TAL: Envisioning the Future Together Event Details
TAL: Envisioning the Future Together
TAL is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a series of inspiring talks that encourage our members to look to our shared future.
We are pleased to be able to share the following materials from past presentations. Thanks to our presenters for their generosity in sharing their presentation materials!
Access to the recorded sessions is available for TAL member libraries. Please email jbadley@thealbertalibrary.ab.ca for access.
Lorne Rubis: Belonging: The Welcome & The Leave
May 26, 2022
Slides - PDF
Culture Strategist Lorne Rubis is back to invite the audience to dig into the "book ends" of belonging: "The Welcome & The Leave". Why are these areas worthy of 10X improvement? How well does the library system embrace these powerful "book ends"? So what? Now what?
Lorne Rubis: The "Squid Game" at Work
April 28, 2022
Slides - PDF
The popular Netflix show Squid Game, although very dark in many ways, captivated audiences around the world. One of the fatal "kids games" played during the series was Red light/Green light.
Lorne Rubis, culture strategist, Harvard instructor, and seasoned executive, is listed as one of the world’s top 30 culture gurus. He will challenge the audience on work assumptions by asking them to choose "red light" or "green light". Fortunately the implications are intended to be thought provoking rather than the outcome in the show.
As a takeaway Rubis will invite the audience to examine how their assumptions impact workplace culture and policy, along with a roadmap on what to do about it.
Todd Hirsch: Changing the Narrative: New ways to think about Alberta's economy in 2022
March 17, 2022
As we move into the spring of this year, the economic landscape is being transformed. Geopolitical turmoil, mounting inflation pressures and supply chain disruptions are taking a toll, and Canadians are feeling uncertain about what comes next. For us to make sense of these forces, we need new ways to think about our economy and set aside old ideas and concepts. How will the economy adapt and adjust? And what do workers and employers need to think about?
Engaging the Futures
Co-presenters:
Dr. Peter Bishop, President, Strategic Foresight and Development (SFD)
Michele Chaboudy, entrepreneur and consultant
- 4-part registered workshop series
- February 3, 10, 17, & 24
- Each session will include instruction, small group conversation, and breaks
- Information about optional extra reading material will be sent out to registered attendees
The traditional approach to understanding the future was based on quantitative extrapolations and models, like econometrics, climate models and now learning algorithms. While most of us did not have formal classes in forecasting, we nevertheless picked up this “scientific” approach in which the future is or should be predictable. Additionally, we learned that planning consists of a definite set of steps that are believed to achieve the goal.
Those approaches are fine as far as they go, but they assume that we know enough about the future to avoid anything unexpected or surprising that could invalidate the models or the plans.That assumption is less valid today than it used to be, especially in the midst of the recovery from the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic. Is it possible to anticipate and influence change in a better way given these conditions?
Join us in this workshop series to learn more about how we can think more effectively about the future.
Session Outline
Please note that these session outlines, as they appear below, are still subject to change.
The material below is (c) Peter Bishop and Michele Chaboudy and is abridged from their proposal.
Background
We live in unprecedented times, and unprecedented times call for unprecedented mindsets and behaviors. The Internet alone, along with other significant drivers of change, has created a complex, worldwide network of opportunities and challenges unlike anything in human history. Its most important effects for the future are an increasing rate of change and an increasing frequency of disruptions that together increase uncertainty about the medium- and long-term future.
Developed in the 20th century, the traditional approach to understanding the future was based on quantitative extrapolations and models, like econometrics, climate models and now learning algorithms. While most of us did not have formal classes in forecasting, we nevertheless picked up this “scientific” approach in which the future is or should be predictable. Additionally, we learned that planning consists of a definite set of steps that are believed to achieve the goal.
Those approaches are fine as far as they go, but both assume that we know enough about the future to avoid anything unexpected or surprising that could invalidate the models or the plans. That assumption is less valid today than it used to be, especially in the midst of the recovery from the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic. Is it possible to anticipate and influence change in a better way given these conditions?
Session 1, Thu Feb 3 – Introduction to the course, innovation and futures thinking
A new approach to the future emerged in the 1950s and became known to the public in the 1960s and 70s. It first appeared as Futures Studies, the title for this new academic discipline of research and teaching about the future. Today the field is also called Strategic Foresight as practitioners began applying what they learned in Futures Studies to the futures of their clients in business, government and the civil sector. Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight employ these basic principles to anticipate the future –
- Challenge the assumption used in traditional forecasting that we know enough about the future to predict what will happen reasonably well.
- Come to understand that we know less about the future than we used to given the increasing rate of change and the increasing frequency of disruptions.
- Recognize that the future contains so much uncertainty that it cannot be assumed away as unimportant to our understanding of what could happen.
- Capture that uncertainty in multiple scenarios to describe the futures rather than a single most likely prediction.
- Use the subjunctive mood (may, might and could) when describing the future rather than the indicative mood (will and must).
- Introduction slides (PDF format)
- Peter Bishop's presentation slides (PDF format)
- Additional reading material - from Teaching About the Future by Bishop & Hines, 2012 (PDF format)
Session 2, Thu Feb 10 – General thinking styles and tools – Entrepreneurial thinking, Innovation, and The golden circle
Michele Chaboudy also provided some material for next week - please see below, and check it out if you have time!
Session 3, Thu Feb 17 – Introduction to Design Thinking – Ideation, Design Thinking example
Pre session material for 2/17/2022 workshop:
- Video: IDEO's Tom Kelley is Design Thinking's ultimate disciple, he makes the case as to why.
(excellent interview format with two graduate students interviewing Tom) - Adam Grant has very popular TED talks on creativity. Here is one of his best: The surprising habits of original thinkers
Traditional forecasting, as described in the first session, is a one-size-fits-all approach the predicts the future provided one accepts the assumption that nothing unexpected will happen in the meantime. Strategic Foresight challenges that assumptions as we are inundated by waves of unexpected disruptions. Creating change or change management has not one, but dozens of approaches for how to move organizations or communities from one era to another. As a result, we will consider the leading approaches to creating change and settle on one that is quite popular and quite effective – design thinking.
Week 3 additional materials:
Session 4, Thu Feb 24 – Design thinking and Creating change in libraries
This last webinar is the hands-on task of designing and planning for an innovation in each participant’s library.
- Week 4 slides (Michele Chaboudy)
- Week 4 - Outbound change (Peter Bishop)
Speaker biographies
Michele Chaboudy
Michele has over 30 years as a senior executive, entrepreneur and consultant in several business sectors. She was a pioneer in the early Internet industry, having been on the founding teams of five tech start-ups in Silicon Valley and Austin, TX, including MarketWatch.com and WiredNews. Her early career was spent with large corporations in the aerospace and electronics industries at Ford Aerospace, TRW Vidar, and Raychem and later spent 10 years in the media sector as a business executive with the San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Post.
Her formal education includes a B.A. in History from DePauw University, a Master of Library Science from Indiana University, an MBA from Pepperdine University and a Certificate of Strategic Foresight from University of Houston. She has international experience in product management, business development and strategic planning and taught global marketing at Golden Gate University (San Francisco) for several years. Currently, she serves as President of the World Affairs Council of Sonoma County, as Vice Chair of the North Bay Angels and is on the adjunct faculty of Santa Rosa Junior College, teaching innovation in its entrepreneurship program.
Michele and her husband, Eron Flory, split their time between The Sea Ranch and Healdsburg, both in Sonoma County, California.
Peter C. Bishop
Dr. Bishop is the Founder and Executive Director of Teach the Future, an organization whose mission is to encourage and support educators who want to include futures thinking in their classes and schools at all levels around the world. In 2013, Dr. Bishop retired as a Professor Emeritus of Strategic Foresight and Director of the graduate program in Foresight at the University of Houston.
He has published two books on Strategic Foresight: Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (2007) and Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (2012), both with co-author Andy Hines. Dr. Bishop is a founding Board member and Chair of the Membership Committee for the Association of Professional Futurists.
Dr. Bishop came to the University of Houston in 2005, having taught futures studies at the Clear Lake campus since 1982. Dr. Bishop started teaching at Georgia Southern College in 1973 where he specialized in social problems and political sociology. He received his doctoral degree in sociology from Michigan State University in 1974 and his bachelor's degree in philosophy from St. Louis University where he also studied mathematics and physics. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where he was a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for seven years. Dr. Bishop is married with two children and three grandchildren.
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