Who writes the story of the future?

Foresight is an approach that gives us the power to imagine and shape different kinds of futures. It is not about predicting the future, no one can do that, but about working with scenarios about possible futures based on the knowledge we have today. A powerful way to use to be able to make decisions today that help us reach the tomorrow we want to see.

Silicon Valley is in many ways a region that helped lay the foundation for today's foresight methods and even today some of the world's most famous futurists and foresight organizations are based in Silicon Valley. The region is known for being a place where you continuously look ahead and work with what may happen in the next 5, 10 or 15-20 years. For many organizations, it is an obvious part of the company's DNA to think visionary, big and future-oriented. An example is Amazon, which has long worked on creating "Future press releases" where every time an employee wants to sell a new idea, they must describe it in a press release from the future and write down how the idea could be presented on the day it becomes a reality. One of many ways to create conceivable feelings and thoughts about a scenario from the future.

Being the one who writes stories about the future and where we are going comes with a lot of responsibility and influence and it is clear that a region like Silicon Valley has failed many times in that responsibility. The list is long of products and services that have come out of the region and the big technology companies in recent years that have been neither inclusive nor diversified. Something that has led to a lot of criticism and that needs to change in order for Silicon Valley to be able to maintain its leading position as an innovation region in the future as well.

As the futurist Amy Webb says in his quote in the introduction, there is not just one future, but a series of different futures and behind every future scenario there are thoughts, feelings. And whether we want it or not, there are also preconceived notions opinions/biases from the narrator. There are simply no completely neutral future scenarios and it is therefore of the utmost importance that we ensure that we get a wide range of scenarios painted for us. Initiativet Curious Futures 2030 has produced statistics on who today produce the most influential future and trend reports internationally. It turned out that it is 2/3 men, 86% white people with an average age of 52 years, with similar academic backgrounds working at a few large companies behind the reports, that is, a very homogeneous group of people.

How do we create greater breadth around who is writing the story of the future?

The statistics on who is writing the history of the future today means that there is most likely a lack of important perspectives in the future stories that are trending. And that there are a lot of signals that are never picked up - important indications of where we are going that we miss, something we have to change.

Below are some ways we can work to create more inclusive and diverse futures:

1. Complete with more signals and voices
   We need to look beyond the very biggest and most common trend reports. Curious Futures 2030 has gathered over 500 futurists and merged 123 different trend reports internationally to produce broader and more inclusive trend scouting for 2030, they call it “Quantitative Foresight”. Working with data is a measurable and clear way to see the bigger picture.
2. Make more people want to see the future
   Everyone should and can be futurists and contribute to the picture of the future we are on our way to or want to reach. In a previous blog post, I describe how to work with, for example, signal intelligence as a tool: Weak signals - signs of what may become significant in the futureSignal intelligence is a way to become more aware of what is happening around us and how it can come to influence society going forward.
3. Draw attention to the problem and pave the way for change
   Amy Webb has said "Bias is irritating. But bias is not going to magically go away because we talk about it at conferences". We clearly need to get better at not only talking about the problems but actually paving the way for change. If we want to create a sustainable future for everyone, we also need to get a clear picture of what the whole society needs and wants. A first step is to analyze one's own organization, which biases do we have and which perspectives do we lack? And how can we work to become more aware of possible biases and supplement perspectives we lack so as not to miss important insights and signals about the future?