Episode Thirteen: Andrew Curry on Futures Landscapes

Kia ora and welcome to episode thirteen of The Futures Workshop!

Most of the tools we’ve looked at so far rely on scenarios - imagined future scenes which we then use to work out the implications for us and our organisations.

But today’s guest Andrew Curry says scenarios aren’t always the best approach. It can be cognitively tricky to get groups to fully embrace a speculative future and make the leap to where they fit into it. Sometimes, says Andrew, it’s better to stay in what he calls the “thick present”, using a tool known as Futures Landscapes.

Andrew is another significant voice in our global futures community. He is the director of Futures at the School of International Futures, and has led projects that span everything from net zero mobility to the impacts of geopolitical events on food and energy.

We hope you enjoy this episode on the Futures Landscapes tool. You can find some of the resources Andrew refers to below.

Thanks to The Beths and (The Boss) for their beautiful music.

Further resources:

An abstract on Futures Landscapes which Andrew created for the Discovery of the Future conference

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:0123fb5a-75aa-4f5d-8b4d-6450f21d35df

An urban food environments report to show how the tool might work in practice. Andrew tells me that the ‘domains’ part is a little harder to find in this report, but they are listed out on p13 and the supporting systems loops and analysis are at the back as an Annex

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:0fc744c1-7940-40a0-988b-1581f2b21d78

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefuturesworkshop.substack.com