Working Futures: The Cards Behind The Stories
from the working-futures dept
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Over the last few weeks we've been writing about all of the various aspects of the stories in our Working Futures anthology of 14 science or speculative fiction stories all relating to the "future of work." We've been getting great feedback on the book so far and are excited with how many people have been reading it. If you haven't yet, please check it out as well -- and support Techdirt in the process. Here are all the posts summarizing the stories in the book:
- Welcome to Working Futures
- The future of work is likely to be complicated
- The future of work will have unexpected consequences
- The future of work will blur the line between humans and machines
- The future of work may be beautiful
As I've mentioned in some of the previous posts, much of the impetus behind the Working Futures project was to try to think through the actual implications of technology on jobs and labor in the future. There has been a lot of fretting and a lot of hand-waving, but little exploration of what might actually happen. That's not a surprise, because predicting the future is mostly impossible, especially when it comes to complex systems. However, one tool that has been really useful not for "predicting" the future, but for exploring multiple possible futures is scenario planning, which is frequently described as a structured way for groups to think about possible futures. It's not about predicting which future will happen, but to explore various trends, driving forces and the like to determine a few different possible futures -- and to explore the implications of each.
We wanted to use this process as a starting point for the Working Futures project, but with a bit of a twist. We first polled people online via Techdirt for what they thought were the key driving forces that would impact the future of work -- rating both how much of an impact you thought they'd have and the likelihood that that force would have a true impact. From that, we developed a custom deck of cards showing different aspects of each key driving force on each side. So, for example, one side might show what a world would look like if genetic engineering becomes a much bigger deal, gets cheaper, and is used much more widely -- while the flip side of that same card says that genetic engineering has more or less stalled out, and it remains limited to labs, and bigger breakthroughs remain limited.
We used that deck with a group of about 50 people from a variety of different perspectives for an all day session in San Francisco. Attending were journalists, technologists, labor activists, human rights activists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, academics, lawyers, investors, writers, economists, and more. We had them go through a series of exercises to develop a set of 10 different scenarios, which we then gave to the writers who contributed stories to this collection. A key feature in the scenarios was coming up with four or five "media headlines" that would appear in that world.
Traditional scenario planning folks will likely balk at the idea of producing ten scenarios -- as it's typical to develop just three or four. However, in this case, we thought it made sense, as the goal here was to give authors a variety of different starting points (and I think for that purpose, the system worked quite well).
Either way, in showing the deck of cards to people after the event, we kept hearing over and over again how it might be useful for other scenario planning and strategic planning efforts as well, and people started asking us if they could buy a copy. We've now offered up the Working Futures cards via GameCrafter as a print-on-demand option for $19.99. They include an instruction card that basically describes how we used them and how you might use them as well, but there are lots of ways to make use of them, limited only by your imagination.
With this project we've been mainly focused on the book and the 14 stories -- which was always the end product of the plan. However, we've been pleasantly surprised by how many people have also picked up the cards as well and let us know how useful they've been for various other scenario and strategic planning efforts. If you think they might be useful for you as well, please check them out.
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Filed Under: cards, future of work, scenario planning, working futures
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So, randomly dealt cards are to predict the future?
In the 21st century you're reverting to Tarot / I. Ching? What's next, or great Oracle? Going to detail how to kill a bird and interpret its entrails?
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Re: So, randomly dealt cards are to predict the future?
They're not dealt randomly.
Honest question: why do you so frequently make misrepresentations about literally everything we do or say? You've done it for a decade and, frankly, it's just weird.
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Re: Re: So, trolls predict the future?
Blue Balls entire world view is based around the idea that he, as a mid-western white person, is constantly oppressed by shadowy forces led by jews and lawyers.
Per his many comments on the subject he believes that the government has no moral authority to enforce laws which he sees as unjust.
TD, and it's commentators, are part of the conspiracy oppressing him. Since he is a powerless shut in, locked in his basement, his only outlet is to strike out at people who he feels are superior to him. Per the Sod Cit philosophy, he can't accept servitude. And since we school him every time he opens his trap, we are obviously putting on airs and trying to use our education against him.
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Re: Re:
The death of SOPA still has him grieving, it seems.
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Funny, I ended up here brought by a Google alert on news on the I Ching, which I found, sadly, wasn't part of the article itself but of a derogatory comment. Funny people at the highest level of some governments use it regularly; the government of Germany funds what can be called a "Fate Institute" where these systems are studied, etc. But I'm not commenting here to defend any mantic systems but to, after reading your article, give you cuddles for developing the card deck. As you may know, it isn't a new concept to use similar decks for decision making and creative endeavors, which has nothing to do with divination. For instance, take the Oblique Strategies deck developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975, which in some creative circles is a cult classic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies
Cheers,
Luis
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Mike, I really do think he wants to have hatesex with you.
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Re: Re: So, randomly dealt cards are to predict the future?
I'm a big fan of randomization techniques as a way to break out of our own biases and bad assumptions. Excited to get a copy of these cards. I tend to collect them like Oblique Strategies, Trigger cards, etc.
In particular, I don't believe in the fortune-telling aspects of I Ching or Tarot but they are ways to consider the framing of your situation. It may seem weird but I've done product tarot readings about how people are considering the way they are considering their current situation.
If you are interested I did a short talk about this at Interaction19:
https://interaction19.ixda.org/program/talk-using-randomness-to-break-down-biases-chr is-butler/
Also, I have an event through Product Tank in NYC on 10/30 about adversarial product management which focuses on this a lot.
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Huh. A review says funded by RIGHT-WING foundation!
Is that true, Maz? You're actually funded by KOCH?
You just get more curiouser, college boy.
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Re: Re: So, randomly dealt cards are to predict the future?
Well, neither is I Ching or Tarot, strictly...
Honest answer: I don't believe I do! See the note on a review that says this was funded by Charles Koch, right-winger! Is that true? If so, then you mis-represent that A) you need income from this, and B) your affiliations which are certainly relevant to me.
Also, a question cannot be a mis-representation! It's a mis-representation to say that I have!
And the larger question is that you're interesting! Everything here seems to be fraud and a puzzle. I like getting to know the REAL you, Maz.
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