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What Do Futurists Read? Check out the books on our member’s “must read” list

 
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Art of the Long View Tops Retrospective View of Most Important Futures Works PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andy Hines   
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Peter Schwartz’s The Art of the Long View was the top vote-getter in the APF’s inaugural most important futures work balloting. This year members voted for books in the recent past as well as “classics.” They had 10 votes, either choosing from a list of 20 nominated by the “Most Important Futures Works team, or writing in up to five personal choices. Starting next year, the team plans to focus on identifying the most important works of the current year on an annual basis. These may go beyond books to include futures works in other media as well. The team was led by Ken Harris, and consisted of Andy Hines, Amy Oberg, Cindy Frewen Wuellner, Gitte Larsen, and Oliver Markley.
 
The “top ten” in order of votes received:
 
  • Art of the Long View by Peter Schwartz
  • Foundations of Futures Studies: Human Science for a New Era by Wendell Bell
  • The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies, Richard Slaughter (ed.)
  • Limits to Growth by Donnella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jergen L. Randers and William H. Behrens
  • The State of the World (series) by The Worldwatch Institute
  • The State of the Future by Jerome Glenn and Ted Gordon
  • The Art of Conjecture by Bertrand de Jouvenel
  • Futures Research Methodology by Jerome Glenn and Ted Gordon
  • The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
  • Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
 
All of the books that the team nominated received at least one vote, and members wrote in many others, reflecting the diversity and breadth of our field. The rest of the vote-getters, in order of votes received:
 
  • Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
  • The Image of the Future by Fred Polak
  • Generations: The History of America’s Future 1584-2089 by William Strauss and Neil Howe
  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  • The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
  • Learning from the Future: Competitive Foresight Scenarios by Liam Fahey and Robert M. Randall
  • Seven Tomorrows by Paul Hawken
  • Beyond Globalization by Hazel Henderson
  • The 500 Year Delta by Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker
  • Theory U-Leading from the Future as It Emerges by C. Otto Scharmer
  • Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
  • Thinking About the Future by Andy Hines and Peter Bishop
  • Questioning the Future: Methods and Tools for Organizational and Societal Transformation by Sohail Inayatullah
  • The Challenge of Man’s Future by Harrison Brown
  • The Extreme Future by James Canton
  • Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry L. Porras
  • Beyond Growth by Herman Daly
  • The End of History by Francis Fukuyama
  • Macrohistory and Macrohistorians: Perspectives on Individual, Social, and Civilization Change by Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah
  • Creating Futures by Michel Godet
  • Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel and C. K. Phahalad
  • The Age of Unreason by Charles Handy
  • Global Mind Change by Willis Harman
  • Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins
  • The Causal Layered Analysis Reader, Sohail Inayatullah (ed.)
  • Modernization and Post Modernization by Ronald Inglehart
  • The Origins of Order by Stuart Kaufman
  • Macroshift by Ervin Laslo
  • The Consciousness Revolution by Ervin Laslo, Stanislav Grof, and Peter Russell
  • Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace by Pierre Levy
  • The Meaning of the 21st Century by James Martin
  • Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan
  • Megatrends by John Naisbitt
  • The Scenario Planning Handbook: Developing Strategies in Uncertain Times by Ian Wilson and Bill Ralston
  • The Biotech Age: The Business of Biotech and How to Profit from It by Richard Oliver
  • Rescuing All Our Futures by Zialuddin Sardar (ed.)
  • Scenarios in Public Policy by Gill Ringland
  • American Dream-Global Nightmare by Zialuddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies
  • Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future by Peter Senge
  • Futures Beyond Dystopia by Richard Slaughter
  • Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future by Gregory Stock
  • The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler
  • The Ascendant Perspective by Robert Ulanowicz
  • Scenarios-The Art of Conversations by Kees Van Der Heijden
  • Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy by Ken Wilber
  • The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe and Everything by Ken Wilber
 
Introducing 2008 APF Board PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andy Hines   
Friday, 04 January 2008
Your 2007 APF Board of Directors is excited to announce the slate of nominees for 2008-2011 Board terms. The slate nomination process—led by the Nominations & Succession Team (N&S), does not require members to vote, but we urge the membership to accept the slate as the Board of Directors has done, by acclamation. The Board looks forward to getting down to work with the new members in January!

The nominees are: Derek Woodgate (returning Board member), Stacey Aldrich, Joan Foltz, and Riel Miller. Brief details on each new Board member are below.

Continuing on the Board are: Andy Hines, Peter Bishop, Natalie Ambrose, Randy Moss, and Stephen Aguilar-Millan. Leaving the Board, but still ready to pitch in as volunteers are: John Mahaffie (Chair), Wendy Schultz, and Lee Shupp.

The N&S Team was pleased to have a remarkable list of members who would be willing to serve on the Board in addition to these four. As a result, we can look forward with confidence to a future with many members committed to ensuring that the APF will grow from strength to strength.

2008-2010 Board Nominees
Stacey Aldrich -- US
California Deputy State Librarian, past experience with state government in various roles including education; worked for a future think tank in DC, created future thinking conference, presentations, and facilitated future thinking discussions with groups.

Joan Foltz -- US
As founder of Alsek Research, she is an independent researcher and analyst of future global socio-economic trends and writes a weekly subscription-based newsletter used mostly by financial planners, and investors. She has 20 years experience working for corporations in Asia, Europe, and throughout the U.S. as director of manufacturing services, senior strategist, and integration analyst

Riel Miller -- Paris, Canadian born
Riel is a specialist in long-run strategic thinking whose work has concentrated on assessing and directing the potential for socio-economic transformation in the private and public sectors. His publications address many issues, such as futures methodology and the design of scenario processes for strategic decision making, to the future of money, education, the internet, knowledge society, the public sector.

Derek Woodgate -- US and the world!
Derek is currently President and CEO of The Futures Lab, Inc, a futures-based consultancy he founded in 1998, specializing in leveraging future potential for major corporations. He has lived and worked in eleven countries and is a prolific writer on future-related topics, his new book Future Flow will hit the market in Spring 2008.

The Board thanks the N&S team, Jennifer Jarratt (chair), Lisa Bodell, Roumiana Gotseva, and Mary Jane Naquin for their thorough and successful efforts.
 
Future of Happiness on CBS "Early Show" PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andy Hines   
Tuesday, 20 November 2007

APF organizational members, Social Technologies, and APF Vice-Chair Andy Hines recently had their "Future of Happiness" study, carried out for MTV, featured on a six minute segment on the CBS "Early Show." Hines gets a brief 5-second appearance about 2:20 seconds into the segment. The link to the site provide more info about the study for those who are interested. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/12/earlyshow/living/parenting/main3486964.shtml

 
Futurists Featured in Forbes PDF Print E-mail
Written by APF Admin   
Friday, 19 October 2007

Drumroll, please. It turns out that the career path of the future just might be ... forecasting and analyzing the future. At least, that's what professional futurists seem to think.

Their logic is tight: Things are changing fast, which unnerves corporate leaders, who are in turn willing to spend lots of money to learn about what's coming. Some folks fret about melting ice caps, nuclear Armageddon or disruptive technologies that could kibosh our carefully laid plans. For futurists, these are business opportunities.

The October 2007 edition of Forbes magazine includes an article describing Futures consulting work and careers. The piece, featuring APF members Tom Conger, Lisa Bodell, Peter Bishop, Christian Crews and Garry Golden, gives an overview of the field including a glimpse into some of those who practice and embrace foresight in its various forms. 

Author Elizabeth Eaves also contends with the issue of the Futurist's image:

The profession has something of an ongoing identity crisis. While some embrace the term "futurists," others squirm, preferring to say they practice "strategic foresight."

 All in all the article, while not 'glowing', presents a fair account of the field and is well worth a read.

 Click here for the article or paste the following URL into your browser.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/13/futurist-business-consultant-tech-future07-cx_ee_1015futurist.html

 
Regent 'Foresight' Program Completes First Year PDF Print E-mail
Written by APF Admin   
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Last Fall, Jay Gary, an APF founding member, helped launched a new M.A. in Strategic Foresight at Regent University. Now three semesters into the program, Jay offers an update on how the program has been incorporated into MBA courses and Doctoral tracks.
Read more...
 
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