Disruptive Futures Institute

🐰 Disruptions Reflecting into Constants Thoughts around change, constants, hallucination and delusion? In 1937, Salvador Dalí painted two of his most famous surrealist paintings: The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and Swans Reflecting into Elephants. ➡️ The Metamorphosis of Narcissus: The two images in the painting reflect Narcissus both before and after his transformation. Dali’s double images derive from his fascination with hallucination and delusion. ⏩ Swans Reflecting into Elephants: Using the same technique as for Narcissus, the Swans painting has a similar setting (the Catalonian landscape from where Dalí is originally from) and also uses double images and visual illusions (his paranoiac-critical method). These paintings are symbolic, but we can draw parallels about the delusion and illusion of changes being different from constants. They are one of the same, each reflecting on the other, indistinguishable. Systemic disruptions are constants, just as their reflections are. To imagine a life absent of disruption is a hallucination or delusion as well. With disruption being a steady state, as opposed to isolated or single, recurring events, is there a difference between changes and constants? Have we been misled into an illusion of stability, predictability, and certainty - a world free from constant disruption? In Japanese, mujō means impermanence: everything and everyone is constantly changing. Impermanence is called Anicca in Pali, the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism. Anicca is an essential doctrine shared in Buddhism and Hinduism. 💬 Here life itself is comparable to a river that appears to have continuous and unified flow, but it is never the same water. It is the same concept of impermanence when the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that “…no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he’s not the same man.” To appreciate the paradoxes of constants being a reflection of disruptions, we can revisit Herman Hesse who describes how Siddhartha discovers the secret that life flows like a river: “... eternally the same and yet new at every moment!” So nothing is permanent but impermanence. This philosophical problem fleshes out a great paradox, as impermanence is permanent - while at the same time everything is in constant change - with the absence of continuity or permanence. As we dive into life, whether there are changes, or constants, or changing constants or constant changes, they are one and the same. 💡Armed with an understanding of the eternal nature of change, our response to disruptions becomes our response to life itself. As we embrace change, we are actually embracing the reflection of constants, of our humanity. Paintings: “Metamorphosis of Narcissus" (Tate Gallery, London, UK) and “Swans Reflecting Elephants”, by Salvador Dali, 1937. #change #constants #life #art Nae Hayakawa Disruptive Futures Institute Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures)

Disruption has always existed… what’s different now? Presenting the Table of Contents for “Disrupt With Impact”, my new book on unpredictability and change that releases in September 2024. Follow the link in bio to pre-order your copy today! Use discount code IMPACT20 for 20% off at the Kogan Page Publishing website 🔗📚 #disruption #decisionmaking #uncertainty #unpredictability #foresight Also available to pre-order wherever books are sold. Kogan Page Business Insights | Disruptive Futures Institute | Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures)

Three key misconceptions in the debate about AI and existential risk The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just published a survey identifying the most common reasons why people think mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should not be a global priority. Here's why they're wrong according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ⤵  ⏰ https://lnkd.in/gaUi6u4R In the notes we have included a few articles from our Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence which touch upon the concept of Techistentialism. Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures) Disruptive Futures Institute

🐰 Surrealism to Prepare for Our Complex & Unpredictable World 🌏 A few weeks ago, during my latest European speaking tour, I took the opportunity of a business trip to Brussels to visit the exhibition “IMAGINE! 100 Years of International Surrealism” at the Magritte Museum. This exhibition celebrates a century since André Breton’s first Surrealist Manifesto ("Manifeste du surréalisme") of 1924. ✅ Our society loves bite-sized information. With limited attention spans, one-size-fits-all answers oversimplify every problem. 🎲 Artists like Dalí, Magritte, Breton, Ernst, Kahlo, and Oppenheim help us integrate contingency and surprise, stretch the imagination, suspend disbelief, challenge reality and the assumptions we make about the world, draw seemingly unrelated connections, and contemplate discontinuity. 🔎 Simple solutions are an appealing escape from complex environments, which inherently display tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions. Addressing ambient complexity requires recognizing ambiguities, oppositions, inconsistencies, and incomprehensibility. These arise as we analyze dynamic systems and develop nuanced perspectives. ❓With complexity, just like with surrealism, no perception or solution is universally applicable. These environments defy simplistic dichotomies, which are only reliable in dependable, certain, and consistent contexts. 🧭 Surrealist themes, from time and space, impermanence and mortality, dreams and reality, the unconscious and conscious, irrational and rational, teach us to appreciate paradoxes, dualities, and surprises. We must become comfortable with unpredictability, understanding that constants cohabitate with disruptions, permanence with impermanence, the consecutive with the parallel, the finite with the infinite, the dark with the funny, the clear with the blurry, and the singular with the multiple. 🌐 In surrealism, we learn to explore the true nature of the world, not through oversimplified narratives engineered for short-lived influence, control, and commercial gains, but by embracing the multitude of possible futures - and present - in our dynamic world of contrasts, paradoxes, surprises, and constant flux. Painting: La Clairvoyance, 1936 by Rene Magritte #futuresthinking #unpredictability #foresight #complexity #foresight Disruptive Futures Institute Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures)

Themes from the World Economic Forum Global Foresight Network Retreat 🌐 I spent the month of June on a speaking tour in Europe, including a very rich stop in Geneva at the World Economic Forum for its two-day Global Foresight Network Retreat. 💡 Very grateful to Bryonie Guthrie, Stephan Mergenthaler, Astrid Wang, and Maryna Sviatenko for creating this community of 60 global foresight practitioners, from a broad set of public and private sectors. Klaus Schwab and Børge Brende joined some of our sessions. 💬 Sharing key themes from the WEF retreat:⤵ 1. Setting the scene: The founder of WEF, Professor Klaus Schwab shared his vision of the fundamental shifts taking place:  - Geopolitical disaggregation and polarization - Societal disintegration and disinformation - Environmental strains and energy transformation - Rapid transition from 4th industrial revolution to an intelligence era - Inadequate future-focused investments - Pessimistic outlooks. 2. Anticipatory thinking: Education, geopolitics and governance systems built on structures of multilateralism and stability are under severe pressure. Enter strategic foresight, and the chief geopolitical and chief existential officers. 3. We are in deep uncertainty, with no data on the future: Many decisions rely on trend reports, operating as echo chambers and rearview mirrors. With interacting systemic changes, unpredictability makes it harder to understand trajectories. 4. Look back to see ahead: Historical patterns illuminate the shapes of change. While history may not repeat, it can rhyme. For Churchill “The farther backward you look, the farther forward you can see.” 5. Transformative change: We explored pathways for deep transformations, engaging collaboratively with various initiatives to redesign systems with intentionality and a futures-oriented approach. 6. Storytelling drives agency: Narratives can positively shape the futures and drive virtuous tipping points. In the Stockdale Paradox, neither the overly optimistic nor the overly pessimistic survive. Rather, those who adopt an optimistic yet realistic mindset can both survive and benefit. 7. The duality of informed optimism: Recognizing the hard truths of our limitations and current realities, while collectively holding the agency to shift paradigms. Choosing our responses is the biggest challenge and opportunity of our time. 8. Sustainable Futures - Crossroads between breakdown and breakthrough: We explored key stakes for the UN Summit of the Future including a declaration of future generations, a new agenda for peace, transforming education, and pathways to prosperity for key regions such as Africa. 9. Humility is a place for learning and co-creation. ➡️ The Network is committed to capacity-building for foresight and future preparedness, all very much aligned with our work at the Disruptive Futures Institute and Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures) #governance #foresight  #sustainability #uncertainty

Delighted to see the latest article by James Balzer, MSusDev MPP about the Japanese Voluntary Carbon Markets. James is a Researcher at the Disruptive Futures Institute and Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures), focusing on our DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy.

What is metaruptions? Just like most 'journalistic' academics are you treating prediction and foresight in similar lines? or strategic planning and futures synonymously? This is one of the finest articles I read on foresight this week; by @rogerspitz #foresight #futures

“The purpose of scenario development is preparation, not prediction.” A good read on ‘Why shifting from prediction to foresight can help us plan for future disruption’ by Roger Spitz [1]. While I didn’t agree with all of it, a lot of it resonates and a few bits in particular stood out: “In deeply uncertain environments, causality can only be assessed retrospectively, relationships are unpredictable, and moving parts interdependent.” “Foresight is the capacity to explore the possible futures systemically, as well as drivers of change, to inform short-term decision-making.” “Only the present exists, so all our decisions towards long-term futures need to be translated to the now.” And the whole conclusion: “The purpose of scenario development is preparation, not prediction. This readying benefits any eventualities, beyond the handful of future scenarios imagined. As we evaluate the opportunities and risks from our scenarios, we scrutinize their potential consequences. We can then build resilience to sustain even the most serious outcomes. Foresight does not hold a crystal ball. It prepares you for the swerves. The future of prediction is imagination.” — In the words of Kristen Stuart, Gagan Chawla and Harumi Shiraishi Lopez: “Tuned to today, tilting toward tomorrow” [2]

"While you are busy fighting for incremental improvements, someone will come along and create a new market." The boundaries between industries are quickly dissolving, with significant implications for any company trying to make an impact. The new report from MIT Tech Review, "The future of industries in the era of systemic disruption," is a fascinating read. The core argument within is that no company today exists within a single sector, and success depends on how you respond to this natural change. Here are some of my favorite takeaways from the report: (1) Companies risk a loss of focus and irrelevancy by limiting competitive analysis to specific industries. "We can no longer treat transport, energy, aerospace, materials, technology or urbanization as separate elements, because they are deeply interconnected," the report states. That's why it's important to widen your scope of research to find new opportunity spaces, and adopt a value system to your insights practice that embraces curiosity and tangential research. (2) Without innovation hubs and progressive initiatives, established industry leaders will be outrun by smaller, nimbler companies willing to take risks. The report highlights how companies like Impossible Foods have challenged the meat and dairy industry giants with their innovative approach to alternative proteins, while Square and Stripe inspire traditional processing companies like JPMorgan and Mastercard to step up their game. (3) "In the process of imagining what is possible, entirely new fields emerge" What if you could look at the amorphous nature of industry as a potential to discover revolutionary breakthroughs? The report notes that "In the future we will be able to create diamonds without relying on mining...In the process of imagining what is possible, entirely new fields emerge." Companies that dare to branch into emerging technologies can not just capture existing markets, but establish entirely new, extremely passionate ones. (4) Rethink the concept of "competition" "There are no direct competitors. Your competitors may also be your biggest partners, suppliers, customers and investors." As sector boundaries dissolve, company can juggle multiple expertises at once, making direct comparisons difficult. Are there ways in which companies can shed their aversion to collaboration, and make progressive strides through strategic partnerships? (5) Investing in information transparency and storytelling is crucial to success In the social media age, good storytelling is an imperative. As detailed in the MIT report, "Information, narrative, and misinformation profoundly affect profits. When stakeholders, consumers and employees understand the story, trust the vision and respect the values, they are more likely to accept your offers." These are just a few of many insightful points in this rich report that resonated with me! You can find the full report in the comments below ⬇️

What is The Future of Industries in the Age of Systemic Disruption? Read my latest MIT Technology Review article. 🇧🇷 For my many Brazilian (and Portuguese speaking) friends and partners, my latest article below is in MIT Technology Review Brasil. 📚 This article is derived from themes in my upcoming book ‘Disrupt With Impact’ (Chapter 8 - The next chapter of digital disruption: Industries converge and new fields emerge). 🔎 O futuro das indústrias na era da disrupção sistêmica: As “indústrias” ou “setores” bem delineados do passado estão desaparecendo. Os líderes precisam de novos filtros para avaliar as empresas e os seus cenários em constante evolução no mundo liminar de hoje. ➡️ The future is hybrid: In a liminal world, there are no industry boundaries. ➡️ The current boundaries and definitions of clearly delineated “industries” or “sectors” are disappearing. ➡️ Leaders, investors and analysts need new filters to evaluate companies, competitors and their evolving landscapes in today’s liminal world. ➡️ As industries intersect, radical shifts take place in the value chains. ➡️ In a digital, dematerialized, disintermediated world, there are no direct competitors. Check out my recent piece and share your insights in the comments!⤵  ⏩ https://lnkd.in/ejHaeJJm #complexity #systemsthinking  #decisionmaking #uncertainty #unpredictability #foresight MIT Technology Review Brasil Disruptive Futures Institute Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures)