Thèmes

New Luxembourg Vision and Strategy

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. […]

events, strategy, vision

How to make the energy transition happen?

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 […]

foresight, implementation

More direct highspeed train travel in Europe

(About to be) stucked in Airports these days? We need more highspeed nonstop train connecting major cities now! 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 more […]

foresight

Food Populism and Politics, dead end?

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 […]

events, foresight, implementation, journeys, knowledge, strategy, vision

How to be a catalyst?

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 […]

events, foresight, multi-stakeholder

5 points for back to office strategies

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 […]

events

Vers quelque chose de nouveau?

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 […]

multi-stakeholder

Three Things to do differently in Digital Events?

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 […]

events

Running hybrid workshops

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 […]

events

Zukunftsreporter

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 […]

other

Knowledge Sharing in the Snow

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 […]

knowledge

Investment Climate in Minsk

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. […]

multi-stakeholder

Migration Innovation in Uganda

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, […]

multi-stakeholder

Knowledge Sharing on Nutrition, Cotonou

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. […]

knowledge

Global Delivery Initiative, Tunis

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 […]

other

From Yerevan to Kiev

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, […]

multi-stakeholder

Growing awareness of Foresight, OECD, Paris

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 […]

events, foresight

Atelier de construction de scénarios prospectifs, Paris

De nouveau à Paris, en l’occurrence afin donner une perspective supplémentaire aux participants 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, et Jean-Robert Bornand […]

foresight, tools

From one subject to another in the Netherlands and Germany

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!

foresight

Keeping tabs on strategy implementation

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 […]

implementation

A conference in Kiev

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 […]

events

Keine Dystopie. Aber.

Mit GRM legt Sibylle Berg einen Roman vor, der einen Blick auf eine nicht sehr ferne Zukunft in Großbritannien irgendwann nach dem Brexit wirft und die Gemüter von jungen, abgehängten Menschen einfängt. Diese setzen sich mit einer Welt auseinander, die durch einen entfesselten Liberalismus/ Kapitalismus in Verbindung mit einer lückenlosen digitalen Erfassung und Verarbeitung menschlichen […]

other