You were "inspired"! You felt "energised", "intrigued" and even "illuminated". You wanted more: more time, more theory on methodology and more on the impact and application of Scenario Planning!
PORTAL's taster on Scenario Planning as a tool for business innovation which officially launched our "21 Gifts Initiative" (read details below) was a great way for us to usher in 2009 at the HUB Amsterdam.
We were joined by a high quality group of participants coming from the worlds of management consultancy, economic strategy, NGO's, the fashion, media and entrepreneurship industries, as well as artists and freelancers. Do visit some of our audience's websites listed below to get a feeling for the mix of brains and hearts that rubbed shoulders last week at the PORTAL workshop.
At the start of a new year in which seasoned investment commentator Tom Stevenson for Fidelity International already urged the world to consider "what can be done in the longer term to create a better, more equitable and sustainable economic landscape" (Daily Telegraph 15.01.09), "Ethics" and "Harmony" ranked high on this diverse group's priority list, and so we had serious fun mapping out future worlds based on these two main axis.
The wealth of backgrounds and sectors represented at the workshop were also reflected in the first round of nominations for 21 Gifts we received on the night. They include:
AIESEC, GreenDesk, FLP Plower Label, EcoVillage Alminde, Young Sietar, Melika, MultiMediaLab and many others.
Would you or your organisation like to be on this list of nominations to receive a FREE Scenario Planning workshop in 2009? Please take a minute to read up on PORTAL's "21 Gifts Initiative" and send us a message: kwela.hermanns@portaltoyourdreams.com
Those of you who give us permission to stay in touch will receive updates on PORTAL's activities from time to time.
Welcome to (y)our dreams!
Drs. Carl Kerchmar
Kwela Sabine Hermanns
Links of participants' websites:
www.vandebunt.nl
www.solidaridad-businessconcepts.com
www.futureconsiderations.com
www.seedfoundation.eu
www.bewuste-evolutie.net
www.greenconcepts.nl
www.syntens.nl
www.vonwinckelmann.com
www.stylink.nl
www.valentinepeaceproject.org
Letter from the Moderator:
From an open invitation to help promote social and business innovation we created four future scenarios. Beginnings can be a bit confusing and vague and our start was no exception as we began to explore words and ideas that link our 'tijdsgeest' to the driving forces in our socio-economic reality. From a wide open start we pooled our ambitions and intuitions into some concrete perspectives on how to gauge our collective futures.
Ranging from strong to weak, an ethical / value oriented horizontal axis including key terms like sustainability, collective awareness, social agenda was co-created. This line was characterized by activities that we as a people can influence, in turn, the vertical axis had an externality emphasis. Coined as paradise, which measured the harmony of our relationship with nature and our also our neighbors, in terms of politics and war.
We are optimistic souls, and the plus plus scenario of high harmony and ethics was easiest to fill with adjectives and images. How can this experience remain useful after the workshop? I feel that our efforts created a a realistic framework for viewing the worlds flux into the future at large. Our axis were general yet detailed enough to be specific. We can now cut and paste our experiences into these imaged futures. When you hear the news, see images in magazines and catch headlines in the papers relate them back to the axis of ethics /values and paradise / harmony and try and place them... the placement is relative to our time so the more we monitor the more we contextualize the meaning in a reference point. Where we are heading as a society becomes monitorable and your position within that flux becomes navigatable.
