What if your city could pick itself up and move? What if your community wasn’t tied to a street, a suburb, or even a country? What does it mean to belong somewhere, and does that somewhere need to be fixed? How might climate events change impact and what does this mean for the way we plan, scan and act today? These were some of the questions we explored at this month’s What if Wednesday.
Following the Aotearoa Futures Forum 2026 fourteen practitioners, leaders, and activators from across Oceania gathered to explore what makes Oceania futures practice distinctive.
Our conversation moved from “What future do we want?” to “What are we being called to care for?” This question guided us as we continued to explore the future of our region. We recognised that some callings are global but we also considered the specific characteristics related to our contexts – personally, nationally and across Oceania.
Futures and foresight recommended reading for 2026. Enjoy this incomplete compilation of our favorites and share your own with us. This comprehensive list is for those who want to learn more about futures thinking, extend understanding or challenge assumptions and worldviews.
In my last post I shared my emerging model for unbounded futures and how past, present and future are interwoven. There is so much we learn from the past and this in turn shapes our world view, which in turn shapes our actions. The conversations are particularly polarising at the moment and I find myself digging deep into my futures toolkit to keep me grounded and curious. It reinforces that developing a futures mindset is a critical counterbalance for coping in an uncertain world.
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.