by 
I think we’re seeing a shift in client demand “back” to preferred futures. And dare i say visioning. I did a piece a few months suggesting the relationship between the two — the preferred future could be thought of as a expression of an organization’s vision. It as part of a nice special issue on preferred futures put out by the Club of Amsterdam.
Why “back? “While I’m sure some futurists have never left the space so-to-speak, it has not exactly been a thriving area for futurists. The foresight field is still young enough that it is heavily applied, and if an area or sector does not provide enough paid work, the professionals in the field have to move on to other areas. A whole industry of non-futurist consultants emerged to do the visioning work that did exist.
But I sense this is changing in that we’re seeing clients with more interest in visioning and preferred futures work. It’s not necessarily explicit -in the sense of “I want a vision or I want a preferred future.” It’s more about looking for a sense of direction … to help find a path forward. Perhaps seeming a bit overwhelmed or lost without necessarily admitting that? Requests seem to be less specific and more “help us.”
At a broader social level, my research for After Capitalism over the last dozen years observed this shift to overwhelmed, lost and “help us.” As the problems with capitalism have mounted, confidence in the future has waned. And as people look for alternatives, there isn’t anything [new] there. The After Capitalism guiding images are offered as ideas about about potential referred futures. They are not classic preferred futures in the sense that they are a syntheses of ideas collected from a wide variety of ideas and not necessarily focused on a common purpose. A “classic” preferred future is when a group sets with a common purpose out to create one. Are y’all seeing more attention to visioning and preferred futures in your work? — Andy Hines
Good morning, Andy. As I facilitate Visioning and Strategic Planning, positive futures consume much of the conversation – and we end up squeezing in time for some “headwinds” and potential “risks / uncertainties.” Unfortunately, most of our clients don’t hire us, I believe due to lack of patience or understanding of Scenario Planning, and mapping out the range of potential futures, prior to selecting the ones of most interest to them. Not sure if this helps, but that summarizes my 20+ years of applying foresight to corporate strategy work. Brian
Thanks Brian. Makes sense. maybe a weakness of this work in general over the last few decades has been the tendency to focus too much on the positive and neglect the unpleasant work of considering the negative.Visioning and preferred futures has to consider the potential “bad news” or we’re doing a disservice.
In the After Capitalism work, though I emphasize positive guiding futures, I do [briefly] include a potential Collapse futures as well.