How do you do foresight?

  • Framing the problem
  • Scanning for information
  • Forecasting – what are some future possibilities, what will those futures look like
  • Visioning - what do we want our role to be in that future
  • Planning - what steps to we take
  • Action - do it

Futurists don’t predict. Look at indicators pointing toward different futures.
Look below the surface; don’t get distracted by the noise.
What are the patterns, the trends - that are running below the noise?
What are the worldviews that are supporting those trends?
What are the long-term stories that support this?

Locate issues in time.

Tracking the history of music file sharing from seldom through Napster to PIRACY.

Wildcard - Emerging - Event - Framed - Legislated - Litigated

Address things when they are still in the Wildcard or Emerging stages.

Typical responses to change

  • Denial
  • Acknowledgement, but too busy/not a priority
  • Acknowledge - mobilization, but not sure what to do
  • Planning

Benefits of Forecasting - too complex a slide

Values Trends:

The Three Worlds
World Values Survey - tracking values changes since the 1970s

Traditional country - you are born into a status and you will die in that same status
Modern country (economically developed) - you can work to change your status
Post-modern country (wealthy country) - I have all the stuff I want - but I’m not happy. Looks inward

The US is a more traditional country than our position in the economic world would suggest. We behave counter to the theory.

Reactions:

  • Personalization and co-creation (Lego hackers, Linux users?)
  • Simplicity - no tutorials and user manuals
  • No - McWorld - the US culture hasn’t taken over the world. Good ideas are coming from everywhere.
  • Ethical Consumption - voting values with our dollars
  • Under (Time) Pressure - scheduled lives
    (We are sacrificing sleep, we are also sacrificing personal hygiene and household chores)
  • Smart - everything
  • Immersion
  • Transparency - we all live in glass houses - how would this look on YouTube?

Work trends
Open source
From scarcity to abundance - the gift economy
Restructuring of work - what is core to us and what can we outsource, less hierarchical

Education Trends
Online learning
Lifelong learning

How does our traditional role of librarians adapt to the changing world of going from scarcity to abundance? So everyone can now find information - but our role - the value is in sorting, packaging and tailoring the information.

In a post-modern culture - are institutions of any value - who do people trust? They talk to people in their network - trust is peer-to-peer. Get our message out to the grassroots and become part of the network. Gen-Y and Gen-X turn to each other for information and support - not the Establishment or Institutions.

Branding is still important.