A day in your life 25 years from now

Analyze the mission/vision/goals of an organization

Anything that gets them to see and observe the social construction of social realities as a past, present and future phenomenon.

Anything that helps them see, sympathize with and yet transcend the degree to which our (and every society to date) is overwhelmingly unconscious of the processes by which it co-creates both meaning and social/economic processes and the need for wider, deeper, longer personal and social consciousness in the 21st Century.

Anything that helps them take sound thinking seriously -- analyzing editorials, current political debates, views of the business world or churches.

Anything that will help them develop their skills to see beyond the obvious -- deeper, wider, longer in time and space, e.g. what can you tell about the consciousness that has shaped our town/city just by wandering around it and trying to see it with fresh eyes?  The list is endless.

Assessing an organization's readiness for change

Assessment of Futuristic Web Site materials (many exist with fresh forecasts)

Benefiting (Triple Bottom Line/SR), Mgmt, and Metrics (Personal Futures over Org, Societal, and Global)

Bi-monthly futurists in classroom labs with students - challenging and creating alongside them

Blogging

Break down the language patterns of astrological predictions, etc... - to learn how language can be used to influence and predict (language influences behavior - language predicts behavior)

Broad-ranging research, with consideration for the credibility of sources

Building a case scenario

Cognitive exercises

Collecting examples from classical sources (quotations, etc.) from 'classical' books indicating early concerns of interest for contemporary future studies

Collecting images of the future - asking questions of power and contest

Compare high probability/high impact events versus low probability/high impact events

Complete the personal futures workbook by Verne Wheelwright

Conduct a survey

Consider Leadership Skills that Help Students Use Futures Knowledge to Benefit Civil Society and the Economy.

Consultation Techniques for Problem Solving

Create a Model

Create a You Tube clip depicting preferred future for 2050

Create trend lines from time series data

Creating an environmental scanning frame

Creating physical representations of change and the future

Creating the future from the weight of the past, push of the present and pull of the future

Cross-cultural futures game (i.e. Crossing Boundaries)

Delphi Poll

Depict major actors as related to trends

Depicting major trends in the chosen topic

Design and conduct a Delphi study and draw conclusions

Design and Test a Simulation and or Game

Designing your own future

Develop scenarios for a specific topic

Developing a new framework to gather and assess trends

Developing a personal futures statement

Development of public policy recommendations

Differentiate possible, plausible, probable

Drawing the future

Emergence of possible alternative futures

Environmental Scanning (STEEP)

Environmental Scanning Notebook / Showcase

Evaluate one or more articles on futures or trends: Does it have lasting value? Is it essentially one person's opinion?

Evaluating their career interests

Expert-Genius Interviews

Explore and understand cone of uncertainty

Extrapolate/project from trend lines

Facilitate global collaboration for item 3 above.

Fact of fiction - the usefulness of standard tools for effective futures work (forecasting, scenarios, trends, visions etc)

Field studies- working with organizations- service learning

Futures Wheels

Gathering and applying trends to a particular organization or industry

Group Interaction

Headlines for ten years from now.

Horizon scanning -- practical exercises

How to move from unconscious to conscious awareness of the future - learning to take responsibility

Identification of real-world problems and issues

Identify and Sort Issues Related to Society At-Large or a Business, Community, Education System, Association, Etc.

I'll use this space to point out that you neglected to specify the rationale or objectives of the course or of you understanding of futures/FR/SF.  You can see that I assume that this is necessarily consciousness work dedicated to the work of co-creating a truly sustainable and humane culture and that, in this light, much of what passes for work in this field is trivial.

Incasting

Indicate main actors and hence alternative futures

Indicate major trends

Indicate space context e connect time dimension

Information Retrieval for Future Studies : contacting specialists? retrieving from scientific databases? searching media and 'popular' (formal/informal) sources ? virtual social networks? etc.

Innovation & Creativity

Innovation, Creativity, Alternative Scenarios (Personal Futures over Org, Societal, and Global)

Interviews - older

Interviews - younger

Interviews with experts

Interviews with public policy leaders

Intuitive management

Learn proper survey writing

Letters to the Future : workshops on writing future-oriented reports (including presentation in groups with professional futurists as advisors)

Long weekend retreat under the influence of Barry Oshry Methods

Media, and social discourse - how we 'buy into' messages and how it limits our understanding

Modeling

Morph the future by using play dough or clay and then describing it

Noticing change in an urban context

Participating in an organizational futures exercise

Personal future thinking - plausible, probable, possible

Personal philosophy for the future

Personal projections & goal setting

Personal Visioning and Shared Visions - design your own personal vision and negotiate a shared vision

Planning and Normative Judgments (Personal Futures over Org, Societal, and Global)

Process of film analysis

Public speaking and advocacy

Random futures - randomly distribute driving forces... have 2, 3 or more synergize the focus

Recognize the space dimension and related to time dimension

Regular Futurist Think Tanks

Research into cultural contexts of time - circular, spiral, linear

Research, collect and interpret data from all the above

Sailing

Scanning Journal

Scanning, EIA, and Knowledge Management (Skills development with respect to Personal Futures should be stressed over Org, Societal, and Global)

Scenario building

Scenario Building (Schwartz/GBN approach)

Scenario planning -- workshop

Sci Fi classic readings

Simulations

Spreading the word : how do you communicate future issues in your community? How future issues are being communicated by others (media, political leaders, scientists, etc.) ?

Study Existing Trends, Spot an Additional Trend, Justify It, Write about It.  Do a PowerPoint Presentation about It.

Study Generations over the Past Century.  Speculate on Generations That Might Emerge during the Next Century.

Study Renaissance Thinkers, How They Composed Their Thoughts, How They are Similar or Different.

Synthesis of current social views of the future

Team: select and map a system (using Vensim software- student package free) and describe emergent behaviors in the system

Trend Analysis

Trend Analysis and Prediction (Personal Futures over Org, Societal, and Global))

Trip in the desert

Trips to 2050

Understanding some of the seminal works in the field - debates

Using futures tools to develop a project at work or a paper in another course.

Using tools to evaluate their career interests and identify emerging careers (Department of Labor is one source.  Have them SCAN for resources.)

Using trends information in the development of strategies

Using web based collaboration and futures tools to evaluate and recommend alternative futures for a community project.

Utilize light and sound machine (mind machine) technology for the whole term of the class (2 times a week -- 20 min homework) - using binaural beats -- etc

Walk the landscape of Gettysburg with a military expert -- in a "live-case-study" exercise - individuals strategize before hearing how it really happened

Which are the basic values used in the exercise

Work with various future tools

Work with various planning tools

Worksheet -- patterns of change:  constants, trends, cycles, issues

Workshops on Delphi Methods for everyday and political-sensitive issues (required 1 and 2 above)

Xi qong