October 6, 2025 • 55 mins
We talk with Peter von Stackelberg about humility in consulting, why timeframes matter, and how narrative foresight turns data into action. We trace his path from journalism to futures, explore exploratory forecasts, and unpack story worlds, transmedia, and cycles.
• building trust through listening and humility
• why clear timeframes beat vague “someday” futures
• exploratory forecasts with indicators and course corrections
• using story to turn data into lived context
• transmedia and story universes for sustained engagement
• the layered timeline of trends, STEEP, and K-waves
• what tracked in war, religion, and social change
• a global platform for co-creating future stories
• where to access Peter’s research and timelines
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Coming up on today's show.
SPEAKER_04 (00:01):
I've seen far too many futurists and even more
broadly coming intoorganizations, you know,
consultants generally.
Hey, I'm the expert, you got tolisten to me.
And um, I've seen it from theother side where I've been with
clients and they'll after theconsultants out of the room and
say, Well, that's that's youknow what?
(00:22):
That's BS, that's not gonna workhere, that you know, you get all
of the typical resistance.
And uh the consultant hasbasically lost the uh the client
right from the start.
I mean, you need to come acrosscertainly as professional and
knowing what you're doing, knowwhat you're doing, but you can't
come across as I know it all andyou don't.
(00:42):
Great deal of humility isactually required in that.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Welcome to the Think Forward Show.
I'm your host, Steve Fisher.
Today, we've got a reallyspecial guest.
Futurist, educator, andstoryteller, Peter von
Stackelberg.
If you've ever seen that epiclayered timeline of cycles and
trends floating around theforesight world, well, that's
Peter's work.
He's also one of the pioneers ofnarrative foresight and
transmedia story worlds, showinghow stories can move people to
(01:10):
act where data alone falls flat.
In this episode, we talk abouthis journey from investigative
journalism to future studies atthe University of Houston.
We dive into his idea ofexploratory forecasts and why
time frames actually matter.
We explore story worlds and evenAI that can make the future more
tangible and human.
It's a fascinating conversationabout cycles, storytelling, and
(01:33):
the craft of helping peopleimagine what's next.
But before we get going, I'dlike to ask a small favor.
For you to like and subscribe ifyou're watching this on YouTube,
or to subscribe and leave areview on your favorite podcast
player.
It really means a lot.
Okay, let's get going.
Peter, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_04 (01:54):
Hello.
Good to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Oh, it's great to have you here.
I've been uh following your workfor a long time.
Big fan of the uh we'll we'lltalk about the big, you know,
the the project of cycles andthat kind of epic piece of work
that you've become known for.
But for those who don't knowyou, uh why don't you share your
journey, your background, andyou know what you're what you're
doing these days.
SPEAKER_04 (02:15):
It's been a uh rather interesting journey,
particularly as I look back atit.
Um journalist, worked in the uhorganizational training and
development field.
I did business processreengineering.
I uh got a master's degree instudies of the future at the
University of Houston Clear Lakealong the way.
(02:36):
Worked for a whileprofessionally, strictly as a uh
futurist, particularly with a uhfocus on uh technology
forecasting and uh foresight.
Then went back, got a master'sdegree in information design and
technology.
And that sort of got me back towhat I've always been interested
in, that's writing andstorytelling and so on.
(02:59):
With that, I uh developed a uhmaster's thesis that um, in
terms of its length, I kind ofshocked, I think it kind of
shocked my uh advisor.
In six months I wrote 300 pagesof a master's thesis.
Oh my.
So I take that as inspiration uhthat drove that.
(03:21):
And um that was uh back in 2010for the last 15 years.
I've uh become increasingly uhintrigued and involved in uh
storytelling, story structures,application of storytelling to a
wide variety of things.
(03:42):
My background in uh futurestudies is always embedded in
what I'm doing.
I've uh just retired from 20years of teaching at the
university level, undergraduatecourses, some on uh tech
forecasting, more recently mediastudies, technology, and the
future of communication, the useof AI in storytelling and
(04:06):
creative work, and so on.
So um, although it seems like mycareer's been all over the
place, and sometimes it doesfeel like that, there's a sort
of a central core, and that's umcommunication.
It's talking about things that Ithink are important.
And I went into the futuresprogram back in the early 90s uh
(04:26):
with that interest incommunication, and uh the uh
future studies program justbasically added that component
to what I've been doing prettymuch for my entire career.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
So that is quite a journey.
You know, I I've done the uh theHouston Masters as well.
Yours was Clear Lake um in theuh earlier days of the program.
What motivated you to like seekout a program like that?
You did you did you learn aboutdid you know about futures and
(04:59):
foresight?
How early before that?
Because obviously you would haveto kind of search that out.
How did you kind of come to knowabout this as a as a field, a
space, a workspace, toolset?
How did you come to discoverthat?
SPEAKER_04 (05:14):
Well, it um it's part of a love story, believe it
or not.
That's why we're here.
Let's do it.
I uh first um got interested infutures uh future studies when I
was um in my uh undergraduatejournalism program up in Toronto
(05:34):
back in the early 70s, and weneeded to do a society and media
presentation, and there was thisguy called Toffler that I read a
book uh, you know, that he'dwritten.
I thought, so this is kind ofinteresting.
So I did a presentation on that,and I remember using uh, you
know, at that time it wasliterally slides on a uh
(05:58):
projector uh uh or overheads,and um I was playing the song in
the year 2525, and um, you know,that was uh quite a while ago.
And um, you know, basically I'dbeen hooked on the idea of uh,
(06:20):
you know, the future and lookingat it.
Uh it wasn't until 1989, 1990,I'd met a gal in Houston.
We started dating, and at onepoint she says, hey, there's
this program you might beinterested in.
Uh and she'd taken a number ofcourses in it.
(06:41):
I said, Oh, okay.
So I went over to uh theuniversity at Clear Lake and uh
checked it out and said, Yeah,this this looks kind of
interesting.
And before you know it, I was uhpursuing a master's degree uh in
future studies.
And um I just kinda loved it.
(07:02):
You know, it's a love story inmore than one dimension.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
That's all that's great.
Uh you know, for those who arelisteners of this of the show.
I married the I was gonna I wasabout to kind of lead into like
what did you whatever happenedwith that?
So you did.
I did.
So that was so your futuristpicked a a uh preferred future
in that way.
It's just great.
(07:26):
Yeah.
You're living you're living yourpreferred future.
SPEAKER_04 (07:29):
Definitely.
And when I talk about when Italk about future stuff, she
actually understands it.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
That's good.
I have the same, I'm I'm veryblessed with my my wife is also
my writing partner and businesspartner, life partner, the whole
thing, and she is doing thiskind of work as well as a
behavioral scientist.
So at least you know, we havegreat conversations, so it's
good to have somebody that youcan kind of talk the language
with.
SPEAKER_04 (07:54):
Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (07:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
So and uh it's funny, thosethose who listen to the show uh
know that uh Future Shock was abook I read when I was 13 in
like 1985.
So it had a profound impact onme and just realizing you could
do this as a job, um, which Ididn't I didn't pursue.
I had obvious obviously otherinterests at the uh as a
(08:17):
teenager.
But you know, that in third waveand you know his work really
kind of set the the kind of corephilosophy for me as a futurist
and kind of the foundationalaspects of of my pro my work.
Did you ever have him come in?
Did you ever meet him and orwork with him on any projects?
SPEAKER_04 (08:36):
No, never did.
Never did?
unknown (08:39):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (08:39):
I mean, he's someone I would love to have uh have
over to dinner sometime.
Well you've worked with I mean,y your client lists like a
Fortune 500 Hall of Fame.
I mean, you've worked withShell, which is obviously, you
know, storied for the scenarioswork they did, but like Exxon,
huh?
You've worked with so many umgroups.
But you know, when you'resitting when you in your work
(09:01):
with these with companies likethis, organizations, massive
organizations, you're the personsaying, you know, everything you
know about it's probably wrong.
Um so how do you how do youaddress I like to talk about
uncomfortable truths or youknow, getting the wrong asking
the wrong questions.
How do you how do you get peopleto work through their mind, you
(09:25):
know, work through a mindset toto work on these on possible
futures and and do this kind ofwork together collaboratively?
SPEAKER_04 (09:33):
Well, I think I I had an advantage probably over a
lot of other folks in that bythe time I got into futures um
studies um professionally, I'dhad probably 25 years of
experience as a uh investigativejournalist and asking tough
questions.
Doing it in a way that oftenpeople didn't feel threatened,
(09:58):
even though I was asking thetough questions.
And I don't know that I canexplain the technique in detail,
but basically what I would do isI'd have a conversation.
It wasn't an interview, itwasn't a um, you know, it
certainly wasn't aninterrogation.
It was a conversation.
I tended to, and I still do,tend to listen more than I talk.
(10:22):
So when I'm doing an interviewlike this, it's kind of a flip
situation.
It's a little other strange.
SPEAKER_01 (10:29):
Um I think it's one of the superpowers of a
futurist.
Yeah, listening.
Yeah, you have to kind of almostyou almost have to kind of
recede into the background andlet other people, you know,
especially the you know, ifyou're in a workshop or a
collaborative space, is let themdo their do what they do, you
know, kind of bring those thingsout instead of trying to, you
know, force the things in acertain direction.
(10:49):
I think that's one of the mostbiggest and and being a
journalist, that's one of yourgifts, being able to do that.
SPEAKER_04 (10:56):
Yeah, I mean the the the process, well not just the
process, the entire function, Ithink, of being a futurist.
Uh and uh, you know, othersprefer the term foresight,
others prefer who knows what.
But basically getting people tolook at their future or futures
involves having themcomfortable, not challenging
(11:20):
them, certainly not challengingthem right off the start.
The ability to sit back and justlisten and fade into the
background, I think, is reallyimportant.
And I learned that again as ajournalist, where you become
part of the landscape and it'samazing things people will say.
SPEAKER_02 (11:40):
Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_04 (11:42):
Um the um work as a futurist, you also need to have
the mindset that it's a processof discovery.
Not just for you as theconsultant to be internal or
external, but it's a process ofdiscovery for the people you're
talking with.
They need to discover things ontheir own.
Point blank saying, hey, youneed to do this is probably not
(12:06):
going to penetrate the initialresistance.
So you need to be able to gentlylead them to discover things
that are important as it relatesto them and their future.
That may be different mindsets,that may mean different tactics
and strategies, that may meanany number of things.
(12:26):
It may mean simply being awareof, you know, hey, here's a new
technology.
What's it gonna do?
How's it gonna upset um theproducts or services that you
provide?
SPEAKER_01 (12:38):
How are you Go ahead?
Sorry, go ahead.
No, no, no, go ahead.
I sorry.
SPEAKER_04 (12:43):
Yeah, I mean, it's how you approach them in that
process of discovery, I think,that's critical.
I've seen far too many futuristsum and even more broadly coming
into organizations, you know,consultants generally.
Hey, I'm the expert, you gottalisten to me.
And um I've seen it from theother side where I've been with
(13:06):
clients and they'll after theconsultants out of the room and
say, well, that's that's youknow what?
That's BS, that's not gonna workhere, that you know, you get all
of the typical resistance.
And uh the consultant hasbasically lost the uh the client
right from the start.
I mean, you need to come acrosscertainly as professional and
knowing what you're doing, knowwhat you're doing, but you can't
(13:28):
come across as I know it all andyou don't.
A great deal of humility isactually required in that.
SPEAKER_01 (13:34):
Yeah, that's that is a trait that sometimes doesn't
exist in the consulting space.
I I can speak firsthand aboutthat.
And uh it's challenging becauseit's also the easier target to
blame the consultant.
You know and uh when you have, Iwould say, views that are, you
know, there's a resistance tochange.
You know, you've mentioned, Ilistened to an inter one of the
(13:55):
interviews you've done that, youknow, like excellent, powerful
forecasts and scenarios, theyall then end up sitting on a
shelf.
I like to say put in a drawer,right?
You know, despite having reallygreat data, it's I would say
that's our as a futurist, that'sthe eternal frustration, right?
It's like, what is what do youthink is the psychology behind
why people are so resistant toacting on it when they probably
(14:18):
know it's like accurate?
Why do you think it's that, youknow, and you probably what do
you think?
SPEAKER_04 (14:24):
Generally, people are loath to change things for a
variety of reasons, you know,and it's as simple and as
complex as that.
It could be if I change thisnow, something that's been
working for years, change it forsomething, is it gonna work in
the future?
I'm afraid that things are goingto change and I'm gonna lose my
relevance.
Or I simply don't like thedirection this is going, and
(14:47):
therefore I'm not gonna acceptany of it.
Um, you know, I'm you know, togive you an up-to-date example
uh of the latter one inparticular, but really it uh I
think it comes down to fear, itcomes down to feeling
threatened, and that's thereaction of many writers to the
(15:08):
um emergence of generative AI.
If you get online in the uhwriters' group groups, which I
uh follow just to see what'sgoing on, and occasionally I
pipe up.
I I mean I have opinions, sothey need to be shared from time
to time.
But the fiercest resistancecomes from those who, for
(15:30):
whatever reason, are afraid ofwhat the technology will do.
And we see that come out in avariety of statements like uh
AI-generated stories have nosoul.
Well, yeah, you know, totallyagree.
And, you know, my perspective isthat's why you have a human
writer involved in the loop.
(15:51):
It's to put that soul in.
Well, the quality is not thegreatest.
Um it's it's generic when you uhgenerate stuff using AI.
Well, yeah, that's true too.
Again, that's why you have a uhtalented writer in the group or
in the loop.
So there are a multitude ofexcuses, and I've seen just
(16:12):
stubborn resistance to trying totalk about any of it because
there's this underlying fear,and I'm not sure, you know, from
case to case what the exactcause is, but I think part of
it's insecurity and somebody'sown knowledge and abilities.
Some of it's fear that uh, hey,this is going to take my work
(16:33):
away from me.
Some of it is I just don'tunderstand this stuff.
You know, some people areresistant to learning, you know,
and I've seen that time and timeagain with students.
There are some who love to learnand others who just don't want
to learn because it takeseffort, you know, it takes
energy, it takes focus.
(16:54):
Learning is not what they wantto focus on.
So you know, why is thereresistance to change?
Why why do you face that as afuturist?
Uh any and all of those.
SPEAKER_01 (17:06):
Uh probably in a whole lot of people.
Is this is this why you pivotedtowards storytelling as a
communication tool?
Because we could want to talkabout transmedia storytelling,
but but that is as a journalist,you have a narrative always
always when you report onsomething too.
You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (17:22):
The um the reason I've pivoted to storytelling,
and that doesn't mean I'veabandoned looking at the future.
It just means I'm using adifferent set of tools.
And the reason for that is I'veseen far too many futures
consultants come in with all thedata.
And uh I've done did that myselfin the early days.
(17:44):
Hey, there's all this greatdata, we've got it nailed down,
the trends are really solid,boom, boom, blah, blah, blah.
And um, client will say, Oh,yeah, cool, okay.
And then, as you say, put it ina drawer, put it on the shelf,
and merrily go about theirbusiness.
While I was going through the uhmaster's program in information
(18:04):
design, I ran across um aconcept called the uh data
information knowledge wisdomspectrum, uh developed by a
fellow by the name of NathanShedrov.
And looks at the progression ofdata to information to knowledge
(18:26):
to wisdom and the componentsthat are involved in that.
And it became pretty clear veryearly on as I was looking at
that and looking at otheraspects of storytelling is that
the story was really the way ofgetting to people and getting
them to really move from thatdata perspective to knowledge
(18:47):
and wisdom.
A key component of developingknowledge and wisdom is context.
It's experience, sharedindividual, you know, whatever.
It's a it's the sharing of in uhof experiences.
A data dump doesn't share shareexperiences.
Um, you know, and to give you avery precise example that I've
(19:08):
used time and time again in myclasses on writing, not on
futures classes, but writingclasses, is to say, okay, I'll
throw a number out and I'll saynine or pardon me, three meters,
and students will just look atme and I'll say, okay, that's a
data point.
Three meters and sea level rise.
Okay, now you've got somecontext, but first off, they
(19:31):
don't know American students,they don't know what three
meters really is.
So I'll say floor to ceiling,that's about three meters.
That's how much the sea is goingto rise.
Okay, now they're starting toget it.
They start to suddenlyunderstand, you know, that three
meters is just not some sort offoreign alien number to them,
(19:53):
but it's actually got aparticular context, it's got
particular meaning, and they cansee it.
They can feel it.
Then I'll ask, okay, how many ofyou are from uh, you know, a
coastal area?
And a lot of them put theirhands up and I say, okay,
imagine you're standing at theseashore right at the water's
edge.
And, you know, 50 years fromnow, the water's gonna be three
(20:15):
meters above your feet.
So you're gonna be under thewater.
What's that going to do to yourneighborhood?
What's that going to do whereyou grow up?
What's that going to do for thelives that you've uh, you know,
you've led and the lives movingforward and those of not just
you, but your friends, yourneighbors, all of that.
(20:38):
And they start to, in a muchmore visceral way, start to
understand what three metersmeans.
It's not just a number, it's notjust a data point.
It's it's something that theycan start to feel emotionally.
It goes beyond the intellect.
And that's one of the mostpowerful things about stories is
if you're doing them right,you're evolving emotion.
(21:02):
And humans learn throughemotion.
Strong emotions can uh drivelearning.
And I mean, that's been welldemonstrated.
SPEAKER_01 (21:10):
Do you do you find that that, I mean, this is I
would say this is your storyworlds concept, correct?
Like this is what you're gettinginto.
Yeah.
Because that's that it's thatwalk a mile in someone's shoes.
It's the immersion into a world.
It's one thing to build it orput things around it, or the you
know, the objects or thesettings, but to immerse the and
(21:31):
you know, the empathy layersthat that go into world building
could be a term, but you know,just like you said, story
worlds.
Where do you take that forpeople that are new to futures?
Do you find that is an entrypoint for people to get into the
conversation?
SPEAKER_04 (21:48):
I actually hadn't really thought about it in that
way, but yeah, I think uhcertainly I would encourage
anybody who's in the futuresfield right now, and
particularly anybody who's justentering it, to become expert
storytellers.
I couldn't agree more.
(22:13):
But to make all of that of realvalue, you need to be able to
turn that into a story.
And a story that connects withthe people you're telling the
story to.
So you need to understand youraudience.
What are their concerns?
What drives them?
What are they worried about?
All of those things.
And you need to be able to comeup with a story that genuinely
(22:35):
moves them.
Um, you know, it could beemotionally, it could move them
to start thinking about things,it should be something that they
take away and it keeps comingback to them.
Having people think in futuresterms is not a uh, hey, here's a
workshop and away you go, andnow you're gonna do it.
Right.
It becomes it's essential toembed that process of futures
(23:01):
thinking into what people do ona day-to-day basis to the point
where it's instinctive.
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
Well, I've also noticed in your story world or
story world time type of is thekind of temporal framework that
you use.
I mean, you can look at horizonsfor you know, 5, 10, 20 or
those, but yours is a bitdifferent.
It's almost like a time machinefor ideas type of thing.
Could you unpack the the kind ofthe temporal framework of it?
(23:28):
Is it you know, you've kind ofalluded to you've kind of
explained parts of it, I think,but there's a kind of
flexibility when you communicatethings.
SPEAKER_04 (23:38):
Yeah, the um one of the things that um had irritated
and continues to irritate mewhen I'm talking with some
futurists is um futurists don'tmake predictions.
Speaking of language, brother.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Yes, we don't predict the future.
We we look at possible futures,right?
That's the crux of it all.
SPEAKER_04 (23:59):
And I sort of want to go.
I mean, okay, I understandconceptually, however, the
people You must love theprediction posts at the
beginning in January of everyyear.
SPEAKER_01 (24:09):
You must love that.
SPEAKER_04 (24:11):
Yeah, that those drive me crazy.
unknown (24:13):
I know.
SPEAKER_04 (24:14):
But um the other side, too, is futurists who say
we don't predict anything.
We just lay out thepossibilities.
And the reason that bothers me,and again, conceptually, I
understand that.
Practically, though, most folksthey can't deal with that.
They don't know what to do withit.
SPEAKER_01 (24:33):
Yeah, I I always say, see if this resonates with
you.
Like I always say to people, thefuture, the one of the possible
futures will become the present.
Isn't it better to know whichone it's going to be?
So you're better prepared.
Like, you know what I mean?
So you can navigate it.
I mean, that's the to me, that'sthe essence of like, you know,
when I people ask what I do.
I say I'm, you know, I'm afuturist.
(24:54):
I, you know, I talk about beinga designer, but I said with a
futurist, I said, I and they'relike, some people don't know
what it is.
I said, I do long-term strategicplanning.
Beyond the year or two, I helppeople understand the long-term
strategy.
And that usually kind of stemsthe conversation.
They might want to know more,but I find that you know,
futurist is a term some know,some don't know, and those that
(25:16):
know, it's like 50 differentflavors of it, right?
So yeah, it's it's good when yousay that.
SPEAKER_04 (25:22):
Aaron Powell The other thing that I I find in
terms of futuristsprofessionally often are
hesitant to say, hey, we'relooking at a three to five year
time frame or roughly a 10-yeartime frame or longer than that.
And my frustration comes fromfolks in the business apparently
not understanding that theclient needs something more than
(25:45):
sometime in the future this isgoing to happen or this might
happen.
I mean, yeah, okay.
I've got to make some decisionsfor my organization.
It does actually make adifference if it's happening
five years from now versus 50years from now.
Time frames do shape decisions.
And without solid time frames,it's difficult to make uh
(26:07):
informed decisions.
So, yeah, can things change?
Can things um not pan out interms of, you know, hey, I said
20 years from now we're gonnasee this, and well, maybe it's
gonna be 25 instead, or maybeit's 15.
A number of years ago, I came upwith the concept of what I call
(26:27):
the exploratory forecast.
Typically, and these are theones that like you you
mentioned, the the beginning ofthe year, here's the future for
2026 at this point.
Um it's gonna be this, this,this, and this.
I'm going, okay.
Seen this before.
Um, we'll see.
(26:48):
The way I prefer to do it iswe've got an exploratory
forecast.
I'll put something out there.
Hey, this I think is going tohappen in the next five years
based on these factors.
But there's always a degree ofuncertainty.
And I use the analogy of anunguided rocket that you aim and
(27:11):
fire, and then it just goes onits way, uh, versus a guided
missile, which you fire, andthen it corrects its track as
it's tracking the target.
An exploratory forecastbasically is a guided process
for determining whether or notthe event that you thought was
(27:32):
going to happen, that youforecast as happening at such
and such a point is actuallygoing to happen.
So there are indicators alongthe way that you can start to
track that say we're on track orwe're not on track.
And if you're off track, do youneed to adjust something?
If the exploratory forecast iscompletely invalid, then as a
(27:55):
futurist, you say, okay, it'sinvalid.
You know, we we thought it wasright, but it's not.
So let's see what we do now.
As opposed to what I see a lotof you know forecasting experts,
they'll do a one-shot, hey, Iexpect this.
And then they're busily tryingto defend their forecasts uh as
(28:17):
being accurate 99 or 100% of thetime.
And oh, by the way, I yeah, Idid kind of forget the ones that
missed the target.
SPEAKER_01 (28:26):
Yeah, there's a forced function fit in that that
really invalidates quickly thethe quality of the perspective
and then the credibility of theperson doing it.
And it yeah, it puts us in aputs people who do this kind of
work in a in a in a challengingposition, but it's a cautionary
tale, too, right?
(28:47):
And I think more people shouldunderstand what you're saying.
SPEAKER_04 (28:50):
Yeah, I mean, are you gonna be a hundred percent
accurate in your forecasts ifsomebody claims that I'm going,
okay, wait a minute.
Let me actually see what you'redoing.
Are you making forecasts thatare sort of duh, of course, um,
you know, that um anybody canmake?
Are you hiding the uh results offorecasts that didn't pan out so
(29:15):
you can say, hey, I got 100%?
It's you know, that scorecardis, from my perspective,
baloney.
SPEAKER_01 (29:23):
I've always said there's three there's three jobs
you can be wrong 90% of thetime.
That's weatherman, venturecapitalist, and futurist.
And still keep your job.
Yeah.
But there's humility in that.
You have to own up that you gotthat one wrong.
And a lot of I think a lot ofpeople have challenges with
that.
I think that's where it comescomes from.
(29:45):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (29:46):
And I think the sort of consummate professional um in
the futures field is one thatreally understands the various
methodologies, deeplyunderstands systems theory,
systems thinking, chaos andcomplaints.
Complexity theory.
But also says quite fully, yeah,I kind of missed on that one.
(30:06):
Now let's go back and see why Imissed.
Um, you know, what is theresomething I missed?
You know, is my methodologyflawed?
You know, you start to tearapart the the methods that
you've used, and then okay, themethodology seems to be solid.
(30:26):
Is there something um, you know,a variable that I missed?
Looking at this.
Well, what was that variable?
How important is it?
Uh or you know, you got thevariables right, but hey, the
world's full of random events.
The world is chaotic, thingschange.
Therefore, you go with theguided missile approach as to
(30:48):
the uh fire and forget rocket.
And uh, you know, it's really assimple as that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:54):
You know, there's a few things in storytelling
before I wanted to get to thetimeline projects, but the
transmedia as a term, it waslike everywhere probably about
10 years ago as a like becausepeople were looking at different
channels.
Uh you could call it, you know,there's omni channel marketing,
but transmedia, it goes howwould you define for those who
(31:17):
maybe have never even heard theterm before, and where the state
of it is today, is it you know,because it doesn't seem to be
mentioned anymore uh in a lot ofplaces.
It used to be, especially inadvertising, marketing.
How would you define transmediain a current state because we
have so many new kinds of toolsand approaches?
SPEAKER_04 (31:34):
Yeah, basically my definition of this comes
straight out of my master'sthesis 15 years ago, which is at
about the point just beforetransmedia took off as a
buzzword.
Yeah.
Is that transmedia narrativesare one or more stories told
across two or more mediaplatforms.
(31:55):
So I've got one story that'stold in a comic book and a
television series, or it's anovel and it's a film.
And it's not just an adaptationadaptation of a book to a film.
It's a different story in thebook from in the film, but set
in the same story world, maybewith the same characters, maybe
(32:16):
with different characters, butthe story world itself is the uh
unifying component.
We see transmedia stuff aroundus all the time.
SPEAKER_03 (32:25):
Yes.
SPEAKER_04 (32:28):
We just don't hear the term anymore because it's
essentially become absorbed inthe thinking that um
particularly media companies areinvolved in.
Anybody ever heard of Star Wars?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:43):
Yeah, I was just gonna say Star, you know, Star
Wars The Marvel Universe.
SPEAKER_04 (32:47):
Anyone knows?
SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
Yeah, MCU.
Yep, exactly.
Are those another one?
Yeah, are they absolutely TV?
Uh the one that always comes tomy mind, I mean, obviously Star
Wars is currently the earliestone, but I mean they were
strictly movies, but then theyhad the extended universe, the
books, all the different, youknow, built world, you know,
universe building more than justworlds.
(33:10):
But I think of the Matrixmovies.
There's three of them.
Obviously, the first one washuge, and then the second and
third one came out close.
There was a video game that hada there's a scene where I think
it's in the second movie whereum Jada Pink and Smith comes in,
they're all meeting together.
Those who've seen the movie,like all the kind of rebellion
people, they're meeting in theMatrix in like this room, and
(33:32):
they come in from somethingelse.
There's a whole video game thatconnects to why where they come
from and what their mission,their kind of side quest, or
kind of thing that and that's awhole game.
But it tells part of the story,but it's in a video game format
versus a movie, right?
And then you've got um shorts orother types of animated uh
shorts.
Blade Runners done this with2049, they had other things, you
(33:54):
know.
So yeah, it is it's interesting.
You you're you're heading itlike it's become so commonplace,
you don't have to call it out astransmedia.
Transmedia is the way of tellingstories with media.
It's just the way it is rightnow.
SPEAKER_04 (34:08):
Yeah.
I mean, when I'm talking withfolks, particularly in the film
and television industry, andI'll talk about a story
universe.
They get it.
I mean, they get it right now.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
Well, you're you're in the world, you're part of the
world building institute, andyou know, I know you've done
some papers with Alex McDowell,who he was and worked on
Minority Report, and you've youwork around those.
I mean, students and clientsare, you know, and they're
trying to do this, you know, arethey do you kind of have them
start from scratch?
Like where where do they wheredo they start?
Because it's one thing to kindof have something established or
(34:41):
the incubation of something.
How do they you know go from notlike what's what's the first
kind of steps?
Like kind of a worksheet to kindof start the framing?
Like how do how does somebodystart with it?
SPEAKER_04 (34:52):
Well, the the start of the process is pretty
standard future stuff.
Get to know your client, whatare the issues, all of that
stuff.
That doesn't change.
What changes or should change isokay, instead of doing a
four-box scenario, which lots offolks still do, let's do
something a little bitdifferent.
Or we're gonna look at causallayered analysis.
(35:14):
Okay, that's that's a good placeto start.
That's a methodology, though.
That's not a way of building astory universe, but that's the
starting point.
And um, what you're looking atwith building a story world from
the future's uh futuristperspective is what are the key
things that we need to know?
(35:35):
You know, what's the world goingto look like in the future?
And you build that worldholistically around that, and
then you inject characters intoit.
You inject interactions, youknow, social interactions,
economic, political interactionsinto that and see how they play
out in that particular universethat you've developed.
(35:58):
What are the factors that areimportant?
What does this story tell mefrom a character who is
developing a startup andsuddenly AI is on the scene?
What's that means to them?
How potentially can they react?
What happens, you know, just youknow, the events, what happens
(36:20):
to them psychologically,emotionally?
Because remember, you're alsotrying to touch the audience,
your client, not just at theintellectual level, but at the
emotional level so that itsticks.
You know, are they are they ableto identify in some way with the
characters that you've got?
(36:41):
Do they see their lives, theirproblems, their workplaces, that
kind of stuff reflected in it?
And quite frankly, that's hardto do from a professional
perspective.
I mean, I can say here, andhere's what you do, but when
you're doing it in practice,it's not just, hey, this, this
on the checklist, this on thechecklist, yep, I hit that, I
hit that, I hit that, and we'redone.
(37:02):
You really need to be able tostart to understand how you can
reach the people that you'retrying to work with.
You may understand that there'sa looming threat coming, but for
various reasons they don't.
Certainly you can scare the hellout of them, but um, and that's
a very strong emotion, butthat's not likely to get them to
(37:25):
change.
It's likely to actually pushthem off.
So you get a character thatsays, hey, I've got this looming
threat, it's a big one.
How do I react?
I tried this and it failed, Itried that and it failed.
There's this obstacle, thatobstacle, but here's how the
character overcame them.
And you're basically doing ajourney from the present to the
(37:45):
future while also doing ajourney in which the character
solves fundamental problems.
And at the same time, probablyhas some internal changes of
perspective.
SPEAKER_01 (37:56):
Well, and one of the projects I wanted to kind of
shift into as a uh wrapping upthe episode is that one of the
things that I actually gotintroduced to you is the
timeline of major trends andevents.
Like your, I will call it mega,mega layered timeline.
That's almost the that's thekind of qualitative,
(38:18):
quantitative data likefoundation, you know, when
you're doing these, you know,the and the the world building
and the story worlds, they cangive you kind of at least a you
know, a starting point to gofrom.
Where did that idea come from?
And you know, it's obviouslyit's how has it played out?
(38:40):
Like in the last 50s, it youknow, what's what what's gone,
or like you all got that on, andoh, but where did it kind of
start where did the pro whatproject idea start?
SPEAKER_04 (38:49):
It started in a um quantitative futures class at
Clear Lake in uh around 1992.
Okay I was running a bunch ofcharts on an Excel spreadsheet
or whatever the heck thespreadsheets were back then.
SPEAKER_01 (39:06):
I think I think we're safe with Excel at that
way.
Maybe BusyCalc, who knows?
SPEAKER_04 (39:12):
So I'm generating these charts, and um at one
point I'm going, what the heck?
I got this chart and I got thatchart and I got another chart,
and uh you know I can't makesense of them because they're
all tacked on my wallseparately.
SPEAKER_02 (39:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (39:32):
Maybe I ought to put them on a common timeline.
So let's let's use time as theuh horizontal axis.
And we'll just stack thedifferent um trends up and uh
see what's what.
And it started.
SPEAKER_01 (39:45):
For people have never seen it, which won't you
have it?
What do you have?
Just so just a sampling.
Just what do you have in there?
I'm gonna leave a link to thepaper in the show notes so
people can look at it and seeit.
It's amazing.
SPEAKER_04 (39:56):
But what are the yeah, give me a second to grab
my copy here?
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (40:03):
And this is the one from 1998.
Looking rather fake, by the way.
Uh, but that's the the firstpublished one.
I actually started doing thesein '93, '94.
But um then I went, hey, this isthis is kind of cool.
So I got a hundred of themprinted out.
(40:24):
And they include basically thesteep categories: political,
economic, technological, social,environmental, macro bands.
Environmental, for example, it'sgot CO2 levels, it's got sunspot
activity, it's got worldpopulation growth, uh, you know,
stuff like that.
The focus on most of this isAmerican, and that's just
(40:47):
because the data sets wereeasily available.
And I never have gone far beyondthe American aspect of things.
One, because I've moved on toother things, but two, maybe
somebody else ought to do thatwho actually knows their reach
in their country.
I don't mind them using theapproach at all.
(41:09):
I don't want to, as a CanadianAmerican, say, though, hey, I
know all of this about you guys,when there may be something
different in Europe and Asia,wherever.
Um so we've got the uhtechnological events and the um
economic events.
One of the key things that umI've built in, and it's evolved
(41:31):
over time, but the basics arestill there, is the K-Wave.
unknown (41:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
Kondrive is Kondriev, right?
Kondrave.
Yeah.
I can never pronounce his namecorrectly.
SPEAKER_04 (41:42):
Yeah, it's a uh 100 to um 120-year economic cycle.
And boy, did I catch some flackabout even talking about cycles
in future circles.
SPEAKER_01 (41:54):
That's you're in friendly territory.
I'm a cycles theorist.
You know, future doesn't repeat,but it definitely rhymes.
I mean, you know.
Absolutely.
It's it's uh there's a there's apattern to things.
It's not it's not the only thingto use.
There's other, obviously, but itshould be considered as you
know, we're humans, there's acertain nature to things.
Although in Super Shifts, youknow, we talk about you know the
(42:16):
age of intelligence.
I mean, this is a differentwe'll talk about AI in a minute,
but that is a change from like,we're not the smartest people on
the planet.
What's the rate of change?
What's the acceleration?
What's the what's the level ofcreative destruction and our
ability to adapt, right?
There's a lot that's different.
Is this a new cycle or is it a acontinuation of another of the
(42:38):
previous ones?
Is it a different pace?
Don't know.
But it's I don't yeah.
If you abjectly reject cycles, Ithink that's to people's
detriment, you know, to not evenunder s you know.
But I I get your I get whatyou're you're saying about the
flack.
unknown (42:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (42:52):
So I'm sure some people declared me a heretic in
the futures field.
And you know what?
I don't care.
I just don't care.
SPEAKER_01 (43:00):
So that's a way to we're supposed to the futures
are supposed to be the rebels.
And it's when the it's when thegatekeepers start deciding who's
the rebels and who's not.
Then we have a different problemto talk about, which is probably
for another anotherconversation, another longer
conversation.
But you know, I mentioned whatdo you what did you get right?
What did you think you you kindof got because it extrapolated
(43:22):
out and you went pretty far outon some things.
What do you think is trackingwell, you know, current
landscape of politics and anddivision and chaos, or you know,
or is that what's what's whatseems to be what seems to be on
target or close?
SPEAKER_04 (43:38):
Well, rather than just simply saying what did I
get right, I'd like to put thisinto the uh the record, if you
will, and that is Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:48):
Sure.
SPEAKER_04 (43:49):
This isn't about what's right or wrong in terms
of forecast.
This is a very complex long-termum exploratory forecast of what
might happen.
What is quite possible based onhistorical trends.
The timeline itself goes back toum 1750, the first one, uh, all
(44:14):
the way out to 2100.
So just from a futuresperspective, that's pretty
ambitious.
Yes.
I mean, that's a long span oftime, relatively short span of
time in terms of human history,but from a futures perspective,
my God, that's that's a longperiod of time.
Um so, and data sets back, youknow, that far are sparse, but
(44:37):
that's they're not non-existent.
There is data out there that canbe used.
That I've tried to hunt down asmuch as possible.
What, you know, getting back tothe question of what did I get
right about, the way I'd like tolook at it is okay, there are
some things that seem to be ontrack that really need to have a
(44:58):
closer examination.
And that's the whole point ofthis chart is to say, hey, this
might be happening.
It's worth taking a look at itin more detail.
You know, and I take a look at,for example, the uh
social-political aspect ofthings, armed conflict.
(45:20):
And keep in mind that um thiswas done in this one was
published in 1998.
I had tagged as increasedprobability of American
involvement in a war starting in2004, just based on the cycles.
Anyone know what happened in2001?
(45:43):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (45:43):
We went by 2003, the is really the big I mean
Afghanistan started, but the Iin Iraq, you know, is 2003,
right?
SPEAKER_04 (45:54):
So Well let's be um generous in terms of the um
error in times, uh error uh interms of the forecast.
2001 versus 2004.
I missed it by three years.
Does that invalidate theforecast?
You could you could argue, andI'm not gonna argue it because
the point is uh 2001, 2004doesn't matter.
(46:18):
What we really need to belooking at is what the heck is
this increased probability ofAmerican war?
Well, if you take a look at thischart, the ban goes out to 25,
26, 27, 28, 28.
Is still increased probabilityof American involvement in a
war.
(46:39):
Is that forecast accurate?
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (46:41):
I mean we've been in what you you could consider
almost for like forever wars,right?
Or the friendly conflicts aregood for business.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Well, going on 25 years of war.
SPEAKER_01 (46:52):
Well, when you look at something like Strauss and
Howe, right, generational cycle,and you've got a the we're in
the the uh the winter, thefourth turning, which uh they've
roughly said started around 2008with the crisis, financial
crisis.
But yeah, they put it, theydon't put it on the exact years,
(47:13):
but yeah, it's a good 20, 25.
So they're like around 2028 to2030 that this would kind of
things would kind of culminate,end, and set for a new
trajectory for like, you know,in their in their vernacular,
you know, the spring, right?
The it you know, so yeah, I meanit tracks, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (47:35):
But you know, let me give you another one um that um
I find pretty interesting.
Uh in the uh social um uh set ofbands, I've got uh human rights,
slavery, feminism, and uhreligion, morality, and
philosophy tracks.
(47:56):
And in the uh religion,morality, and philosophy track,
I've got um 1980s to 2000s,moral majority uh has rapid
growth in an evangelicalorganization.
Fundamental power peaks in um98, 99.
(48:20):
Was that right or wrong?
Uh we can debate.
You know, and I'm I'm not again,I'm not tied to that exact time
frame.
But if you take a look at what'shappening with church
membership, for example, it's athistoric lows based on the last
data that I saw.
(48:42):
Active member in membership inchurches.
A number of churches are goingout of business, basically,
because of decliningmemberships.
Is that something that is um youknow indica uh indicates we're
seeing a shift in religiousspiritual perspectives.
(49:04):
And it looks like there'ssomething happening.
That ought to be a key forsomebody to say, okay, here's
what this forecast from 1998 waslooking at.
There are some indications thatat least part of this might be
happening.
We ought to dig more deeply intothis.
And again, I could have donethat if I didn't get off into
(49:27):
what I'm doing now, but um,somebody else can also do it
because I don't want to keepflogging this.
SPEAKER_01 (49:32):
I think there's gonna, yeah, I think there's an
opportunity to bring that out.
What I would love to do as we'regonna kind of wrap things up is
where do you see and it's it's Ithink for us, like we talked
about kind of tying it alltogether, you know, with a story
world, what do you think wouldhelp what story world that you
(49:53):
know would help humanity makebetter decisions?
What's the thing that peopleshould like if they wanted to
work on a story, like what wouldthey what should they do like
right now?
And that what do they need tohave?
We'll talk about the skills, butwhat what do you think if you
could create one, what would youkind of set set the course for
people to do to?
SPEAKER_04 (50:10):
My vision that I've had for a while is basically a
storytelling platform that has afutures orientation where people
have a framework for buildingstories.
And you know, part of what I'vespent a good 15 years with now
(50:32):
is understanding how to buildstory frameworks, how to make it
easier so the layperson can doit.
So let's assume we've got aplatform that makes it easy for
people to tell stories.
And they're quality stories inthat other people are going to
want to read them.
I mean, you can write storiesall day long, but if nobody's
gonna read them, what's thepoint?
(50:55):
So they need to be at a level ofquality.
This platform would bringtogether people in North
America, South America, youknow, Africa, and so on, and
say, hey, in my story world,South Africa, Cape Town is
facing chronic water shortages.
SPEAKER_01 (51:13):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (51:14):
You, as a resident of that area, what does that
mean for a character that youcreate if you can't get water
for weeks on end?
Somebody living on the GulfCoast of Texas.
You've got what happens ifyou've got three super
hurricanes coming in in oneseason?
What's that do to your life?
What does that do to yourcharacter's life?
SPEAKER_01 (51:36):
Sure.
Those are great.
SPEAKER_04 (51:39):
You know, and if you start to be able to pull those
together, you get a wholecollection of stories around
what's this going to look likefor our collective futures?
So I know what it's going tolook like if I live in Houston.
I know what it's going to looklike, at least based on these
stories, what it looks like inCape Town.
(52:00):
What's that mean to us, all ofus?
When this is happening there,this is happening there.
And um we're starting to be ableto talk about that.
I mean, climate change has beenan issue that I first
encountered as a reporter backin 1980.
(52:21):
Um, it was identified then as anissue.
Have we changed anything?
We got lots of great words, butum it's hotter than ever where
I'm sitting right now in WesternNew York.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
Yeah, in the 70s, there was an issue, it was about
global cooling.
Then it was global warming.
We also had the ozone later,which we actually dealt with in
the 80s, which is amazing.
But then things move to likeshifts back and forth to climate
change.
So the climate is alwayschanging.
It's a question of what's theimpact, and you're right in that
way.
It's kind of a thing for thelisteners to kind of the debate
(52:56):
about.
But uh, yeah, what I was goingis, you know, so for you know,
people that want to dive intoyour work and I want to have you
back on, we we can unpack somany more of these things.
People where to find your work,your research, you know, learn
more about the uh story worlds.
Hey, what's the best place tofind you?
SPEAKER_04 (53:17):
Well, if you Google my name, it's all over the web
uh at the various places.
SPEAKER_01 (53:22):
You have a very specific name, yeah, that's
true.
That's true.
SPEAKER_04 (53:24):
Yeah, I mean, there are a few von Stacklebergs in
the extended family, and thereis one other Peter von
Stackelberg that has like one ortwo entries online, but you're
probably not gonna miss me ifyou look for um you know Peter
von Stackleberg and storytellingor whatever.
I also have published uh a bunchof stuff on ResearchGate that is
(53:48):
it's a great platform forresearchers, but it's also
something pretty much anybodycan get onto.
And the idea of me putting stuffup there is I can actually, and
I have uploaded PDFs ofarticles, of timelines, of stuff
like that, so that people canactually get the the material in
their hands printed out.
SPEAKER_01 (54:09):
I will put a couple of links in there in the show
notes so you can check it outdown below.
But Peter, I just want to saythank you.
You're just an amazing futurist.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Thanks for listening to the Think Forward Podcast.
You can find us on all the majorpodcast platforms and at
www.thinkforwardshow.com as wellas on YouTube under Think
Forward Show.
See you next time.
Coming up on today's show.
SPEAKER_04 (00:01):
I've seen far too many futurists and even more
broadly coming intoorganizations, you know,
consultants generally.
Hey, I'm the expert, you got tolisten to me.
And um, I've seen it from theother side where I've been with
clients and they'll after theconsultants out of the room and
say, Well, that's that's youknow what?
(00:22):
That's BS, that's not gonna workhere, that you know, you get all
of the typical resistance.
And uh the consultant hasbasically lost the uh the client
right from the start.
I mean, you need to come acrosscertainly as professional and
knowing what you're doing, knowwhat you're doing, but you can't
come across as I know it all andyou don't.
(00:42):
Great deal of humility isactually required in that.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Welcome to the Think Forward Show.
I'm your host, Steve Fisher.
Today, we've got a reallyspecial guest.
Futurist, educator, andstoryteller, Peter von
Stackelberg.
If you've ever seen that epiclayered timeline of cycles and
trends floating around theforesight world, well, that's
Peter's work.
He's also one of the pioneers ofnarrative foresight and
transmedia story worlds, showinghow stories can move people to
(01:10):
act where data alone falls flat.
In this episode, we talk abouthis journey from investigative
journalism to future studies atthe University of Houston.
We dive into his idea ofexploratory forecasts and why
time frames actually matter.
We explore story worlds and evenAI that can make the future more
tangible and human.
It's a fascinating conversationabout cycles, storytelling, and
(01:33):
the craft of helping peopleimagine what's next.
But before we get going, I'dlike to ask a small favor.
For you to like and subscribe ifyou're watching this on YouTube,
or to subscribe and leave areview on your favorite podcast
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It really means a lot.
Okay, let's get going.
Peter, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_04 (01:54):
Hello.
Good to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
Oh, it's great to have you here.
I've been uh following your workfor a long time.
Big fan of the uh we'll we'lltalk about the big, you know,
the the project of cycles andthat kind of epic piece of work
that you've become known for.
But for those who don't knowyou, uh why don't you share your
journey, your background, andyou know what you're what you're
doing these days.
SPEAKER_04 (02:15):
It's been a uh rather interesting journey,
particularly as I look back atit.
Um journalist, worked in the uhorganizational training and
development field.
I did business processreengineering.
I uh got a master's degree instudies of the future at the
University of Houston Clear Lakealong the way.
(02:36):
Worked for a whileprofessionally, strictly as a uh
futurist, particularly with a uhfocus on uh technology
forecasting and uh foresight.
Then went back, got a master'sdegree in information design and
technology.
And that sort of got me back towhat I've always been interested
in, that's writing andstorytelling and so on.
(02:59):
With that, I uh developed a uhmaster's thesis that um, in
terms of its length, I kind ofshocked, I think it kind of
shocked my uh advisor.
In six months I wrote 300 pagesof a master's thesis.
Oh my.
So I take that as inspiration uhthat drove that.
(03:21):
And um that was uh back in 2010for the last 15 years.
I've uh become increasingly uhintrigued and involved in uh
storytelling, story structures,application of storytelling to a
wide variety of things.
(03:42):
My background in uh futurestudies is always embedded in
what I'm doing.
I've uh just retired from 20years of teaching at the
university level, undergraduatecourses, some on uh tech
forecasting, more recently mediastudies, technology, and the
future of communication, the useof AI in storytelling and
(04:06):
creative work, and so on.
So um, although it seems like mycareer's been all over the
place, and sometimes it doesfeel like that, there's a sort
of a central core, and that's umcommunication.
It's talking about things that Ithink are important.
And I went into the futuresprogram back in the early 90s uh
(04:26):
with that interest incommunication, and uh the uh
future studies program justbasically added that component
to what I've been doing prettymuch for my entire career.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
So that is quite a journey.
You know, I I've done the uh theHouston Masters as well.
Yours was Clear Lake um in theuh earlier days of the program.
What motivated you to like seekout a program like that?
You did you did you learn aboutdid you know about futures and
(04:59):
foresight?
How early before that?
Because obviously you would haveto kind of search that out.
How did you kind of come to knowabout this as a as a field, a
space, a workspace, toolset?
How did you come to discoverthat?
SPEAKER_04 (05:14):
Well, it um it's part of a love story, believe it
or not.
That's why we're here.
Let's do it.
I uh first um got interested infutures uh future studies when I
was um in my uh undergraduatejournalism program up in Toronto
(05:34):
back in the early 70s, and weneeded to do a society and media
presentation, and there was thisguy called Toffler that I read a
book uh, you know, that he'dwritten.
I thought, so this is kind ofinteresting.
So I did a presentation on that,and I remember using uh, you
know, at that time it wasliterally slides on a uh
(05:58):
projector uh uh or overheads,and um I was playing the song in
the year 2525, and um, you know,that was uh quite a while ago.
And um, you know, basically I'dbeen hooked on the idea of uh,
(06:20):
you know, the future and lookingat it.
Uh it wasn't until 1989, 1990,I'd met a gal in Houston.
We started dating, and at onepoint she says, hey, there's
this program you might beinterested in.
Uh and she'd taken a number ofcourses in it.
(06:41):
I said, Oh, okay.
So I went over to uh theuniversity at Clear Lake and uh
checked it out and said, Yeah,this this looks kind of
interesting.
And before you know it, I was uhpursuing a master's degree uh in
future studies.
And um I just kinda loved it.
(07:02):
You know, it's a love story inmore than one dimension.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
That's all that's great.
Uh you know, for those who arelisteners of this of the show.
I married the I was gonna I wasabout to kind of lead into like
what did you whatever happenedwith that?
So you did.
I did.
So that was so your futuristpicked a a uh preferred future
in that way.
It's just great.
(07:26):
Yeah.
You're living you're living yourpreferred future.
SPEAKER_04 (07:29):
Definitely.
And when I talk about when Italk about future stuff, she
actually understands it.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
That's good.
I have the same, I'm I'm veryblessed with my my wife is also
my writing partner and businesspartner, life partner, the whole
thing, and she is doing thiskind of work as well as a
behavioral scientist.
So at least you know, we havegreat conversations, so it's
good to have somebody that youcan kind of talk the language
with.
SPEAKER_04 (07:54):
Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (07:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
So and uh it's funny, thosethose who listen to the show uh
know that uh Future Shock was abook I read when I was 13 in
like 1985.
So it had a profound impact onme and just realizing you could
do this as a job, um, which Ididn't I didn't pursue.
I had obvious obviously otherinterests at the uh as a
(08:17):
teenager.
But you know, that in third waveand you know his work really
kind of set the the kind of corephilosophy for me as a futurist
and kind of the foundationalaspects of of my pro my work.
Did you ever have him come in?
Did you ever meet him and orwork with him on any projects?
SPEAKER_04 (08:36):
No, never did.
Never did?
unknown (08:39):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (08:39):
I mean, he's someone I would love to have uh have
over to dinner sometime.
Well you've worked with I mean,y your client lists like a
Fortune 500 Hall of Fame.
I mean, you've worked withShell, which is obviously, you
know, storied for the scenarioswork they did, but like Exxon,
huh?
You've worked with so many umgroups.
But you know, when you'resitting when you in your work
(09:01):
with these with companies likethis, organizations, massive
organizations, you're the personsaying, you know, everything you
know about it's probably wrong.
Um so how do you how do youaddress I like to talk about
uncomfortable truths or youknow, getting the wrong asking
the wrong questions.
How do you how do you get peopleto work through their mind, you
(09:25):
know, work through a mindset toto work on these on possible
futures and and do this kind ofwork together collaboratively?
SPEAKER_04 (09:33):
Well, I think I I had an advantage probably over a
lot of other folks in that bythe time I got into futures um
studies um professionally, I'dhad probably 25 years of
experience as a uh investigativejournalist and asking tough
questions.
Doing it in a way that oftenpeople didn't feel threatened,
(09:58):
even though I was asking thetough questions.
And I don't know that I canexplain the technique in detail,
but basically what I would do isI'd have a conversation.
It wasn't an interview, itwasn't a um, you know, it
certainly wasn't aninterrogation.
It was a conversation.
I tended to, and I still do,tend to listen more than I talk.
(10:22):
So when I'm doing an interviewlike this, it's kind of a flip
situation.
It's a little other strange.
SPEAKER_01 (10:29):
Um I think it's one of the superpowers of a
futurist.
Yeah, listening.
Yeah, you have to kind of almostyou almost have to kind of
recede into the background andlet other people, you know,
especially the you know, ifyou're in a workshop or a
collaborative space, is let themdo their do what they do, you
know, kind of bring those thingsout instead of trying to, you
know, force the things in acertain direction.
(10:49):
I think that's one of the mostbiggest and and being a
journalist, that's one of yourgifts, being able to do that.
SPEAKER_04 (10:56):
Yeah, I mean the the the process, well not just the
process, the entire function, Ithink, of being a futurist.
Uh and uh, you know, othersprefer the term foresight,
others prefer who knows what.
But basically getting people tolook at their future or futures
involves having themcomfortable, not challenging
(11:20):
them, certainly not challengingthem right off the start.
The ability to sit back and justlisten and fade into the
background, I think, is reallyimportant.
And I learned that again as ajournalist, where you become
part of the landscape and it'samazing things people will say.
SPEAKER_02 (11:40):
Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_04 (11:42):
Um the um work as a futurist, you also need to have
the mindset that it's a processof discovery.
Not just for you as theconsultant to be internal or
external, but it's a process ofdiscovery for the people you're
talking with.
They need to discover things ontheir own.
Point blank saying, hey, youneed to do this is probably not
(12:06):
going to penetrate the initialresistance.
So you need to be able to gentlylead them to discover things
that are important as it relatesto them and their future.
That may be different mindsets,that may mean different tactics
and strategies, that may meanany number of things.
(12:26):
It may mean simply being awareof, you know, hey, here's a new
technology.
What's it gonna do?
How's it gonna upset um theproducts or services that you
provide?
SPEAKER_01 (12:38):
How are you Go ahead?
Sorry, go ahead.
No, no, no, go ahead.
I sorry.
SPEAKER_04 (12:43):
Yeah, I mean, it's how you approach them in that
process of discovery, I think,that's critical.
I've seen far too many futuristsum and even more broadly coming
into organizations, you know,consultants generally.
Hey, I'm the expert, you gottalisten to me.
And um I've seen it from theother side where I've been with
(13:06):
clients and they'll after theconsultants out of the room and
say, well, that's that's youknow what?
That's BS, that's not gonna workhere, that you know, you get all
of the typical resistance.
And uh the consultant hasbasically lost the uh the client
right from the start.
I mean, you need to come acrosscertainly as professional and
knowing what you're doing, knowwhat you're doing, but you can't
(13:28):
come across as I know it all andyou don't.
A great deal of humility isactually required in that.
SPEAKER_01 (13:34):
Yeah, that's that is a trait that sometimes doesn't
exist in the consulting space.
I I can speak firsthand aboutthat.
And uh it's challenging becauseit's also the easier target to
blame the consultant.
You know and uh when you have, Iwould say, views that are, you
know, there's a resistance tochange.
You know, you've mentioned, Ilistened to an inter one of the
(13:55):
interviews you've done that, youknow, like excellent, powerful
forecasts and scenarios, theyall then end up sitting on a
shelf.
I like to say put in a drawer,right?
You know, despite having reallygreat data, it's I would say
that's our as a futurist, that'sthe eternal frustration, right?
It's like, what is what do youthink is the psychology behind
why people are so resistant toacting on it when they probably
(14:18):
know it's like accurate?
Why do you think it's that, youknow, and you probably what do
you think?
SPEAKER_04 (14:24):
Generally, people are loath to change things for a
variety of reasons, you know,and it's as simple and as
complex as that.
It could be if I change thisnow, something that's been
working for years, change it forsomething, is it gonna work in
the future?
I'm afraid that things are goingto change and I'm gonna lose my
relevance.
Or I simply don't like thedirection this is going, and
(14:47):
therefore I'm not gonna acceptany of it.
Um, you know, I'm you know, togive you an up-to-date example
uh of the latter one inparticular, but really it uh I
think it comes down to fear, itcomes down to feeling
threatened, and that's thereaction of many writers to the
(15:08):
um emergence of generative AI.
If you get online in the uhwriters' group groups, which I
uh follow just to see what'sgoing on, and occasionally I
pipe up.
I I mean I have opinions, sothey need to be shared from time
to time.
But the fiercest resistancecomes from those who, for
(15:30):
whatever reason, are afraid ofwhat the technology will do.
And we see that come out in avariety of statements like uh
AI-generated stories have nosoul.
Well, yeah, you know, totallyagree.
And, you know, my perspective isthat's why you have a human
writer involved in the loop.
(15:51):
It's to put that soul in.
Well, the quality is not thegreatest.
Um it's it's generic when you uhgenerate stuff using AI.
Well, yeah, that's true too.
Again, that's why you have a uhtalented writer in the group or
in the loop.
So there are a multitude ofexcuses, and I've seen just
(16:12):
stubborn resistance to trying totalk about any of it because
there's this underlying fear,and I'm not sure, you know, from
case to case what the exactcause is, but I think part of
it's insecurity and somebody'sown knowledge and abilities.
Some of it's fear that uh, hey,this is going to take my work
(16:33):
away from me.
Some of it is I just don'tunderstand this stuff.
You know, some people areresistant to learning, you know,
and I've seen that time and timeagain with students.
There are some who love to learnand others who just don't want
to learn because it takeseffort, you know, it takes
energy, it takes focus.
(16:54):
Learning is not what they wantto focus on.
So you know, why is thereresistance to change?
Why why do you face that as afuturist?
Uh any and all of those.
SPEAKER_01 (17:06):
Uh probably in a whole lot of people.
Is this is this why you pivotedtowards storytelling as a
communication tool?
Because we could want to talkabout transmedia storytelling,
but but that is as a journalist,you have a narrative always
always when you report onsomething too.
You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (17:22):
The um the reason I've pivoted to storytelling,
and that doesn't mean I'veabandoned looking at the future.
It just means I'm using adifferent set of tools.
And the reason for that is I'veseen far too many futures
consultants come in with all thedata.
And uh I've done did that myselfin the early days.
(17:44):
Hey, there's all this greatdata, we've got it nailed down,
the trends are really solid,boom, boom, blah, blah, blah.
And um, client will say, Oh,yeah, cool, okay.
And then, as you say, put it ina drawer, put it on the shelf,
and merrily go about theirbusiness.
While I was going through the uhmaster's program in information
(18:04):
design, I ran across um aconcept called the uh data
information knowledge wisdomspectrum, uh developed by a
fellow by the name of NathanShedrov.
And looks at the progression ofdata to information to knowledge
(18:26):
to wisdom and the componentsthat are involved in that.
And it became pretty clear veryearly on as I was looking at
that and looking at otheraspects of storytelling is that
the story was really the way ofgetting to people and getting
them to really move from thatdata perspective to knowledge
(18:47):
and wisdom.
A key component of developingknowledge and wisdom is context.
It's experience, sharedindividual, you know, whatever.
It's a it's the sharing of in uhof experiences.
A data dump doesn't share shareexperiences.
Um, you know, and to give you avery precise example that I've
(19:08):
used time and time again in myclasses on writing, not on
futures classes, but writingclasses, is to say, okay, I'll
throw a number out and I'll saynine or pardon me, three meters,
and students will just look atme and I'll say, okay, that's a
data point.
Three meters and sea level rise.
Okay, now you've got somecontext, but first off, they
(19:31):
don't know American students,they don't know what three
meters really is.
So I'll say floor to ceiling,that's about three meters.
That's how much the sea is goingto rise.
Okay, now they're starting toget it.
They start to suddenlyunderstand, you know, that three
meters is just not some sort offoreign alien number to them,
(19:53):
but it's actually got aparticular context, it's got
particular meaning, and they cansee it.
They can feel it.
Then I'll ask, okay, how many ofyou are from uh, you know, a
coastal area?
And a lot of them put theirhands up and I say, okay,
imagine you're standing at theseashore right at the water's
edge.
And, you know, 50 years fromnow, the water's gonna be three
(20:15):
meters above your feet.
So you're gonna be under thewater.
What's that going to do to yourneighborhood?
What's that going to do whereyou grow up?
What's that going to do for thelives that you've uh, you know,
you've led and the lives movingforward and those of not just
you, but your friends, yourneighbors, all of that.
(20:38):
And they start to, in a muchmore visceral way, start to
understand what three metersmeans.
It's not just a number, it's notjust a data point.
It's it's something that theycan start to feel emotionally.
It goes beyond the intellect.
And that's one of the mostpowerful things about stories is
if you're doing them right,you're evolving emotion.
(21:02):
And humans learn throughemotion.
Strong emotions can uh drivelearning.
And I mean, that's been welldemonstrated.
SPEAKER_01 (21:10):
Do you do you find that that, I mean, this is I
would say this is your storyworlds concept, correct?
Like this is what you're gettinginto.
Yeah.
Because that's that it's thatwalk a mile in someone's shoes.
It's the immersion into a world.
It's one thing to build it orput things around it, or the you
know, the objects or thesettings, but to immerse the and
(21:31):
you know, the empathy layersthat that go into world building
could be a term, but you know,just like you said, story
worlds.
Where do you take that forpeople that are new to futures?
Do you find that is an entrypoint for people to get into the
conversation?
SPEAKER_04 (21:48):
I actually hadn't really thought about it in that
way, but yeah, I think uhcertainly I would encourage
anybody who's in the futuresfield right now, and
particularly anybody who's justentering it, to become expert
storytellers.
I couldn't agree more.
(22:13):
But to make all of that of realvalue, you need to be able to
turn that into a story.
And a story that connects withthe people you're telling the
story to.
So you need to understand youraudience.
What are their concerns?
What drives them?
What are they worried about?
All of those things.
And you need to be able to comeup with a story that genuinely
(22:35):
moves them.
Um, you know, it could beemotionally, it could move them
to start thinking about things,it should be something that they
take away and it keeps comingback to them.
Having people think in futuresterms is not a uh, hey, here's a
workshop and away you go, andnow you're gonna do it.
Right.
It becomes it's essential toembed that process of futures
(23:01):
thinking into what people do ona day-to-day basis to the point
where it's instinctive.
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
Well, I've also noticed in your story world or
story world time type of is thekind of temporal framework that
you use.
I mean, you can look at horizonsfor you know, 5, 10, 20 or
those, but yours is a bitdifferent.
It's almost like a time machinefor ideas type of thing.
Could you unpack the the kind ofthe temporal framework of it?
(23:28):
Is it you know, you've kind ofalluded to you've kind of
explained parts of it, I think,but there's a kind of
flexibility when you communicatethings.
SPEAKER_04 (23:38):
Yeah, the um one of the things that um had irritated
and continues to irritate mewhen I'm talking with some
futurists is um futurists don'tmake predictions.
Speaking of language, brother.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Yes, we don't predict the future.
We we look at possible futures,right?
That's the crux of it all.
SPEAKER_04 (23:59):
And I sort of want to go.
I mean, okay, I understandconceptually, however, the
people You must love theprediction posts at the
beginning in January of everyyear.
SPEAKER_01 (24:09):
You must love that.
SPEAKER_04 (24:11):
Yeah, that those drive me crazy.
unknown (24:13):
I know.
SPEAKER_04 (24:14):
But um the other side, too, is futurists who say
we don't predict anything.
We just lay out thepossibilities.
And the reason that bothers me,and again, conceptually, I
understand that.
Practically, though, most folksthey can't deal with that.
They don't know what to do withit.
SPEAKER_01 (24:33):
Yeah, I I always say, see if this resonates with
you.
Like I always say to people, thefuture, the one of the possible
futures will become the present.
Isn't it better to know whichone it's going to be?
So you're better prepared.
Like, you know what I mean?
So you can navigate it.
I mean, that's the to me, that'sthe essence of like, you know,
when I people ask what I do.
I say I'm, you know, I'm afuturist.
(24:54):
I, you know, I talk about beinga designer, but I said with a
futurist, I said, I and they'relike, some people don't know
what it is.
I said, I do long-term strategicplanning.
Beyond the year or two, I helppeople understand the long-term
strategy.
And that usually kind of stemsthe conversation.
They might want to know more,but I find that you know,
futurist is a term some know,some don't know, and those that
(25:16):
know, it's like 50 differentflavors of it, right?
So yeah, it's it's good when yousay that.
SPEAKER_04 (25:22):
Aaron Powell The other thing that I I find in
terms of futuristsprofessionally often are
hesitant to say, hey, we'relooking at a three to five year
time frame or roughly a 10-yeartime frame or longer than that.
And my frustration comes fromfolks in the business apparently
not understanding that theclient needs something more than
(25:45):
sometime in the future this isgoing to happen or this might
happen.
I mean, yeah, okay.
I've got to make some decisionsfor my organization.
It does actually make adifference if it's happening
five years from now versus 50years from now.
Time frames do shape decisions.
And without solid time frames,it's difficult to make uh
(26:07):
informed decisions.
So, yeah, can things change?
Can things um not pan out interms of, you know, hey, I said
20 years from now we're gonnasee this, and well, maybe it's
gonna be 25 instead, or maybeit's 15.
A number of years ago, I came upwith the concept of what I call
(26:27):
the exploratory forecast.
Typically, and these are theones that like you you
mentioned, the the beginning ofthe year, here's the future for
2026 at this point.
Um it's gonna be this, this,this, and this.
I'm going, okay.
Seen this before.
Um, we'll see.
(26:48):
The way I prefer to do it iswe've got an exploratory
forecast.
I'll put something out there.
Hey, this I think is going tohappen in the next five years
based on these factors.
But there's always a degree ofuncertainty.
And I use the analogy of anunguided rocket that you aim and
(27:11):
fire, and then it just goes onits way, uh, versus a guided
missile, which you fire, andthen it corrects its track as
it's tracking the target.
An exploratory forecastbasically is a guided process
for determining whether or notthe event that you thought was
(27:32):
going to happen, that youforecast as happening at such
and such a point is actuallygoing to happen.
So there are indicators alongthe way that you can start to
track that say we're on track orwe're not on track.
And if you're off track, do youneed to adjust something?
If the exploratory forecast iscompletely invalid, then as a
(27:55):
futurist, you say, okay, it'sinvalid.
You know, we we thought it wasright, but it's not.
So let's see what we do now.
As opposed to what I see a lotof you know forecasting experts,
they'll do a one-shot, hey, Iexpect this.
And then they're busily tryingto defend their forecasts uh as
(28:17):
being accurate 99 or 100% of thetime.
And oh, by the way, I yeah, Idid kind of forget the ones that
missed the target.
SPEAKER_01 (28:26):
Yeah, there's a forced function fit in that that
really invalidates quickly thethe quality of the perspective
and then the credibility of theperson doing it.
And it yeah, it puts us in aputs people who do this kind of
work in a in a in a challengingposition, but it's a cautionary
tale, too, right?
(28:47):
And I think more people shouldunderstand what you're saying.
SPEAKER_04 (28:50):
Yeah, I mean, are you gonna be a hundred percent
accurate in your forecasts ifsomebody claims that I'm going,
okay, wait a minute.
Let me actually see what you'redoing.
Are you making forecasts thatare sort of duh, of course, um,
you know, that um anybody canmake?
Are you hiding the uh results offorecasts that didn't pan out so
(29:15):
you can say, hey, I got 100%?
It's you know, that scorecardis, from my perspective,
baloney.
SPEAKER_01 (29:23):
I've always said there's three there's three jobs
you can be wrong 90% of thetime.
That's weatherman, venturecapitalist, and futurist.
And still keep your job.
Yeah.
But there's humility in that.
You have to own up that you gotthat one wrong.
And a lot of I think a lot ofpeople have challenges with
that.
I think that's where it comescomes from.
(29:45):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (29:46):
And I think the sort of consummate professional um in
the futures field is one thatreally understands the various
methodologies, deeplyunderstands systems theory,
systems thinking, chaos andcomplaints.
Complexity theory.
But also says quite fully, yeah,I kind of missed on that one.
(30:06):
Now let's go back and see why Imissed.
Um, you know, what is theresomething I missed?
You know, is my methodologyflawed?
You know, you start to tearapart the the methods that
you've used, and then okay, themethodology seems to be solid.
(30:26):
Is there something um, you know,a variable that I missed?
Looking at this.
Well, what was that variable?
How important is it?
Uh or you know, you got thevariables right, but hey, the
world's full of random events.
The world is chaotic, thingschange.
Therefore, you go with theguided missile approach as to
(30:48):
the uh fire and forget rocket.
And uh, you know, it's really assimple as that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:54):
You know, there's a few things in storytelling
before I wanted to get to thetimeline projects, but the
transmedia as a term, it waslike everywhere probably about
10 years ago as a like becausepeople were looking at different
channels.
Uh you could call it, you know,there's omni channel marketing,
but transmedia, it goes howwould you define for those who
(31:17):
maybe have never even heard theterm before, and where the state
of it is today, is it you know,because it doesn't seem to be
mentioned anymore uh in a lot ofplaces.
It used to be, especially inadvertising, marketing.
How would you define transmediain a current state because we
have so many new kinds of toolsand approaches?
SPEAKER_04 (31:34):
Yeah, basically my definition of this comes
straight out of my master'sthesis 15 years ago, which is at
about the point just beforetransmedia took off as a
buzzword.
Yeah.
Is that transmedia narrativesare one or more stories told
across two or more mediaplatforms.
(31:55):
So I've got one story that'stold in a comic book and a
television series, or it's anovel and it's a film.
And it's not just an adaptationadaptation of a book to a film.
It's a different story in thebook from in the film, but set
in the same story world, maybewith the same characters, maybe
(32:16):
with different characters, butthe story world itself is the uh
unifying component.
We see transmedia stuff aroundus all the time.
SPEAKER_03 (32:25):
Yes.
SPEAKER_04 (32:28):
We just don't hear the term anymore because it's
essentially become absorbed inthe thinking that um
particularly media companies areinvolved in.
Anybody ever heard of Star Wars?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:43):
Yeah, I was just gonna say Star, you know, Star
Wars The Marvel Universe.
SPEAKER_04 (32:47):
Anyone knows?
SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
Yeah, MCU.
Yep, exactly.
Are those another one?
Yeah, are they absolutely TV?
Uh the one that always comes tomy mind, I mean, obviously Star
Wars is currently the earliestone, but I mean they were
strictly movies, but then theyhad the extended universe, the
books, all the different, youknow, built world, you know,
universe building more than justworlds.
(33:10):
But I think of the Matrixmovies.
There's three of them.
Obviously, the first one washuge, and then the second and
third one came out close.
There was a video game that hada there's a scene where I think
it's in the second movie whereum Jada Pink and Smith comes in,
they're all meeting together.
Those who've seen the movie,like all the kind of rebellion
people, they're meeting in theMatrix in like this room, and
(33:32):
they come in from somethingelse.
There's a whole video game thatconnects to why where they come
from and what their mission,their kind of side quest, or
kind of thing that and that's awhole game.
But it tells part of the story,but it's in a video game format
versus a movie, right?
And then you've got um shorts orother types of animated uh
shorts.
Blade Runners done this with2049, they had other things, you
(33:54):
know.
So yeah, it is it's interesting.
You you're you're heading itlike it's become so commonplace,
you don't have to call it out astransmedia.
Transmedia is the way of tellingstories with media.
It's just the way it is rightnow.
SPEAKER_04 (34:08):
Yeah.
I mean, when I'm talking withfolks, particularly in the film
and television industry, andI'll talk about a story
universe.
They get it.
I mean, they get it right now.
SPEAKER_01 (34:19):
Well, you're you're in the world, you're part of the
world building institute, andyou know, I know you've done
some papers with Alex McDowell,who he was and worked on
Minority Report, and you've youwork around those.
I mean, students and clientsare, you know, and they're
trying to do this, you know, arethey do you kind of have them
start from scratch?
Like where where do they wheredo they start?
Because it's one thing to kindof have something established or
(34:41):
the incubation of something.
How do they you know go from notlike what's what's the first
kind of steps?
Like kind of a worksheet to kindof start the framing?
Like how do how does somebodystart with it?
SPEAKER_04 (34:52):
Well, the the start of the process is pretty
standard future stuff.
Get to know your client, whatare the issues, all of that
stuff.
That doesn't change.
What changes or should change isokay, instead of doing a
four-box scenario, which lots offolks still do, let's do
something a little bitdifferent.
Or we're gonna look at causallayered analysis.
(35:14):
Okay, that's that's a good placeto start.
That's a methodology, though.
That's not a way of building astory universe, but that's the
starting point.
And um, what you're looking atwith building a story world from
the future's uh futuristperspective is what are the key
things that we need to know?
(35:35):
You know, what's the world goingto look like in the future?
And you build that worldholistically around that, and
then you inject characters intoit.
You inject interactions, youknow, social interactions,
economic, political interactionsinto that and see how they play
out in that particular universethat you've developed.
(35:58):
What are the factors that areimportant?
What does this story tell mefrom a character who is
developing a startup andsuddenly AI is on the scene?
What's that means to them?
How potentially can they react?
What happens, you know, just youknow, the events, what happens
(36:20):
to them psychologically,emotionally?
Because remember, you're alsotrying to touch the audience,
your client, not just at theintellectual level, but at the
emotional level so that itsticks.
You know, are they are they ableto identify in some way with the
characters that you've got?
(36:41):
Do they see their lives, theirproblems, their workplaces, that
kind of stuff reflected in it?
And quite frankly, that's hardto do from a professional
perspective.
I mean, I can say here, andhere's what you do, but when
you're doing it in practice,it's not just, hey, this, this
on the checklist, this on thechecklist, yep, I hit that, I
hit that, I hit that, and we'redone.
(37:02):
You really need to be able tostart to understand how you can
reach the people that you'retrying to work with.
You may understand that there'sa looming threat coming, but for
various reasons they don't.
Certainly you can scare the hellout of them, but um, and that's
a very strong emotion, butthat's not likely to get them to
(37:25):
change.
It's likely to actually pushthem off.
So you get a character thatsays, hey, I've got this looming
threat, it's a big one.
How do I react?
I tried this and it failed, Itried that and it failed.
There's this obstacle, thatobstacle, but here's how the
character overcame them.
And you're basically doing ajourney from the present to the
(37:45):
future while also doing ajourney in which the character
solves fundamental problems.
And at the same time, probablyhas some internal changes of
perspective.
SPEAKER_01 (37:56):
Well, and one of the projects I wanted to kind of
shift into as a uh wrapping upthe episode is that one of the
things that I actually gotintroduced to you is the
timeline of major trends andevents.
Like your, I will call it mega,mega layered timeline.
That's almost the that's thekind of qualitative,
(38:18):
quantitative data likefoundation, you know, when
you're doing these, you know,the and the the world building
and the story worlds, they cangive you kind of at least a you
know, a starting point to gofrom.
Where did that idea come from?
And you know, it's obviouslyit's how has it played out?
(38:40):
Like in the last 50s, it youknow, what's what what's gone,
or like you all got that on, andoh, but where did it kind of
start where did the pro whatproject idea start?
SPEAKER_04 (38:49):
It started in a um quantitative futures class at
Clear Lake in uh around 1992.
Okay I was running a bunch ofcharts on an Excel spreadsheet
or whatever the heck thespreadsheets were back then.
SPEAKER_01 (39:06):
I think I think we're safe with Excel at that
way.
Maybe BusyCalc, who knows?
SPEAKER_04 (39:12):
So I'm generating these charts, and um at one
point I'm going, what the heck?
I got this chart and I got thatchart and I got another chart,
and uh you know I can't makesense of them because they're
all tacked on my wallseparately.
SPEAKER_02 (39:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (39:32):
Maybe I ought to put them on a common timeline.
So let's let's use time as theuh horizontal axis.
And we'll just stack thedifferent um trends up and uh
see what's what.
And it started.
SPEAKER_01 (39:45):
For people have never seen it, which won't you
have it?
What do you have?
Just so just a sampling.
Just what do you have in there?
I'm gonna leave a link to thepaper in the show notes so
people can look at it and seeit.
It's amazing.
SPEAKER_04 (39:56):
But what are the yeah, give me a second to grab
my copy here?
SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (40:03):
And this is the one from 1998.
Looking rather fake, by the way.
Uh, but that's the the firstpublished one.
I actually started doing thesein '93, '94.
But um then I went, hey, this isthis is kind of cool.
So I got a hundred of themprinted out.
(40:24):
And they include basically thesteep categories: political,
economic, technological, social,environmental, macro bands.
Environmental, for example, it'sgot CO2 levels, it's got sunspot
activity, it's got worldpopulation growth, uh, you know,
stuff like that.
The focus on most of this isAmerican, and that's just
(40:47):
because the data sets wereeasily available.
And I never have gone far beyondthe American aspect of things.
One, because I've moved on toother things, but two, maybe
somebody else ought to do thatwho actually knows their reach
in their country.
I don't mind them using theapproach at all.
(41:09):
I don't want to, as a CanadianAmerican, say, though, hey, I
know all of this about you guys,when there may be something
different in Europe and Asia,wherever.
Um so we've got the uhtechnological events and the um
economic events.
One of the key things that umI've built in, and it's evolved
(41:31):
over time, but the basics arestill there, is the K-Wave.
unknown (41:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
Kondrive is Kondriev, right?
Kondrave.
Yeah.
I can never pronounce his namecorrectly.
SPEAKER_04 (41:42):
Yeah, it's a uh 100 to um 120-year economic cycle.
And boy, did I catch some flackabout even talking about cycles
in future circles.
SPEAKER_01 (41:54):
That's you're in friendly territory.
I'm a cycles theorist.
You know, future doesn't repeat,but it definitely rhymes.
I mean, you know.
Absolutely.
It's it's uh there's a there's apattern to things.
It's not it's not the only thingto use.
There's other, obviously, but itshould be considered as you
know, we're humans, there's acertain nature to things.
Although in Super Shifts, youknow, we talk about you know the
(42:16):
age of intelligence.
I mean, this is a differentwe'll talk about AI in a minute,
but that is a change from like,we're not the smartest people on
the planet.
What's the rate of change?
What's the acceleration?
What's the what's the level ofcreative destruction and our
ability to adapt, right?
There's a lot that's different.
Is this a new cycle or is it a acontinuation of another of the
(42:38):
previous ones?
Is it a different pace?
Don't know.
But it's I don't yeah.
If you abjectly reject cycles, Ithink that's to people's
detriment, you know, to not evenunder s you know.
But I I get your I get whatyou're you're saying about the
flack.
unknown (42:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (42:52):
So I'm sure some people declared me a heretic in
the futures field.
And you know what?
I don't care.
I just don't care.
SPEAKER_01 (43:00):
So that's a way to we're supposed to the futures
are supposed to be the rebels.
And it's when the it's when thegatekeepers start deciding who's
the rebels and who's not.
Then we have a different problemto talk about, which is probably
for another anotherconversation, another longer
conversation.
But you know, I mentioned whatdo you what did you get right?
What did you think you you kindof got because it extrapolated
(43:22):
out and you went pretty far outon some things.
What do you think is trackingwell, you know, current
landscape of politics and anddivision and chaos, or you know,
or is that what's what's whatseems to be what seems to be on
target or close?
SPEAKER_04 (43:38):
Well, rather than just simply saying what did I
get right, I'd like to put thisinto the uh the record, if you
will, and that is Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:48):
Sure.
SPEAKER_04 (43:49):
This isn't about what's right or wrong in terms
of forecast.
This is a very complex long-termum exploratory forecast of what
might happen.
What is quite possible based onhistorical trends.
The timeline itself goes back toum 1750, the first one, uh, all
(44:14):
the way out to 2100.
So just from a futuresperspective, that's pretty
ambitious.
Yes.
I mean, that's a long span oftime, relatively short span of
time in terms of human history,but from a futures perspective,
my God, that's that's a longperiod of time.
Um so, and data sets back, youknow, that far are sparse, but
(44:37):
that's they're not non-existent.
There is data out there that canbe used.
That I've tried to hunt down asmuch as possible.
What, you know, getting back tothe question of what did I get
right about, the way I'd like tolook at it is okay, there are
some things that seem to be ontrack that really need to have a
(44:58):
closer examination.
And that's the whole point ofthis chart is to say, hey, this
might be happening.
It's worth taking a look at itin more detail.
You know, and I take a look at,for example, the uh
social-political aspect ofthings, armed conflict.
(45:20):
And keep in mind that um thiswas done in this one was
published in 1998.
I had tagged as increasedprobability of American
involvement in a war starting in2004, just based on the cycles.
Anyone know what happened in2001?
(45:43):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (45:43):
We went by 2003, the is really the big I mean
Afghanistan started, but the Iin Iraq, you know, is 2003,
right?
SPEAKER_04 (45:54):
So Well let's be um generous in terms of the um
error in times, uh error uh interms of the forecast.
2001 versus 2004.
I missed it by three years.
Does that invalidate theforecast?
You could you could argue, andI'm not gonna argue it because
the point is uh 2001, 2004doesn't matter.
(46:18):
What we really need to belooking at is what the heck is
this increased probability ofAmerican war?
Well, if you take a look at thischart, the ban goes out to 25,
26, 27, 28, 28.
Is still increased probabilityof American involvement in a
war.
(46:39):
Is that forecast accurate?
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (46:41):
I mean we've been in what you you could consider
almost for like forever wars,right?
Or the friendly conflicts aregood for business.
SPEAKER_04 (46:49):
Well, going on 25 years of war.
SPEAKER_01 (46:52):
Well, when you look at something like Strauss and
Howe, right, generational cycle,and you've got a the we're in
the the uh the winter, thefourth turning, which uh they've
roughly said started around 2008with the crisis, financial
crisis.
But yeah, they put it, theydon't put it on the exact years,
(47:13):
but yeah, it's a good 20, 25.
So they're like around 2028 to2030 that this would kind of
things would kind of culminate,end, and set for a new
trajectory for like, you know,in their in their vernacular,
you know, the spring, right?
The it you know, so yeah, I meanit tracks, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (47:35):
But you know, let me give you another one um that um
I find pretty interesting.
Uh in the uh social um uh set ofbands, I've got uh human rights,
slavery, feminism, and uhreligion, morality, and
philosophy tracks.
(47:56):
And in the uh religion,morality, and philosophy track,
I've got um 1980s to 2000s,moral majority uh has rapid
growth in an evangelicalorganization.
Fundamental power peaks in um98, 99.
(48:20):
Was that right or wrong?
Uh we can debate.
You know, and I'm I'm not again,I'm not tied to that exact time
frame.
But if you take a look at what'shappening with church
membership, for example, it's athistoric lows based on the last
data that I saw.
(48:42):
Active member in membership inchurches.
A number of churches are goingout of business, basically,
because of decliningmemberships.
Is that something that is um youknow indica uh indicates we're
seeing a shift in religiousspiritual perspectives.
(49:04):
And it looks like there'ssomething happening.
That ought to be a key forsomebody to say, okay, here's
what this forecast from 1998 waslooking at.
There are some indications thatat least part of this might be
happening.
We ought to dig more deeply intothis.
And again, I could have donethat if I didn't get off into
(49:27):
what I'm doing now, but um,somebody else can also do it
because I don't want to keepflogging this.
SPEAKER_01 (49:32):
I think there's gonna, yeah, I think there's an
opportunity to bring that out.
What I would love to do as we'regonna kind of wrap things up is
where do you see and it's it's Ithink for us, like we talked
about kind of tying it alltogether, you know, with a story
world, what do you think wouldhelp what story world that you
(49:53):
know would help humanity makebetter decisions?
What's the thing that peopleshould like if they wanted to
work on a story, like what wouldthey what should they do like
right now?
And that what do they need tohave?
We'll talk about the skills, butwhat what do you think if you
could create one, what would youkind of set set the course for
people to do to?
SPEAKER_04 (50:10):
My vision that I've had for a while is basically a
storytelling platform that has afutures orientation where people
have a framework for buildingstories.
And you know, part of what I'vespent a good 15 years with now
(50:32):
is understanding how to buildstory frameworks, how to make it
easier so the layperson can doit.
So let's assume we've got aplatform that makes it easy for
people to tell stories.
And they're quality stories inthat other people are going to
want to read them.
I mean, you can write storiesall day long, but if nobody's
gonna read them, what's thepoint?
(50:55):
So they need to be at a level ofquality.
This platform would bringtogether people in North
America, South America, youknow, Africa, and so on, and
say, hey, in my story world,South Africa, Cape Town is
facing chronic water shortages.
SPEAKER_01 (51:13):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (51:14):
You, as a resident of that area, what does that
mean for a character that youcreate if you can't get water
for weeks on end?
Somebody living on the GulfCoast of Texas.
You've got what happens ifyou've got three super
hurricanes coming in in oneseason?
What's that do to your life?
What does that do to yourcharacter's life?
SPEAKER_01 (51:36):
Sure.
Those are great.
SPEAKER_04 (51:39):
You know, and if you start to be able to pull those
together, you get a wholecollection of stories around
what's this going to look likefor our collective futures?
So I know what it's going tolook like if I live in Houston.
I know what it's going to looklike, at least based on these
stories, what it looks like inCape Town.
(52:00):
What's that mean to us, all ofus?
When this is happening there,this is happening there.
And um we're starting to be ableto talk about that.
I mean, climate change has beenan issue that I first
encountered as a reporter backin 1980.
(52:21):
Um, it was identified then as anissue.
Have we changed anything?
We got lots of great words, butum it's hotter than ever where
I'm sitting right now in WesternNew York.
SPEAKER_01 (52:32):
Yeah, in the 70s, there was an issue, it was about
global cooling.
Then it was global warming.
We also had the ozone later,which we actually dealt with in
the 80s, which is amazing.
But then things move to likeshifts back and forth to climate
change.
So the climate is alwayschanging.
It's a question of what's theimpact, and you're right in that
way.
It's kind of a thing for thelisteners to kind of the debate
(52:56):
about.
But uh, yeah, what I was goingis, you know, so for you know,
people that want to dive intoyour work and I want to have you
back on, we we can unpack somany more of these things.
People where to find your work,your research, you know, learn
more about the uh story worlds.
Hey, what's the best place tofind you?
SPEAKER_04 (53:17):
Well, if you Google my name, it's all over the web
uh at the various places.
SPEAKER_01 (53:22):
You have a very specific name, yeah, that's
true.
That's true.
SPEAKER_04 (53:24):
Yeah, I mean, there are a few von Stacklebergs in
the extended family, and thereis one other Peter von
Stackelberg that has like one ortwo entries online, but you're
probably not gonna miss me ifyou look for um you know Peter
von Stackleberg and storytellingor whatever.
I also have published uh a bunchof stuff on ResearchGate that is
(53:48):
it's a great platform forresearchers, but it's also
something pretty much anybodycan get onto.
And the idea of me putting stuffup there is I can actually, and
I have uploaded PDFs ofarticles, of timelines, of stuff
like that, so that people canactually get the the material in
their hands printed out.
SPEAKER_01 (54:09):
I will put a couple of links in there in the show
notes so you can check it outdown below.
But Peter, I just want to saythank you.
You're just an amazing futurist.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Thanks for listening to the Think Forward Podcast.
You can find us on all the majorpodcast platforms and at
www.thinkforwardshow.com as wellas on YouTube under Think
Forward Show.
See you next time.
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