Future Agenda

Future of Media Event

Date all set for the future of media event - 27th May in London. Should be a great mix of people looking at the changes on the 10 year horizon in media content creation, sharing and consumption. Working with Harry Blundun and Harry Hobson of ?WhatIf! on this event so should be a good one. Will be intersting timing as will have done the Future of Privacy a week or so earlier in DC

Website Partnership Go Ahead

A joint development of the platform for the Future Agenda website is now all approved and scoping underway. Providing a different means of interaction with all the content and insights from the programme that will be possible with the book, this website will, we hope, provide a class leading experience. So, we are collaborating on the underlying platform design with the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network to provide a common framework upon which different sites can be layered. Should be an interesting and challenge development programme but a great team has been assembled so feeling good about the journey. Thanks to John Cass for setting this up. Key scoping meeting taking place later this week.

Future Agenda Book Writing Underway

With most of the workshops completed, synthesis of insights all progressing well and key impacts and implications now being debated and refined, the first main section of the book is now being written. Looking at the four key certainties for the future we have started off with imbalanced population growth and then move onto key resource constraints. Deadline for final text to go to publishers is end of August so good to get things going...but long way to go!

Is Water the New Oil?

Just finished new presentation for a talk am doing at Blake Lapthorn in Oxford on Wednesday. Looking at the Future of Water, takes on the challenge of whether or not water is the new oil and if not why not. Be interesting to see how (very impressive) audience respond!

Insights on Moderators of the Future

Excellent discussion yesterday with Dave McCormick comparing some of the key cross-topic issues we have found to date with those he has seen from both his years in Shell and the multitude of other programmes he has been involved in. These moderators of the future are now proving to be one of the main features of the programme. The whole area of trust and privacy is proving to be pivotal - hence the workshop in Washington on the 12th May. In addition the changing dynamics of control, choice and influence from and with institutions at varied levels appears to be at a point of change. Dave is joining the team for the rest of the programme so be great to have his views on these and other topics in the mix.

More on Cities and Transport

Output from Brussels workshops all written up and being posted today along with comments on migration, waste and water. Another workshop this week in London also looked at the Cities and Transport combination through a different lens so more to be added into the mix shortly.

Future of the Village

Great session this morning in  the Red Lion pub in Brightwell in Oxfordshire for the first of three workshops looking at the future from a local village dimension. Covered impact on villages of the future of cities, transport, work, migration, choice and currency. Many thanks to Andy Lewis for the idea and enthusiasm in organising this. Output will go on main site in next few days and shared ahead of the other two village workshops in Ghana and India.

Future of Cities and Transport

Very good Future Agenda breakfast event this morning in Brussels on the Future of Cities and Transport. 20 plus experts from across many related domains from trains, cars and bikes through to planners, architects and policy makers were excellently brought together by Paul Adamson and team at The Centre. Different views from others we have heard and a great centre of focus. Tonight we have another session over dinner looking more at how Europe can best make use of programmes like the Future Agenda: Should be an interesting debate!

Brussels for a day or two

Heading of to Brussels for a couple of days for two breakfast workshops and a dinner. Good to be tapping into the EU expertise etc as well and connecting with some more multinational organisations. First event is on future of cities and transport. Second is on future of waste and water - great to have Nicky Chambers from Best Foot Forward (and co-founder of Water Strategies) along for that one.

Site Visit Data

Preparing material for an after dinner talk on Wednesday evening in Brussels on the Future Agenda programme and interesting to note that is past couple of months the last 10,000 visits to the Future Agenda site have continued to come from a similar mix of countries as was the case at launch. While the UK and US are still top, India is a close third. Also, despite home language of site, Germany has shot up in past few weeks to be ahead of both Canada and Australia. Also notable is that Egypt is still a high source of visits. In total people from 147 countries have visited the site with an average visit time of over 2 minutes. So, although not as much of a platform for debate as originally intending, as a mechanism for sharing insights gained both directly from workshops and feedback, the FutureAgenda main site is doing well. Gives good signals for later in the year when we load in all the synthesis and implications.