During our Certificate in Strategic Foresight program this week, one thing that came up from our business leaders and strategists attending the conference was how to “visualize” futures ideas and concepts. In my classes and all the assorted posts, conversations, speeches, and presentations I’ve devoured since entering this futures world, I’ve seen tons of great visuals and (gulp!) tons of ones that could use some work.
My biggest problem that I foresee for myself as I finish out this year and move into the practitioner role is how will I conceptualize big ideas (systems, diagrams, visioning, futures) into digestible pictures, videos, and post cards for my audience. Not everyone has the ability, time, or resources to craft such lofty endeavors, but my feeling is that the future of futures lies in this visualization. Gone will be the words of futures; it’s the pictures and storytelling together that cements the message.
I wonder if my next courses or degrees will be in image designing and conceptualizing because this should be my work just as much as the methodology, practices, and futures mind shaping that has become my journey so far in this field. I remember producing some presentations of my own last year on the future of natural gas and having problems with crafting my story with tangible media my audience would enjoy. This was a tough process because I have no formal training in how to create images and my Pictionary skills are shall we say subpar.
As I look at the APF nominations for Most Important Futures Works (MIFW) from 2007 to 2011, the texts of some of these incredible works could be aided by pictures and frames of mind. Look at the visual works of the MIFW. An Inconvenient Truth while not expressively impressive from pure optics pushes the environmental agenda of our former Vice President farther than paper, legislation, or book he could have written. Swift Innovation leader and Houston Futures‘ own Heather Schlegel’s Fly to the Moon is an incredible example of the visualization of the complicated future of alternative currency. Evoke takes you into an entire world of change, challenging notions of change through a media of action. These amazing futures thoughts without too much texts and graphs are exactly what I aspire to hopefully one day create.
The medium is certainly the message as Marshall McLuhan said. We got the message, now comes the medium!
