• The History of the Future

• The present and how we got here

• Some clues about thriving in the 21 st century

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

www.afternow.org.uk

“The art of prophecy is very difficult especially with respect to the future”

Mark Twain

Learning

“Brain work will cause women to go bald”Prof Hans Friedenthal 1914

Entertainment

“Speaking movies are impossible. When a century has passed, all thought of so-called speaking movies will have been abandoned”

D.W. Griffith

Hollywood Producer

Work

“By 1960, Work will be limited to three hours a day”

John Langdon-Davies

1936

Communications Technology

“We are not going to make personal computers. There is a market for only five of them worldwide”

Thos Watson IBM, 1956

“An amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them”

President Hayes to AG Bell, 1876

“One day there will be one of them in every City”

Chicago 1873

Transport

“ The improvement in city conditions by the general adoption of the motor car can hardly be overestimated. Streets clean, dustless and odourless, with light rubber-tyred vehicles moving swiftly and noiselessly over their smooth expanse….”

Scientific American 1899

Cars moving swiftly and noiselessly

Surgery

“The abolition of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it today. Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the patient’s awareness”

Dr. Alfred Velpeau

1839, seven years before the intro

of anaesthesia

Health

“A child born in the year 2000 has a good chance of not dying at all”

Jaques Bergier, 1968

Health

“We just won’t have arthritis in the year 2000”

Dr William Clark,

President of the Arthritis

Foundation, 1966

Co-Creating Our Future

The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating.

The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.

John SchaarScience Advisor

President Richard Nixon

Foresight Canada

Develop a future consciousnessto inform the present

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

How did we get here?

1750

2050

20501800 1900 1950 2000

1800

1900

1950

2000

Enlightenment

MaterialismModernism

Three broad idea waves, four broad Public Health policy waves

Costing an arm and a leg

For how long?

Cost of NHS

time

one armOne leg

Two armsone leg

two armstwo legs

actual

envisaged

Desired?

The (really) big picture

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

Sou

rce: T

he G

uard

ian

, sum

mer 2

00

7

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

“If you read only one book this year about the end of civilisation, let this be it.”

Quill and Quire

External world changes

Internal world must catch up

Alignment Dislocated

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born;

in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

…A Change of Age….

Zinn

Join all the dotsFour linesNo lifting pencilNo retracing steps

1. the “globalization” of everyday life

• Cognitive• Spatial• Temporal• Materialism• Individualism• Consumerism

DETERRITORIALISATION

Kickbusch

Political determinants……

1. The redirection of global health functions from interstate mechanisms to a growing but fragmented group of actors

From the center…..

Kickbusch

…..to a fragmented POLITICAL ECOSYSTEM

BONO

CLINTON

MSF

WEF PHAWorld Bank

Kickbusch

Healthscapes: Food – Drink - Obesity

Kickbusch

(O’Hara)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

         

Control

HomogenisationAbstraction

FragmentationAlienation

Participation

Diversity

Inclusion

Fear

Love

Disappointmentand fear

Hopeand play

Participation

Giving & Receiving

ExplorationImaginationParticipationQualitative

Control

Production & Consumption

DataPredictionQuantative

Some characteristics of 5w system?

• Integrative internal external, objective/subjective

• Ecological systems and wholeness, social and human

• Ethical individual human rights integrated with collective dimensions of equity , trust

• Creative to imagine and then create something better

• Beautiful raises spirits, sustains moves to act

Centre for Medical HumanitiesCentre for Medical Humanities

Emergent qualities of a ‘fifth wave’

1. Complex adaptive systems with multiple points of equilibrium

2. Rebalancing our mindset – ‘anti’ to ‘pro’, from dominion and independence to interdependence and co-operation

3. Rebalance models – mechanistic to organic

4. Rebalance our orientation – objective to subjective

5. Develop a future consciousness to inform the present

6. Iterate and scale up through learning – try things out and share. Hanlon, et al, 2011

Co-creating HealthCentre for Integrative Care Glasgow

• Presence

• The Dance

• Mobilising (Inner) Resources

Secondary care, primary care, community

More dots?

No. of dots No of possible links No of possible patterns

4 6 64

10 45 3.5 trillion

(9 zeros)

12 64 4.5 quadrillion

(12 zeros)

Why do we always learn about Geology

the day after an earthquake

Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.iffpraxis.com

time

Prevalence/success

H1H2

H3

Three Horizons

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

Twilight Transitional Transformed

Variant 1: Collapse and Recovery

In this variant the supremacy of the Horizon 1 paradigm creates runaway success but at the expense of some critical condition. Failure to capture coupled with weaker innovation in Horizon 2 leads to sudden collapse. Horizon 2 is unable to make up for this.

In the background Horizon 3 continues to develop and after the initial upset and chaos of the collapse demonstrates its ability to match the new conditions and emerges as the next viable paradigm.

PREVALENCE

TIME

H1

H2

H3

Variant 2: Capture and Extension

Horizon 1 is challenged by changing conditions and there is strong innovation opportunity taken by Horizon 2. However, each wave of innovation is captured by Horzon 1 and applied to extend its life. This may go on for several cycles.

Horizon 3 remains in the background since it is so different from Horizon 1 that there is no place for it in the mainstream. It continues to languish in the margins until a much larger and long term change occurs.

PREVALENCE

TIME

H1

H2

H3

time

prevalence Three Horizons

www.internationalfuturesforum.com

H1 concerns H2 innovations H3 aspirations

H3 in the present

Stop

Keep

Twilight Transition Transformed