Back to the futures: Retrospecting the prospects of smart grid technology

This paper analyzes a ten-year long technology debate, which dealt with the so-called advanced electricity meters in Norway (1998–2008). The debate circled around one central question: should the implementation of this technology be forced through with regulations or should the market decide on pace and character of implementation? In 2008 it was decided that it was best to regulate the implementation. Throughout these 10 years, the debate largely concerned how the future would look with or without regulation. This paper is inspired by “the sociology of expectation”, which assumes that futures are performative. This means that when the future is evoked or imagined, it influences present action and navigation. With this in mind, the paper analyzes future visions and expectations as they were formulated in the technology debate, and traces the role of these futures in the policy debate and for the policy outcome. The paper identifies two modes of future performativity: translative and transformative futures. Translative futures are often mobilized as spokespersons for desired technology or policy trajectories. Here, they work as (a) stagestting devices: sparking debate, enrolling new actors in the debate and generating interest. Further, they work as (b) regulative tools: establishing the need for political decisions, either to realize the content of future visions, or to avoid the contents of alternative futures. Transformative futures do more subtle and gradual work, shifting the practical, symbolic and cognitive meaning of “what” the technology in question might become in the future. As an example, the significance of the advanced electricity meters discussed in this paper changed from being a device filling the knowledge gaps of electricity consumers, to being a central hub in households delivering a range of potential services and being available for a number of different users. In this paper, I describe the gradual shift in understanding of what advanced electricity meters could be as a virtual domestication trajectory.     

The future revisited: Looking back at The next 25 years by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR)

Looking back at futures studies in the past (past futures) is perhaps the second nature of futures researchers. In this article we look back at a study that was conducted by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy in 1977. We considered it interesting to assess its value 25 years later since many changes have taken place in technology, society, economy, and in the science of futures research as well. From our analysis we have drawn the following conclusions: (1) instead of giving every topic the same time horizon more diverse time horizons should be included because of the different dynamics, (2) more attention for people and opinions outside the mainstream discourse, (3) more attention for thinking in multiple futures instead of predicting just one future outcome, (4) do not only look at the (possible) future of a specific topic, but assess if this topic in its whole will be relevant in the future important (meta-forecast), and (5) more attention for integrating topics for futures studies, but not fulfilling the impossible ambition to link everything to everything.     

Women of tomorrow : Issues and alternative futures

Although futures studies literature includes writings in perhaps every major topical field wherein analysis of the future is warranted, little has been written about futures for women. This essay critiques one widely distributed book exploring a single future for women. A call is made for the creation of more elaborate visions of futures for women, and outlines of two alternative futures for women in the USA are offered.     

Robot futures: science fiction and futures studies methodologies in action

What would constitute a robot identity? Would a robot developing an identity be consciousness of the processes that could/would shape its identity? This essay explores these questions by considering images common to both, futures studies and science fiction—in particular, the now famous anti-capitalist demonstrations in Seattle in November 1999.     

Developing an abduction-based method for futures research

Futures research is an established field of knowledge with a wealth of methods and techniques. However, foresight, future outlooks and scenarios are, as a rule, based on inductivist or deductivist methods, making looking into the future a form of conservative projecting of past and present probabilities onto the road of development lying ahead of us. Closed past or present outlooks give birth to open futures, but these futures usually are little more than exercises in organizational learning. In this paper we present and develop a method for futures research that is based on abductive logic. Abduction-based futures research approach proceeds from closed, imaginary future states to alternative, open theoretical frameworks or explanations. Unlike inductivists and deductivists believe, this procedure from the unknown to the known is rational, and therefore something that can be systematized and learned. There is a logic of discovery, and what could be a better place to apply and develop it than futures research.     

Betraying a futurist: The misappropriation of Gandhi''s Ramarajya

Discussing how a political futurist may envision present-tainted ‘realist’ futures, ideology-oriented ‘ambitious’ futures, ethics-inspired ‘ideal’ futures, or other types of futures, this essay describes who an idealist-futurist is. Proving that Mahatma Gandhi is such an idealist-futurist who builds his futurism on the rock of humanistic values by relishing the good and rejecting the bad, emphasizes the futures for the weak, and insists on working for future through futureful means such as truth and non-violence, it is pointed out how Gandhi's futurism has come to be pilfered and betrayed by the brahmanical Hindu right-wing future-thieves in present-day India.     

The future of futures decision making

At the dawn of a new millennium, with the past one thousand years ready for reflection and the up-coming one thousand years primed for exciting new adventures, humankind seems to be trapped in the box of myopic, short-term decision making. Voices pleading to expand the horizons of our decision making to ensure sustainability of our species and countless other species on this earth are currently drowned out by a cacophony of voices trumpeting economic globalization, rapid technology development, and real-time financial markets. While futures decision making is not much in evidence today, the question addressed by this paper is whether futures decision making is even possible. Are there inherent constraints in our ability to make decisions that encompass time frames covering centuries if not millennia? An enormous amount of research has been conducted in the general area of decision making over the past several decades. Much has been learned about the psychology of human decision making and decision making within organizations. Countless methods have been developed to guide decision making. Recent work in areas such as imprecise probability and complex adaptive systems is beginning to provide boundaries as to what can be known about the future. This paper reviews much of this diverse literature and synthesizes important research findings across several disciplines to identify numerous significant barriers to futures decision making. The paper presents several recommendations on how to improve futures decision making in the future.     

Researching the future: method or madness?

This paper examines the methodological issues behind futures studies, questioning whether it is possible to claim a futures study as methodologically ‘sound’, and critiquing how futures methodology fits within the methodological paradigms currently recognised in the research field. The extent to which futures methodology can be considered a paradigm in its own right is also examined as are the assumptive foundations of futures studies. While all the evidence raises many questions as to the form of futures methodology, the lack of clarity does not make a futures study invalid or unreliable, and hence sensemaking from the chaos of futures ‘data’ does ensure that futures studies can be based on method rather than madness.

How does one research the future? The very notion of researching the future is a paradox. The word research lies within the time boundaries of the past and the present so to research the future appears a logical impossibility. Attempts to ground the methodology in any single paradigm or set of constructs proves a fruitless task. Indeed, it becomes apparent that when undertaking research into an area that is something new, in the future, which could constitute a new field of research, fundamentally a new methodology needs to be created. This paper discusses how the development of a futures methodology is an on-going process which cannot be bounded by the limitations of strict rigour, but is nevertheless a rigorously sound approach to carrying out research.

When researching the future, no one method is appropriate in isolation. While quantitative methods such as forecasting, extrapolation and time series may prove useful if there is raw numerical data to work with, a hypothesis cannot be tested and proven as is the case in many quantitative studies. Given the nature of ‘the future’ itself, raw quantitative analysis needs contextualising and interpreting in light of the assumptive future constructs, and the assumptions themselves need examining for ‘assumption drag’ so that underlying trends and wave patterns are accounted for [1].     

证券期货业信息技术发展中需关注的几个问题

证券期货行业已成为高度IT依赖性的行业,信息技术发展及信息技术安全问题始终是行业的存在与发展基础。然而,由于市场的快速发展与技术的持续跟进总是存在着互动差距,一个在业务与技术之间良性循环的技术生态环境仍亟待从IT制度设计、IT治理环节和IT文化实践等多个方面予以重视和推动。本文从行业信息技术发展中遇到的几个问题着手,探讨了这些问题产生的根源和影响,也提出了解决问题的基本思路,其主要的着眼点仍然在于建立行业良性技术生态环境所需要的各种制度准备和技术准备,并希望这些问题的提出与探讨能引起全行业的关注与讨论,以尽快找到最佳的解决路径。     

Predispositions as determinants of the future

Futures studies has been dominated by the concerns of forecasting and control. This paper suggests that predispositions held by people, especially attitudes and assumptions, have a significant impact on the future and thus constitute an important field of research in futures studies. It discusses three major types of predisposition, and outlines two mechanisms by which they affect the future, especially as it relates to technology. Three examples drawn from real life are then analysed to illustrate the variety of impacts that predispositions have on the future. It is not the intention of this paper to provide a full treatment of the topic, but rather to make an initial proposal. So, finally, the simplifications made in the paper are discussed, and suggestions made about fruitful avenues of further research.     

Trading activity and price reversals in futures markets

We use the standard contrarian portfolio approach to examine short-horizon return predictability in 24 US futures markets. We find strong evidence of weekly return reversals, similar to the findings from equity market studies. When interacting between past returns and lagged changes in trading activity (volume and/or open interest), we find that the profits to contrarian portfolio strategies are, on average, positively associated with lagged changes in trading volume, but negatively related to lagged changes in open interest. We also show that futures return predictability is more pronounced if interacting between past returns and lagged changes in both volume and open interest. Our results suggest that futures market overreaction exists, and both past prices and trading activity contain useful information about future market movements. These findings have implications for futures market efficiency and are useful for futures market participants, particularly commodity pool operators.     

A community of futurists and the state of the futures field

Criticisms of futures studies ought to be evaluated in comparison with those of other fields. For example, compared to the established disciplines, futures studies is less fragmented and has many positive features. Also, controversies among futurists do not mean that futures studies is not a field. Rather, one hallmark of any field of inquiry is that its members constitute a disputatious community. Moreover, futures studies is unified by interlinked and overlapping networks of communications and influences among futurists, a shared transdisciplinary matrix, and the growth of a futurist canon. The future of futures studies is bright, because it is reasonable to hope that futurists will be able to establish the field in most of the world’s colleges and universities.     

Understanding rural change—demography as a key to the future

The last decades have seen a rapidly growing interest in foresight methodology. Methods have been developed in corporate and governmental communication exercises often labelled technology foresight. In reality, these foresights have often drifted into processes of social change, since technological change is hard to foresee beyond what is already in the pipe-line. Forecasting of social change, however, must be based on solid knowledge about the mechanisms of continuity and change. Virtually nothing can be said about the future without relating to the past; foresights and futures studies are about revealing the hidden pulse of history. Hence, the answer to forecasting the future is empirical research within the social sciences.Demographic change has been recognised as a key determinant for explaining social change. Population changes are fairly predictable and the age transition can explain a wide range of socio-economic changes. For rural futures, demographic change is a key issue, since age structure in rural areas is often uneven and also unstable due to migration patterns. A number of policy related questions as well as research challenges are raised as a consequence.     

Ways of knowing, culture, communication and the pedagogies of the future

This article focuses on how cultures are embedded in diverse ways of knowing and how individuals teach (formal, action research, spiritual) and learn the world (action, science, technique or gnosis) differently. We present case-studies or stories of teaching and learning futures and futures generations. These stories tell the fundamental difficulties we face in teaching, communicating and learning across civilization, profession, worldview and pedagogical style. We offer a futures method, causal layered analysis, as one way to enter different knowing spaces. The educational challenge ahead of us is to pass on the rich diversity of culture and ways of knowing to future generations.     

Evolution and culture: the Darwinian view on infosphere

This essay looks at the idea that human culture is an evolving system, a complex entity that undergoes evolutionary processes. This idea can also be expressed as follows: the cultural infosphere has the same mode of operation as the organic biosphere. There are three parts to the essay: it begins with some highlights from the history of evolutionary thinking; second, it explains the mechanisms of cultural selection; and third, it discusses the vision of the future provided by evolutionary thinking. The kind of evolutionary thinking focused upon is one that takes Charles Darwin seriously. The depth, reach and relevance of Darwinian thinking has been aptly exposed by Daniel C. Dennett,[1] and this essay assesses its worth in futures research.     

China's search for the future: A genealogical approach

This paper is a dialectical inquiry, presenting a genealogy of, China futures discourses and visions from ancient times through to the, present. It uses both structural and macrohistorical based approaches. The identified worldviews are placed in their broader historical, epistemes; asked why change has occurred, how it fits within patterns of, history and what kind of futures are offered. It is unique in that I use, the futures triangle methodology to discuss the “pulls” of the future in, each historical era with the corresponding “pushes” of the present and, “weights” of the past. The article concludes with a theory of futures in, Chinese history and looks at which philosophies are likely to play a role, in the possible futures of China. The aim is to highlight which visions, and images have been victorious is affecting the present and influencing, the future.     

Macrohistory and futures studies

Through its delineation of the patterns of history, macrohistory gives a structure to the fanciful visions of futurists. Macrohistory gives us the weight of history, balancing the pull of the image of the future. Yet, like futures studies, it seeks to transform past, present and future, not merely reflect upon social space and time. Drawing from the book Macrohistory and Macrohistorians [Galtung, J. and Inayatullah, S. (eds), Praeger, New York, 1997], this article links macrohistory with futures studies. It takes the views of over 20 macrohistorians and asks what they offer to the study of alternative futures.     

Is idiosyncratic volatility priced in commodity futures markets?

This article investigates the relationship between expected returns and past idiosyncratic volatility in commodity futures markets. Measuring the idiosyncratic volatility of 27 commodity futures contracts with traditional pricing models that fail to account for backwardation and contango leads to the puzzling finding that idiosyncratic volatility is significantly negatively priced cross-sectionally. However, idiosyncratic volatility is not priced when the phases of backwardation and contango are suitably factored in the pricing model. A time-series portfolio analysis similarly suggests that failing to recognize the fundamental risk associated with the inexorable phases of backwardation and contango leads to overstated profitability of the idiosyncratic volatility mimicking portfolios.     

Integrating futures studies with organizational development: Design options for the scenario project ‘RWS2020’

Most futures studies are not used by managers and strategists and do not influence the direction of organizational development. Although the contribution of future studies to management is in theory all but self-evident, the practice in organizations is that futures knowledge is hardly used, or at most, is used selectively and strategically (‘politically’). This article acknowledges that gap and claims that it is a fundamental divide between to very different domains. However, out of that re-conceptualization of the relation between futures studies and management, a new direction for an integrated praxis arises. In an empirical case study, we show that by means of an intelligent process-design and professional balancing of several key-dilemmas, futures studies can be connected to management processes and organizational development. The future can be brought back into the everyday practice of management. However, in order to do so, the futures field needs to set aside some of its methodological claims and move towards the field of strategic management. Not because futurists need to abandon their specific knowledge and expertise, but to make the most of it.     

Beyond economic and value wars: Mythic images of future cities

Images of the future are essential to a society's survival. According to Polak [1], images of the future reflect and foreshadow society's future; as images go, so goes society. As a visual medium, cities in particular depend on robust images of the future. I submit that our ability to develop useful images of future cities depends on our visual literacy in understanding architectural images. This study explores alternative futures illustrated with future fantasies as an experiment in connecting images, archetypal myths, and alternative futures. Using two variables (strength of the economy and shifts in social values), four scenarios are proposed: Frontier Freedoms, Urban Fortress, Eco-Survival, and Utopian Hopes. Scenarios of future cities depicted by architectural imagery and linked to worldviews and archetypal myths broaden public discourse beyond economics and technology to address qualitative contextual factors such as identity, community, sacredness, and nature.