Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
FIF Series EP 94 - Building Futures Networks and Communities
We explore the power of building and nurturing communities of futures thinkers to accelerate learning and create greater impact in foresight work. The future is collectively created, and connecting with others who explore different perspectives enhances our ability to shape it.
• Futures communities expand our perspective by bringing together diverse viewpoints and expertise
• Communities function as learning accelerators, allowing members to build on others' insights and approaches
• Being part of a community creates accountability and sustains momentum in futures practice
• Collective action dramatically increases potential for meaningful change, especially for addressing systemic challenges
• Various types of futures communities include formal professional networks, practice-focused communities, place-based initiatives, online platforms, informal peer groups, and organizational foresight teams
• Finding communities involves mapping your interests, exploring professional associations, searching digital platforms, identifying local initiatives, and attending futures-focused events
• Building your own community requires starting small, inviting diverse participants, creating valuable experiences, and establishing flexible structures
• Successful communities balance consistency with renewal, document learning, navigate challenges, create feedback loops, focus on impact, and evolve their structure over time
• Your personal approach to community engagement might include exploring, participating, contributing, or catalyzing new connections
This week's challenge: Take one concrete step toward deeper community engagement—research potential communities, join an existing network, or connect two futures thinkers who should know each other.
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast, where we speak with futurists, innovators and big thinkers. Come along with your host, steve Fisher, and explore the future together.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Foundations in Foresight a Think Forward series. I'm Steve Fisher, and today we're exploring something that can dramatically accelerate your futures practice and amplify your impact building and nurturing communities of futures thinkers. Throughout this series, we've covered frameworks, methods and approaches for developing your foresight capabilities. We've explored everything from scanning for weak signals to building complex scenarios, from crafting future narratives to applying strategic insights. But there's a dimension of futures work that goes beyond individual practice the power of community. The truth is, foresight is inherently social. The future doesn't belong to any one person or organization. It's collectively created, and our ability to understand and shape it is dramatically enhanced when we connect with others who are asking similar questions, exploring different perspectives and developing complementary approaches. Today, we'll explore why futures communities matter, how to find or build your own network of future thinkers, and how to leverage these connections to accelerate learning and create greater impact. By the end of this episode, you'll have practical strategies for building meaningful futures networks that enhance both your personal practice and your ability to create positive change. Let's dive in why futures communities matter. Let's start by exploring why building futures networks is so valuable. What makes community particularly important in foresight work? Expanding our perspective?
Speaker 2:The future is complex and multifaceted. No single person can see all aspects of emerging change or understand all the implications of a potential development. Communities bring together diverse viewpoints, backgrounds and expertise, helping us recognize blind spots and consider angles we might otherwise miss. When you're part of a futures community, you benefit from the collective intelligence of the group. Someone with expertise in economics might spot implications you missed. Someone with a background in social psychology might raise questions about human adaptation that weren't on your radar. Someone from a different cultural background might challenge your assumptions about what's universally desirable or problematic. This diversity of perspective doesn't just make your foresight more comprehensive. It makes it more robust and resilient, less vulnerable to the biases and limitations that affect any individual's thinking.
Speaker 2:Accelerating Learning Futures communities function as powerful learning accelerators. Rather than having to discover everything through your own practice, you can build on others' insights, approaches and experiences. In an active futures community, members share resources, methodologies and tools. They discuss what's working and what's not. They highlight emerging signals that others might have missed. This creates a collaborative intelligence that helps everyone develop their foresight capabilities more rapidly than they could alone. Think of it as a learning multiplier. Instead of being limited to your own experiences and discoveries, you gain access to the collective learning of the entire community, creating accountability and momentum.
Speaker 2:Foresight work can sometimes feel abstract or disconnected from immediate concerns. It's easy to let it slide when more urgent matters demand attention. Being part of a community creates accountability and helps sustain momentum in your futures. Practice. Regular interaction with others who share your interest in the future creates natural checkpoints, whether it's formal meetings or informal conversations. These touchpoints help maintain your engagement with longer-term thinking and futures exploration. Communities also provide emotional support and encouragement when facing challenging futures or when trying to influence organizations or systems that are resistant to change. Knowing you're not alone in this work can be enormously motivating and sustaining Amplifying impact. Perhaps most importantly, futures communities amplify impact. Individual foresight practitioners can certainly make a difference, but collective action dramatically increases the potential for meaningful change. Communities can raise awareness of important issues more effectively than individuals. They can advocate for considered responses to emerging challenges, they can pool resources to explore complex questions more thoroughly, and they can coordinate efforts to shape futures in positive directions. This is particularly important for addressing systemic challenges like climate change, technological governance or social transformation, issues that are simply too big and complex for any individual or organization to tackle alone.
Speaker 2:Types of futures communities. Futures communities come in many forms, each with its own characteristics, benefits and limitations. Understanding these different models can help you identify or create the right type of community for your needs and context. Formal professional networks these include organizations like the Association of Professional Futurists, apf, world Future Society and Regional Foresight Associations. These formal networks typically offer regular conferences and professional development events, published journals and research, certification programs and best practice standards, career development resources and job opportunities. These communities are particularly valuable for those pursuing futures work as a profession or formally integrating it into their organizational roles. They provide structured learning pathways, credibility and connections to established practitioners. Practice-focused communities these communities center on applying specific foresight approaches or addressing particular domains. Examples include scenario planning practitioners, solar punk communities exploring positive environmental futures, biotech futures labs, ai governance working groups. These communities tend to be more specialized and action-oriented. They often develop deep expertise in particular methodologies or subject areas, making them valuable for those with specific interests or applications.
Speaker 2:Place-based futures initiatives these are communities organized around the future of specific places, cities, regions or neighborhoods. They might take the form of city foresight labs, community futures workshops, regional long-term planning initiatives, local resilience networks. Place-based communities often have the advantage of being able to meet in person and implement tangible projects within their geographic area. They can create powerful connections between futures thinking and immediate local action. Online communities and platforms Digital platforms have created new possibilities for futures communities to form across geographic boundaries. These include social media groups focused on futures topics, online forums and discussion boards. Virtual collaboration platforms, subscription-based learning communities. These digital communities offer accessibility and often feature diverse global membership. They tend to be more fluid and can rapidly respond to emerging signals or developments.
Speaker 2:Informal networks and peer groups Sometimes the most valuable futures communities are informal networks of colleagues, friends or peers who share an interest in futures thinking. These might be reading groups exploring futures literature, colleagues across different organizations who meet to discuss emerging trends. Peer mentoring circles for futures practitioners. Cross-disciplinary meetups exploring specific futures themes. These informal communities often create safe spaces for experimentation and learning Without institutional constraints. They can be more nimble and creative in their approaches. Organizational foresight teams Within organizations, dedicated foresight teams or cross-functional futures groups form their own kind of community. These might be corporate strategic foresight units, innovation labs with a futures focus, embedded futures thinkers across different departments, executive futures councils. These internal communities help translate external futures insights into organizational context and action. They're crucial for connecting foresight to decision-making and implementation. The best approach often involves engaging with multiple types of communities simultaneously, drawing on their complementary strengths. For example, you might combine membership in a formal professional association with participation in a local futures initiative and an informal peer group focused on a specific area of interest.
Speaker 2:Finding your futures community. Now that we understand the value and varieties of futures communities, how do you actually find the right communities for your needs? Here are practical approaches for connecting with existing futures networks. One map your purposes and interests. Start by clarifying what you're looking for in a futures community. Are you seeking professional development or credentials? Do you want to explore specific topics or methodologies? Are you looking for collaboration on particular projects? Do you need a supportive learning environment as you develop your practice? Are you interested in making a specific impact in a domain or geographic area? This clarity will help you identify communities that align with your goals and interests.
Speaker 2:Two explore professional associations. If you're interested in futures work as a profession or as a formal organizational function, investigate established associations the Association of Professional Futurists, apf, world Futures Society, wfs, the World Futures Studies Federation, wfsf, regional bodies like the European Futures Platform or the Asia Pacific Futures Network. These organizations typically offer membership options with varying benefits and requirements. Many have student or affiliate membership categories for those new to the field. 3. Search digital platforms. Online platforms offer numerous entry points to futures communities LinkedIn groups focused on futures foresight and forward thinking. Specialized platforms like the Futures Center or Futurist Board. Substack newsletters with active comment sections and community features. Discord servers or Slack communities centered on futures topics. Twitter slash X conversations around futures related hashtags. Reddit communities exploring futures themes. Digital platforms often provide low barrier ways to start engaging with futures communities before making bigger commitments.
Speaker 2:Identify local initiatives. Look for futures work happening in your geographic area. Check if your city has a foresight lab or futures council. Explore whether local universities have futures studies programs with public events. Investigate whether regional planning authorities use futures methods. See if there are local meetups or discussion groups focused on long-term thinking. Local initiatives offer the advantage of in-person connection and the ability to work on concrete projects in your community. Five follow thought leaders and organizations. Identify key thinkers, practitioners and organizations in areas of futures work that interest you. Then follow them on social media, subscribe to their newsletters or blogs, attend their public events, webinars or workshops, read their publications and engage with their ideas. This approach helps you identify the broader networks these individuals and organizations are part of opening pathways to related communities.
Speaker 2:Attend futures-focused events, conferences, workshops and other events are excellent ways to connect with futures communities. Major futures conferences like the APF's annual gathering, specialized events focused on particular futures domains, public lectures or panel discussions on futures topics, workshops teaching specific futures methodologies, hackathons or design jams with a futures theme. Even one-time events can provide entry points to ongoing communities and connections. Remember that finding the right futures community often involves exploration and experimentation. You might need to try several different communities before finding those that best align with your needs, interests and working style. This exploration itself is valuable, exposing you to diverse approaches and perspectives.
Speaker 2:Building your own futures community. What if you can't find an existing community that meets your needs? Or what if you see an opportunity to bring together people who should be thinking about the future together but aren't yet connected? In these cases, creating your own futures community might be the right approach. Here's a practical guide to building your own network of future thinkers.
Speaker 2:One start, small and focused. Don't try to create a comprehensive futures community overnight. Begin with a clear, specific focus that will attract the right initial participants A reading group exploring a particular futures book or author. A discussion circle examining the future of a specific industry or domain. A workshop series teaching basic futures methods, a collaborative project addressing a specific futures challenge. Starting small allows you to experiment with formats, build momentum and develop the foundation for a larger or broader community over time.
Speaker 2:Two identify and invite diverse participants. A successful futures community needs diversity of thought background and perspective. Consider people from different professional backgrounds and disciplines, individuals at various career stages, from students to senior practitioners. People with lived experiences relevant to the futures you're exploring, both analytical thinkers and creative innovators, both optimists and constructive skeptics. This diversity ensures richer conversations and more robust futures exploration. Be intentional about including perspectives that might otherwise be marginalized in futures discussions. Three create valuable experiences. For a community to thrive, participating needs to be worth people's time and energy. Design experiences that deliver genuine value. Structured learning opportunities that build practical skills. Access to resources, tools or methods. Thank you, thinking to real challenges, the most successful communities create multiple forms of value for different participants with diverse needs and interests.
Speaker 2:Four establish clear but flexible structures. Communities need enough structure to function effectively but enough flexibility to evolve. Consider regular cadence of gatherings or activities to create predictability. Clear purpose and guidelines that help participants engage appropriately. Distinct roles or responsibilities for community maintenance. Processes for making decisions and resolving conflicts, mechanisms for evolving the community's focus or approach over time. The right structure supports rather than constrains community development, providing just enough scaffolding for meaningful interaction. 5. Build rituals and practices. Shared rituals and practices help create community identity and cohesion Opening and closing routines for meetings, regular reflection on the community's progress and impact, celebration of milestones or achievements, recurring themes or activities that become tradition, documentation of insights and learning. These shared experiences create connection and continuity, turning a group of individuals into a true community with collective identity and memory.
Speaker 2:Six nurture community leadership. Sustainable communities. Develop distributed leadership rather than relying on a single founder or facilitator. Identify and encourage emerging leaders within the community. Create opportunities for different members to take on facilitation or organization. Rotate responsibilities to prevent founder burnout. Establish mentoring relationships between experienced and newer members. Develop succession planning for key community roles. This distributed approach ensures the community can thrive even as individual participation changes over time.
Speaker 2:Seven connect to broader networks. Even when building your own community, connecting to broader networks amplifies impact and sustainability. Partner with established futures organizations for specific events or initiatives. Join larger coalitions addressing futures challenges. Share learning and insights with other communities working on similar questions. Invite guest speakers or participants from complementary networks. Thank you. Building a futures community is itself a futures exercise. You're creating something that doesn't yet exist, based on an understanding of needs, opportunities and possibilities. Approach it with the same creativity, systems thinking and adaptability that you bring to other futures. Work Sustaining and evolving futures communities.
Speaker 2:Creating a futures community is just the beginning. Sustaining it over time and guiding its evolution requires ongoing attention and care. Here are key principles for maintaining vibrant, impactful futures networks. One balance consistency and renewal. Communities need both stability and fresh energy. Maintain consistent elements that provide reliability and familiarity. Regularly introduce new topics, methods or formats to prevent stagnation. Periodically revisit and refresh the community's purpose and familiarity. Regularly introduce new topics, methods or formats to prevent stagnation. Periodically revisit and refresh the community's purpose and focus. Create onboarding pathways for new members while honoring established participants. Be willing to let go of activities or approaches that no longer serve the community. This balance keeps the community grounded while preventing it from becoming rigid or routine.
Speaker 2:Two document and share learning. Futures communities generate valuable knowledge and insights that should be captured and shared. Create systems for documenting key discussions and insights. Develop shared resources that accumulate community wisdom. Publish or present community learning through appropriate channels. Create artifacts that new members can use to understand the community's history. Regularly reflect on what the community is learning collectively. These practices transform individual participation into collective intelligence that grows over time.
Speaker 2:Three navigate challenges and conflicts. All communities face challenges that must be addressed constructively. Develop processes for addressing tensions or disagreements. Create space for difficult conversations about power, inclusion or direction. Be attentive to signs of community fatigue or disengagement. Address problematic behavior or dynamics promptly and fairly. View challenges as opportunities for community growth and deepening. Communities that can navigate difficulty will often emerge stronger and more resilient. Create feedback loops. Responsive communities develop mechanisms for continuous improvement. Regularly seek input from participants about what's working and what could be better. Notice patterns of engagement and disengagement. Pay attention to which activities generate energy and which deplete it. Create opportunities for creative criticism and constructive suggestions. Experiment with adjustments based on feedback. These feedback loops help the community adapt to changing needs and circumstances.
Speaker 2:Five focus on impact and implementation. Futures communities thrive when they connect insight to action. Create pathways from exploration to practical application. Celebrate examples of community insights influencing decisions or initiatives. Develop mechanisms for translating futures thinking into present-day projects. Partner with implementation-focused organizations or groups. Maintain a balance between open exploration and practical relevance. This connection to impact keeps the community grounded and demonstrates its value.
Speaker 2:Six evolve governance and structure. As communities mature, their structures often need to evolve. Assess whether initial governance approaches still serve as the community grows. Consider formalizing aspects of community management if appropriate. Develop clearer decision rights and processes. If needed, create working groups or sub-communities for specialized interests. Consider whether new platforms or tools would better support community interaction. Thoughtful evolution of structure helps the community handle increased complexity while maintaining its essential character. Remember the futures communities, like all complex systems, go through cycles of growth, stabilization, creative destruction and renewal. Rather than trying to maintain a single state indefinitely, focus on guiding these natural cycles in ways that serve community members and purposes.
Speaker 2:Learning from Successful Futures Communities. Let's look at some examples of effective futures communities and what we can learn from their approaches. The Long Now Foundation. The Long Now Foundation has built a remarkable community around fostering long-term thinking. Key elements of their approach include a clear, compelling mission focused on expanding time horizons. Tangible projects, like the 10,000-year clock, that make abstract concepts concrete. Regular public events that engage broader audiences. A physical space, the interval that embodies their ethos. High-quality content that serves as a resource for members and beyond. Content that serves as a resource for members and beyond. From Long Now. We learn the importance of creating symbolic anchors that make futures thinking tangible and accessible to diverse audiences.
Speaker 2:Speculative futures Speculative futures has grown from a small local group to a global network of chapters exploring design, fiction and futures. Their success factors include a distributed model that allows local adaptation. Clear guidelines and resources for starting new chapters. A balance of structured methodology and creative freedom. Regular cross-chapter collaboration and knowledge sharing. Accessibility to people with varied levels of futures expertise. From speculative futures we learn how a lightweight but clear framework can enable local experimentation while maintaining global coherence.
Speaker 2:Climate futures Various climate futures communities demonstrate the power of focusing on a specific domain while connecting to broader systems. Successful approaches include bridging disciplinary boundaries between science Thank you. Practical transition pathways From climate futures communities we learn how focused futures work can create concrete impact on pressing challenges. Organizational foresight networks Some companies have developed effective internal futures communities that span different business units and functions. Their success factors include executive sponsorship that provides resources and legitimacy. Clear connection to strategic decision-making processes. Rotating participation that spreads futures capacity throughout the organization and legitimacy. Clear connection to strategic decision-making processes. Rotating participation that spreads futures capacity throughout the organization. Recognition and reward for futures thinking contributions. Regular showcases that make futures work visible across the organization. From these networks we learn how futures communities can effectively influence organizational direction and culture. While these examples are diverse, they share common elements clear purpose, appropriate structure, meaningful engagement and connection to action. These principles can be adapted to communities of any size or focus your personal approach to futures communities.
Speaker 2:As we wrap up our exploration of futures networks and communities, let's consider how to develop your personal approach to community engagement. Not everyone needs or wants the same kind of community involvement and your approach should align with your goals, preferences and circumstances. Here are different levels of engagement to consider Explore At this level, you're primarily learning about futures approaches and communities. Attending public events or webinars, following futures organizations and practitioners on social media. Reading community discussions without actively participating. Experimenting with methods and ideas.
Speaker 2:Privately Participant Contributing to discussions and collaborative work. Applying community-shared approaches in your own context, sharing your experiences and insights with the group. This participation phase builds your capabilities and connections within existing structures. Contributor At this level, you're helping strengthen and expand communities, taking on specific responsibilities or roles, developing resources or content to share, mentoring newer members, representing the community in external contexts, helping evolve community practices or focus. This contribution phase deepens community capacity while developing your leadership Catalyst. At this level, you're initiating new communities or connections, starting new groups where you see gaps or opportunities, creating bridges between different communities or networks. Thank you, futures ecosystem and maximizes collective impact.
Speaker 2:Your engagement might evolve over time, moving through these different levels, as your interests, capabilities and circumstances change. You might also engage differently with different communities simultaneously, perhaps as a catalyst in a local initiative, while being a participant in a global professional network. The key is developing an approach that aligns with your purpose for engaging with futures work. In the first place, are you primarily focused on personal development, professional advancement, organizational effectiveness, social impact? Your community engagement strategy should support these underlying goals. Final thoughts and your challenge Futures work is inherently collaborative.
Speaker 2:The future doesn't belong to any one person, organization or perspective. It emerges from countless interactions, decisions and developments across complex systems. Our ability to understand and shape it is dramatically enhanced when we connect with others who are asking similar questions, exploring different perspectives and developing complementary approaches. Whether you join existing networks or create new communities, engaging with other future thinkers amplifies your learning, expands your perspective and increases your impact. It transforms futures thinking from an individual practice into a collective capability.
Speaker 2:As you continue your foresight journey, I encourage you to make community engagement an integral part of your approach. Connections you build won't just enhance your futures practice. They'll enrich your understanding of the present and expand your capacity to create positive change. Here's my challenge for you this week take one concrete step toward deeper community engagement. Depending on where you are in your journey, this might be identifying and researching three potential futures communities relevant to your interests, reaching out to join an existing network or attending your first event connecting two futures thinkers who should know each other. But Thank you. Building futures networks is itself a form of future making. You're creating connections and capabilities that will shape what becomes possible. In our next episode, we'll move into practical application with our first Super Shift integration workshop focusing on the personal implications of these massive transformations. We'll explore how to develop adaptive strategies for your own future in the context of these powerful shifts. Until then, keep building connections, keep expanding your futures community and, as always, think forward.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
