Exploring the Future: searching for a new literacy

In a brief way, we can define “Prospective” as being simultaneously a discipline (in the sense in which it appeals to logic and conceptual and methodological rigor), and art (in the sense in which it is only possible to learn by doing it) whose central worry is the exploration of the future.

If the capacity to “prospectivise” is innate to human beings [3], the areas of knowledge and Prospective practice go beyond this referred capacity, having as a fundamental purpose to explore the future in a specific way, namely:


Organised and Flexible (for example, conceiving and implementing modular processes through multiple tools according to defined objectives and available resources).
Systemic (searching to categorise and to interlink the different relevant elements for the analysis) and Systematic.
Consistent and structured (searching and justifying the coherence of combination between different elements: trends, uncertainties, wildcards, weak-signals, etc.).
Intuitive and Logical (combining intuition and creativity with rigor and logic).
Useful (lighting up the present and identifying challenges for the future, stimulating decision-making and framing the implementation and monitoring of strategies).

It is this attitude, capacity and need to explore the future that proves itself more and more decisive in competitive atmospheres, be it business, territorial or others. To understand the importance of development of prospective capacities (and of a new individual and organizational literacy), I suggest a “visit” to projects and organizations so different as the unity of “Insight and Foresight” of Nokia Corporation (www.nokia.com), the “Society and Technology Research Group” of Daimler-Chrysler (http://www.daimelrchrysler.com/), the project sponsored by Siemens and the approaches “Pictures of the Future” and analysis of trends developed by its Unit of Investigation and Development (www.siemens.com), to Future Management Group (www.futuremanagementgroup.com), to Z-Punkt (www.z-punkt.de), Social Technologies (www.socialtechnologies.com), to Fast Future (www.fastfuture.com), to Standford Research Institute Consulting – Business Intelligence) (http://www.sric-bi.com/), or to that which is the biggest global network of specialists in Planning and scenario thinking: Global Business Network (http://www.gbn.org/).

Think Tanks such as the Swedish Kairos Future (www.kairosfuture.com), the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies (www.cifs.dk) and the Institute for the Future of the USA (http://www.iftf.org/), and innovative projects of reference of Territorial Prospective like the “Millénaire3” of Lyon (www.millenaire3.com) and the Californian “The Valley Futures Project” (www.greatvalley.org/valley_futures/index.aspx) also demonstrate the dynamism of this area of knowledge and action.

Finally, one should also refer the Technologic Prospective Programs of which particular attention should be paid to the project organized by the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy of Japan (http://www.nistep.go.jp/), FUTUR Project of Germany (www.bmbf.de/en/1317.php) the Foresight Project of the United Kingdom (http://www.foresight.gov.uk/); and the Future Centers / MindLabs that exist in many countries of Northern Europe, places specifically conceived to stimulate creativity, innovation and the exploration of the future.
Have a good trip.

[3] The Word “prospective” is used here in the sense of “deciding and acting taking into account the future”. This capacity is present and is applied in more or less unconscious and quotidian terms by all of us. For example, when driving a car we act with an expectation of how other drivers will behave (see Richard Slaughter, “The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies”, 2000)