Category: lively event

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

It was a pleasure to return again to Cairo, and to have the chance to work with my dear friend Leena Ilmola to co-moderate the Union for the Mediterranean‘s first “Business Forum”. The speakers and organisers were excellent, and a real highlight for me (perhaps also as I could just relax and listen to that […]

Just moderated a mini-workshop on electricity supply for the European Calculator project, as part of the out-reach to co-design a model that will help decision makers judge the impact of different policy levers when trying to reach the Paris Agreement commitments on climate change. Particularly interesting to me was the bullishness of what was considered […]

In beautiful Delft to run a workshop on possible social impact of alternative Climate Change Mitigation options! Some things are obvious – no coal means unemployment in coal producing regions –  but now we need to tease out the less obvious implications for anything from gender equality to energy poverty…  Thanks EU Calc!

Thanks to Daniele Réchard and her team for organising an excellent day as part of the ESPAS ‘Global Trends to 2030: The Making of a New Geopolitical Order?’ event, and good to see so many friends there, inter alia Angela Wilkinson, Aaron Maniam, Jeanette Kwek, Norbert Reez, Jaana Tapanainen, Kristel Vanderelst, Thomas Lehr, Alun Rhydderch, […]

Thanks to Andres Veiel and Jutta Doberstein for the chance to have co-moderated a fascinating couple of sessions on “Welche Zukunft”at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Turning the usual process on its head, we gathered headlines of future news from 250 participants who sacrificed their Saturday to look at how the future may change – […]

Just facilitated a very interesting conference on “Energy for Displaced People: A Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement”. Most striking: this is a clear reaffirmation that nobody should be left behind with regards to access to energy (as per SDG 7) – not even those displaced by conflict or […]