Future Salon

3 Questions answered by Foresight Your Hidden Superpower Future Salon Presenter John Smart

In preparation for the Foresight Your Hidden Superpower Future Salon happening on the 30th of November 2021 I posted 3 questions to John Smart.

1) Why does Foresight (Future thinking) Matter?
2) What are you looking forward to in the Future?
3) What scares you about the Future?

Love that John brings down Foresight to the personal level: you should do foresight every day when setting your goals as well as reflecting on your accomplishments. We had an interesting dialog about whether you should end on a positive note or tackle the positive first. He recites research to back up his point, and with that won the argument ;-)

All of that makes me very excited about our Foresight Superpower Future Salon next Tuesday 30th 6pm.
Join the conversation, come with your questions, challenge our assumptions. Can't wait!  [Zoom Link]

Foresight - Your Hidden Superpower Future Salon with John Smart!

We are going back to the Future! Please join us Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 6pm PST [Zoom Link]. Oh so many moons ago, John was our first Future Salon presenter! This event, therefore, has a special place in my heart. :-) 

As always our Future Salon will be super interactive! There will be breakouts, laughter, and time to hang out after the 90 minutes for the ones who want to. Bring your favorite beverage :-)

Foresight - Your Hidden Superpower Future Salon with John Smart!

Here John is holding his Introduction to Foresight, Executive Edition: Personal, Team, and Organizational Adaptiveness (The Foresight Guide Book 1) in his hand! 

We all use foresight every day, in a foresight-action cycle, to predict, create, and lead the future. Foresight professionals are anyone tasked to think about probable, possible, preferable, or preventable (“Four Ps”) futures, over any time horizon. Foresight is both a set of time-tested practices and emerging models of adaptiveness and values, rooted in psychology and complex systems research. The more we use good foresight practices, the better our futures become.

The two books of The Foresight Guide, written over the last six years by our academically-trained team at Foresight University, address this challenge. Book 1, Introduction to Foresight (Nov 2021, Amazon) covers personal, team, and organizational foresight practices and challenges. Book 2, Big Picture Foresight (Apr 2022), covers key 21st century stories of societal and global adaptiveness, in a world of accelerating change. The focus of each book is not just strategic foresight, which makes us more effective in short-term actions, but adaptive foresight, or the goals, values and practices most likely to improve our personal and group adaptiveness, in any environment, over the long term. We can all get transformatively better at both foresight and action, the more evidence-based, conscious, and committed we are to the process.

Bio: John Smart is a student of strategic and adaptive foresight, global futures, exponential processes, and complex systems. He is President of the Acceleration Studies Foundation nonprofit (est. 2003), co-Founder of the Evo-Devo Universe complex systems research community (est. 2008), and CEO of Foresight University, a foresight learning and development company (est. 2016). For twenty years, John has taught and written on foresight development, and on the drivers, opportunities, and problems of exponential processes throughout human history. John has a B.S. in business administration from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in futures studies from the University of Houston, and an M.S.-equivalency in physiology and medicine from UCSD School of Medicine. He has an honorary PhD in Technology Education from the University of Advancing Technology (2008) and an Outstanding Faculty Award from the California Law Enforcement Command College (2011). He blogs at Medium.com, and his speakers' website is JohnMSmart.com. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI with his wife and two young children.

Teaser Video: Financial Literacy Future Salon Tue July 6th 6pm PST

Yesterday we had a prep call for the Financial Literacy Future Salon [Zoom link] happening on the 6th of July at 6pm PST.

We recorded this quick introduction with the two speakers Etay Gafni and Luke Hohmann.

They talk about their ventures in the financial literacy space: Bankaroo as well as FirstRoot. In our Future Salon we will also cover:

• Luke's experiences running a crowdfunding campaign for FirstRoot on Netcapital.
• Tips by Etay on how to create a venture with his back then 11-year-old son?
• Is there a potential data play if FirstRoot takes off?
• What are the opportunities and obstacles in the primary and secondary education space?
• <your questions> 

As always at the Future Salon, the focus is on our conversation. Etay and Luke will set the stage, and your questions and insights are greatly appreciated.
See you all at the Financial Literacy Future Salon Tuesday, July 6th, 6pm PST 

P.S. We recorded this video at 6pm and Luke has a glass of wine. We encourage everyone to bring their favorite beverage next week too.

P.P.S. We will start off with a Kahoot.it Financial Literacy quiz, that we will play together. 
You are able to play it in a browser or you can download the app (Apple/Google) onto your phone to play on a second screen. 

Financial Literacy Future Salon Tue July 6th 6pm PST

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, 'Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it.'

Yet, 40% of Americans are just one missed paycheck away from poverty. Let’s help our children to make sound financial decisions and take control of their future prosperity. 

Join us at our Financial Literacy Future Salon on Tuesday 6th of July 6 pm PST to discuss what we can do to develop a healthy relationship with money. 

We will start off by introducing you to two ventures that are tackling the problem. 

Luke Hohmann’s latest startup FirstRoot is empowering young people to take control of their finances by introducing participatory budgeting in their schools: Participatory Budgeting is a democratic process in which a group of students determines how to invest a shared budget to improve their school. The secret of FirstRoot success is that they give students real money to invest in their schools and support them as they work together to decide how to invest it.

FirstRoot’s model is very powerful: Participatory Budgeting authentically motivates students to learn and practice the “Four Cs” of the 21st Century curriculum: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration — all while teaching design thinking, civics, and jump-starting their journey to increasing financial literacy. Students experience true agency and stewardship over their futures, learning through their own experiences how money really works.

I love the combination of strengthening democracy as well as financial literacy. Can’t wait to hear Luke share FirstRoot’s results and surprises from their first pilot schools.

If you like FirstRoot’s mission, and you think it is a viable business, you can be part of their success by investing in their crowdfunding campaign. Deadline July 20th. 

My friend Michael Gusek pointed to an interesting aspect in a LinkedIn post about why he is investing in FirstRoot: 
“... Finally (as a Big Data/ML/AI/Product guy), with a data set like the one FirstRoot could generate at scale, the types of trend predictions that could be created would be perfect for a variety of positive outcomes. Kids' voices would be heard, and matter...using market forces.”

Can’t wait to discuss. 

 

Bankaroo is an educational virtual bank for kids that helps kids learn about money, budgeting, setting goals, saving up, and being accountable for their decisions. It offers a family-friendly interface and is accessible via the web and mobile apps.

What I really love about Bankaroo is, that it was developed by Dani, the back then 11-year-old son of my former colleague and friend Etay Gafni. Can’t wait to hear about how Etay and Dani developed their app and reached 120K Bankeroo members all over the world. 

These introductions will roughly take 30 minutes. This will be followed by a lively conversation about Financial Literacy and what can be done to improve it. Topics to tackle when and how to introduce wealth building: real estate investment, stocks, bonds, … What about Cryptocurrency?

Hope you join the conversation on the 6th of July! 

Video: Journey Beyond Fear Future Salon with John Hagel

If you missed the excellent Journey Beyond Fear Future Salon with John Hagel the other day.
Don't worry, here is the recording: 

 

I think John's book is one of the most important ones from the last 10 years. The accelerated rate of change leads to ever-increasing performance pressure. We can react to that with fear or we can embrace the opportunities that the change is offering.

In the Journey Beyond Fear John details the three elements that he sees as the key to thrive in this ever faster-changing world:
1) Develop a positive narrative that motivates you and the people around you.
2) Curate the passion of the explorer in everything you do.
3) Create impact groups of 5-15 people that work together on a weekly basis on improving their impact around their topics.

John starts 7 minutes in, with an intro to key topics of his book, and then we have a lovely conversation with the Future Salon participants for another 60 minutes.

3 Questions answered by Future Salon Presenter John Hagel!

As it is tradition here are 3 teaser questions for our Journey Beyond Fear Future Salon with John Hagel tomorrow Thursday 27th of May 6pm PST:

 

1) You often talk about the Passion of the Explorer. How can we ensure that this flame is burning in our kids? What about our coworkers?

• First and foremost, we need to encourage them to find it and then pursue it. Most families and work environments discourage us from pursuing our passion - instead, the advice is always to focus on careers and activities that have the highest status and are the most financially rewarding. They should be constantly encouraged to reflect on what opportunities give them the most excitement and find ways to integrate those opportunities into the work they pursue.

2) You stress the importance to cultivate our personal passion. How do we do that cultivation in our daily life?

• Focus on giving priority to activities that will help us to address the opportunity that we are most passionate about and then take the time to reflect on what impact you achieved with those activities. If you're really passionate about the opportunity, you will be driven to achieve more and more impact over time.

3) You write: We need to evolve our institutions and communities so that they encourage all of us to cultivate the emotions of hope and excitement. Is there an institution or community that comes to mind that is doing a great job in cultivating hope & excitement? 

• In general, I believe that the institutions that do this the best are smaller, entrepreneurial businesses or NGO's that focus on really large and inspiring opportunities. In terms of a community, I believe that the sustained success of Silicon Valley over decades has been driven by an opportunity-based narrative that focuses on the inspiring opportunity to change the world with the exponential power of digital technology.

This is really juicy. Let's go deeper tomorrow at 6pm at our Future Salon. Join us here and bring your questions.

 

I will perform the Crack of Doom on the accordion, as John's message is the perfect antidote to the doom and gloom of that song!

 

P.S. The picture was taken during an early morning prep call. :-)

Journey Beyond Fear Future Salon with John Hagel Thursday Mai 27th 6pm

John Hagel's latest book The Journey Beyond Fear: Leverage the Three Pillars of Positivity to Build Your Success is a topic we can all benefit from. 

Please join us this Thursday, May 27th 6pm PST at the Journey Beyond Fear Future Salon with John Hagel to discuss the topic of his book: Zoom link!

John writes in his book summary: 

Whether you’re running a business, building a career, raising a family, or attending school, uncertainty has been the name of the game for years—and the feeling reached an all-time high when COVID-19 hit. Even the savviest, smartest, toughest people are understandably feeling enormous pressure and often feeling paralyzed by fear.

The Journey Beyond Fear provides everything you need to identify your fears, face your fears, move beyond your fears—and cultivate emotions that motivate you to pursue valuable business opportunities, realize your full potential, and create opportunities that benefit all. Business strategy guru John Hagel provides an effective, easy-to-grasp three-step approach:

• Develop an inspiring long-term view of the opportunities ahead
• Cultivate your personal passion to motivate you and those around you
• Harness the potential of platforms to bring people together and scale impact at an accelerating rate

Never underestimate the power of fear—and never underestimate your ability to conquer it.

With The Journey Beyond Fear, you’ll learn how to move forward in spite of fear, take your career and life to the next level, improve your organization and your broader environment, and achieve more of your true potential.

Can't wait to hear John elaborate on the topic in our Future Salon. Open to any ideas on how to make it interactive. What topics should we go deeper into via breakout rooms for example? 

Looking forward to see you all this Thursday at 6pm PST! 

3 Answers by David Brin Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon Presenter Thu April 15th 6pm PST

Update: Direct link to the Zoom call for Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon this Thursday 15th of April 6pm!  

As a little teaser to our upcoming Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon, I ask our distinguished guest visionary Science Fiction author David Brin 3 questions: 

1. What is the latest Science Fiction that you feel depicts our likely future the most?
   David: In VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood, I describe several goals of SF novels and films, raning from pure entertainment and money-making to changing the perspective of readers and viewers, making them think new thoughts or arming them with awareness against dangers. In that case, what you have is a self-preventing prophecy whose aim is to prevent itself from coming true!  Hence, accurate prediction is less the point than prevention. - http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html
2. What can we do to bring back the innovation inspiration that Project Hieroglyph was trying to revitalize?
   David: Today we are experiencing one of the weirdest phenomenon in all of history. A large minority of the population of the most advanced nation in the world… one that benefited most from an explosion of knowledge and calm reasoning and expertise… has allowed itself to get talked into a venomous campaign of hatred toward nearly all of the expert castes and professions! From scientists and doctors to journalists, civil servants and law professionals. You name it, and there are active campaigns to discredit them. Now who would want that?
3. What near-term technology are you the most excited about and why? 
   David: Naturally, artificial intelligence will likely create the greatest challenges and opportunities, as will methods of ‘human augmentation” in brain and physical function.  In some of my novels I talk about how the animals we share the planet with might join us in sapiency, helping modify this civilization with their own kinds of wisdom.  In the near term, though, I'm anxious for new kinds of GAMES that let young people actually gain knowledge and skills while playing, rather than today’s lobotomizing addictions.

Going to be a very interesting evening. Join our Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon happening on the 15th of April 6pm PST online & free. 

Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon with David Brin Thu April 15th 6pm PST

Update: Direct link to the Zoom call for Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon this Thursday 15th of April 6pm!  

I am totally psyched that David Brin is presenting again at the Future Salon. Join us on the 15th of April 6pm PST for an engaging evening. 

David just published his 3rd non-fiction book Vivid Tomorrows which looks at the influence Science Fiction has on Hollywood and with that on our overall culture.  

David Brin writes: 

Can science fiction — especially sci-fi cinema — save the world? It already has many times.

"My 3rd non-fiction book reconnoiters famous SF media — from E.T. and Star Trek to The Arrival and Gattaca — and how they help craft a civilization that's obsessed with self-criticism, suspicion of authority, individualism and tolerance, along with appreciation of ecology and diversity... values that might save us all! But shouldn’t we at least understand how these relentlessly proselytized values made us unique among all human societies, across 6000 years?"

Please join the Future Salon Community where we collect questions that we would like to ask David Brin during the Salon. One I have is about the Project Hieroglyph: "In his article entitled“Innovation Starvation,” Neal Stephenson calls for a return to inspiration in contemporary science fiction. That call resonated with so many and so deeply that Project Hieroglyph was born shortly thereafter." I really loved that premise of a positive future vision that leads us to create it. David was one of the contributing authors. Time to check in what the status of Project Hieroglyph is.

Don't miss out on this engaging free online event. 

P.S. Check out the recording from the last Future Salon with David Brin in 2014. 

 

 

Join the New Future Salon Commumnity

 

Join us on the new Future Salon Community site where we have shared the recording from the Future of Democracy Salon. 

Future of Democracy Salon Tue Feb 23 6pm PST

 

Major shifts are happening right regarding democracy and our freedom. Please join us on the 23rd of February at 6pm PST, where we together will try to make sense of what is going on and where we collectively discuss what we can do to nudge our society towards a positive future. [Zoom Link]

This event is a collaboration between the Next Now Network around Bill Daul; POW! Power Our World! Impact Forum around Zann Gill; and Mark Finnern's Future Salon.

Mark Finnern will host and lead the event this month.

We are collecting links to good content that helps us frame our conversation. Please add your own and ideally make yourself familiar with that content, so we can have an informed conversation.

We have three main presenters to set the stage. All coming from different perspectives:

• John Robb, dialing in from the East Coast, goes first: There is a big danger that Long Night is near. To prevent that we need A Digital Bill of Rights as he detailed in this report.

• Ismael Gahlimi makes a case for a New Rationalist movement: with courage, unity, and rationality we can chart a different course and overcome our current problems.
• Lauren Cory in conversation with Mark Finnern will share her insights from leading the Mid-Peninsula ACLU organization for many years. (She stresses that she sharing her own opinion, not the ACLU one that night). One of her insights is: To lower distrust we must change our approach to problem-solving. More information, more “facts”, are not the majority of the answer.

Each will have 10-15 minutes to share their perspective before we open up for discussions.

Find additional and more up to date information in our Future of Democracy 2.0 Future Salon document.

Fighting for more freedom is nothing new, the many pro-democracy songs from years past attest to that: We have a collection of songs in English and German for you to enjoy and play/sing. We started a small YouTube channel where we introduce some of these songs.

Mark Finnern will perform one of them as the opening act of the Future of Democracy 2.0 Salon.

We are also collecting cartoons, screenshots, or funny tweets that give us comic relief. Add yours too!

Can't wait to discuss with you what our best way forward is on the 23rd of February, Mark.

P.S. Walk down memory lane: Many years ago in 2004 we had an Extreme Democracy Future Salon with Tom Attlee introducing the Tao of Democracy; Ross Mayfield his chapter in the Extreme Democracy book, and Zack Rosen introduced Civic Space.

P.P.S. The official program is set for 90 minutes, but if you would like to hang out longer afterward with your favorite beverage or snack, please do!

P.P.S. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84244802475

Here is a little promotional video I recorded:

POW! [Power Our World] Future Salon – Movies that Move Us (to action?) & Make a Difference!

Join us tonight 8th of October 6pm PST at this link: https://meet.google.com/yap-iscr-jcd?hs=122&authuser=1

Yeah, just what you need another Zoom call :-) We promise this is different. Bring your favorite beverage and snack, relax and share impactful movies that moved you, maybe even to change your life in a positive way, which is a high bar. 

Tonight extra special as my cohost Zan Gill has invited the Dennis Britton, and he is going to share an impactful 8 minutes long short film tonight. I have not seen it yet, and am really excited about this evening. [I got some details wrong in the video, my apology].

I will open up with a song that was composed in 1679 when Vienna was in the grips of the Black Plague and it really uplifted them. A story of survival. 

Join us tonight 8th of October 6pm PST at this link: https://meet.google.com/yap-iscr-jcd?hs=122&authuser=1

Here is the flow: 

1. Everyone on the call can suggest an impactful movie they want to share by adding it to this list. 

2. We select a movie from the list and the person that suggested it briefly introduces the film. We will only select movies where the person who suggested it is present. 

3. We watch the trailer together. 

4. We discuss the movie for 5-10 minutes and explore: 

   • What lessons can be learned?  

   • What actions can be taken? 

5. We select the next movie from the list and continue until the hour+ is up. 

See you this Thursday, October 8th @ 6pm (a flexible “Baker’s Hour”) to watch/ discuss trailers of your favorite impactful movies. 

Join Social Dilemma Movie Roundtable Q&A

We had a lovely time with our The Social Dilemma Watch & Discuss Party the other day. Thanks, everyone for coming out, actually for joining remotely, you didn't even have to come out :-). Really enjoyed our conversation afterward. 

The movie is powerful and highly recommended. The implications of what they showed are still reverberating in my head, well it could also be the smoke that we were exposed to lately :-) 

Did anyone change any of your behavior since watching the movie? What I really like is, that they have a whole page with actions you can take to improve the situation.

They also have a series of online events, the first one being a Roundtable Q&A tomorrow Wednesday 16th of September 5:30pm PST / 8:30pm EST with the filmmaker and some of the participants, see the panel below. 

Check it out and RSVP here! Hope it will be interactive and I can see some of you tomorrow at the event. 

 

What Moves You To Action?

Is there a movie, a TED talk, a podcast that was so impactful, that you changed your behavior? 

Zann Gill and I have done some small circle POW!(Power Our World) sessions where everyone brought a trailer of an impactful movie to share. It turns out it is really hard to point to one that actually changed our behavior. There are many films that opened our eyes and changed our perspective, but very few that moved us to action.

It reminds me of that old Greek story where after one orator's speech people would say: "He is so brilliant with words!" and after the next speaker, they all jumped up with a fist in the air yelling "Let's kill Spara!" and rushed out to war. 

As our phones an social media is woven into all of our lives, there is a small chance, that tonight's film The Social Dilemma is one that moves us to change, hopefully not out to war, but to do something about these dilemmas.   

Please join us for the movie and the discussion afterward this Wednesday, September 9th 6pm PST. Sign up and get the Google Meetup link at the Social Dilemma" Watch & Discuss Party Eventbrite post.

P.S. Another Facebook engineer quits, accuses social network of 'profiting off hate'

Cory Doctorow's IP Update

In 2003 Cory Doctorow presented an early form of his legendary DRM Rant at the Future Salon, back in these early days, we hosted the Future Salon still at the Barns and Noble in San Mateo.  

It was impressive enough that the next day I joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

Cory just posted an update or a summary of his thinking about DRM, copyright, IP, and Free/Open Software.

He writes: Today, Locus published my longest, most substantial column ever, a piece that I wrote in something of a white heat about a month ago, called (somewhat ironically): "IP."

"Software isn’t just a way to put IP into otherwise inert objects. It’s also a way to automate them, to make them into unblink­ing, ever-vigilant enforcers for the manufacturer/monopolist’s interests. They can detect and interdict any attempt at unauthorized interoperability, and call the appropriate authorities to punish the offenders."

The last two sentences of Cory's epic column take it home: 

There are no digital rights, only human rights.

There is no software freedom, only human free­dom.

Let's protect our freedom!