Created 4/9/2011 10:06:11 AM

Have you ever thought about the dual role of scenarios? As the futurists we build scenarios to help people better understand and prepare for their futures (Tonn, 2006), but we might not be enough careful to see how the scenarios build us and our lives in return. Tonn and his colleagues (2006) conducted a survey and suggested that "visioning and scenario writing are tools to help people think and imagine the future" and by using such tools the futurists may be able "to help people become more positive about the future and lead people to be more proactive about the future".

In business environment "scenarios are evaluated in terms of socio-economic, physical and technological feasibility, and policy implications. Iteration of scenarios is usually required to resolve physical inconsistencies and to mitigate adverse economic, social and environmental impacts that are revealed in the analysis." (Phdungsilp, 2011). A very slight point that is missing here is that a number of current socio-economic, physical and technological feasibility and policy implications are the results of our past scenarios in turn and again we align our futures with the outcomes of our past stories! I think that a very mild line of the past can be found in our scenarios and thereby in our futures.

On the other hand, the art of scenarios in shaping our lives may be more sensitive in building long futures. Long-range socioeconomic scenarios beyond 2100 are a new research area involving complexity science, with a spatial resolution to at least 15 continental regions (Samet, 2010). How can we make an equilibrium between the dual role of scenarios and our short and long expectations that could or should be realized within our written scenarios?

References:
Phdungsilp, A. (2011). Futures studies’ backcasting method used for strategic sustainable city planning, Futures, doi:10.1016/j.futures.2011.05.012
Samet, R. H. (2010). Futurists and their schools, Futures, 42, pp. 895–900.
Tonn, B. et al (2006). Cognitive representations of the future, Futures, 38, pp. 810–829.