2023 was a catalyst year for exploring intergenerational fairness in Aotearoa New Zealand. 2024 is a year to accelerate this focus and to work with others locally, nationally and globally who are committed to considering future generations in our decision making.
Last week our Ōtautahi Futures Collective had a great discussion about one of the many tools developed by Sean Moffitt from the Grey Swan Guild. The tool is called Swan Sourcing – Chasing Possibilities, Wild Cards and Extremes by Playing with the Roots of Discord. This method asks us to challenge our thinking and to start with a blank page full of potential.
Are you awash with trends, blogs and articles about the future in 2024? My in box is full! And I hate it, especially when people create a list of forecasts as if they are predicting the future. Some of the lists come up with the obvious extension of here and now. Others express their points as siloed ideas and discrete ‘future’ chunks. Others come up with a funky name for something of little consequence. So I’m not going to do that.
We have been growing futures thinkers in Aotearoa and connecting people within the network. This extends from the Ōtautahi Futures Collective through Aotearoa Futures Network and into the Oceania Futures space. The more we connect and learn together the more we grow our futures muscles! It also provides the opportunity to celebrate successes across the network.
A visit from Sophie Howe, the first Commissioner for Future Generations in Wales, was a catalyst to bring a group of young people (rangatahi) together from across Ōtautahi. Think Beyond, Grow Waitaha and the University of Canterbury collaborated to convene this event. Senior secondary school students from across greater Christchurch combined with university students to consider their preferred futures.
Teaching is dead in its current format. It’s not doable. It requires people who can juggle so many balls in the air that most of them fall to the ground. It’s even too hard to focus on a few critical balls. So why do we persist with this used future? What’s the story of educational inertia? Why aren’t teachers falling in love with teaching? Are learners really at the centre?
This year I have been working with a number of diverse groups that want some futures literacy support. They are very aware of the complex challenges of today’s world but don’t know what to do about these challenges!
In these times of unprecedented change we oscillate between making sense of the here and now and considering new possibilities for change. For those of us in Christchurch, Ōtautahi we have experienced nearly a decade of these oscillations, with earthquakes, fires, the mosque terror attack and now a pandemic. We have moved from crises that are localised to those that impact us on the global stage. There is no ‘new normal’.
Technological change continues to accelerate. Automation is an increasing threat to employment. In times of such exponential acceleration it is important for us to consider and amplify what makes us uniquely human. Rather than trying to compete with technology, let’s explore ways in which technology can enhance humanity. What does it mean to be human? What are the implications for organisations trying to understand these complex times?