Our Andy Hines recently shared on his Hinesight blog his excitement about being asked to join Richard Slaughter and co-edit the Knowledge Base of Futures Studies 2020. This Knowledge Base is a collection of 31 articles capturing a representative set of excellent futures work since the last update in 2005.
Andy also discussed the launch on a webinar July 3 and shared his top ten takeaways!
Let’s get a word from Andy on what he wants the Houston Foresight community to know.
Andy – will you tell us a little bit about why this collection is so important?
First off, it was really great to be involved with Richard Slaughter in this project. He is a giant in the field, so I’m honored that I, and the Houston Foresight program, had the opportunity to be involved with it. About 20 years ago, Richard saw the need to collect and chronicle the good work being done in Foresight. In a nutshell, if someone asked what Foresight was about, how would we answer it. He got the idea to create an ongoing “knowledge base” that would bring together a representative sample of the best work in the field. The success of the first volume inspired him to do it again in 2005, and about a year-and-a-half ago, he felt it was time for an update. So the KBFS 2020 captures a sample of the best work in Foresight in the last 15 years. And we’re already discussing ways to do the next one. In a sense, we’re creating a one-stop shop to provide a taste of how foresight is evolving over time.
You have an intriguing list of top ten takeaways. Where any of those particularly surprising to you?
The healthy degree of innovation and evolution over the last 15 years was not exactly surprising, but the ability to look across the whole body of work really brought home how much the field has been progressing. I remember concern about the state of our “aging tool kit when we did the Futures of Futures scenarios back in 2003 when APF was kicking off. It’s nice to know that we have done a great job in consistently upgrading the tool kit.
Another one was realizing the amazing amount of work that’s been done in developing different tools and techniques for helping to bring the future to life for clients. As a field we have really engaged with how to make exploring the future more relevant, useful, and user-friendly.
What did this exercise and the resulting 31 articles tell you about the future of Foresight?
It tells me that we have a solid foundation. We may [finally] be on the cusp of a surge of interest in the future. We are going to need to draw on the full array of concepts, frameworks, and methods to keep up with this demand. The world is in dire need of high-quality foresight work. Our work is vitally important. We are going to need to keep innovating and evolving. It will be interesting to what the next Knowledge Base looks like!
Thanks Andy!
The collection is free to APF members as a member benefit and is available for sale to the public at the APF store.
