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We reviewed Sohail Inayatullah’s Six Pillars in Alternative Perspectives class last night. The first pillar, mapping, includes the notion of the push and pull of the future. He defines them as:
• Push: Our present often pushes us to the future
• Pull: A shared image of the future pulls an organization forward
We discussed how it related to our framework foresight process. We suggest that the baseline future, in which present trends continue, plans are fulfilled, and projections are on target, represents the push. The momentum of the baseline carries us into the future, unless a discontinuity changes the trajectory or if we decide to move the future in a different direction. We suggest that the preferred future represents the pull of the future It is not always present, of course. Many organizations (or individuals or communities) do not have a preferred future and are not trying to pull it in any direction.
Earlier in the class, we had read a piece suggesting that academic schools had a tendency to graduate students who would advocate for their school’s version of how to do foresight work. I hope that we are not doing this. We routinely talk about how there is not one right way and look to other ways all the time, such as Sohail’s Six Pillars. I’m not sure I’ve seen this clubbiness (whatever you want to call it) in practice in foresight. I know many of the folks from other schools and I have not got the sense that anyone suggests they have it right. And I know of an effort led by Peter Bishop a few years ago that got many of the academic programs together to compare notes and exchange ideas. So, let’s keep learning from one another — that’s the preferred future I’m pulling towards. Andy Hines
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