individual career paths to members of AHRD. We were surprised when several participants came to us and suggested that Personal Futures was a tool they could use in Executive Learning. Leadership. Long term perspective.

If a long term perspective might be valuable to you, take a look at the Personal Futures Workbook at http://www.personalfutures.net/. It's on the "Downloads" page and is FREE. No strings attached.

Posted by Verne at 11:00 AM

Friday, June 12, 2009

A word for a pet project

The Futures Student Recognition project, conducted by the Association of Professional Futurists, is starting its second year. This project has consumed a lot of my time so I've missed a few blogs here but I'll be catching up.

The Student Recognition project for students of Foresight and Futures Studies is an attempt by the Association of Professional Futurists to recognize some of the very fine work that is being done by graduate students in futures studies around the world.

We started late in 2008, but still got a number of good papers. Some of the schools we invited didn't contribute papers in 2008, but promised to have entries for the 2009 project. We only invited 11 of the best known universities with graduate degrees in Studies of the Future last year, partly because the program was so new and we were going to have to work out all the kinks. Actually, everything went smoothly. The judges were excellent, reading through all the papers, adding insightful comments, yet coming up with very similar decisions on each of the papers.

So the awards have been announced and awarded and certificates have gone out to all the 2008 winners. Now we are sending out invitations for 2009. We'll double the number of schools, trying not to grow too fast, but still trying to be inclusive and give all the schools with substantial graduate programs in Foresight and Future Studies an opportunity to participate. Here's a list of schools that have been invited for 2009:
ARGENTINA
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
AUSTRALIA
Swinburne University of Technology
AUSTRALIA
Curtin University of Technology
AUSTRALIA
University of the Sunshine Coast
COLOMBIA
University Externado de Colombia
FINLAND
Turku School of Economics and Finland Future Academy
FRANCE
Conservetoire National des Arts et Metiers
HUNGARY
Corvinus University of Budapest
ITALY
Pontifical Gregorian University
MEXICO
Monterrey Institute of Technology
PAKISTAN
Pakistan Futuristics Foundation and Institute
PORTUGAL
Technical University of Lisbon
ROMANIA
Babes Bolyai University
RUSSIA
Moscow State University
SOUTH AFRICA
University of Stellenbosch
TAIWAN
Fo Guang University
TAIWAN
Tamkang University
UNITED KINGDOM
University of Manchester
UNITED STATES
Regent University
UNITED STATES
University of Hawaii
UNITED STATES
University of Houston

Putting together an international list of universities with futures programs is a little more challenging than one might think at first. We've been guided by two excellent lists, one by José Ramos, the other by John Smart. Both put a lot of research into their lists.

We are already working on a list of schools to add in 2010.

I keep saying "we." Jim Mathews, a futurist in Salt Lake City, and I are co-chairman for the Student Recognition project this year. The APF Board of Directors has been very closely involved with us in this project from the start, offering support and suggestions and generous awards. They have also been very generous with their praise for the success of the 2008 project, as have many of the participating universities.

We are already receiving entries for 2009!

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Posted by Verne at 8:17 AM

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Future Savvy

I don't usually discuss or review books in this space, so this is an exception. I've just read Future Savvy by Adam Gordon (a fellow member of the Association of Professional Futurists), and I think it's worth sharing.

The premise of the book is that each of us is subjected to a lot of advice about the future, whether in the media, in our careers, newsletter, blogs, etc. Gordon's point is that you need to understand how to separate the good information from the bad. How to recognize bias and spin.

Gordon lumps nearly all information about trends, forecasts, predictions, market research, and other forward looking information under the term "forecast." I found that a little jarring at first, but got used to it. He needed a collective term, and that works. He then divides forecasts into two types, "future-aligning" forecasts which help people or organizations prepare for or deal with the future and "future-influencing" forecasts that seek to influence opinions or events in order to change the future in their preferred direction.

Gordon then lays out what I felt was a good mini-course in statistics and surveys, but without numbers or formulas. Just basic ‘how this works' stuff. Easy to read and understand, while offering the tools for critical analysis of forecasts. He follows that with a chapter on how to recognize bias, both natural and intentional, then asks you to consider your own biases and assumptions.

From that background in critical analysis of forecasts, Gordon moves on to explaining some of the methods used in creating forecasts, including how to use the methods and describing their strengths and weaknesses. This includes a chapter on systems perspective and a chapter on scenarios that is subtitled "How it's better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong."

The final chapters of the book offer several specific examples of forecasts (including their web addresses) followed by Gordon's analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each forecast. He then closes with a list of questions the reader should ask (and why) about any forecast.

This book will change the way most readers look at forecasts, projections and surveys, to their benefit.

Although this book is aimed at business readers, I believe Gordon offers advice that anyone can use. We all make decisions about the future every day and we read or hear information about the future constantly. Future Savvy offers some good advice on how to filter that information and how to make better decisions about the future.

Posted by Verne at 3:53 PM

Monday, September 22, 2008

Personal Wild Cards

What is a wild card? Futurists describe a wild card event as a low probability, high impact event. Very unlikely to happen, but if it does you won't forget it soon. Winning the lottery, becoming a parent of quadruplets, being caught up in a war or a natural disaster, or an unexpected inheritance all qualify as personal wild card events.

And why should you be interested in wild cards if they are not likely to happen? Well, actually, I should have said "low probability."

And why do I bring up wild cards?

This is hurricane season in Texas. For years, I've had hurricanes on our wild card list, and we have a contingency plan. This year, we got a direct hit from Hurricane Dolly. Our children and grandchildren in Houston were hit by Hurricane Ike.

The point here is that wild cards do happen.

So when you are thinking about your future, you should try to consider/anticipate your potential wildcards. Here are a few thoughts that have been helpful to me.
1- Which wild cards are plausible or even possible? You only have to put multiple births on your list if there is going to be a pregnancy. If you don't live near a coastline, you shouldn't have to consider hurricanes, although you may have other natural forces to think about. If you don't buy lottery tickets, you know you won't win the lottery. So you can eliminate a lot of possibilities because they are not only unlikely but nearly impossible.

2- Look in each of your personal domains, the areas of your life where there are forces that bring about events. (Activities, Finances, Health, Housing, Social, Transportation). Ask yourself, "What are the potential wildcards for this domain?" As I mentioned, hurricanes are one of my wild cards, so I'll keep that example as we go on here.

3- Once you've identified some wild cards, think about some "If...then..." strategies. (If this event happens, then my strategy will be...") Back to hurricanes. Personally, we have contingency plans for hurricanes. First, we carry insurance on our home and belongings. A high deductible keeps premiums low. Second, when we see that a hurricane may hit our area, we protect our home by covering the windows with plywood and bringing outdoor potted plants, hanging stuff, and furniture inside so it can't crash into something. Third, we pack the car and leave town to spend a few days with family not likely to be impacted by the storm. Fourth, we also have some backup in case we can't get out of town. Emergency supplies and equipment, so we have food, light, radio, etc. When Dolly arrived, she was a late bloomer. The forecast was for a tropical storm and we got a category II (just barely) hurricane. So we went to our backup plan.

So there are some of the practical steps for dealing with wild cards:
a- Identify possible wild card events in your future.
b- Make contingency plans-If...then...
c- Execute the plan if the wild card event occurs.

Now let's go back to "high impact events." Psychologists have conducted research to determine which events in our lives have the greatest impacts on our lives. One study, published in 1967 by Holmes and Rahe established The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. If you Google "Social Readjustment Rating Scale," you'll find several entries that include the list with the rankings for each event. Miller and Rahe followed that study in 1997 with an updated version.

The life event ranked highest for impact is "death of a spouse." If you are young, or even middle aged, this is probably a wild card. If you are in your 80s or your spouse is in bad health (or a very reckless driver), then the event may be more plausible with a greater need for a contingency plan.

Other high impact events on the Holmes-Rahe scale include divorce or separation, jail or incarceration, death of a family member, and major illness or injury. Marriage is at the exact center of the scale.

Now, back to hurricanes. Low probability, high impact events.

A lot of people in Texas had contingency plans for a hurricane. They secured their homes, had emergency supplies and equipment (lots of people in Texas own gas powered generators), and evacuated to higher ground.

A whole lot of people had no plan. Some couldn't evacuate because they didn't have transportation, didn't have anywhere to go (or any money for gas, food, hotel, etc.) or were trapped by early flooding. Some wouldn't evacuate from high risk areas. Fear of looters, couldn't afford to travel or had a macho "bring it on!" attitude, or maybe a death wish. Many of those people just did not understand the risks. Maybe they didn't understand "storm surge" which temporarily raises the level of the ocean and any adjacent bays or waterways.

The lesson here is that when you think about high impact events, it can be helpful to do scenarios, even mini-scenarios: What's the worst case? What's the best? A futures wheel can be helpful as well to help you explore the impacts of events. I've developed a Personal Futures Wheel that reminds you to explore impacts of events on all six of your personal domains. You can download an example (free) at http://www.personalfutures.net/.

Posted by Verne at 11:23 AM

Monday, April 21, 2008

Who are your stakeholders?

Maybe we should start with "WHAT is a stakeholder?"

Here's my definition:

A stakeholder is anyone who has an involvement or interest in your life such that your futures may impact each other.

"..such that your futures may impact each other." That means that events in your life may impact the stakeholder, and events in the stakeholder's life may impact your future.

Now we can get back to the WHO. Obvious stakeholders in your life are your spouse, your children, your parents and your spouse's parents. If you have grandchildren, they are certainly stakeholders. Siblings as well, but probably to a lesser extent because adult siblings tend to have their own families as direct stakeholders.

These are the people who will be most likely to share and benefit from your successes or failures, whether emotionally, financially, socially or physically.

How can stakeholders affect or impact your life?

If your father has Alzheimer's or a serious stroke and your mother is trying to take care of him over a long period of time, your life will probably be affected.
If your daughter is married, has a baby or has a divorce, your future will probably be affected.
If YOU have Alzheimer's or suffer a major stroke, your stakeholders will all be impacted.
If your child achieves greatness, goes to jail, moves to the other side of the world or just does things that make you proud or make you shake your head, you've been affected.

So that is just a little bit of why you should understand stakeholders.

Who has a stake in your life? And where do you have stakes? Besides your immediate family, do you have very close friends that might be stakeholders? Do you have a stake in your boss's future? Who else has an interest in your success or failure? Your minister? Lawyer? Mortgage holder? Investment broker?

Who would benefit from your success or failure? Who would suffer loss? Or gain?

Now that you've explored your stakeholders, let's bring in the time element and add ten years to your life. Does that change anything? How do any of these relationships change? You and everyone in your family will be ten years older, most of you in another stage of life. There may be new members in your family; children, in-laws, grandchildren. Your boss may be with a different company now. Does that change anything for you? Will retirement change some of your relationships? Probably.

Lots of questions --and only you have the answers. Or can guess at the answers for the future.
And that is why futurists explore stakeholders. Because stakeholders and relationships are an important part of the present, and may be an important indicator of the future.

In July, the World Future Society will be holding their annual conference, this year in Washington DC, july 26-28. Jim Mathews and I will be present a program entitled "Your Family: Stakeholders In Your Future." As part of the presentation we will discuss the Family Worksheet, an interactive Excel worksheet that plots the relationships between family members ages and life stages. You can download a copy of the worksheet at http://www.personalfutures.net/. Go to the "Downloads" page and click on the "Family Worksheet."

Better yet, come to the World Futures Society Conference and meet us there!

Posted by Verne at 3:54 PM

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Personal Futures-What?

Personal Futures is simply a system for applying futures (or futurist's) methods to individual lives. These methods have been used (quite successfully) by corporations and governments around the world for decades. It's just a matter of scale. And simplicity.

But scaling down was a challenge. Not so much for the futures methods, they scale easily. The problem was the research. The basic information about each individual's life. Where does an individual start? What are the driving forces? What are plausible and probable events in one person's future?

In building a systematic approach to personal futures, I suggest three steps:
1-Understanding your life (research).
2-Exploring alternate futures (personal scenario s).
3- Creating a vision, strategies and plans for the future (personal strategic planning).

Which brings us back to that first step, personal research. What can you expect in your future? What are the patterns? What are the universals?

One "universal" is biology, the human life cycle, which breaks down into stages. Life stages were identified centuries ago and can be found in the writings of the ancient Greeks. Psychologists today still recognize life stages. For an individual, each life stage can represent a planning period, and each change of stages represents change in the individual's life. If one understands or has mental images of the future stages of life, they provide a frame upon which planning can begin.

Another universal lies in six personal domains. Each domain represents a category of forces that exist in every person's life from birth to death. Recognizing these domains and the forces within them is an important part of understanding your future, because these are the forces that bring about change in your life. The six personal domains include:
Activities- the things we do, including education, career, sports, religion, hobbies, etc.
Finances- everything to do with money, assets, liabilities, and risk.
Health- your health, both physical and mental and any care or medications you receive.
Housing- your home, community, country, climate. All about where you live.
Social- family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. All the people in your life.
Transportation- relates to all modes and aspects of transportation including walking
and distance.

Generally, during any life stage, forces from at least two domains will be dominant during that stage. So, understanding the domains and the forces can help you understand how changes in the forces can produce changes in your life. By projecting how each of the domains, and particularly the dominant domains might behave in the future, it is possible to anticipate changes in your future. For example, if you think of your career as a force of change, how will your career change over the next ten years? How will those changes impact your life?

When something specific happens in your life, we call it an event. Each event in life is part of one of your six domains. Also, each event will occur during one of your life stages. During your lifetime many events occur, and they have two common characteristics that make them of interest to your future:
Probability
Impact

Although some events are highly probable in your life, many have very little impact on your life. Birthdays for example. Very predictable, but not much impact. As you think about the future, your greatest consideration should be for those events that have both high probability and high impact. These are the events for which you will want to create strategies and plans for your future. These are events that you will have in your personal scenarios and your strategic plan.
Another factor to consider in your personal life is your values. What's important in your life? Family? Ethics? Career? Money? Power? Which is most important of all? What's next?
Why values? Because your values are your rudder, steering you through your life. If you really understand what your values really are, you'll be more likely to choose the right value when you're under pressure. Little things and big things.

These four areas, life stages, personal domains, life events and personal values contain enough information about your life to help you start looking at your future. Preparing for it. Planning for it. Going beyond wishing and starting to work toward the future you want.

There are some worksheets on my web site that will help you with all this: http://www.personalfutures.net/. Or, you can download a free copy of the Personal Futures Workbook there that includes all the worksheets and will take you through the entire personal futuring process.

Posted by Verne at 8:41 AM

Monday, February 18, 2008

Using a workbook

When I was doing the research for my dissertation, the intended outcome was simply a system that would allow individuals to apply futures methods to their personal lives. A byproduct of that process was a 20 page workbook that consisted mostly of worksheets.

After I completed the dissertation and the defense, I expanded the workbook, adding some explanation to go along with the worksheets. With that workbook, I conducted some workshops.
In each workshop, I learned something from my students and soon the workbook included more explanation and lots of examples. Eventually it was over 90 pages. Then I added a CD of narrated PowerPoint slides---a workshop in a package.

But printing, distribution costs and shipping all made it a pretty expensive package in my mind, so when I was asked to speak to a group of Engineers in Austin, Texas early in February, I asked if they'd like to try a new approach. I'd send them the Personal Futures Workbook in digital format and they could come to the short (90 minute) workshop with their notebook computers or a printed copy. They liked the idea, so we agreed.

The execution was a bit more complicated than the idea! I had known that there was software available to create and fill out forms, so I was confident I could create the workbook in one of those. Well, yes and no. All the software programs had one or more shortcomings. Many would allow me to create a form that people could fill out. But for some reason, they could not save the completed form on their computer. Except in the new version of Adobe Acrobat

Frankly I had avoided Acrobat for two reasons. It was expensive and I had purchased Adobe software before. I had used that software to write a book, which was such a painful experience that I've never used it since. But I put that behind me and purchased the Acrobat software, figuring I'd get through the experience somehow. Then, surprise! Adobe gave me acess to about 12 hours of tutorial videos. Wow! That made the difference.

I slimmed the workbook down to just over 50 pages, created forms fields with my new Acrobat software, had several futurist friends try it out and tweaked it some more. Then I sent it to the engineers in Austin.

Two weeks later I went to Austin for the meeting. I was told that their organization had never had so many people show up at a meeting. I spoke to them about Personal Futures and how to use the workbook. I answered questions from time to time as we went along, and at the end had a lot of questions. GOOD questions. A good experience.

So now the Personal Futures Workbook is available on my web site, free. It includes a Creative Commons license that permits copying and sharing. Teachers can freely give copies to their students. You can send them to friends, grandkids or anyone else.
You can download it free at http://www.personalfutures.net/.

One more feature. All copies carry permission to make comments via Adobe Reader about any portion of the workbook. Anyone can make suggestions, comments, criticisms about anything in the workbook and send their comments to me by email. Hopefully, this workbook will just get better.

Posted by Verne at 2:31 PM

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Beta test the future

For the past few weeks, I've been going through the Personal Futures Workbook, trying to review and re-think everything in it. I'm slimming it down, trying to make everything clear and simple, yet retaining the stuff that works. Ultimately, this will be the electronic version. Save it in your computer, make a copy and start typing, filling in and planning your future.

What got me moving in this direction was an invitation to speak to a group of technology managers in Austin in February. They had seen an article on personal futuring that I had written for The Futurist a year and a half ago. I decided to turn the talk into a mini-workshop. The electronic version of the workbook will be posted on the group's web site and they will be asked to either print out a copy or load it into a notebook and bring it to the meeting. Then we'll go through the steps of how to fill out and use the workbook.

In the past, when I've spoken to groups, I've handed out a miniature version of the workbook. It was enough to give an idea of what the workbook was about, but not anything you could really use to plan your future. Of course, you could go to my web site and order the workbook, but... even doing everything myself, printing costs and postage costs made the workbooks expensive. Especially overseas. Although I was selling workbooks, I decided that was not what I was really after. And I had to stop and think about that. What am I after here? What do I want to accomplish with my concepts about applying futurist methods to personal lives?

The answer is distribution. As widely as possible. I really believe that long-term thinking and planning can change people's lives. I have been told by people who attended my workshops that their lives had been changed, but I'm not likely to talk to enough people, conduct enough workshops or sell enough workbooks to make much of a difference.
So, the decision to go to an electronic version that can be shared, emailed, copied, translated.

Free.

But first, I need some help. Beta testers. You?

I'd like help to test the electronic workbook in every sense. Does it really work? Can individuals successfully plan for the future? Does it work mechanically...easy to copy, easy to use, fill in the blanks and save. Does it work with your computer operating system and software?

Would you like to be a Beta tester for the future? If so, send me an email with "Beta" on the subject line. I will not share your email address with anyone, but I will send you a "Beta" copy of the Personal Futures Workbook. And I'll ask for your opinions.

I'll hope to hear from you.

Posted by Verne at 1:54 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Basics: What futurists believe

Obviously, I can't speak for all futurists, but the futurists I know share some common beliefs about the future. Understanding these beliefs may be helpful as you think about your own future. One scholar/futurist, Dr. Wendell Bell, has summarized these core beliefs in a list of twelve assumptions that futurists make when they consider the future. Bell's two-volume, Foundations of Future Studies (1997) is a classic among futurists.

I'm not going to go into all twelve of Bell's assumptions, but I will discuss three beliefs that I think are at the core of futurist belief and most important to individuals.

The first is that the future is not predetermined.
Bell and other futurists add the qualifier "totally" as in "not totally predetermined." OK. But the important point here is that if the future is not totally pre-determined, there is more than one possible future. There are alternative futures. There may be good futures, bad futures, unimagined futures... but there is more than one future. This concept of alternative futures leads us to scenarios. The scenario methods (there are at least a dozen variations) are all based on the concept of alternate futures.

Which brings up the next belief, some futures are better than others.
Some futures may be really good and others may be really bad. Do we have choices? If you could choose your future, you would probably choose the future that is best for you. Futurists call this the "preferred" future. By itself, this belief seems small, obvious, not really too important. But, when combined with the third belief, preferred futures take on considerable importance.

The third core belief is that actions we take in the present can influence the future. Notice that statement says "can" not "will." No promises! This is why strategic plans contain an action plan. Exploring the future does not change anything. Exploring the future, with scenarios for example, only tells you what may be or could be. Developing strategies and making plans does not change the future. Not until actions are taken can change begin.

Contingency plans do not change the future. They provide strategies for dealing with the future when it arrives. And this is one of the key faults or weaknesses of strategic planning. The future does not begin to take direction or change until action is taken.

That simple.

To achieve a preferred future, or your vision of the future, you must take action. You can make great plans and develop excellent strategies, but until you act on either your plans or your strategies, they are simply wishes for the future.

In my first personal strategic plan, about ten years ago, I determined that I wanted to write. Be published. I had known all my life that I liked to write and wanted to write, but I hadn't. I put writing in my plan and started taking action. I'm writing now. I've been published, even paid for writing. That will continue to be a part of my future. But it wasn't until I made the decision to act, and write.

Futures methods work.
You can make decisions about your future, now.
You can act on those decisions.
That is how you make your future.

Posted by Verne at 2:48 PM 0 comments

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Future is about change

The reason we are interested in the future is because we know that things will be different. We want to know what will change.

In our lives, there are several things that bring about change. The dominant force of change is simply getting older. Every day. As we get older, we change. Think about the differences from childhood to adolescence. Profound change. Lots of physical growth; upward, filling out. Hormonal and emotional change. And changes related to becoming independent.
The changes brought about by maturing and aging may seem most obvious during adolescence, but there are other times of life, such as menopause and very late in life, that the physical changes are also important. There is a pattern of life stages and normal change that has been understood since the time of Hippocrates, and understanding these stages and patterns can provide considerable insight into changes that you can anticipate in your future.
But there are other forces in our lives that are also changing throughout life. One of the most obvious forces of change is simply the things we do. As children it's our games, our learning. Then we start school and begin formal learning. The games change to sports and organized activities. And the learning becomes more detailed and complex, then suddenly formal learning is over and careers start.

There are also social and cultural patterns in our lives. These can vary from one country to another, between religions and between political systems. Migration from one social system to another can result in enormous changes in any person's life. There are also differences between families. One family may have a culture of love, communication, gentleness, understanding, while another family may have a culture of confrontation, argument, distrust or other characteristics. These differences become apparent when two people with different family cultures marry, because some change is inevitable.

Many changes in our lives involve our own decisions. These are changes that we make ourselves rather than those changes that are pushed on us by outside forces. Some of these decisions change the direction of our lives. Choosing a career, deciding to marry, deciding to have children or deciding to divorce are all decisions that change the direction of our lives. These are sometimes referred to as "turning point" events.

What makes a change event important in your life? Two characteristics that you should consider are impact and probability. How likely is an event to happen? If an event happens in your life, what will be the impact upon your life?

Futurists use probability and impact as key criteria when planning for future events. Events that are both highly probable and carry a high impact are the events that should be planned for. Strategic planning in large organizations is generally based on high impact, high probability events. These concepts carry over well into our personal lives, so we should plan first for those events that have high probability of occurring and will carry a high impact when they do occur.

Like what?

Let's start with retirement. That's an event that Boomers are starting to think about. There's lots of advice in the media about how to save for retirement, so most people are aware of financial planning for retirement. But when you actually stop working, what will you do? Travel? Play golf? Watch TV?

You'll probably be retired for at least twenty years, so you what activities will keep you interested over two or more decades? What will be your role in your family and your community? Where you will live? Downsize and stay in the same area? Move to the tropics?

And what about your health? What will you do to maintain or improve your health?

Those are just a few thoughts for one high probability, high impact event in life. But I think that's enough to get you thinking about events that are likely to occur in your life in the near future.

Posted by Verne at 10:49 AM 0 comments

Monday, December 3, 2007

What is a "Vision" and why is it important?

Futurists frequently talk about or refer to "Visions of the future." But sometimes we (futurists) assume that everyone understands what we mean ...but they don't. The question I hear most frequently from audiences is "How do I create a vision?" And they want a step by step answer. So here's how.

First, what is a vision of the future? This is important, because a vision of your personal future is the first step in actually planning for your future. A vision of the future is the image in your mind of what the future can or should be like at a given time in the future, say 10 years.
Why is that important? Because that is where you want to go. Your destination. If you don't have a destination in mind, how will you get there? If you don't know what you want in life, you'll have to settle for what you get.

The big question is "How do I create or even decide on a vision of my future?" I suggest you build your vision in small parts. Six parts actually. And you can break down into smaller parts if you want, but start with these six domains or areas of change in your life:

1. Activities. All the things you do. School, career, religion, sports, hobbies, travel, etc.
2. Finances. Everything related money in your life. Income, assets, investments, liabilities, debt, risks, insurance, etc.
3. Health. Everything related to your physical and mental health and care. Your present health status, personal hygiene, medications, diet, exercise, medical and dental care, etc.
4. Housing. Everything related to your home and where you live. House, apartment, hut, community, region, climate, etc.
5. Social. Everything to do with people. Your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, community, advisors, organizations, etc.
6. Transportation. All your modes of transportation, starting with walking. Personal and public transport, local and long distance.

Now look at one of these domains in your life and ask yourself two questions:

1-What is my status in this domain now? Or... What is the quality of my life in this domain?

2-Where do I want my life in this domain to be in ten years?

Consider each of these six domains and make decisions about what you want your life to be like in ten years. Do your choices in each domain work together with choices in other domains or is there conflict? Once you resolve any conflicts, you will have a good of what you want in your future. All that remains is to bring your six decisions about the future together to build one complete image, or vision, of the future you want ten years in the future.
Not terribly complex, is it? You'll find a little more detail on my web site, http://www.personalfutures.net/.

But there is one more important point about visions. This is your vision, so you can change it at any time. You are not locked in. It's like taking a trip. You can pick a destination, but you can change your mind, even after you've started on your journey. In both cases, whatever seemed important at one time can change, so you can change your destination, or your vision. As well as your future.

Posted by Verne at 2:41 PM 0 comments

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Long term thinking

I strongly believe in futures methods, the methods futurists use. More, I believe these methods can help individuals acquire the ability to think long term. I also believe that long term thinkers take responsibility-in their lives and in their careers. They also make good leaders.
Last Spring, Jeff Gold (Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University School of Business and Law) and I presented a paper on Personal Futures at the AHRD (Academy of Human Resources Development) convention in Indianapolis. Our approach dealt with using Personal Futures concepts in helping employees develop career paths. We were surprised. Very.
After our presentation, we were each approached at different times by individuals who liked our concepts, but thought we should direct our approach toward executive education and development. Teaching long term thinking and long-term perspectives to people who would become leaders in different areas of their organizations. This caught both of us by surprise.
But it makes sense. The ability to think many years ahead is an important leadership skill. Much like chess. Leaders and chess players need to know where they are going and what moves they must make to get them there.
Of course the same applies in our personal lives. And our children's lives. Looking ahead. Planning the moves that we must make to take us to our vision of the future.
And there is a word that futurists use a lot...Vision. Organizations spend a lot of time thinking about their vision of the future. Executives attend multi-day seminars or workshops on how to develop-create-design a vision of their organization's future. As individuals, we can also benefit from a little time thinking about our future. Developing a vision.
And it's not hard. The next addition to this blog (approximately next week) will be about creating a vision of your future. A vision of where you want your life to be ten years from now. In detail..

Posted by Verne at 8:27 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Trends: The "Gotcha" Trend

It used to be con-men (and women) who used confidence games to trick unwary or unsophisticated individuals out of their money. They would gain the individual's confidence, then take their money. Many of these tricks focused on the individual's greed and the apparent opportunity to make money, like the "pigeon drop' or the Nigerian letter. Then there was an increase in ways to take money from people who simply trusted too much, often the very old or very young.
The age of computers accelerated the trend, and gave lots more people the opportunity to work cons or scams on larger audiences. It seemed as though as more people became scammers, the concept of cheating people, particularly the less sophisticated, became more acceptable. Now big corporations appear to take it for granted that it is their right to take advantage of the public. I began to suspect there was a required course in the MBA programs that taught graduates how to take advantage of people.
The age of "the customer is always right" has pretty much passed. We now seem to be in the age that tests the customer's tolerance for outrageous acts. Increase the fees. Increase the penalties. Increase the pressure. Demand payments further in advance for subscriptions and memberships. Stall payments. Stall cancellations. Work on other people's time and money.
None of this is new. But it is a trend that seems to be accelerating, pushing the ethical and moral boundaries. And it is becoming part of our lives. And your children's lives. And your parent's lives.
ISPs are a good example. I remember trying to cancel a subscription to AOL. I thought I would have to cancel my credit card! MSN was a little easier, but I still had to talk to a live persona after a long wait. About the only time you can talk to a live person anymore! The major banks have pushed the boundaries with credit cards, pushing them at populations who appear less sophisticated. Easy marks. Teens and early twenties, before they get wise to the ways of the world. People with low credit scores (just like sub-prime mortgages) who want credit and will pay exorbitant fees.
Why do I bring this up in a blog about personal futures? Because this is a trend that will envelope you in the future. And it will continue until it gets so bad that state and federal legislatures will have to take action. When the value of votes exceeds the value of lobbyist funding.
This is the point. If you are aware of a trend, you can develop strategies and take actions to take advantage of the trend or, in this case, prevent the trend from taking advantage of you.
The example that brought this to mind and into this blog was an email I received this week from Norton/Symantec. I've used their anti-virus software for a few years and last year, I renewed on line. My mistake. Like many firms, they ask if you want automatic renewal. I usually click or unclick to indicate "No." I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume I mistakenly accepted their offer. Last week I received an email late in the day (9:32 PM November 14) advising that it was time to renew and I would be automatically renewed if I did not cancel. By the previous day (Nov 13)! This was, of course, sent by non-reply email.
You may have to read that paragraph again, but it's true. All done automatically by their software. If accused of manipulating against their customers, Norton would, of course, tell us that there was a simple software error that is being corrected. In the meantime, how many customers give up in frustration and accept another year of service that they didn't want? And I believe that is the key. The financial guys have found that by cheating a little with their customers, they can make more than enough money to pay for any consequences. They can comfortably write off customers who fight their way through the system. So this trend will continue.
But...trends are like pendulums. They can only go so far in one direction, then they reverse direction. The very success of an accelerating trend leads to its eventual reversal. In this case, that could be customer outrage, but more likely an economic decline or recession. In either case, when customers stop buying a service or product, businesses tend to change their ways and do whatever is necessary to woo their customers back. They may reduce prices or fees, or even start treating the customers like...well, customers!

Posted by Verne at 10:36 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 4, 2007

When do you start? When do you stop?

From time to time, people tell me "I'm too old to worry about the future." The other side is when I'm asked "When are my children (or grandchildren) old enough to think about their future?"

My short answer: people should be thinking about their future at any age that they can do something about their future.

When teen agers start making decisions about their lives; what classes to take in high school, how much education they will pursue, what careers or jobs look interesting or whom whey may marry. They are starting to think and act on their future. At that age, many decisions or thoughts are simply reactions (have to fill in the blanks on a form) or responses to peer actions or pressures ("My friends are going to college" or "My friends belong to gangs).

In my opinion this is the time when young people should be given the opportunity and the tools to explore their possible futures, and to understand the long term consequences of their actions. Frankly, I believe that many young people simply drift into their futures with very little of their own thought. Many decisions before age twenty are made on emotion or peer pressure more than serious thought.
I also believe that teenagers who understand the future effects of their decisions or actions would be less likely to drop out of school or become involved in crime.

I won't go any further down this path of "I believe..." because I recognize I have my own biases. But my own experiences tell me that people who have thought about the future and made a plan for the future have a better chance of achieving a future they want.

But let's move on to the other end of the age scale. When are you too old to think about or plan for the future? I have talked to a lot of groups of older people (over 60). I've also done considerable research in this age group, and I'm surprised how many people say they are already too old to think about or plan for their future (A frequent response is " I don't even buy green bananas any more!")

To a futurist, those responses are a little distressing. On the other hand, when I probe deeper I find there is more planning and thinking about the future than some of these people recognize as future thinking. Yes, they have long term care insurance. Yes, they have signed a "Do Not Resuscitate order. No! They don't want to go to a nursing home. No, they don't want their lives to end in an emergency room. Yes, they're seeing to the education of their grand or great grandchildren. And, "We've booked a trip to India for next year. Making plans for a cruise after that."

So age is not a factor in thinking about or planning for the future. If a person reaches a point where mental of physical problems take away the ability to take actions related to the future, then future thinking becomes limited. But that also seems to indicate the end of personal independence. Maybe that is the real key to personal futures.

In any case, when I speak to groups of older people, I'll continue to encourage them to keep planning at least ten years ahead in their lives. With young people, I'll encourage them to start thinking ten years ahead.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Beta test the future

Posted by Verne at 1:54 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Basics: What futurists believe