Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I think Tiger may open up some new opportunities for multi user video
conferencing. What do you know Wayne or Jamais. How could we improve
our virtual collaboration with clients?
  

    
There, broadly put, two different approaches to virtual interaction: symmetric
and asymmetric. Symmetric means the interaction happens more-or-less in
real-time, with all participants engaged simultaneously; asymmetric means the
interaction happens at the time of the participant's choice, and participants
may be connected differentially. Symmetric forms include videoconferencing, text
chat, voice (phones, skype), and real-time games. Asymmetric forms include
bulletin board/mailing list conversations (like this one), form-mediated
interaction (reading/filling out forms constructed by another person), and
turn-based games.

To put those into musical metaphors, symmetric would be musicians jamming 
together, while asymmetric would be each musician laying down her track 
separately, without the others present.

Symmetric forms allow for greater improvisation and inspiration from other 
participants (that kind of "oh! that means..." "yeah! and *that* means..." we 
love so much). Asymmetric forms allow for greater testing and rehearsing of 
ideas, as well as greater study of options.

All of that said, I haven't found either method particularly useful in my own 
experiences -- live, in person discussion in iterated sessions (with 
opportunities for research & rehearasal between sessions) still seems to work 
best. That's why I was wondering what your experiences were.

We can continue this discussion, of course, but I have a different question:

Do you find that your clients and panelists have an easier time coming up with 
optimistic scenarios of the future or pessimistic scenarios?
  

    
Definitively optimistic. Our whole process and approach and tone of
communication and way of doing business is centred around creating
future opportunities. They all understand that. At the same time we
need to discuss and take into account possible disruptors, wildcards,
challenges and restrictions at all stages. naturally, what we foresee
as being potential disruptors in Stage One likely change as we move
through the process and generate ideas and contexts that we had not
originally conceived relevant. Our scenario evaluation process in Stage
Five and again in the Strategy and Implications section of Stage six
do contain an in-depth analysis of the potential risks, obstacles and
challenges, effectiveness, feasibility, fit, etc. It is at these points
in particular, at the time when the client begins to consider the
scenarios in more detail and is required to consider how to make them
work, that  of course, all of the negatives are discussed and taken
into consideration. On the client level these often include, costs,
investment policy, change culture, priorities, etc. remember though
that during Stage One, which I hope is clear from the book, we do a lot
of work in trying to better understand the client's readiness for
revolutionary change, taking stock of their resources beyond their core
competencies, as the future may require a new set of core
competencies, understanding the client's multiple personalities and
trying to the ascertain the real from the perceived or simply false
assumptions they have about themselves and their marketplace. Obviously
these are taken into account when we create the scenarios.
I would say that even at the Frontline Panels, the panelists are
generally keen to create a positive future landscape, even though they
like to debate the posible holdbacks, as successful experts in their
own right they usually approach the topics with a positive bent.
  

    
re:22 An observation I guess, VC is a limiting structure for
interactive collaboration and communication that I doubt will ever
allow the type of experience Derek had in the Netherlands.

Part of this seems to be process - asynchronous conversation is just
so different from F2F (its best attribute being a space to reflect on
the rhythms of the point of focus in mind), and part of it is structure
- it does not allow for the synchronous and simultaneous surroundings
of creative and inspirational ambience that is, or can be, inherent in
a F2F sharing of thoughts, etc.

Having said that, VC and the new interactive/collaborative models have
their definite strengths that can add a whole lot of spice, space, and
dimension to those ideas and strategies generated out of F2F
interactions. 

I should imagine a powerful teamwork with your 10 or 12 utilizing both
aspects of communication and interface could even more enhance your
work.

Just a thought.

A privilege to be here guys. Are you marketing your capes, wands and
crystal balls and have you got a lock on the owl distributorship from
the ancillary Harry Potter spinoffs?

This has to be the 'densest' conversation I have yet to read on the
WELL. Kudos to all your work and future endeavors.
  

    
Let me press the musical metaphor if I may. As we liked to say in grad
school, "is it more like art or science?" You guys do a great job of
synthesizing and blending competing interests at the corporate level to
achieve optimistic and positive future landscapes. What you get is
jazz.

However, at the educational level, and the ontological level,
transdisciplinary is the wave of the future. A good college president
is more like a symphonic conductor. In that respect, we are still
waiting for composers, like yourselves, to find the technologies in
cyberspace that will allow both for the orchestra to assemble and 'make
music' and a good hall for the audience to attend to the finished
work.

Ta Da.
  

    
A reflection. This has been a rich and rewarding asymmetrical
experience for me. I have read and made notes over the past six days
and had an opportunity to reflect and meditate. I have also noticed
that as I have fed on the various thought lines and digested the
material it has affected my perceptions during my "normal" daily
routines these past few days. Hmmm.

That's an interesting dynamic in its own right. I think that is always
working in the background of any asymmetrical model and might be
explored more in depth as to a focused intentionality - sort of the way
spiritual retreats work over a two or three day period.

Weaving that back into a symmetrical model, with a deeper appreciation
for the asymmetrical processes as they affect the 7-10 year vision of
the client's future landscape, may result in an enhanced vision all of
its own.

I hope that is coming across in words, I know what I have in mind. I'm
trying to find a synthesis between what you do on a corporate level
and what (cascio) and others do on a more artistic level. Sort of a
weaving of time and space if you get my drift.
  

    
One last thing, since I'm up ahead of you guys, being on the East
Coast and all, I also have problems with Fukuyama's suggested rules and
regulations and would hope we can discuss it when you bump it up a
level to the overlaying structures and processes you use that are
applicable within any system.
  

    
Ted, thank you for your thought-provoking comments (and for simply
commenting -- I was beginning to wonder if anyone was reading this!).

Having been involved in the "thinking about the future for fun and profit"
game for about a decade now, it has long struck me that these are the kinds
of tools that young people should be taught for use in their own lives. One
thing that a systematic (yet improvisational!) method for thinking about
tomorrow provides is a simultaneous proliferation of options *and* grounding
in reality. It's too easy to get trapped into doing the same thing over and
over, hoping for a different result each time, too easy to be blinded to
options because the only choices are either bleak or impossible to achieve.

I asked about optimistic or pessimistic scenarios because I've had the
opposite experience to yours, Derek. I've found that it's far simpler for
most people to imagine things going poorly, in part due to a well-founded
desire not to get their hopes up, in part due to what my colleague at
WorldChanging, Alex Steffen, calls "terriblisma," a fascinated attraction to
disaster, and in part due to a perception that "realism" equates to
pessimism. I see that in comments at WorldChanging, as well -- people
claiming to be taking a "realistic" position when they assert that
everything's going to hell and there's nothing we can do about it.

Derek, Wayne, I'm curious -- have you had any opportunities to return to
clients from awhile back and check in with them? To see how well their real
choices and strategic paths have mapped to their scenarios?
  

    
Ted, many thanks for your illuminating and kind comments. I
particularly related to the "conductor" reference, which for us is in
some ways the future landscape we build.
Jamais, your comments about being trapped reminded me of the Coupland
quote "Dead at 30, buried at 70", a common enough mindset, but
generally speaking not one we come across as much in clients, as to
engage us in the first place requires a strong sense of positivism. Of
course there are  always the odd one out in the client's team that sees
a bunch of negatives, until at some point, s/he recognizes that the
group is pushing forward anyway and in conseauence such people often
then become the biggest supporters. Typical group psychology I suppose.

In answer to your question about returning or following up, I have to
say that we have been lucky enough (now that The Futures lab as existed
for nearlly 8 years, it's obvously easier), to see a number of our
creations implemented at least in part. For example, Casio fully
followed our preferred futures recommendations to develop a line of
wrist devices, rather than pursue a future portfolio of timepieces -
many of those the MP3 wrist device, the camera wrist device and a whole
range of data and communications wrist devices have either entered the
marketplace or are in development (Case Study 5 in the book). The
direction helped them move into a broader communication-based product
range and also to totally change their marketing and retail,
(particularly in Japan and Europe), so that they were able to introduce
a hologram demonstration wrist, virtual testing bays, etc. The project
led them to think in terms of wrist technology, not time-keeping,
which grew out of the idea I had that the wrist equals real-estate. Not
the most advanced scenario or example, but one I can freely explain.
Others such as WorldSpace have now been launched and are fully in line
with the preferred future we created and Pringle has  become a leading
fashion brand throughout Europe, whereas it was a deflated tradition
cashmere brand hen we started the project in 1998. We have completed
about 3 projects over the years for Cadbury-Schweppes, which has
allowed us to keep in the loop, and similiarly, with Dial, we have been
asked to conduct follow-up work and have maintained the contact and in
terms, again where we have an ongoing relationship, we are able to
monitor the progress on earlier projects. this makes our role,
especially rewarding, when we are told that our work is the basis of
the future direction of the brand/company/division and that it actually
turns out that way. However, even if the scenarios we create,
ultimately lead to the company thinking about their business
differently and taking them to a new level in order to futureproof
themselves, I consider our contribution to be enormous, espcially given
our fees!!!!
  

    
Sorry. I omitted "Ford" after terms, in the 9th line from the bottom.
  

    
Re: #33 I think everyone may well be staggered by the content and not
sure exactly what to say or where to start. It's a bit overwhelming to
take in all at once. Derek and Wayne, when you guys write you put
entire novels into sentences. It's really deep water here.
  

    
A common criticism of my style!! I'll try harder. Wayne will be
laughing his head off. That's why I need him. I told you he made me
look good in the book. 
  

    
Derek, I seriously like your style. Would you both please talk about
how young you were when you realized that you were a bit more awake and
thinking differently from those around you and how you kept from being
locked up?
  

    
You've alluded to that funny thing called "soul" earlier and now might
be a good time to bring it up. In respect to Jamais' comment earlier
about the tendency to move toward pessimism, 1) it's no wonder given
the political and media climates of the past 25 years and 2) I
continually hear people say that the key to 'smooth sailing' is to have
no expectations. What bunk. My hunch is that that nonsense was
injected into the culture through the disillusionment and
disenfranchisement of the middle class in the 80's at the same time the
New-Agers were doing there thing. But that's just an educated guess. 

What's important is that it leads to pessimism as it lacks faith, hope
and charity, to ring an old bell. Much of what you do seems to empower
companies to see their people as talented positive resources to be
utilized and developed as they catch, share and mutate the vision of a
well thought out mission statement and to encourage flexibility of
thought, action and adaptability to new situations as they arise.

It's no wonder you tend to yield optimistic future landscapes. It must
be quite reinforcing to the company, as an entity, as well as the
employees - from top to bottom - to realize that they are capable of
huge directional changes as they share a vision and work together.
  

    
re: #38 That question assumes a lot, let me rephrase it: Derek and
Wayne, and Jamais, how did you come to your way of thinking about the
future from "numerous perspectives simultaneously" as DJ Low observes?
  

    
I was a teenager throughout the sixties and spent seven years as a
student (undergrad and masters) from 1965 - 1972. It was a wonderful
time to be alive, very provocative, very inspirational period. Yes, I
do remember it and I loved it, but then again, I've loved every period.


While I was still attending my all boys high school, along with a very
small group of friends, I was interested in the Beats, Bob Dylan, Maya
Deren and other experimental filmmakers, jazz, French and Russian
writers, Paris (I visited frequently), London, girls, girls, girls, my
first rock band, The Luther Morgan Relationship (the photos still
look,well....let's say interesting) and Fluxus. It was different. I
wanted to be different. At 15, I went with a girl-friend to London to a
Fluxus Exhibition called the Festival of Misfits, organized by Daniel
Spoemi and Robert Filliou. Most of all I remember being struck by the
power of Claes Oldenburg's statement: "I am the art of conversation
between the sidewalk and a blind man's metal stick." 

It opened my mind to a new way of thinking about everything. From then
on, I was obsessed by all the offbeat stuff (sometimes genuinely and
others for show, recognition), but it served me well as I really began
to get off on it, analyze and debate for hours anything from Nietzsche,
Satre and Bataille to the films of Otto Muhl, the Kuchars, Jack Smith,
Gysin and writers and musicians. As I approached the end of high
school (17 and 18), I wanted to look hip. I wore a dark blue reefer
jacket, dark pants, a black roll neck sweater and brown Italian
brogue-style shoes. I looked like one of the Moody Blues. I loved the
art school crowd. Their wild parties and clothes. Their sense of free
spirit and everything being possible. 

I spent a lot of time in France with my friends Yves Beuzit and Yog
and every summer in Croatia with my friend Zoran Kompanjet. It
introduced me to both cultures, which are still strongly present within
me. My friends were into the same things. 

Once I got to University, the debates intensified. I was surprised how
we would weave views, ideas and content from one subject into another.
i began to sense how disconnects could be connected into something new
and way out (as we would say). We would laugh at these crazy
inventions. I was a massive Velvet Underground fan. I had long swapped
my dark blue reefer jacket for all black, still to this day my only
color of choice. At the time, we thought we were building a new future.
We were.The optimism and love of life from that period lives in me and
has never dissipated. 

A few months ago I was at a Sonic Youth concert in Austin and watched
with utter disgust how plain clothes policemen were arresting
unsuspecting, kids (engrossed in the music) for smoking a joint,  How
times have changed.
  

    
Fascinating, Derek.

It's interesting to me how many counter-cultural types from that era moved
into corporate consulting. Stewart Brand is something of the canonical
example, but the numbers are legion. What was it about the counter-culture
of the 1960s and 1970s that led to scenarios?

I'm a bit younger, born in the mid-60s, so my only experience of that era
was being given a hippie name. I've been omnivorously curious about the
world around me for as long as I can remember, as well as a reader of
science fiction. In grad school, I sought to write a dissertation on the
international political effects of emerging technologies; after that was
turned down (ah, Berkeley in the early 1990s...), I ended up getting a job
at GBN.

If Derek sees his work as akin to music and musical improvisation, I see
mine as akin to world-building.

How about you, Wayne?
  

    
Derek, I'd like to hear more about Fluxus. Allen Bukoff at
http://www.fluxus.org/ posted an interesting letter for former Fluxus
adherents:

"You all have spent so much time during the last 20 years trying to
shape your legacy and the legacy of Fluxus, and few if any of you are
satisfied with the results-the exhibitions, the collections, the books.
Instead of trying to manage Old Fluxus you could have been leading a
new group of Fluxus artists to explore new Fluxus directions and new
Fluxus territory? Wouldn't it have been a lot more energizing and a lot
more fun to fan new Fluxus flames than struggle with collectors who
have catalogued your work but failed to capture your spirit or the
scope of your actual accomplishments?"
  

    
For those of you who are not members of the WELL but would like to
join this conversation: if you have comments or questions, send them to
inkwell-hosts@well.com, and they'll be posted here.
  

    
My apologies for being AWOL over the last few days - I was just trying
to read and digest Derek's comments #28 & 34 ;)

As for my story, I'm afraid I missed the '60s, which may have been
fortuitous as someone has to show the old folks how to switch the
computers on! 

I'm not sure that I can pinpoint a moment of epiphany when I began to
see things differently. That said, I can remember sitting in a health
education class in high school (the topic was self esteem) and
realizing that despite my teacher's most sincere efforts, there was
more to critical thinking than making assertive decisions when
purchasing expensive items at a store (strangely enough, I had the same
feeling while sitting in an MBA class, a number of years later).

In similar fashion to Jamais, I have always been captivated by a world
that was larger than the one that I saw on a daily basis. My mother
still takes great pride in saying that I was the only 5 year old who
would take copies of National Geographic and Popular Mechanics to 'show
& tell' at school.

As a teenager, the words of Shakespeare left an indelible mark on my
thinking: "There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of
in your philosophy." This quip continues to hold me in good stead both
personally and professionally. 
  

    
From playing soccer to thinking about Fluxus, what a transition and
it's only 9.30 on a Saturday morning. Well, I won't talk about
individual aspects of the vast creations that Fluxus generated, even
though I'd love to, but about it role and relevance, particularly in
relationship to Allen Bukoff's statement. I understand where Allen is
coming from, as the 90's witnessed Fluxus arising from relative
oblivion, even though its new life was predominantly in the museum.
archive, exhibition and academy. 

It was suddenly as though a new generation was there to celebrate its
existence and that was that. There was a flurry of exhibitions at the
Walker, the Witney, the Tate Modern, MOCA in Chicago,  the Wexner in
Columbus, MOMA in San Francisco, at the Beursschouwburg in Brussels,
Fundacio Antoni Tapies in Barcelona, etc. as well as numerous books on
the subject. It was like a 70's punk art revival. Interesting, still
potentially influential, but in a very new context. I see retro
fashions more as a spiral than a cycle, and therefore as Allen says it
would have been interesting to have fanned new Fluxus flames.

Fluxus played an incredibly important role in its position on the
threshold between the older type of European Avant-gardism (with which
it still shared many aspects) and early post-modernism, given that it
was a precursor in its relationship to events, gatherings, performance
and interdeterminancy of media. I was always fascinated  by Fluxus'
power of fusion between the various art forms, particularly between
arts and media, theater performances and music performancers, poetry
and painting, music and graphic, vaudeville and high arts. 

When one considers the level at which that fusion or interface is
present today and where it will proceed to in the future, it is clear
how powerful that aspect of Fluxus increasingly resonates. There are
numerous examples of this in Future Frequences, because in many
sections of the process, we are required to create the new from
disconnects and the unexpected. That is the essesnce of the piece
titled "White Space, Black Holes and the Upside Down World" . In
particular the pieces on Alberto Gaitan's "impromptu Concert of Mass
Transit and Bio Music" and on Stephen Vitiello, titled "The
Phenomenological  Experiences of Space". Then again, in Sensing Places,
where I talk about stage performances using gestural interface
technologies that allow the actors to interface with changing and
evolving real and virtual worlds as the performance unravels.
Similarly, the increasing involvement in the arts of human-robot and
machine interfaces, machine to machine, etc. will take the arts to yet
another level. In bringing this back to Fluxus, here it is important to
remember Higgin's phrase "intermedia" as distinguished from
"multimedia", where he saw Fluxus focusing on the empty spaces between
rigidly defined and separated art forms.

Therefore, in some ways, Fluxus played a critical role as a
Neo-Dadaist movement in finally helping to force the breakthrough that
Dadaism started, in freeing the art world from the yoke and tyranny of
the traditionalists. 

I could go on, but it is not lecture time. Suffice it to say, the fun,
the creativity and alternative thinking aspects that Fluxus brings to
the table are all immensely important to the way we approach our
futures work. Especially the absurd fun.
  

    
Future Lab may be the first intentionally Dadaist consultancy.
  

    
Jamais, as I read your comment about us being a Dadaist consultancy, I
suddenly recalled the piece on Stewart Home in The Reality Studio
section of Future Frequencies and the fun, but insane encounters I have
always had with him. In particular, when he is working his prankster,
neoist persona, when it becomes difficult to recognise spoof from
truth, fantasy from reality. It is like fighting your way out of an
intellectual maze.

At the same time, Stewart has helped me to recognize the complexity we
face in our everyday work with clients. Faced with what he calls a
"labyrinth of understandings", built fro a fusion of non-fiction and
fiction, of multiple viewpoints (the company's, the market's, the
consumer's (we call them choosers), retailer's, etc.,), we are forced
to reconstruct reality (as we see it), either by changing the
perspective, adding potential events or discontinuity, in order to
create a new reality that may provide us with a very different view of
the future.

I wonder how it would feel to be creating a new "futuring" movement as
deliberately as the Dadaists and Fluxus instigators did? Not simply as
an independent company. (Despite what you've heard, I am not
sufficiently pretentious to suggest we are doing so.....though
maybe!!!!) Serious fun.  I am still attempting to come to grips with
Dr. Oliver Markley's description of us as "social alchemists".
  

    
I like "social alchemists". Some of the point of it is that it really
doesn't matter if there is a concrete reality, it only matters that a
targeted group of people believe that it is. You can market that. 

There are quite a few issues of responsibilit and ethics involved in
that kind of magic. How do you pick your clients or do they choose you?
Or is it a blend of both?
  

    
Good questions, Ted.

Reading #48, what I want to know is the degree to which you two believe that
futurist consultants can shape the direction the future takes, both
organizationally and globally?