Thursday, August 28, 2008
Governing the Future
(for government response, see end of this note)
Terms of Reference
2 The machinery of future thinking
- Background
The Labour Administration: Modernising Government
The Prime Minister's Strategy Unit
Further sources of strategic advice to the Prime Minister
Foresight and Horizon Scanning
From future thinking to policy development: targets and departmental strategies
3 Strategy and futures work at the centre
4 Future thinking in the departments
Conclusions and recommendations
Appendix 1: Departmental Capability Reviews: further information
Appendix 2: Prime Minister's Strategy Unit publications
Appendix 3: Governing the Future: Issues and Questions Paper
Memorandum by Sir Michael Bichard
Memorandum by Dr William Plowden
Memorandum by The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
Memorandum by Dr Ruth Levitt and William Solesbury
Memorandum by David Yaffey and Mike Zeidler of the Association of Sustainability Practitioners
Memorandum by Audrey MacDougall, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh
Memorandum by the International Futures Forum
Memorandum by the Office of Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry
Memorandum by the National School of Government
Supplementary memorandum from Sir David King FRS, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government and Head of the Office of Science and InnovationGOVERNMENT RESPONSE AT:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/pasc_response%20pdf.ashx
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Next Big Future
Rich blog on futures
Discussion of weak signals
"I have based my model of the future sign - which describes
change more holistically than only focusing on signals of it - on his
concept of a three dimensional sign (see Futures, 2007). Applying Peirce’s model of a sign to the future sign it has three dimensions: signal, issue and interpretation. In the future sign signals stand for the concrete form of a sign, the observation of the issue. The issue is the thing in itself and the interpretation is the sense made out of the issue’s possibilities for the future.
"I have visualized the future sign as a cube where signal, issue and
interpretation stand for various dimensions. The distance of the single
sign from the origin of the future sign cube tells the strength of the
sign.
"An example of that was a major story in the Helsingin Sanomat
(Finland’s main newspaper) about Hennes & Mauritz, the famous
fashion retailer, which started to sell old clothes (with the price of
new ones) under the “vintage” label. Only 1% of their shops were doing
that. So from the point of view of the future sign the amount of signal
(visibility of the signal) was huge (which makes it tempting to name
this a weak signal). But the reality (the issue: only 1% of H&M
shops did that) was small. To me the meaning of this for the future was
unclear: will this be a bigger trend? I don’t know. So assessing this
sign using the three dimensional future sign cube shows that the future
sign is actually rather weak - because two dimensions of it were weak.
The key point of future sign thinking is that sometimes there is great
media attention regarding some issue, while the issue itself never
becomes anything big. So be careful about hypes!"
