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
Think Forward EP 129: The Dao of Foresight with Alex Fergnani
Alex Fergnani takes us on a journey from his beginnings as a martial arts student in Asia to becoming a provocative voice in futures thinking with his groundbreaking approach to foresight wisdom. His upcoming book "The Dao of Foresight" with Penguin represents a fresh approach to teaching foresight concepts through an entertaining narrative set in a fictional world.
Following a hero's journey structure, the novel follows a young disciple seeking a master to help save his endangered village. Through this adventure, readers learn foresight techniques while engaging with wisdom from Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Confucianism. Alex shares the comprehensive world-building process behind the book—creating maps, character backgrounds, and plot structures that form a rich universe accessible to audiences from teenagers to seasoned practitioners.
Some highlights from our conversation:
- Entered futures accidentally after pursuing Asian studies and discovering a Future Studies program in Taiwan
- Views Kung Fu as the primary influence on his approach to foresight—focusing on rigorous fundamentals, discipline, and systematic processes
- Created "The Dao of Foresight" as an edutainment novel set in the Land of Pangu
- Developed a comprehensive world-building process with maps, character backgrounds, and a hero's journey narrative structure
- Believes the foresight field should first distinguish between futurism (speculation) and foresight (systematic approaches)
- Pivoting his career toward becoming a "communicator of wisdom" rather than a traditional foresight practitioner
His personal revelation that his initial attraction to foresight's ambitious scope was partly compensating for deeper psychological needs offers powerful insight for anyone drawn to futures work. Whether you're curious about alternative approaches to futures thinking or interested in how storytelling can transform complex concepts, this episode offers a thought-provoking blend of Eastern wisdom and foresight practice.
Find Alex on LinkedIn and YouTube, and join his mailing list to receive updates about "The Dao of Foresight" and when it is available here for pre-order:
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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 Show. Let's explore the future together.
Speaker 2:Welcome, friends and fellow big thinkers. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation about foresight wisdom and the unexpected parallels between Kung Fu and futures think. My guest today is Alex Vignotti, a provocative voice in the futures field, whose journey has taken him from studying Kung Fu and Asia to developing rigorous approaches to foresight. Alex is about to release a groundbreaking book with Penguin called the Tao of Foresight, which takes a completely fresh approach to teaching foresight concepts through an entertaining narrative set in a fictional world. So, whether you're a seasoned futurist or just curious about how different ways to think about tomorrow, this conversation offers valuable insights about blending Eastern wisdom with futures thinking. So let's dive in. Welcome to Episode 129, the Tao of Foresight with Alex Ferdinandi. Alex, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks, steve, pleasure of mine.
Speaker 2:It's great to have you here. You know, before we started the recording, we were talking a lot about just corporate foresight, just the journey of futures. So many in the futures field know you. You have some very, I would say strong opinions about certain things which I truly love and we'll talk, we'll get into. But your journey into futures, like what drew you to this field? How did you, how did you get into this? Everyone's always seems to be the accidental futurist in a way, so thanks for that question.
Speaker 3:It is. It was accidental for me as well. I don't want to take so much time telling my life story. It can be boring, so I'm going to try to be concise. Love for Asia and we're going to come back to this, I presume, later on in the interview.
Speaker 3:It all started from a deep love of Asia. I was absolutely obsessed with Asian cultures, specifically Chinese and Japanese cultures, when I was a kid. I was very much into Kung Fu, kung Fu movies, bruce Lee, jackie Chan, all that stuff. And I took a bachelor degree in Asian studies, moved to Shanghai in China, worked in Shanghai for a few years as a typical management consultant job, boring job. And when I was in Shanghai after a few years I realized that's weird. I'm very intellectual kind. I don't enjoy the corporate lifestyle. It's just not for me. I would just wait eagerly to come back home and read books, you know, read scientific papers. So I at some point realized the corporate life is not for me. I want to go back to academia. So when I was there in Shanghai I decided let's look for a master's degree. Maybe I can, you know, maybe I can find a good master's degree in this area of the world because I want to stay in Asia. And I looked around a bit and accidentally as you said, it always is accidental Accidentally I found out that there was a very cool master's degree in Taiwan entitled future studies, which I had absolutely no idea what it was. And I go and research about it and I realized they pay international students to do it because Taiwan wants to attract international talent. So that's a big plus. And second, I realized it's super cooler and he has all these super cool sounding subjects like career, futures, the future of the world scenario planning, and it all sounded amazing, especially because at that point in time, as you can imagine, I was probably like I don't know 23, 24. I had a thousand different interests, ranging from as cultures and Asian philosophies, but also political science, cognitive science, behavioral economics. I would read all the sun dry, all I could find under the sun. So I had a lot of different interests and this degree seemed to be broad enough. Right, it seemed to be umbrella range. You know, umbrella broad range enough for me to pursue wide ranging themes.
Speaker 3:So I went to Taiwan and I was lucky to be admitted on a scholarship to pursue this degree and I love the fact that this degree really gave you an intro to foresight and also all the stuff you can do with Foresight, which are pretty ambitious things, right. You can oh, you, change the word with policymaking, you change the course of corporate visions. It's pretty wide, ambitious stuff, right. So I was very fascinated by that and I love the program. And I think this is one of the things, one of the very strong points of Foreset it does attract people who really want to change the word. But on the other hand and we can talk about this later a big strength is usually also a big weakness, because when you are attracted to such big themes, why are you attracted to such big themes? Do you have to compensate for some individual lack of validation that you had? We can go into the deep stuff later, but this program, right.
Speaker 3:But at that point, obviously at that point, I was young and unaware of my the deeper dimensions of the self. So I went all into it and I was. I loved my time in Taiwan, especially because in Taiwan you have this weird confluence of East and West and there is the freedom of intellectual lucubration and speech that you don't have in China, so it was very refreshing. But yet you have Chinese culture and all the traditional stuff that you cannot find about the past the Chinese past and the ancient wisdom of Asia you can find in Taiwan connected with future studies. That was a very interesting experience for me, right to go through that master's degree, and that is where it all started. After that, I took my PhD in Singapore, focusing on management and corporate foresight, and then I was a professor for a couple of years and that's where I am now Right.
Speaker 2:Henry Suryawirawan, the School in Taiwan. What was the name of it?
Speaker 3:Carlos Bernal Cum Cum University. They still have programs which are not exclusively focused on futures. I was lucky that when I took the master's, it was between 2015 and 2017. They had a dedicated program. It was literally a master's degree in future studies. Now they have basically combined that degree with some other degrees in education so you can still take a degree. I think it's either a master or a PhD, I can't remember well but now it's more like futures and education design, so it veers into the educational policy domain, so it's not purely future studies. When I took it back then it was purely future studies but was this with sohaya?
Speaker 3:it was sohaya, one of the sohaya with one of the faculty members. Yes, sohaya was one of the faculty members.
Speaker 2:So you have been deeply, deeply impacted with CLA exercises, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:So that's quite the Well, I would say CLA was one of the mainstream, the major threads that literally run all over the program. So in many classes we would cover CLA philosophy in practice and other methods of course.
Speaker 2:And I'm a big fan of CLA. For those on the show that don't know, it stands for causal layer analysis. It's a method to look at and create scenarios, but it's very much systems thinking approach with layers that go from litany to like deep, deep, deep system of the myth of things. So I would highly recommend that. I'll probably do another episode specifically on it. I want to have Sahal on at some point and to talk about that, but that's a that's a great way to ground you. I mean so you've done management consulting and I share that, that, that wonderful experience in this Academia I haven't touched too much.
Speaker 2:I live with an academic who does a lot of great research. So how client you know to kind of bring their injured, their students in for for projects or run that kind of stuff. But really, like you know, got a bill, got a bread and butter, got to deliver. The appetite for a lot of consulting firms for futures is not high because you know most consulting firms are reactionary for clients. You know they get paid a lot of money to tell people what to do tomorrow. So how has that shaped your approach Like?
Speaker 3:when you teach and when you talk about the field with people to kind of ground it. Yeah Well, obviously I have been a very rigorous person. So mostly academia has shaped my mind in that whatever I do is extremely rigorous in that there has to be a systematic approach in it. There has to be sources. I never come up with stuff on my desk and if I do so I will say that clearly. All sources are acknowledged, all sources that are acknowledged. There must be a foundation to what I do. So I think academia has shaped my practice in the rigor of it. The fact that I come from a management consulting standpoint has also given the practical application to it. So at the end of the day, I have always thought of myself of trying to strive the balance between practice and rigor, because I have lived both. You know I talk to executives, I know their concerns and yet I also am in academia, so I know the importance of rigor. So I always strive to achieve a balance between the two.
Speaker 3:But it would surprise you that the thing that probably shaped my way of doing, my modus operandi, the most, is neither academia, nor practice, nor management consulting. But it is Kung Fu, it is martial arts. Because at the end of the day, when I really go back to my origin, my first real interests, at the end of the day, when I really go back to my origin, my first real interests I came to Asia to learn Kung Fu before even before becoming a management consultant. I came to Asia to learn Kung Fu and I was literally learning Kung Fu with a master's like the old school way, learning with him for hours every morning, one-on-one, before even realizing I couldn't go on with that life because I didn't produce any money. So I then shifted to management consulting. So that shaped my entire life, including my approach to anything I do intellectually and practically, including Foresight, in that I am extremely serious about what I do.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you ever had a glimpse of a very solid kung fu practice, which means that even before fighting, you need to get immersed in the fundamentals for years. Basically, you need to learn stances and punches and you cannot even start practicing with an opponent, probably not in the first two or three years. You just got to be very serious about your commitment and the fundamentals and that is a very disciplined, serious approach. So in everything I do, I take things extremely seriously and that is probably the thing that has shaped my approach to foresight the most, and that is also one of the reasons why I have been a provocateur, so to speak, because I take the field so seriously and I question every single thing and I have been getting irritated, you know, by non-serious approaches. That is, you know, if you want to dig deep in.
Speaker 3:Why am I a provocateur? You know, why am I steering debates in the reason, rationale and mode of practice of the field? Well, it's because I have this very martial approach to things, if you wish. So I think things like, if I see a document that is not properly attributed, or a process that is not systematic, or anything that has not any foundations because we have strong foundations in martial arts, right Then I question that right, right.
Speaker 2:And just to go back, so with Kung Fu, I practice yoga. They're all practices. There's a discipline to it, there's a rigor to it. Right, like you're never perfect.
Speaker 2:There's a never perfection, or you're in you're done right it's always a constant practice right. Like you're never perfect there's a never perfection. Or you're done right it's always a constant practice right. And the speed in which you do yoga is obviously faster than it would Kung Fu. But because you're all parallels and the rigor. There is a rigor to the foundations of foresight and futures work, but it needs to be open. You need to learn the basics. This is why I think a lot of people that just call themselves futurists, why you had talked to there's a famous article. He used a provocative word about there's it's. I would just call it I. I say I use the term fake futurist.
Speaker 2:So there are people who use the term, but it's like, yes, you actually have to do the tools and the methods. Um, yeah, joe lafour and I were talking about this on another on her episode about oh, I actually have to. There's there's things I do, but it's not one size fits all. And I think with kung fu and please correct me if I'm wrong here is that you study the years of the foundation so that there is almost a, there's a muscle memory and a natural flow to the that, and then when you learn to strike and do the other things.
Speaker 2:You have to improvise and obviously react to your opponent to think too too many things, much like in a in a foresight project or innovation project or any kind of not everything is this. You don't do the same thing every single time. You have to. If it's, you know interviews. But whatever it is, I think one of the point, but if I remember correctly correct if I'm wrong is that you wrote a paper about I I don't know what. I cannot remember the topic. I should have had my titles here. My wife would be impressed if I had all the research notations. But there was somebody that commented that disagreed with you and I think you wrote a paper to counter his argument. Yeah, Because that I don't know how much. That's almost like.
Speaker 2:It's like academic street fighting, it's like that's the equivalent of like like a, like a like a, uh, a recess yard. You're like battle, like after school, like you know. Let's go out in the back and yeah, so where did that like tell us? Can you that? I think I found, and it was awesome because you kind of took it to the place where it's not like you're just going to be on a spout on social media and have a Twitter fight.
Speaker 2:You actually were like you know to your point about rigor. You put it to the actual research you know. You know if you'd like to go into it. I was just. I found that a really great example. I've never seen that, but it goes to your point about rigor and the academic part. I thought it was just awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does happen in academia. Actually, there are forums where it is designed as such. In fact, the editor was up for it from the start. Sometimes the editor looks at the paper they get for a publication and they suss. They suss it beforehand. They think, oh, this is a provocative paper, it's going to get responses and, by the way, if you want to reply to the responses, that'd be fun Because at the end of the day, that's also entertaining for the audience, right? So they see the boxing match going on. So it was design. Actually, it was design from the start, that's great.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it was a great example. You know, at the Dubai Future Forum I watched a video of you and I encourage others to watch it. Watch it. One of the things that I've. My work is to try and really, even though it's been around this field has been around for 50, 60 years it really hasn't been standardized as like a real field with roles and structure and you know in your work in corporate foresight and organizational foresight.
Speaker 2:What do you think the the field, what do you think that we can do to better establish this, like with credibility, standards, models like what do you think needs to be there in order for it? Because it can live or die in the wrong or the right part of an organization too.
Speaker 3:How does it get brought in when you've seen you know, if you asked me this question a year or two ago, I would go into the details of what are all the things that we need to do, including, very importantly, facilitation. You know you need to have some skills of facilitation. You cannot just be dumped in a room and start facilitating. It's not something you learn by teaching yourself and you need to be aware of the literature and all that stuff. It's not something you learn by teaching yourself and you need to be aware of the literature and all that stuff. So I would go into great details into that. But if you ask me now, because I have taken a very Zen tends to be very bitter when rigor is not there in others' work. So that is obviously advantageous in that I see the weaknesses and the strengths, but it can be also a lot of bad energy, right, because it's always about oh, why are they not getting it? It's like the bitterness is always there. So now I'm taking more of a Zen approach, more laid back about all things, and my reply now is you know, we just need to distinguish between futurism and foresight. That would be a great start, because standardizing is actually far away, like we can't even distinguish between what futurism is and foresight is, how can we even talk about standardization? So my answer to that question is let's try to work on a basic this is a very 101, one to one sorry 101 concept which is basic common understanding of.
Speaker 3:There is a difference between foresight, which is a systematic approach to the futures and using the futures to take better decisions in the present, and futurism, which is speculation, not systematic. Maybe there's a bit of science fiction there. Futurism is just another animal right, and now there is not such a distinction. People do foresight and call themselves futurist, which in my opinion recalls futurism more than foresight. A lot of people do futurism and then they call themselves foresight practitioners. It's a mess. So I just aim, you know, I would just aim for that first. That's the first step. Then, when that is achieved, when there is a very you know widespread understanding of the difference, so people decide to do either one or the other, then we can talk about standardization. We cannot even I don't think we're even close to standardizing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a journey, I agree with you. I remember I don't think we're even close to standardizing right now. Yeah, it is a journey, I agree with you. I remember I think it was on FuturePod you, when you were going to you talked about the difference between that and you were looking at. I distinguish between futures research and futures practice. So, like to your point about foresight strategic foresight I just think it's named badly. I think we have a branding problem. Personally, as well.
Speaker 2:As a product. It's fun to build. You know I build products. I'm. You know I make software. Like I do a lot of branding work and you know we have a, we have a, we have a, we have a naming and branding problem. Yes, it is. There's brand confusion, there is brand dilution, there's all the the bad things that go with.
Speaker 2:You know brand disasters, and I don't know what it would take because there's so many fractious elements of it, but at least for me, my goal was to try and get some standards as to how people might bring it into an organization and hire people and and and and fund that you know, and it's like you talk, you know, you we've talked about rigor. We talked, you've talked a lot about. You know your passion with kung fu, which kind of which leads me to this in the end, the zen state, which is your book, which I find fascinating. You know a lot of books out there. Pretty much all of them are about methods, tools, philosophies great, they're great, they're great, they all have their place. But you wrote, or it's coming now.
Speaker 2:You've written a book the Tao of Foresight. When I saw that and it's like it's illustrations, I was like what it's like Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. It's like it's going to be this kind of philosophical like. So for with a book, you know, when you get a publisher you kind of have to have your logline pitch Like what. What is your kind of logline pitch for the book? Like what is what is that?
Speaker 3:That's such a question. Well, the pitch is that?
Speaker 2:That's what I do man?
Speaker 3:That's what I do. The pitch how do I present the book in an elevator? So the pitch is that there is a master Imagine a master of Kung Fu with great powers and the master doesn't teach Kung Fu, he teaches foresight. That's the whole idea. So it all came from, as you know, my deep love for Asian cultures and philosophies and Kung Fu and all that stuff connected with the idea that, as you just said, foresight is usually communicated very badly with a typical textbook and it's boring, right. So you know, if you take these two ingredients together, hey, I really love Asian stuff, asian cultures, kung Fu, martial arts and B foresight is so boring to read. There is no exciting book. How about combining the two? How about writing a book that is an edutainment novel, which is memorable, which is fun, which is entertaining, using the archetype of a master of kung fu and a student, but instead the master of kung fu? He has some great superpowers, but they're not kung fu related. Actually, what he teaches, what is kung fu style is not, you know, tai chi or hungar or winch is foresight. That's the idea, right? And actually you would think how in the world did you make the connection? These two things are completely different. What is the parallelism, what is the commonality that actually turns out and this I learned after a long time. I realized after a long time the two things are very much connected. No wonder I've been interested in both, because they have a very strong connection and obviously this connection can be declined in many layers.
Speaker 3:But to summarize, to get to the point, they're all about managing uncertainty. Think about it when you are fighting an opponent, you are in one of the most uncertain states. You could be literally facing death right. So how do you manage that uncertainty? You need to have a system, and that system is a fighting style or a fighting technique, a set of fighting techniques. That's in martial arts. When you're practicing foresight. As a leader of an organization, you are in an extremely uncertain environment where your organization could go bust literally in one year if you don't take the right decisions. So how do we decide so that your organization survives and thrives? Well, you need to have a system, and that system has also tools and techniques. They're not punches, they're not kicks. They are different. There are not kicks. They are different. They're scenario planning, they're horizon scanning and so on. So there is a very strong commonality.
Speaker 2:And by digging deep into that commonality, the book idea came about so there's characters, two characters jingo jigo, chico chico and master foo jigo yeah so how they and how do they convey, like you talked about this, like conveying the, the principles, like do do you walk? Is the the student kind of starting on the path? Is that kind of like their initial okay, what's is there like a hero's journey in this? Is there like what is the journey that they take? Okay, there is a hero's journey.
Speaker 3:Obviously I wanted to make the book entertaining and engaging, so riveting in a way, because the danger of writing a book like this and at the beginning I was actually falling into that risk the danger of writing a book like this is it's going to be separate chapters. In each chapter there is a dialogue between master and student and the master teaches the student a principle of foresight, using Asian wisdom, and that's it. That's interesting. But there is no pressure, there is no interest or, you know, push for the reader to go on because there is no narrative. So then, later on, when I was writing the book, I realized push for the reader to go on because there is no narrative. So then later on, when I was writing the book, I realized, okay, I need to create a narrative. So then I went and built Plot a hero's journey.
Speaker 3:So the journey starts with the student, the disciple. He's got a problem, he needs to save his village in danger and he needs to find help. And so he goes up to the mountain to find a master to help him out, to learn some practice, to help him out, to save his village in danger. And he goes and finds Master Fu and then he starts learning the techniques of foresight. Through 12 chapters, including the epilogues and the introduction, I think 12 or 13 chapters, he learns all the techniques of foresight. In every chapter he learns a new technique.
Speaker 3:But this occurs while going on a hero's journey. So he has a lot of obstacles he goes through. You know there is an evil villain who is trying to get the foresight knowledge and use it for some unscrupulous intent. So he has to prevent that from happening. And the villain has sort of a right man who is a Kung Fu fighter that he needs to fight. And so there are many different fights over the course of the book and he will enroll some help. So he will enroll some, some bandit or another master of kung fu who turns out he teaches science fiction, prototyping to get the help he needs to solve the riddle, so to speak, and eventually crack the wisdom of, but also save his village with it. That's the whole idea.
Speaker 2:I love that it reminds me of, so this absolutely could be translated to a children's book.
Speaker 3:Totally, and it was designed. It was designed as something that can be transformed into different media, especially a film or a playbook or a cartoon. In fact, the next step for me is to try to pitch it to Disney, to make a movie out of it or, for example, to translate it into a storybook. So there are different media where you can. You know a manga, for example. You can represent it. So yeah, you're totally spot on.
Speaker 2:I think that you could also, if you haven't talked, to Peter Bishop over at Teach the Future.
Speaker 3:For example, you could do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that. This would be a great book core curriculum for like to do for teenagers or kids. Like to to get the kind of it, make it accessible right Instead of the actual and the things beyond that.
Speaker 3:But I want to clarify one thing. But the book is often very, very amenable to be read by young people because there's this very engaging narrative. You know, the typical 21 years old or even 15 years old would not pick a foresight textbook if he goes in a bookstore, but he would pick the Tao of Foresight, which is such an interesting, you know, a novel. So that's for sure. But the book is also designed for adults because it depends on which stage of life you read it. You will get what you need, Because the fact that the book uses quotes of wisdom from Taoism, Zen, Buddhism and Confucianism makes a lot of the learnings of the students quite deep.
Speaker 3:So actually it's about mindset, it's about mindfulness, it's about philosophy, the essence of practice, it's about reaching one limit, it's about finding purpose. So it's a book that it will give you what you need at whatever stage of life you are. You know, if you are 15 years old, what you get out of it is probably the engaging narrative. If you are 45, what you get out of it? Oh, these are interesting quotes about what is the meaning of life, what is the practice you will focus your life on, to know yourself better. So there are different levels. You can take the book. It's a bit like Siddhartha, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Well, I keep thinking. There's a couple of things. It, if I was in a pitch meeting with this, would be um, one, you'd want to make this a series, because this is volume one, like it's the journey, the hero's journey to learn, that you could continue the story as they maybe go through another, to other villages or other places and learn and apply what they've learned. So there's a volume two, three, four. I mean this could be a ongoing series, right? So that's where also the pitch with Disney, like it's not just like a you know one, like you could do it as a movie, Absolutely, you could do it as a movie, absolutely you could do it as a series, ongoing you know, series one is the journey, and each, each book could be a season, um, but it it creates accessibility.
Speaker 2:I think of really good books like history, uh, revealed or um there's or hidden history. Then there's the um, the I survived books. There's ones for kids, like people, the kids have survived disasters and it just gets it accessible to like what happens in those situations. And did you, do you find a publisher for this? Did you pitch that or is this your self-publishing? How are you going through that? What's your, what's the plan for this like? Is there a publisher that's helping you or what are you doing with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was very lucky to be to be published with Penguin, so it's going to be published with Penguin in the next few months and it obviously is a very rigorous process and they go through, you know, very rigorous structural editing, then copy editing, then typesetting. So I'm very happy. They're really helping to solidify the narrative and that will probably take a few more months. So I think at some point in spring 2025, it will be published. I hope to be, I hope to have a date, a precise date you know, soon, and after that happens, I will then do as you said. You know, depending on the response as well, I will think about either a sequel or adaptations and, by the way, as you correctly noted, the book is open to sequels because, in order for me to design the book, I had to do a bit of world building, right.
Speaker 3:So, I had to create a new universe.
Speaker 2:I was just about to ask you the world building process which is wonderful.
Speaker 3:There is actually a very deep, there was a very deep world building process. So I had to create a new world, which is called the land of Pangu. By the way, there's a Chinese symbology there, because Pangu in Chinese mythology is the creator of all things. So it's like a, it's a demigod, it's a creator. And so in this land there are three villages. One is the village where the kid is born, and that is the village in danger. Then there's another village, which is the village state that has a boss or an evil villain that is trying to get to the Tao of foresight and use that knowledge or wisdom for evil purposes. And then there's another village state which is mentioned in the book but is not completely elaborated. So there is room for the sequel to happen in that third part of the land of Fangu. So there was a design in this, as you will see when you read it the land of Fango.
Speaker 2:So there was a design in this, as you will see when you read it. So your process to kind of close the loop on the DAO, of course, at least for now, h-u-b continued. But what was? Did you use CLA? Did you use other methods? How did you do? What was your process to do world building Like when you thought of the greater macro level? Then you created the eyeless. Just tell me, I don't want to afraid of me, kind of infuse anything. I was just I would love for the audience to understand because that is such a key part of being a futurist. You can just generate a scenario. You have to do some world build of any stage in order to communicate.
Speaker 2:My favorite part is design fiction, so I have to create the people of the future. So there's an inhabited. They inhabit that you know. You just can't just inhabit a scenario. You inhabit the world. So, like for you, what was that process? How did that go? Like, where did you start? What? What did you do? Did you are you an artist? Did you? Did you journal? Like, what was that?
Speaker 3:Thanks for that question. It was a messy process because I've never done it Messy.
Speaker 3:So I started writing the book with an outline of the plot and I wrote the first two chapters. And I actually think this is a good process, because the outline of the plot cannot be perfect until you start writing it. So if you want to simplify it, I actually wrote the plot first of the whole book, then I wrote the first two chapters and then I stopped and started reflecting All right, now, if this continues, now I've seen there is a plot, I've seen there is two chapters, it's doable, there's a plausibility involved. Now, how do I enhance the depth of it?
Speaker 3:So about chapter two or three when I was writing chapter three, I started thinking more deeply about the background of the character. So I wrote characters profiles and then I wrote their past, because they need to have a past before what happens in the book. And then from there I realized, oh, if they need to have a past, there needs to be some world. So then I went to and I designed the world and I divided the world in different states and I created a map world. And I divided the word in different states and I created a map. In fact, the first thing you will see when you open. The book is the map of the land of Congo, of the fictional land where this happens.
Speaker 3:It's a bit of a treasure hunt feel.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:So, and from there I stopped, and then I kept writing.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like opening middle. It's like opening Lord of the Rings and seeing the map of middle earth. Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so when I had a basic world building process done, I then went back to the book and finished writing. I wrote maybe a chapter a month and then, when I finished writing, I went back to the world building process and I asked myself, given this narrative that we now have complete, what is missing? So maybe there was, you know, some events that were missing that I had to add here and there, or maybe some features of the characters were not emphasized enough. I need to exaggerate them a bit to make them more on point. Maybe this needs to be a bit more villain, a bit more evil, maybe this needs to be a bit more ignorant to create archetypes, right? So that's basically the process. So I started with a plot, rough plot, then I wrote a bit of it, then I went back to the world building, then I wrote the whole thing and then I went back to the world building again. But this is not intended. This came out of me trying to do it basically.
Speaker 2:But you now have a foundation in which you know, I see such a rich universe Harry Potter, you know, star Wars, I mean anything that's got, that has a greatness attached to it, has a universe, has a world building, has been built for that. You know, this is kind of, you know, as I, this is such an exciting. I cannot wait to read this book and I can't wait for my son. You know I'll get my son to read it and I think it's just going to be a core part of any foresight curriculum. I just see it because it's just, it's just an accessible way to kind of especially the one-on-one classes, right. It's like like you want to get people just to have some fun, right, instead of just the rigor of it, you want to enjoy.
Speaker 2:You're thinking about fun things and you made a comment earlier. It's like the bigger things, like why people get into this field. It's the double-sided. Well, knives are two-sided, but it is a challenge because if you want to attack those big problems, there's a reason too. And it's like to your point about rigor, it's the planning, or dreaming, versus doing so. Very much about the execution. I think that's why I gravitate toward the, the design, futures, the backcasting, like the putting the things into action, bringing people, bringing the people who really are about the present, and it's like there is a challenge with I call the tyranny of the present, because people can can't even extrapolate, like if you think of like I have, I collect futures cards and I think of stuff from like the 1930s, about the future or like different, oh, and you see things there's like a video phone.
Speaker 2:Or I always use the Blade Runner example. It's like he has a video phone but he has to go to a phone booth where it's like it's the tyranny of the present right and a lot of people are afraid I there was a great class.
Speaker 2:I took at University of Houston where I did my work, is um, julie Rush did a class on the psychology of futures, because there are people that are afraid of thinking that far ahead and I feel like this book't want to presuppose anything kind of let you talk about what. What are your next steps? Where you're in, you're in sunny arctic level, singapore. You know arch, you know the arctic cool of singapore, um, so, which I know. So where are you staying there? What, what are your? What are your plans with? I mean, with this, is it what's, what's? What are your plans next? You've been making this shift.
Speaker 3:Thanks for asking, steve. Yeah, so I I I'm going to segue from the book to this to my answer to this. So the book was obviously a very transformative experience for me, because I'm an academic, you know, I'm a consultant, and then yet I wrote this novel. It's quite different, right? It's quite something that doesn't get done in academia, quite a different animal, quite unusual for an academic to do that. And it was one of the most liberating thing I've ever done.
Speaker 3:So I don't know how much you are familiar with the peer review publication process. It can be some of the most. It's some of the most excruciating writing process or efforts. You can literally put your mind on earth and I always resented the pressures and the limitations and strictures of the peer review process in academia. How is writing so limited by all these extra and over rigorous process? Sometimes rigor can get out of hand, right.
Speaker 3:And then I I got down to write this novel and it was absolutely liberating because it came out of me. It was very natural. It was very natural for me to write it and to edit it and to polish it and then, even with penguin, the process that I'm being put through with penguin, it's rigorous, rigorous, you know it's systematic and they are providing very constructive feedback to improve the narrative, but what they do is they try to get the best out of what you're meant to do. They don't try to fix you in a way that you comply to an academic system that is, I would say, obsolete. So it was very liberating for me to go through this and through this transformative experience of writing the book, I realized, huh, I have an inclination for writing this edutainment stuff. I am much more of a writer than of a scientist, writer than of a scientist. So I decided that I had to continue doing that, literally.
Speaker 3:After this experience, I cannot go back to writing normal scientific articles. You know, obviously, for my job as a professor, I need to write a scientific paper here and there every few years to, you know, to check the box of tenure. Okay, that could be done, but that's not my main thing. I realized my main thing. My main calling is to write these edutainment stories, to bring the wisdom of the East, to bring the wisdom of Asia, wisdom of foresight, the wisdom of disciplines that I care about, to a large audience using some fun methodology, some fun medium of communication. So I will continue.
Speaker 3:I will continue to write entertainment novels like this, and I'm already writing a second novel, actually, which is very similar to the first. It's not a sequel to the Tao of Foresight. This is another novel which actually talks about very deep wisdom, very deep stuff, just like the Dao Por said. But in this case it's about finding meaning and one's purpose, and it does so through a story of another boy who goes through a very interesting experience in China. So it's more of a current event sort of novel. So I will keep on doing these things, and if that includes a sequel or adaptations of the DAO foresight at some point in the future, all the better. But my focus has shifted from foresight to being a communicator of wisdom, so to speak.
Speaker 2:A communicator of wisdom. So you still will teach. Obviously, you're gainfully employed employed. It's hard to get those jobs and keep you know, and you've achieved a lot through that. But it seems like you've made a new space and the ratio of which you'll focus is definitely yes. So there, yeah. So you and I still can be provocative about foresight, but still to the point, you found a beautiful kind of taking that leap. Um, you know, and you have a really unique perspective. You know, looking, it'll be 20 and this will come out early part of 2020 you know, and as we're not going to be, inundated with these horrible prediction uh, blog posts, um.
Speaker 2:But let's just take the field like. Let's look at the next decade, though I'll put our futurist hat on. Where do you think we're headed though, with the field in general? As you see it, as you've seen it change, and I think we've seen more change in the last five years than we did in the previous 15. But I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. So I'm happy for this question.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you're going curious to get your your thoughts on that. Like so, I'm happy for this question I. I don't know if you're going to be surprised by the answer, but my answer usually to this kind of questions is if, if I comply to the tenets of foresight, I can't reply because, requiring.
Speaker 2:Now, that's the Alex answer I expected.
Speaker 1:I, I was a was a tricky question, but I didn't follow it with a trick.
Speaker 3:So some people do reply. I do acknowledge that some people fall into the temptation of replying, which is a very strong temptation, but I don't. I don't because, again, going back to rigor, but not over rigor there is one thing that has to be respected, which is we cannot know the future, and any projection about the future is an attempt to conquer it. So if I answer that question and say what I believe, which is probably biased and opinion-driven based on the events I attended, based on my background, if I answer that question, some of the listeners will be, in turn, skewed by my biased experience, and so I am not paying any justice to the systematic nature of Foreset, which would be.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to reply to the question. I'm going to conduct a rigorous scenario planning approach to look at all the possible futures of the field and then go back to the present with some insights not probabilities with some insights that drive my decisions right now, regardless of likelihood and probability, right. So that's my answer to that question. I think that question cannot be answered by anybody who claims to be somebody who is solid about the foundations of foresight and, by the way, this question will come back in the book and the master will chide the student for replying this question. I said what are you doing? Will chide the student for replying this question. I said what are you doing? I'm going to hit your head with a stick. If you try to answer a prediction question, you can't in a very Zen fashion.
Speaker 2:I would expect nothing less. It wasn't meant to be a trick question, but I love your answer and I will say in pure futurist consulting sense it depends, because there are many possible futures, right, so it depends who you are right, Absolutely Depending on the stakeholder you're responding to or the resources and capability of your organization, what you need to pay attention to and what is your future right?
Speaker 3:Different futures for different no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Hold on a sec no problem sorry, no problem right my wife's putting my son, I'll just cut all this, um, yeah, so yeah, because we, um, you know, let's flip that. Then, for those coming into the field, what would you, what would you give advice on? Just entering this? They, they found this, they realized that, not just calling themselves a futurist, but they actually have to do things to become a future, like they have to learn, they have to study. Very cool, obviously, starting with reading your book. That's a great, that's a great, uh, great piece of advice I'd give them. But what, um, what advice would I?
Speaker 3:would give. I would say I don't have advice, because all the advice I was ever given as turned out to be horrible, so I don't have advice. I can share my story and you are free to pick anything or nothing out of it that is useful or nonsense, but the only thing I can say is I think it's very important to know why you're doing it, why are you doing it, and by why I mean to investigate deeply into the different layers of reasons of why you're drawn to the field, because this is a field, as I was discussing with some major experts that were asking me and concerned about my reason to leave why are you leaving? So I was discussing them. The reason of leaving for me are entirely personal. There is nothing about the field that made me leave. The reason is I realized this is not my calling in life, made me leave. The reason is I realized this is not my calling in life.
Speaker 3:But there are things about the field that sped up, you know, that made that decision quicker, and some of those reasons that made my decision quicker are that the field is in a deep state of trauma.
Speaker 3:It's in a huge psychological trauma. It's collective trauma of not knowing its position in the world and not wanting to discuss it, possibly because it's self-select people, you know, because you don't need a degree, you don't need credentials to be a futurist or a force of practitioner, however you want to call it. So because of that, I guess the field is automatically selecting people who are drawn into the self-taught domain. And because of that, what kind of people are we driving in? Right, maybe those are the people who want to cut corners, or maybe not, but in any case, there are questions to be asked about the role of the field and why we're having the same debate about what we are and what we do. We're having the same debate for basically 78 years. So the only thing I realized this is again my story. Take what you need out of it. Be very clear about the deep psychological reasons why you are doing this what, for whom and everything. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:What are you driven by? It's a great. It's a great answer. Right, the field will change, you know. So, as we kind of get toward our kind of wrapping things up. You know, you know when you're starting this, you know you started your career. I mean, you're giving this really good perspective and advice to people like why, what do you, what do you wish? You knew at the beginning of this, like somebody had told you yeah, yeah, I wish I knew why I was getting into it.
Speaker 3:Going back to the first question you asked me, when I first got into it I thought this would be my calling because it was so wide ranging and so ambitious. These big themes, you know, with Foresight you talk about climate change, change the world, change the mindset of people, change the vision of a country, change the narrative of the globe basically these are very ambitious themes. But why are you doing such ambitious themes? Why are you focusing on such ambitious themes? In my case, I was overcompensating, a guilt, a shame of not having shown myself I was smart enough. My mother never told me I'm smart. I had to prove myself. I needed validation to show myself I was smart. So the whole idea of pursuing a very ambitious field that can help you change the world for me, ambitious field that can help you change the world for me actually and I didn't know at that time was just a cover-up to validate my intelligence, because it's much better to tell yourself you are pursuing great things rather than being ashamed at the fact you didn't have a validation and so you're doubting your own intelligence.
Speaker 3:So then I went through that process and I realized I don't need to prove myself. I'm smart. Okay, now let's focus on what I love to do. And then the DAO foresight came up. So now I know what I am and what I love to do. I don't need to impress some executives in a room. In fact, I don't want to do any more workshops around the world and visit a lot of corporate offices. I'd rather talk to people about real things. Busy people, not offices. Busy places, not at night.
Speaker 2:Conversations just like you and I are having. This is the best part.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not like what's the value chain of your company? Tell me what have you you know? All this is the best part yeah, not like what's the value chain of your company. Tell me what have you you know? All this is very dry and it all always not always, but very often covers up some deeper fears and trauma about the way we manage the future. So I might still talk about the way we manage the future, the way we manage uncertainty, in my YouTube videos or in my novels in the future, but I will not take any more scenario planning, workshops or projects.
Speaker 2:I think you can be the mindset futurist Because I think the thing is futurists think in different ways. There's a lot of different ways people approach it and the way that their thinking modes are. People say it attracts a lot of different ways people approach it and the way that their thinking modes are. People have you say it attracts a lot of different. Like self-taught I was self-taught for a long time, a lot of books, but I also went and did the formal academic because I wanted to deepen my work and just expose myself to things that I couldn't get you know any other way.
Speaker 3:So there are many different ways, yeah I'll give you I'll give you.
Speaker 3:I'll give you an example. I was talking with a friend who is also in Foresight just a few weeks ago about my decision to leave the field, and it's very difficult usually to describe what you're going through when you go through career transitions. So I was trying to put this in words and telling him you know, I just wanted to. I wanted to take a step back and maybe write novels, and maybe in the future I will still be involved in foresight, but in a different way. And so he said oh, I know what you want to do. You want to gain some fame with your books so that eventually you will be hired back by the CEO of McKinsey to be his personal foresight assistant. And then I thought oh, this is an interesting metaphor, but actually what I'd rather do is to write a novel which does not talk about foresight, but some of the characters have a foresight mindset. And then the CEO of McKinsey is reading that novel on the toilet in the morning and he likes the character in the novel.
Speaker 2:So that's a different metaphor. That's a heck of an image there to have the managing, the global managing partner on the, can you know?
Speaker 2:on the toilet on the loo reading, but you know those are the, those are those kinds of inspirational books. You know the mindset of of force you, you know, and how you think about it and how you approach it. That's the kind of stuff that millions of people read, versus actual practitioner tools, which is necessary. It's kind of book that you know, I do, I do, but it's like I'm inspired by that and you know it makes me think about. You know how I want to communicate this, as I, as I were to be a communicator of this, of this subject, and feel so it is. You found this calling. You know, if you're looking back, you're young, decades, we're like and like how would you want the impact to to be? Like you want what do you want how you want this work to be remember? Like when people are talking about you, like your family, your friends or just the world, people that you've touched. Like how do you?
Speaker 2:want to. Yeah, yeah, it's just like for you. Like, when people look, when you look back on a, on a life well lived in a career, you know, writing career and you know, and the things, you, you kind of look at it with this. This was great, you know, it's like I've done. You feel that you feel that inside you, yeah well, yeah, what do you? Why do you want people to think of that? What do you want people?
Speaker 3:that's such an interesting question. I think it's such a question that everybody has to think right, and it's, in a way, a question that is colored by a foresight mindset, because you're really thinking about what in the future you want. Let's go, let's go and look at the end of your life. That's an awesome question and I have been thinking about this for a long time and obviously none of us has a 100 clear view of that. But my if not 100, but still clarifying in the process of clarifying answer to that would be I would love to be that person who made wisdom fun.
Speaker 3:You know that person who oh, that's the author or YouTube personality or TV personality who made all this deep stuff fun and entertaining, and I want to just go back to the video or the books that he produced after a heavy workday, you know, after a horrible work day. You know, after a horrible work day, what I want to do is just want to. I want to read this fun book, or I want to watch this fun YouTube video or fun docuseries, and I will be entertained. I will, I may laugh, and yet I will also get some wisdom out of it. That's what I want to do, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful and I, I think you'll, I absolutely believe you'll have that. I think of people who have had impact on um others. One like JK Rowling comes to my mind, because before you know when she wrote it. It's one thing. Harry Potter's a wonderful story, but it got kids back to reading. Like so many kids became avid readers, reader right and to and they're adults and they've grown up right it.
Speaker 2:They brought that. Uh, george lucas brought in the ability to think, um differently about a future, the the used future. Right, everything is very worn right. It's. It's a how people think about science fiction instead of this clean, because I think of movies right before that, like logan's run or other thing, or everything was pristine right. Instead of that, that used future.
Speaker 3:And then I think of the 90s where, yeah, the narrative between the fight, the ever happening fight between evil and good, and it's deep in that as well. So there's some deep stuff as well.
Speaker 2:And here is Journey, of course, campbell's Journey, and you know, when I think of the mid 90s, there were directors, like you know, independent artists like Robert Rodriguez, jon Favreau, Kevin Smith. They showed you could make a film for very little. And even now, like I look at generative AI and Sora and all this, like AI filmmaking, which I've been experimenting with, the ability to make content and create is amazing and it is to your point. It allows the artists to build. And I hope that for you. Thank you yeah.
Speaker 2:I would love for it to close, of course. Where do people find you? How do they preorder the book? You know, you've got your YouTube channel, you've got your Substack, you've got a lot of places people can find you. So could you help how?
Speaker 3:do people kind of get to know Alex more. Linkedin is a place where I am relatively active my YouTube channel. I am pivoting it to this new direction of entertaining wisdom, so to speak, which may or may not include elements of foresight. And there is a mailing list, so there is basically a Google form that the audience can fill up and put their email in it so that they will receive information about the book. Maybe we can put this in the show notes, absolutely, because so now we don't have a date, but the date will be announced literally in the next few weeks. So chances are that by the time this podcast is out, we'll know a date and if you subscribe to this email list, you'll know the date of publication. And along with that, I will arrange some discount codes as well, special deals for the book.
Speaker 2:Okay, great. Well, alex, I know we'll have you on. I'd love to have you back on right after the launch or short after and see how you know reactions and kind of talk about you know your experiences.
Speaker 3:It'd be lovely. Yes, definitely. Thanks so much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for being on. Alex, appreciate it. Thanks to you.
Speaker 3:Take care.
