Future Times Aotearoa

Every now and then, an experience opens your mind so that nothing looks or feels the same again. This is true of my meeting with Myra Harpham, 90-year old futurist, feminist, scientist, activist, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Myra was the co-director of the Commission for the Future (CFF), New Zealand’s first and only central government futuring organisation, which operated from 1976 till 1982 and had the broad mandate to explore future possibilities for New Zealand’s society and economy. I was lucky enough to visit Myra and her husband Perce in their retirement village near Wellington and share lunch and conversations over two afternoons. What I learnt has shifted my perspective profoundly.  Myra and I in her home June 2021 Learning for the Future Myra is clearly brilliant academically, but it was another aspect of her intelligence that inspired me most - an ability to see beneath the surface level of events and personalities to identify the ideas, beliefs and values ...

It seems there is growing recognition of the need for futures thinking in the New Zealand Government. Starting next year for example, all Chief Executives of government departments will be required to provide independent briefings to government ministers on medium and long-term trends, risks, and opportunities that may affect New Zealand. That is the first time government departments have been required to do futures thinking in a public way in Aotearoa. It is happening as a result of a clause in the new Public Service Act 2020 that requires CEs to provide a briefing at least every three years. This development is part of a wave of new futuring initiatives emerging across government. Perhaps COVID-19 has woken us up to the vulnerability and changeability of our world, along with multiple crises of the environment, society and economy.  Collectively, we are beginning to see the need to look wisely to our future. In recognition of this growing need and interest in futures thinking, ...

For the past decade I have been running a consultancy using storytelling as a tool to achieve all kinds of things - communicating impossibly complex science, empowering young people, building trusting relationships over conflict-lines and gathering support for new initiatives. I have seen how stories move people's hearts and minds and generate energy for change. But I have often felt frustrated by the way storytelling is seen in the "serious" worlds of science, business and government.  Storytelling has flimsy, whimsical connotations next to the serious language of strategy. In organisations, communication departments are positioned down the hierarchy from the executive team who defines the strategy. Storytelling is often seen as a finishing exercise to shape a project up for presentation to the world.  I see the place of stories as much more fundamental than this. Stories are powerful evolutionary tools that our brains have developed to make sense of the world. They tran...

We would like to introduce you to Frank Spencer - not the bumbling star of the 1970s British sitcom, but the US-based Futurist.  This Frank Spencer is the founder of Kedge , a global foresight, innovation and strategic design firm, which he runs with fellow futurist Yvette Montero Salvatico . They also run  The Futures School , a strategic foresight training organisation and produce a podcast called Wicked Opportunities , which reframes some of the world's most wicked problems in terms of the opportunities they offer. Yvonne met Frank at a World Future Studies Federation webinar last year and was impressed by the warmth of his character and the depth of his work. So, in case you haven't come across him, we'd like to share a bit about why we like his approach. Acknowledging Our Agency to Shape the Future Firstly, we like Frank's proactive and optimistic view of the future. One of the things we have noticed in futuring and foresight initiatives in Aotearoa and abroad is ...

  Essential education?   STEM – science, technology, engineering, maths   STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts, maths   STREAM – science, technology, religion, engineering, art, maths   SCREAM – science, commerce, religion, engineering, art, mechanics

  Why Becoming Indigenous Matters             This article, written in 2019 by Yvonne's daughter Linda Curtis, is an exploration of the word "indigenous" and the possibilities of  broadening and re-imagining its meaning. An opportunity exists to redefine how we understand the term indigenous.   This may not seem that important, simply talking around a topic that is already well defined, however creating a new context allows greater inclusion, which is where momentum for social change is unleashed. Momentum begins in the minutiae, the edges, the fringe, just as our Universe unfolded from the head of a pin.   Let’s talk about this pin. The dictionary definition of indigenous is ‘originating or occurring naturally in a particular place, native’, however there is another, perhaps more relevant, definition proposed by Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal, as ‘people who have a seamless relationship with nature (definitions are included at the end)....

In the 1970s Aotearoa was one of the world leaders in future studies. In 1976, following close behind a similar initiative in Sweden, and around the same time as Australia, the Muldoon government founded an institution called the Commission for the Future (CFF). This was part of a new wave of thinking, spearheaded in Aotearoa by a group of forward-thinking government ministers (known as the "Young Turks"). The commission's aim was to consider the opportunities, trends and risks up to thirty years into the future and feed their findings back to politicians and the public. Although it didn't last long, the CFF  brought futures studies into the mainstream and left a legacy. Following its dissolution in 1982, the New Zealand Futures Trust was founded - an independent Trust, which aimed to continue the commission's work exploring the future and engaging decision makers and public. Here, Yvonne describes these two important institutions: Commission for the Future 1976...