by 
I have a new short piece on how Imagining After Capitalism relates to transformation (perfect for a little holiday reading). It highlights the “Image Analysis Template” that was developed to help us analyze as well as construct guiding images of the future. As a refresher, a guiding image is defined as “a positive aspirational view of the future that serves as a North Star for guiding people into the future.”
A key point in the piece is how Houston Foresight did some research that looked at 78 historical sets and how the domains actually played out over time, and we were struck by how slowly they actually evolved. It is fascinating to see how many times a potential transformational future is identified, but the existing system “fights it off.” In particular, existing system stakeholders are very good at adapting reforms – often the bare minimum they can get away with – as a way to deflect and buy time – and avoid transformation. We are in for a long, but worthwhile struggle. — Andy Hines
“positive” is subjective… but good template
the template has the “why”, “what”, and “how” needed to grasp any concept, but they aren’t obvious/ why not use phrases like:
“why” will this ideal/ambition matter enough to garner broad support?
“what” are the core aspects of the ideal that make it unique from other similar ideals – nuance?
“how” is the ideal implemented and operated?
example: widespread use of AI
“why” use AI? to cut cost and save time
“what” should the AI do? automate tasks that humans cannot do well or don’t want to do
“how” should the AI be implemented? build or acquire access to AI and ML models that are fine tuned for your purpose(s)