The fog of ambiguity is where creativity lives

The fog of ambiguity is where creativity lives

Most groups don’t get stuck because they lack ideas. They get stuck because they hate the “fog”, that awkward middle space where nothing is clear yet. So what to do when the fog rolls in during a futures session? My approach is to make ambiguity a shared, normal phase...
The fog of ambiguity is where creativity lives

Why I avoid monologues in futures work

Wes Kao makes a blunt but helpful point: students don’t owe us their attention. The same is true for participants and futures facilitation. Participants don’t owe us belief, engagement, or imagination just because we’re holding the marker or running the workshop. If...
The fog of ambiguity is where creativity lives

Looking back from the future

We often approach the future by looking forward: imagining scenarios, mapping trends, projecting change. But sometimes, a future becomes more accessible when we approach it from the other direction. I’ve been thinking about the idea of an annual review, not as a list...
The fog of ambiguity is where creativity lives

The method is not the work. The facilitator is.

I’m back to thinking about Miti Desai’s essay, “An Indigenous Pedagogy in Contemporary Times: My experience with the gurukul system of training”. In the Gurukul system, learning happens through proximity, repetition, observation, and relationship, as . Not through...