Strategic Foresight: The Future That Is Emerging From Within.

 

The following is a write-up from my friend Kevin Beck (COO, Presence International) about my speaking engagement Thursday evening (7/16/09) on the monthly webinar “The Zone.” The slide above is from the presentation, in which I explained the formation and process of developing the futures that are emerging from within us (A la Otto Scharmer and “Theory U”). I will be posting the entire slide presentation soon, as well as a link to a recording of the webinar. Thanks for the kind words, Kevin, and for hosting a conversation about the creative, evolutionary, adaptive, internal, and learning elements of Strategic Foresight:

The Presence Zone was open last night. People from around the world participated in this live online interactive learning experience.

My friend, Frank Spencer (I lovingly refer to him as Dr. Tomorrow) led a conversation on “Creating the Future.”

Understanding and appreciating the future (or better “possible futures”) empowers us to live more fulfilled lives in the present.

It sounds contradictory. “How can thinking about the future enhance my experience of the present?”

Our thinking about the future impacts our present experience. For instance, if you expect tomorrow to be miserable, you will live miserably today. If you believe that God will show up sometime in the future, you will overlook the divine presence in the Now.

Frank is one of the world’s leading experts in Strategic Foresight. He provided practical tools for nurturing and generating preferable outcomes.

He distilled a tremendous amount to information on evolutionary, adaptive, and aspirational futures into a two hour webinar.

One of the key themes Frank discussed was cosmology. What is cosmology? It is our story. What is the story we tell ourselves about the universe (or multiverses) and our place in it? This story shapes the way we live.

Related to this, we discussed the process of learning. How do we learn? What are our values? How do we clarify our assumptions? What data are we selecting and why? How do we go about re-evaluating what we believe and how we act?

Frank showed that we are not stuck in a cosmic fatalist world. Instead we can be responsible creators. And being responsible is nothing less than being able to respond.