Thursday, June 24, 2004
How advances in technology may reshape humanity an illustrated speculative timeline of future technology and social change: "The Timeline is a general outline of future history, and somewhat conservative and circumscribed in what it offers the reader. The Timeline is meant to be the 'harder' (or more factual/credible) of the two works, in terms of science and predictions. But this also means the Timeline must be more generalized, more risk-averse-- and also peter out entirely as we venture into the deep, deep future, where everything must ultimately give way to outrageous guesswork (partly due to technology advancing to levels indistinguishable from magic, as a famous quote by scientist and author Arthur C. Clarke suggests). "
The other work available here is called PERSPECTIVES
The other work available here is called PERSPECTIVES
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
New Technology Foresight Seminar
Downloads of the papers from the conferencew (which was rather pleasant and useful): EU-US Scientific Seminar: New Technology Foresight, Forecasting & Assessment Methods background to this was:
The Context
Recent years have seen a rejuvenation and growth in future-oriented technology analyses (FTA) to meet these demands. Today they form a set of partly overlapping fields of practice, including: technology foresight, forecasting, intelligence, roadmapping, and assessment. This diversity reflects the complexity of demands for FTA relating to differences in scope (geographic scale and time horizon); relationship to decision making, the extent of participation; the purpose of the analysis (awareness raising, envisioning, consensus building, corporate technology planning, etc); the reliability of source information; and so on.
The Challenges
The analysis of rapidly emerging technologies is vital to decision making today. Such analysis informs critical choices at all levels from international (e.g., European Union), through national and regional, to organizational (e.g., firm). The decisions that need such information include: scoping or awareness raising on emerging technologies; prioritizing R&D efforts; managing the risks of technological innovation; managing technology portfolios; and enhancing technological competitiveness of products, processes, and services.
The Objective
During the recent sharp expansion of FTA, there has been little systematic attention to conceptual development, research on improved methods, methodological choice, or how best to merge empirical/analytical methods with stakeholder engagement processes. This scientific seminar aims to provide an occasion for methodological innovators and practitioners to share and germinate ideas.
Downloads of the papers from the conferencew (which was rather pleasant and useful): EU-US Scientific Seminar: New Technology Foresight, Forecasting & Assessment Methods background to this was:
The Context
Recent years have seen a rejuvenation and growth in future-oriented technology analyses (FTA) to meet these demands. Today they form a set of partly overlapping fields of practice, including: technology foresight, forecasting, intelligence, roadmapping, and assessment. This diversity reflects the complexity of demands for FTA relating to differences in scope (geographic scale and time horizon); relationship to decision making, the extent of participation; the purpose of the analysis (awareness raising, envisioning, consensus building, corporate technology planning, etc); the reliability of source information; and so on.
The Challenges
The analysis of rapidly emerging technologies is vital to decision making today. Such analysis informs critical choices at all levels from international (e.g., European Union), through national and regional, to organizational (e.g., firm). The decisions that need such information include: scoping or awareness raising on emerging technologies; prioritizing R&D efforts; managing the risks of technological innovation; managing technology portfolios; and enhancing technological competitiveness of products, processes, and services.
The Objective
During the recent sharp expansion of FTA, there has been little systematic attention to conceptual development, research on improved methods, methodological choice, or how best to merge empirical/analytical methods with stakeholder engagement processes. This scientific seminar aims to provide an occasion for methodological innovators and practitioners to share and germinate ideas.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
The late Douglas Adams was no mean futurist, as well as a cool novellist and dictionarian, and this is a good taste of hiw thinking:BBC - Radio 4 - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future
