Peter’s guest today is Trish Lavery who is an academic and policy expert working with the School of Cybernetics, Australian National University. Her work places human behaviour at the centre of strategy, futures, and strategic foresight.

Riel Miller returns for his sixth FuturePod appearance and another deep dive into matters Futures and Foresight related.

Peter chats with Elissa Farrow and Jeanne Hoffman about the Oceania Futures and Foresight Symposium 3-4 April 2025 they are organising in Meanjin (Brisbane).

Paulo Carvalho is an Educator, Innovator and Entrepreneur who has thought deeply about the disruptions and opportunities provided by Generative AI.

Doris Viljoen is the Director of the Institute of Futures Research at the Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa and she explains why she has the coolest job in the world and about our responsibility to do good work that grows our field.

Alexis is a Design and Foresight Strategist in Toronto and Peter chats to her about the psychology of meeting our future self, and also making the future more vivid by ‘colouring the future in’ with thoughts and experiences.

Rose Genele is a transformative leader and AI ethics advocate committed to creating ethical, resilient companies and technologies, and the host of the What Are We Going To Do With All This Future podcast.

Peter talks to Dana Klisanin who is a psychologist, and futurist. She is the founder of ReWilding: Lab and pioneer of ReWilding Leadership™.

Roger Spitz returns for a chat about his new book Disrupt with Impact. Roger is a Foresight advisor, venture capitalist, an expert advisor to the World Economic Forum's Global Foresight Network.

A chat with Gareth Priday who is lead Foresight practitioner at Action Foresight and a Director at Living Labs Innovation Network and Ethical Fields.

A chat with Ross Dawson on how he supports organisations trying to use Foresight and his optimism about our ability to amplify cognition.

James Balzer is a policy analyst in the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

To mark our 200th episode of FuturePod we have assembled the whole FuturePod team, who are interviewed by a special guest host, Dr Stuart Candy.

Patrick Hoverstadt is a Director and Consultant at Fractal Consulting and the author of The Fractal Organisation and Patterns of Strategy. Patrick is a viable system model (VSM) expert and we cover his deep views on systems thinking.

A return conversation with Frank Spencer that covers a lot and specifically the new book Natural Foresight.

A conversation with Aminata Mansaray, a Strategic Foresight practitioner in Sierra Leone about how she is changing communities and lives using Strategic Foresight.

A conversation with Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman from the Cascade Institute, about Polycrisis and the community they are supporting to understanding, mitigating and managing it.

Rob Roe returns to FuturePod to discuss his latest venture in the world of managing change. A bookcast that distils the best of the books on change that Rob has found through his extensive reading.

John Smart, the CEO of Foresight U, joins us to chat about his book ‘An Introduction to Foresight’. Among many things he expands on his three mottos for investing in foresight and doing good work sustainably.

Meredith Bowden and Dave Godden host a community called Complex Mess that supports people who are looking for new and different ways to engage with complex messes.

A guest conversation between Kristin Alford, Maggie Greyson and Elizabeth Merritt starts from the question about how Museums of the Future create agency and Hope.

Jay Gary returns for a chat and we discuss leadership development, institutional support, practice development and how his faith is foundational to his work and purpose.

A conversation with Rodney Frederickson who is a design futurist, abstract artist, storyteller, philosopher, game designer, martial artist and an occasional poet about his case for somatic futures.

Today we hear from Radical Norms and their ‘Signs of Change’ processes through which participants imagine climate change effects through public signage and Ben Holt from Solferino Academy and the project envisioning future humanitarian aid.

We hear from Petranka Malcheva about their double award for the project embedding long-term thinking in Welsh government and Laurie Smith and the work of NESTA and Prospect magazine around a Minister for the Future hypothetical.

Today we hear from the team from the Center for Engaged Foresight and their game, Dreams and Disruptions, and from the Teach the Future gang about their World Futures Day, Young Voices.

We hear from Mikko Dufva from the amazing SITRA and their work with Weak Signals and Valery Wichman about work in the Cook Islands to shape a hundred year vision.

Today we hear from Petra Hurtado and her work integrating Foresight into the planning field and Mike Jackson and his venture, Preempt, an AI Foresight platform.

Today we hear from Estefania Simon-Sasyk and the folks at Transform and their work with the Mycelium network to transform food systems and Elizabeth Merritt and her work assisting Museums use futures tools to help the repatriation of cultural artifacts.

Today we hear from Randy Lubin and Mike Masnick and their award-winning game, FutureCast, and Alex de las Heras whose documentary essay set in the Andean region explores future time, memory and decolonisation.

The continuation of the ReInterview started in podcast 113. Richard discusses his new book, Deleting Dystopia: Re-asserting human priorities in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Sarah Dillon and Claire Craig provide a theory and practice for gathering narrative evidence that will complement and strengthen, not distort, other forms of evidence, including that from science.

Thomas explains how constructing and interpreting narratives are critical to create a shared future that leaders are aiming for.

Richard returns to discuss what our ‘skewed narratives’ might be and how these prevent us from taking the necessary action.

Marcus talks about his futures leadership journey since we last spoke to him; leadership models and institutions, expectations of colleagues and wisdom embodiment.

Listen to Karen’s futures journey, from youth activism in Mt Gambier, South Australia to development projects in Peru using the technology of participation.

Adam tells the story of the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, how he uses scenarios to create a space to act together to transform a system, and why power, love, and justice are central to his impactful facilitation practice.

Joe’s is revisiting his earlier work as a Futures Intelligence Analyst. He explains how futures intelligence has to be in service of something.

Derek explains how abandonment led him to seek performance, being a rebel and finding alternative and ignored cultures.

Bridgette discusses futuring as an act of rebellion and how that tries to coexist with respect. She also shares her latest spice nut “lockdown” recipe.

Tamás explains how futures approaches like scanning, pathways and visions operate in both primary school and university students.

Kieran believes that young people working with their communities can learn resilience skills and make a real difference.

Allison explains how living a life without regret keeps her energised and focused on long term goals. How by using counterfactuals she flipped herself from angst to hope.

Luke explains how developing alternative futures is a very different cognitive action from actually making good decisions. He also thinks that the global rise in mental health issues shows that we cannot quickly adapt and respond to changes around us.

Bill discusses his new book Beyond Knowledge and explains how technology is driving an Age of Consciousness.

The FuturePod team get together to look back on the first 100 conversations, look forward to where FuturePod might be going, and farewell one of our founding members.

Jim is a financial futurist. He discusses the art of speculation and how he uses trends and cycles to find positions to take. He explains how the discount rate shows how long you are prepared to wait for a future outcome.

Erik is philosophically based futures researcher who supports policy makers develop public policy. He questions what we think of as nature and what is a natural phenomenon.

Sylvia has been thirsty for knowledge and culture throughout her life. She embraced philosophy, fiction and finally futures research to build a better society.

Susanna speaks about how she creates concentric circles of support, engages embodied intelligence, and helps practitioners think in non-linear ways.

As radical uncertainty undermines how we make sense of the world, ourselves in that world and what we do, Mike has three principles that help us navigate.

Paul has been studying how strategy can emerge from structure, relationship and good people doing good work.

Tracey looks for the clues to the future. She argues for the value in talking to a wide range of people about their thoughts and expectations about the future.

Richard has been thinking about narrative management and how it is used to attempt to control society.

Chris is a synthesizer of culture, and has been influenced by Lovelock's Gaia thesis and ideas of Deep Time. Listen to him speak about dark ecology, global weirding and non-Western Futures.

Conversation Question: “Should the field abandon preferred futures?” Riel Miller and John Sweeney return for part 2 of the conversation and are joined by another former guest, Josh Floyd.

Lidia believes that our active engagement through death and grief, what she calls Death Consciousness, is a vital and energetic capability, especially helpful in our current times.

Alex is passionate about better understanding how to use the methods we employ to assist people. He believes that through collaborating with other disciplines, we can become more influential in the public discourse.

Tyler believes that our values are key in moving forward in the face of uncertainty. That through synchronizing the minds of groups all work, especially foresight, starts from the best place with the best contents of consciousness.

Cherie believes that people should be allowed to experience timescapes in ways that make sense to them and that ‘Futurity’ speaks better to the indigenous understanding of the future.

Sara talks about the correlation between fossil fuels and authoritarian governments, how using the empirical futures frame helps her work in very normative spaces and how the distillation of crazy in extremist groups can be a force for reversing their support.

Gill discusses a wide range of her experiences using Foresight. She tells us about the European Commission’s decade long engagement with Foresight and how it became comfortable in using it.

David walks us through his ideas that Futures projects should be seen to do something in the real world and that he believes that now is the time for a FOPP - a Future Orientated Political Party. He believes that we lack high quality images of possible futures.

Njeri explains how the Rwanda genocide for her was a turning point where she realised how important agency was rather than just awareness.

Jerome discusses where the Delphi came from and why is so useful, the invention of the Real-Time Delphi and the self-actualization economy and how it could operate.

Dada takes you through his distinctive journey from business and economics, to becoming a yogic monk. He discusses the yoga of restraint and how we need to minimise the disparities in life but simultaneously maximise the diversity too.

Ruben thinks we are between dreams and that we need to escape modernity which has delivered much but now imprisons us by de-emphasising our interdependence with the natural world and each other.

Richard is a pattern finder who is passionate about our relationship to technology. He believes our times are calling for a new mythology in our relationship with technology.

In this latest podcast, Maree Conway and Peter Hayward return for a conversation. Five more questions were asked from our FuturePod audience.

Roope places Arts at the centre of his futures work. He is seeking a joyful and sustainable transformation of democracy and our institutions.

Thomas teaches his students to be Philosophers-in-action. He believes that there is no learning without emotional shock and he wants us to deepen our conversations to decomplexify our physical reality.

Kimberly discusses both the challenges and rewards of development work in West Africa, and explaining foresight to your mother. She also walks us through the Houston Foresight Framework to exploring the future.

Joining us in this special episode are our past guests, Richard Slaughter and Tom Lombardo. They share their memories and experiences of Wendell Bell, a giant in the field of Futures.

Anita says that ethics is how we work with our power and support others. She works across corporate clients who wish to operate with sensitivity to their impacts, and also how community resources, like water, are shared.

Listen to Jerry Glenn, Ted Gordon and Paul Saffo from the Millennium Project speak about the newly released set of COVID scenarios for the American Red Cross.

Conversation question: “How can we make our individual and collective foresight capacities ‘real’ in futures practice and processes?“

Roger believes that we need to allow the disruptive patterns to emerge to make the wisest choices. He also speaks of embracing the beginners mind to lead ourselves, our organisations and our societies through an increasingly disruptive world.

Shermon chats about history, culture, gross national cool and how the story of Rip Van Winkle is a great way to introduce futures thinking.

Conversation question: “What are some of the possible scenarios of the USA post-election period (whoever wins) that sees changes that begin the journey to bring America together rather than to drive it further apart?“

Jordi discusses how change itself is changing, and how we need to up our game to better navigate our lives. He also speaks of how the dignity of younger generations can explain their anger with how post normal times are being managed.

Mark talks about the unlikely connection of horse manure and foresight, and explains how ‘pre’ mortems could improve decision-making. He also speaks of his interest in life extension.

Rebecca explains the importance of effective and powerful communication and she discusses whether generational change is 'a thing' or not.

Conversation question: “What next for the field of foresight? How can we move on from the foundation methods and tools that seem to have us locked in their grip? How can we become more relevant and more practical? How can we approach design from different ontological frameworks.“

Hazel saw first hand the evolution of technology and business with its impacts on political power and from that came her life work, tracking and promoting the technologies and mind sets for the Solar Age.

Bryan discusses scanning as a client service and product, the notion of human identity, the globalisation of culture and the future of Higher Education.

A futures powerhouse and greatly respected globally, Wendy speaks about art, poetry and music; the tools of culture, to create more evocative, vivid and more densely experiential futures, and much more.

Conversation question: “Should the field abandon preferred futures? Recently, Richard Slaughter even called into question the efficacy of 'alternative futures'...How can (and must) the futures field shift in both theory and practice to deal with this core tension?“

Charles describes how he finds it easy to have conversations about the future with everyone he meets. He explains the use of his favourite tool, the Futures Cone, and his long-time engagement with Schools and Futures.

Yvonne's is a story of how we grow up as human beings and also the journey of both inward and outward honesty.

Fabienne takes you through her meta-methodology that frames how she does foresight work and she also discusses how to approach wicked futures like handling a ball of wool.

Tanja, raised into Nelson Mandela's revolution in South Africa works all around the world trying to support a good Anthropocene.

John Sweeney is blazing a new path for Futures in Central Asia, namely Kazakhstan. John's passions are Futures Gaming, and working with diverse communities. He is an experienced consultant and educator who is also a very entertaining interviewee.

As one of the few women working in the fields of foreign affairs, international security and defense, Kate Delaney’s career has morphed into a successful business in Australia applying her own brand of Futures and Foresight in Government and Not For Profit organisations.

Jim Dator is a Futurist who in someways did not have a past. Raised without significant men in his life his approach to Futures is both unique and so valuable for all of us.

Rene Rohrbeck explains his maturity model for organisational foresight, describes how corporate foresight moves beyond just trend analysis and also gives some interesting advice on parenting children too.

In quite an amazing career trajectory, studying strategic foresight provided new tools for Rob in his quest to find ways to introduce new ways of working.

Sohail is a global futurist whose work reaches from Australia into Asia. A prolific writer, seasoned academic and experienced consultant. He is the complete package. Come hear how he does his magic.

Tanja is an emerging futurist who has merged the best of the German and Australian approach to Futures. Coming from a corporate background she is now a freelancer who is creating a network of freelancers with a platform that has global ambition.

Dr Cindy Frewen consults, speaks and writes on the future of cities and design futures. After 25 years as an architect, Cindy merged her company with a sustainable design firm, marking her shift to longer term thinking and use of foresight tools to support sustainable city and public work designs. 

Appreciating the gifts of traditional systems allows Kieran to support individuals and conventional institutions and see what needs to endure, even as change occurs, and new visions of ‘a good life’ are imagined. 

Dr Joseph Voros speaks about his emergence into becoming a foresight educator, the development of the award-winning Generic Foresight Process (GFP) framework, and his abiding focus on the possible futures of humanity and human civilisation, informed by using Big History as the framing perspective.

Steve was the Foresight Manager at global brewer Fosters who first thought Foresight could help him predict the future and now he believes that Foresight can empower people to create the futures they want.

Marcus is a futurist, academic and poet. Hear him explain the anticipatory aesthetic and how he thinks it is very necessary to disturb the peace.

Futures principles and tools have been instrumental in helping Cath build an impressive consultancy career, supporting organisations to maximize social cause and impact.

Jay has had a long career as a consultant and educator. Hear about his twin passions of promoting leadership and assisting communities build powerful visions of their desired future.

Bridgette is a skilled and experienced contributor to the Futures space and has built her career as a feminist pracademic, successfully combining both her design principles and strategic foresight in her teaching work at Swinburne and her consulting work.

In part 2 of his interview Richard discusses the emerging futures, how he explains foresight to people and closes with his advice on how to live in a world that is on the edge of disaster.  

In part 1 of his interview Richard discusses his beginnings, his inspirations, his mentors and his journey into the foresight community. He also discusses his favourite methods and concepts.

As an international powerhouse, hear a small sliver of Richard's wisdom in this podcast, and how alternative thinking about today and tomorrow is at the core of his practice.

Rowena taught foresight for many years and so listen to her teach you about Hope Theory, consultancy and performing organisational roles.

Peter shows how he starts with how people have learned faulty thinking about the future through science and history and shows them how contingent thinking is a better way to think about the future.

Susan is a leader amongst Australia's futures community. An innovator and champion of diversity hear how Susan practiced her craft and how she worked on company boards to make them thought leaders and to make better decisions.

As a macrohistorian, Mike works at many levels, from local through to Global to support much-needed radical new thinking and new systems in an emerging networked and collaborative society.

Maree explains how the 'Foresight Switch' is turned on in people through doing foresight processes and how to be open to the future and to look for diversity of perspectives.

Josh speaks about his early appreciation of the bio-physical context of the world and his 20 year journey of enquiry into discovering new thinking tools and new habits to look at and make sense of the world.

Jose is the living example of a mutant futurist who believes we live as communities of faith around our shared and emerging futures and who practices experimental futures.

Paul explains his pragmatic approach to working with the people and organisations that want to make a difference.

Peter speaks about solving problems through deep enquiry, and the power of scenarios as a conversation tool for discussing and exploring futures.

Simon has successfully developed a professional business, presenting and applying foresight practice and principles.