Wieviel Zeit kostbarer Regierungsarbeit hat das Bundesjustizministerium jetzt zur Verhinderung der EU Lieferketten Richtlinie (EU LK) eingesetzt? Der Presse nach war die FDP in letzter Zeit hoch aktiv dabei, um andere EU Mitglieder mit ihren Bedenken und Ablehnung mitzureißen. Motto, Bürokratiemonster und womöglich juristische Folgen die man der Wirtschaft ersparen wolle. Bedeutet dies, dass soziale […]

As any professional facilitator of events knows, the architecture of a conference/seminar/workshop/meeting space determines how conversations will (or will not) take place. E.g. having participants seated at a distance from each other, with tables in between, gives licence to aggression and heated exchanges – it creates an „us“ and „them“ mindset, and I am separated […]

A couple of personal take aways that I draw from a project run for a human resources department. These are my personal take, and deliberately leave out many (much more specific) client learnings. The need for specific technical expertise is not going away – in some cases it may be vital e.g. to check that […]

Very much enjoyed the Luxembourg Strategy event yesterday. Here is a country leading the way by setting out a vision – which has been wind tunnelled for robustness in different scenarios – for a zero carbon future. Moreover, it not just promotes carbon mitigation, it takes explicit account of inclusivity – the need to keep citizens on-board. […]

Back this week from an interesting project to help an company plan the energy transition of one of its (energy-intensive) sites.  A couple of observations: The legal certainty created by the Dutch Carbon Tax provides something very tangible to build off. Unlike the Emissions Trading System, it provides a very clear indication of the price […]

(About to be) stuck in an airport? We need more highspeed nonstop train connecting major cities now! This is my personal opinion and wish of many of us here at 4Sing. We are committed to lower our CO2 footprint – which is largely caused by travel. Hence, in the last months we all happily shifted […]

In the last decades a number of political movements have won rural voters with promises to defend local farmers against global capitalism, commonly known as „Food Populism and Politics“. This has been easy enough, as farmers perceive agricultural policy to be an existential issue, whereas the (much more numerous) consumers of food products have, until […]

If you are currently despairing, try “The ministry for the future” by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is a work of fiction that does not fall into the trap of being utopian. Each step forward is assorted with caveats, resistance, and steps back. But it suggests how a combination of human action, technology, and new thinking […]

When I first (officially) started working on multi-stakeholder foresight work 30 years ago, the community was not so big. Fast forward to today, and the numbers engaged has rocketed – and correspondingly it has become harder to know everybody else. It was therefore a great pleasure to see how the Nomads Foundation and I were […]

A great pleasure to have co-moderated the Union for Mediterranean’s trade and investment forum today for the third time. I had the pleasure of two excellent panels – on trade facilitation and sustainable investment – brimming with expertise. Among the many gems, the things that struck me were: 1. Progress on trade facilitation in the region […]

I very much enjoyed facilitating an on-line conversation of foresight managers from four companies with global reach earlier this week. It would be impossible to do justice to everything that was said, but three new insights for me were: 1.      How we measure success: A. Did we get it right? We will never be able to predict […]

Should governments conduct foresight? Or just react faster? Thanks to Alun Rhydderch for talking with me about this theme. An active participant in the Global X-Center Network, Alun has a lot of experience working with and for various governments

A highly enjoyable workshop with a client on Monday about the challenges of returning to the office after the Summer. We agreed it will not be going „back to usual“ as: A. COVID will still be an issue, even where vaccinations are widespread. B. We have learnt a lot thanks to COVID and want to […]

John Casti is another co-founder of the Global X-Centers network, and a prolific author on surprises and resilience. Here is his (deliberately very short) take on anticipating eXtreme events:

4Sing is the local branch of the Global X-Centers Network. For eleven years now, we have been working with researchers and practitioners on five continents to identify a theory of surprise and to work out what resilience means and requires of organizations.  Just as a teaser on some of the work done, I have interviewed […]

J’ai animé un séminaire avec 50 participants super intéressants ce vendredi et samedi passé pour discuter de l’avenir d’une organisation associative en France. La vision propose de créer de la propriété intellectuelle pour le partager avec d’autres (soit en le donnant gratis, soit en établissant des organisations qui le répandissent) est une bouffée d’air fraîche […]

It may just be coincidence, but I suspect not. In the last few weeks, we have had three requests for virtual team building exercises, and two projects that (more or less explicitly) are seeking to take the poison out of conflictual situations in a team. My rationalisation is that, after a long time of kicking […]

A very interesting peer-to-peer learning and strategy workshop spread over two days with thirty participants from Asia, Africa and Europe, looking at the question of how to link a diaspora with home countries in a way that brings a win-win for both the individuals concerned and the home country (not to mention the host country […]

After a systemic shock, the first reaction is to try to carry on as before, with as few adaptations as possible. This is exactly what has happened with events after the emergence of COVID-19, as people have bascially put „on-line“ the same sort of event that we had „off-line“. Only after a while, do we […]

I am just returning from running three half-day foresight to strategy workshops in North Africa, which followed hard on the heels of five virtual and hybrid (real & digital) workshops/trainings in the last two weeks. Striking is the difference in energy levels. As a moderator you can generate much more energy and excitement in a […]

Hybrid workshops – a mixture of people in a room and on-line – are increasingly common as COVID restrictions are lifted but as travel is still not back to usual. Having now moderated a few such events, for instance, last week with eight people phyiscally in a room in Tunis, and a similar number on-line […]

Participants from Forteen countries Three continents together during Five days for an intensive knowledge exchange and to build One global team! Thanks to the PEP part of the German Energy Solutions Initiative for the numerous interesting insights into the challenges and rewards of spreading renewable energy in emerging markets, and for being easy on the […]

Too many early warning systems depend on a central staff scanning for signals in a mass of noise. The workshop I ran today was interesting, as it deliberately brought in colelagues from very varied functions – and also different continents, with 15 participating on-line – for a half day session to understand what they see […]

Die Riffreporter sind ein „Projekt für lebendigen Qualitätsjournalismus“ und wurden bereits mit dem Grimme Online Award und dem #Netzwende-Preis ausgezeichnet. Auf ihren Seiten haben sie jetzt auch einen Fokus auf Zukunftsthemen gelegt und einige lesenswerte und fundierte Analysen und Reportagen zusammengetragen. Auch wenn sich ein Gutteil der Beiträge eher auf Europa und Deutschland konzentriert, was […]

Just completed a short workshop that was a mixture of knowledge sharing, project planning and organisational development. In a short day, the dozen participants were able to identify the similarities and differences between what they were doing in four countries, and to agree on the mechanisms for keeping up an exchange of knowledge on contents […]

Baku is a place where you see what happens if architects don’t have budget restrictions. The buildings are impressive, yet elegant and not disturbing the historic substance of the city. Still, challenges remain for the country between the Caucasus and Iran to tackle unemployment, economic and financial development and investment climate. Both, the actual and […]

A bot read 1000+ cyber security predictions for 2020 and then wrote an article about it itself – after being asked to do so by a human, still.  

I feared cold when headed to Minsk, Belarus, but it was surprisingly warm for December. The workshop’s participants engaged quickly and were not disturbed by a rather unconventional workshop-concept: Instead of presenting and discussing in plenary all the time, the client opted for an interactive format where we focused the discussions in small diverse groups. […]

Travelling to East/ Central Africa always comes with surprises. As for example that Ruanda’s plastic ban is really enforced. When the plane held in Kigali for a stop-over, the personnel reminded the deboarding passengers that it was strictly illegal to bring any sort of plastic bag into the country. From a European point of view, […]

A week in Cotonou Benin runing a knowledge sharing event in French and English, with 70 participants based in 12 African and Asian countries focused on food and nutritional security. C’était merveilleux de voir comment les participants de différents pays et continents ont réussi – malgré les barrières linguistiques – d’apprendre les uns des autres. […]

In 2014, we facilitated the first Global Delivery Initiative Conference in Berlin. This year, I attended the sixth annual conference, and it is great to see how the initiative has gained traction and to see how it has grown into a partnership of over 50 development organisations. It was really good to discover that the […]

The Global X Network meeting in Vienna on 28 October brought together a group of researchers from the USA, Japan, Brazil, and Europe, all of whom had a great knowledge of Futures and Foresight. The theme this year was Urban Futures. The key messages from ´Mapping the Urban Future´ and on ´Ramification of Green Urban […]

Just back from Kampala, where the rain is still falling, even if rainy season is supposedly over. Luckily the stakeholder consultation I was helping to run was about application of renewable energy (for displaced persons), so hopefully it could make a (tiny) contribution to reducing future climate change, whilst giving energy to those who are […]

Super weather in both Yerevan and Kiev: October and sweating after a 20-minute walk from the hotel to the workshop location! And just as the climate is “improving”, so the opportunities for the “investment climate” are also getting better. In both countries, following the changes in government, reform plans that were previously off the agenda, […]

The Annual Meeting of the OECD Government Foresight Community (GFC) in Paris, 7-8 October, was again a high point for those following the future of governance and strategic foresight. Thanks to Strategic Foresight Counsellor Duncan Cass-Beggs and his excellent team, the Community is growing, with great presentations by Futurists, governments using foresight, researchers and practitioners […]

De nouveau à Paris, en l’occurrence afin donner une perspective supplémentaire aux participants (présentiels et virtuels) lors de la formation « Atelier de construction de scénarios prospectifs » de Futuribles. Merci à François de Jouvenel, Cécile Désaunay, et Corinne Roëls pour l’invitation. Comme toujours, beaucoup de personnes à rencontrer (merci à Marie-Hélène Caillol, Joshua Polchar, […]

One of the perks of being a methods-based (rather than content expert) foresight and strategy consultant is the variety of sectors you get to work on. Last week it was detergents and agriculture, this week it has so far been renewable energy and (High-school) education, and tomorrow it is about printing!

Just completed a fourth workshop in two years, following up on a strategy decided in 2017. Each workshop has allowed the client to check up on how far the strategy has been implemented, as well as to check what other issues have arisen in the meantime. It is fascinating to see the progress made, and […]

The local lore claims that St Andrew planted a stick in the ground on this hillside and declared that one day a city would grow here. Kiev is the result, and St Andrew’s church is built on the spot. The location of the annual event I just ran was directly across from here, and large […]

The International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Symposium (IRAHSS) in Singapore is always a highpoint in the agenda for those trying to make sense of the future. Once again a super line-up, with some extremely interesting insights, ranging from the impact of technologies that are currently just below the horizon, through the hidden impact of […]