this article originally appeared in FastCoExist

In today’s accelerating world of work, it’s easy to get distracted by the million shiny objects vying for our attention. All too often, we spend our time responding to the latest urgent priority, and forget who we are and what really matters to us. A sense of personal or professional mission fades, and our passion and potential goes dormant.

However, forward-focused people and organizations realize that a happy, productive workplace exists only when everyone is aware of their gifts and how to best align their contribution with a larger shared purpose.

 A happy, productive workplace exists only when everyone is aware of their gifts and how to best align their contribution with a larger shared purpose.

Below is a three-phase process to help get reconnected to your motivations, the unique value you offer the world, and a vision for your own long-term trajectory. Cultivating this foresight practice at both the personal and organizational levels can be a powerful way to develop our greatest assets: ourselves.

1. DISCOVER WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT DRIVES YOU.

Before you begin planning where you want to go, it’s helpful to locate where you are now. This first phase of the process involves getting a clearer perspective on who you are, what you stand for,  and what makes it worth getting up in the morning. A few guiding questions can get you started on this mapping process:

What unique value do I bring to the world?

We’ve all got gifts and quirks that make us our loveable selves. Don’t lose sight of these. Ask people who know you well–family, friends, colleagues, professional contacts–which of your traits and contributions are most appreciated. Make a list of what you’re naturally good at, what you’d rather avoid, and the types of conditions that make you thrive or wither. Assessment tools like Gallup’s Strengthsfinder 2.0 can help uncover strengths and talents, while personality indicators like the Myers-Briggs can bring attention to preferences and behaviors that either motivate or frustrate you.

What are my core values?

Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership, defines a core value as “a principle without which life wouldn’t be worth living.” Whether you’ve ever explicitly named them before, chances are there are a few driving forces that have been a throughline of motivation and inspiration in your life. Reflect on your experiences and ask “What am I proud of?” or “What am I doing when I shine brightest?” Hone in on the top three to five values that are most important to you.

What is my life purpose?

This is a big question, but worth investigating. Purpose-driven people and organizations are energized by the feeling of being on a mission. Without a clear sense of direction of meaning, work gets done, but the results are not transformative or integrated with the surrounding world in a way that makes an impact.

Without a clear sense of direction of meaning, work gets done, but the results are not transformative.

Try surrendering to the highest voice inside yourself, and listen to what really brings you meaning and significance. Keep asking yourself “Why?” and “In service of what?” to help you get to the essence.

2. EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES

Now that you’ve located yourself in the narrative of your life, begin developing plausible personal futures. Think about the various domains of life that impact our future pathways and quality of life, ranging from health, relationships, finances, creativity, learning, and what we do for fun.

Consider how you engage in these domains now, and to what degree you imagine integrating them into your future. Ask yourself questions like: In which physical environments do I thrive? Who do I want to be spending time with? Which industries might I want to succeed in? Which skills might be needed? What brings me the most satisfaction? Stretch your thinking to explore what you might become.

3. CREATE A VISION AND PLAN FOR ACTION

Now that you’ve become more aware of who you are and explored options for where you could go, create a vision for your future and choose desired outcomes. What do you want your life to look like in one year? Five years? 10 years? 30 years? How are you staying engaged across life domains? What projects are you working on? What interests and hobbies are you developing? How are you building your capacities? What milestones are you working towards?

Finally, develop strategies and processes for achieving your goals. Build momentum by setting short-term, measurable, achievable goals. Those small wins can be very motivating to keep dreaming bigger. Systems like Getting Things Done or Personal Kanban can help in managing tasks and commitments. Consider assembling a “personal wisdom council” of friends and advisors who can offer you mentorship. A dedicated support network can be a valuable way to create accountability, stay focused, and receive feedback and encouragement.

As time goes by, priorities may shift, and the vision for your future may change. This is normal, and strategies can be adjusted accordingly. The lasting value is in continually honing your futures thinking skills, and staying tuned to your strengths, passions and vision to keep you moving forward towards the future you want.

Resources:

University of Advancing Technology, Foresight Development curriculum

Global Foresight

Foresight Education and Research Network

Personal Futures Network

I’ve been working on a fascinating research project exploring the models and emerging industry verticals of startup accelerators around the world. The standard formula for accelerators is as follows: you bring your entrepreneurial spirit and an idea, and in exchange for an equity stake in your nascent company, you receive some seed capital and a 3 month program providing mentorship, training, advice and resources to help you build your business. The program ends in an Investor Demo Day, where you get a chance to gain the interest of VC and angel investors.

I’ll post something with a synthesis of my thinking around these alternate avenues to value creation soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share the roundup of some of the top tech-focused accelerators, as well as a list of some emerging industry verticals.

Thanks to those in the Next Edge community & on Quora who helped compile this info!

Enjoy!

US
Y Combinator – Mountain View, CA
Tech Stars – Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; NYC; Seattle, WA; Cloud
Kicklabs – San Francisco, CA
I/O Ventures – San Francisco, CA
Excelerate Labs – Chicago, IL
Angelpad – San Francisco, CA
Launchpad LA – Los Angeles, CA
500 Startups – Mountain View, CA
DreamIT Ventures – Philadelphia, PA
NYC SeedStart – NYC
Entrepreneurs Roundtable - NYC
The Brandery – Cincinnati, OH
Capital Factory – Austin, TX

Canada
Extreme Startups – Toronto, Ontario
The Next 36 – Toronto, Ontario
Ryerson Digital Media Zone – Toronto, Ontario
JOLT MaRS – Toronto, Ontario
Invest Ottowa – Ottawa,
Accelerator Centre – Waterloo, Ontario
Communitech Hub – Waterloo, Ontario
Hyperdrive – Waterloo, Ontario
UW Velocity – Waterloo, Ontario
FounderFuel - Montreal, Quebec
Flightpath – Edmonton
GrowLab – Vancouver

Europe
Seedcamp
Springboard – London, UK
Startupbootcamp
Openfund
NDRC Launchpad
Propeller Venture Accelerator

International
Founder Institute
Start-Up Chile

EMERGING INDUSTRY VERTICALS

Education / Learning:
- Imagine K12 – Palo Alto, CA
- Startl – NYC

Energy / Cleantech:
- SURGE Accelerator – Houston, TX
- Greenstart – San Francisco, CA
- NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE) – NYC, NY
- Environmental Business Cluster – San Jose, CA
- GreenLite Labs – Boulder, CO
- Ignition Labs – Australia

Enterprise / B2B, Big Data:
- Acceleprise – Washington, DC
- Tech Wildcatters – Dallax, TX
- TechStars Cloud – San Antonio, CA

Financial Services:
- FinTech Innovation Lab – NYC

Government / Civics:
- Code for America – San Francisco, CA

Health:
- Blueprint Health – NYC
- Healthbox – Chicago, Boston, London
- Rock Health – San Francisco & Cambridge
- DreamIT Health – Philadelphia, PA
- HealthXL – Dublin & London
- Startup Health Academy – 3 year academic program

Biotech:
- University Technology Park – Chicago, IL

Social Good / Civic Ventures:
- Impact Engine – Chicago, IL
- Unreasonable Institute – Boulder, CO
- Bethnal Green Ventures – London
- Village Capital – Atlanta, GA
- Points of Light – Atlanta, Washington DC
- Wayra UnLtd – UK

Hardware:
- Lemnos Labs – San Francisco, CA

Public Media:
- Matter – San Francisco, CA

Mobile:
- MobileXL – Copenhagen

==================

Resources:
A Guide to Choosing the Best Accelerator for Your Tech Startup – Tech Cocktail
Startup Accelerator Rankings Methodology & Companion Report – Tech Cocktail
Global Accelerator Network
Seed-DB
The 10 Hottest Startup Incubators – Forbes
Top Startup Incubators and Accelerators – Forbes
Top 15 U.S. Startup Accelerators and Incubators Ranked (2011) – Tech Cocktail
Top 15 US Startup Accelerators Ranked (2012) – Tech Cocktail
Top 8 European Startup Accelerators and Incubators Ranked (2011) – Tech Cocktail
U.S. and Canada Seed Stage Tech Accelerators – google map
Seed Accelerator Map – google map
Where can I find a comprehensive list of startup incubators and accelerators in the US? – Quora
What is a complete list of Y Combinator-like accelerator/incubators? – Quora
What are the top seed accelerators in Canada? – Quora
What are the top startup incubators in Canada? – Quora
Resource: Every Incubator and Accelerator in NYC – Charles Bonello
Big List of Incubators, Accelerators and Labs – Webbmedia Group
Venture Incubators and Accelerators – Startup Owl
Complete List of Incubators and Accelerators – Launch
Accelerator vs. Incubator: What’s the Difference? – Inc.
f6s – programs & events for startups
List of Y Combinator startups – google spreadsheet
Incubators and Accelerators. Do They Work? - your capital edge
Accelerators and Incubators – MaRS Commons
Incubators, Accelerators, and Cyclotrons - StartupNorth
List of Incubators & Accelerators in Canada - Canadian Association of Business Incubation
Looking back – 1.5 years since “Copying Y Combinator” – jed christiansen
There are Now More Than 100 Accelerators and Incubators in Canada – Techvibes
Some Canadian Business Incubators – Industry Canada
Tech Resources in Canada – Accelerators and Incubators – Backbone
Incubators – Startup Weekend
The Startup Factories – NESTA discussion paper
Quora: What are some startup accelerators that focus on specific industry verticals? – Quora

I just got done reading Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities that Can Save the Planet, the new book by futurist Alex Steffen. He says that climate change is here, and we have a choice to radically rethink the way we live in the built environment, or face catastrophic impacts. He proposes that we need to bring our global climate emissions to zero, asap, and the key to doing so is to reinvent our cities.

He discusses our challenges and opportunities through the lenses of clean energy, urbanism, shelter, consumption, and sustenance. While he did cover many ideas about green infrastructure, district systems, networked technologies, and restoration, I enjoyed looking at the models for future cities through the lens of cultural innovation and lifestyle design.  Below are some of the principles and concepts I found particularly inspiring, supplemented by some additional links for further exploring.

The Kindle edition of Steffen’s book can be purchased here.

further exploring:
book: Jan Gehl – Cities for People
organization: Project for Public Spaces
research: The Young and Restless in a Knowledge Economy (2011)

further exploring:
article: Five Ways to Redesign a City

further exploring:
standard: Passivhaus
organization: Architecture 2030

further exploring:
article: Low-Rise, High-Density Housing: A Contemporary View of Marcus Garvey Park Village

further exploring:
resource: Shareable
resource: Collaborative Consumption

for more on imagining cities that can save the planet, check out Carbon Zero

I had tea with a lovely new friend a few weeks ago. We talked about what it takes to live a full life, what holds us back, and how to get out of our own way so we can become the person we want to be.

He told me he realized years ago that he was his own worst enemy, his own worst critic, and his own biggest obstacle to achieving his dreams. He told me a story about how he has intentionally assembled a ‘delta force’ around himself….. colleagues, mentors, lovers and friends with whom he has explicitly developed support relationships to help him be the best version of himself. He called them his personal Board of Directors.

On predefined and agreed upon timetables, he touches base with these people and reflects upon how he’s doing across various domains of his life – how he’s engaging in his own self-care and self-renewal, how he’s doing as a husband, how he’s doing as a father and family member, how he’s contributing and giving back to the world at large, and the current projects he’s working on to cultivate these areas.

I found this idea of a peer mentorship team to be super exciting. (and it makes me wonder how many high-functioning people already have something like this in place.) Though I have caring relationships like these, I never thought to treat them as a chosen assembly of people that would become an infrastructure for my health and well-being. I’ve been evaluating my own weaknesses the last few weeks with honesty and vulnerability, and deciding who I will ask to help support me on life’s path.

Below (and in image above) is a poem/call to action he dictated during our chat, which I jotted down for future inspiration. Enjoy!

—

I am my own worst enemy.
I cannot protect myself from myself.
Unless I seek help, I will self-destruct.
I am a beautiful person,
I have the right to be happy,
And I must not take that right away from myself.
I need to give myself permission
To live a full life -
To soar,
To love unrestrictedly,
And to achieve as much as I dare.
I will find a support team whose mission is
To protect me from me.
Together, we’ll be able to unleash my soul.

I posed this question about a week ago on twitter and facebook, and you shared back some amazing gems!

The resounding response was “yes,” we can create conditions so that innovation is much more likely to occur. Themes included creating cultures of play and emotional safety, challenging assumptions, giving permission to try new things (and fail), and using storytelling to spark new thinking and locate yourself in an emergent narrative.

Below are the thoughts and references you shared – thanks to all contributors!
—-

I have had tons of conversation with my chosen brother Steve, who invented a ton of breakthrough technology during his time at Bell Labs. He would say: create real play spaces and then after a jam filter down to what might be possible, encourage serendipity – mix unlikely people together, look at peripheral fields, create places for people to “randomly” bump into each other and start jamming on an idea, a biomimicry is helpful – how does nature solve it, ask really interesting questions and do so from a variety of vantage points, cultivate a culture of curiosity. To that I would add – create a sense of spaciousness. Breakthrough innovation doesn’t happen on a clock or within a budget. And when it does, adoption of the breakthrough can take a decade, if it is truly disruptive.
- via Jean Russell, @NurtureGirl

—–

21st Century Wealth-Generating Ecologies and an Infrastructure for Open Everything

1. Design for interoperability first, then design for what works best for you. <- this is not a guarantee, but the approach seemed to increase innovative outcomes for our group, so this can only work when people resonate with a collective world view

2. Share the model and the render: Paul gave an example from digital animation, where usually the rendered output is shared. However, sharing the model that is used to create the rendered output (like SVG code and SVG render) gives people foundations to build on your work, and understand how you did it.

Beyond that, creating whitespace, and making the time and expending the energy to explore as part of the design process, and grounding that in solid theoretical foundations, will increase the chances of innovation emerging from your design approaches. In musical circles, it is called “jamming”.

Plus, looking for complementarity, and emerging new niches from your efforts to satisfy previous niches.

- via Sam Rose, @SamRose

—-

Kedge developed an innovation program/model that launched this past year that teaches participants to operate and design within the new context/rules of the “postnormal” landscape. Central themes include leveraging complexity (instead of attempting to kill it), transdisciplinary meshing of previously siloed disciplines and ideas, bringing big data full circle into qualitative pattern and sense-making, transformative invention replacing iterative innovation, discovering long-curve opportunities through natural growth models, and breaking biases and assumptions that hinder new-environment innovation. Under ideal conditions, the model is also used with a diverse audience. This is modeled on the “pull” of the future.
- via Frank W. Spencer IV, @frankspencer

—-

I’ve been working with Lance Weiler on achieving breakthroughs through emergent narrative (we’ve used it successfully for both business constructs and purely cause-related or civic stuff). The design is frameworked for “failure”, “unraveling” and adaptation. There are few iterations of that framework based on the business, social or cultural context, but essentially you set a goal, split the group up and assign story development pieces, give folks a space to spitball, act out and emote/express, you coordinate actions that end up defining roles (archetypes) and you weave a narrative together that results in some sort of output and/or identifiable problem-solving process. Sometimes it’s just a new way to think about things. We just did a version as a lab for filmmakers in Australia, but have applied this successfully to product design, org improvement, branding, and policy formation, etc. in different parts if the world — transcends most language and cultural barriers. Check out Reboot Stories, DIY Days and WSWP as examples. You can also check out Lance’s course “Building Storyworlds in 21c” which is a Columbia U-based open curriculum which uses a lot of these open design/breakthrough innovation principles.
- via Gunther Sonnenfeld, @goonth

—-

It’s been my experience that you can create/design conditions (via innovation principles, “whole-brain” practices, environment, new cultural norms, and other stuff) that dramatically increase the chances for breakthroughs to emerge. Agree with James it can’t be forced…designing the “fertile soil” makes its emergence more likely.

That includes vastly different ways of thinking, being, embodying, perceiving, and expressing (new foundations) than we currently see in most work environments – which are designed on foundations for control and maintenance.

I believe designing for breakthroughs includes the willingness for the unpredictable messiness of emergence…and that can be scary for a lot of people. While there is no way to design for comfort in emergence, you can design for emotional safety…that helps open the field and tap into the potentiality-in-waiting.

Also, while one might design for breakthrough, the breakthrough may occur seemingly randomly several iterations later…and may not immediately seem connected to the initial design. It’s more like we can co-design in partnership with the natural creative process to allow for more chance of breakthroughs..but we can’t control it. I believe if the designer is not surprised by what emerges, and has no space for the unknown embedded into the design, he or she is probably not designing for breakthroughs.

(With all that said, I know “breakthrough innovation” means different thing to different people)
via Michelle James, @CreatvEmergence

—-

Nurturing a Vibrant Culture to Drive Innovation

- via Bill Veltrop

—-

I believe you can design for assumption challenging and for permission to try new things. If you don’t start by designing for those, no other investment will be worthwhile.
- via Daniel Rasmus, @DanielWRasmus

—-

Innovation is often defined as a new idea with a valuable outcome. The problem is that you cannot solve one equation with two unknowns. That is why it may seem unpredictable and we’re left with a shrug of the shoulders and “Ya know it when ya see it” resolve. On the other hand, the proverbial Ah-Ha moment is really just a very rapid (instantaneous, perhaps) change in your knowledge of something. Grand innovations are simply a series of ah ha moments. If you set out to create new ideas with valuable outcomes, you’ll fail. But if you set out to manufacture ah-ha moments, there could a be an Ah Ha moment awaiting you, and so on.
- via Dan Robles, @ingenesist

—-

For me, it’s a matter of getting close enough to the humans around me to find the design that was already there, waiting to be discovered by us together. A dance of revealing design, not designing per se. I’ve been saying it for 8 years and it still sounds woo woo to my ears. But hey, it works.
- via Lori Kane, @CollectiveSelf

—-

Create the open testbed/biotope/pull platform for society that will “raise flags” whenever problems/opportunities are found and you’ll have it I believe:

John Hagel: Recognizing the Power of Pull

- via Christer Hellberg

—-

values + design + implementation + story = meaningful contribution (comprehensibility/accessibility/availability/attractivity affect how wide/deep the impact can be)
- via Jarno M. Koponen, @ilparone

—-

..if creating a design for breakthrough innovation it would be a push strategy… a few people come up with an idea which is then expected to lead to the result… alternatively there would be the pull strategy… where a facilitation framework is established that allows innovation to emerge… this approach doesn’t interfere… instead it supports the creative process… and this can come only from within each individual… ideally the framework is a combination of a technical solution and story-telling… the reason why story-telling is so important is that each one of us can find her/his unique role in the whole… just like in a theater play… it is not a story that is already written… but a story that we are to write together into the future…
Like Giorgio Bertini said: ‘Map-patterns-based action learning, learning from and acting upon, action learning all along an spiral of social learning change, facilitated by maps-patterns, etc.’ …
so maps could be the framework for individual stories to emerge into collective sense making to then bring forth breakthrough innovation!
- via Joachim Lohkamp, @JockelLohkamp

—-

Innovation for innovation’s sake is only of interest if its discovery leads to the uncovering of previously taken for granted assumptions about the way things have to be, and what we need to tolerate. For innovation to be valuable it has to make things better. In other words it has to address a real problem, or tackle a real missed opportunity. It is in systematically uncovering these problems and missed opportunities that breakthroughs can be found day after day. When you deeply understand a problem you are more than 50% of the way to coming up with an adequate solution. The solution itself may not be the breakthrough – but the results will be.
- via Paul Codd MacDonald

—-

I think a lot of the conversation here has gone to the level of the cultural and organizational underpinnings of breakthrough innovation, e.g. Gore, Bell Labs etc. That is very important and definitely required to enable repeated success. Tools and frameworks can also play a role if they enable people to structure their thinking about where and how to innovate more clearly. Innovation consultancy Doblin, part of the company where I work (Monitor), has a framework called the Ten Types of Innovation that seeks to do just that and may be of interest: http://www.doblin.com/thinking/
I recently had the opportunity to introduce the tool to a group of city government innovators and have them use it to work on the different sketch ideas they had developed for making new and existing city services more efficient, effective and responsive to citizens needs. I was impressed by the value it provided people who were not used to thinking creatively about their roles and in many cases had little experience working together to push their innovation thinking from the basics of an idea to somewhere more ambitious and potentially of breakthrough potential. There’s plenty of materials at the link for people to play with it themselves
- via Michael Costigan

—-

If there is [a way to design for breakthrough innovation], it’s built on open standards, extensible APIs and gracefully degrading layers.

I don’t really think we *do* innovation. It’s something that happens when conditions are right. We can make it more likely. We can consciously chase it. But for most folks innovating isn’t a defined enough process that they can sit down and decide to innovate (at least not usefully).

Innovating is kind of like falling in love. You can’t chase it too hard. The best you can do is set the scene and work at the edges, but the actual happening is really hard to force.

- via James Vasile, @jamesvasile

—-

I have a hunch it has to do with tagging stuff for exaptive remixes, related ideas adapted from a post a while back:

1) Garden for “idea seedlings”

This might be a visually engaging place to check on what initiatives are sprouting in an online or actual community.

Visual option – show a plant for each project in the garden. Its size, shape, number of buds/seed pods, etc. can convey useful info (eg kinds of desired cross pollination opportunities)

Alternative – “dreamcatcher” visual metaphor. A radargraph in each dreamcatcher could show the extent to which a project team deems its project to need inputs to become “alive and whole”

2) An Exaptive Evolution game

This game could show nourishing resources (tagged how-to scripts, specialists, precedents, etc) that are available for initiatives growing in the Idea seedlings garden.

The more any chunk is accepted by/integrated into specific initiatives in the ecosystem, the higher the “score” and rewards for those who created the resource, and those who proposed its use.
- via Mark Frazier, @openworld

——-

More on exaptation from a book that keeps popping up on my radar –http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/getting-psyched-for-exaptation.html Also check out Steven Johnson’s other patterns listed on that post. And of course the notion of Labs and Incubation provide a fairly popular means of innovation. The best we can do online, for now, would be to nurture an incubation space with shared processes and tools, sorta like this idea tagging that Mark Frazier suggests. Innovation would begin with derivation and discussing the ideas of others, to helps us get in touch with our own.
- via Dan RD, @ddrrnt

—–

Re innovation: Seeing things others do not see, having a vision, tenacity, a supportive environment, others willing to try the new thing, and some time/money resources are all part of it.
- via Bernd Nurnberger, @CoCreatr

—–

The Lotus: a practical guide for authentic leadership toward sustainability (free PDF download)

- via Kirstin Ohm

—–

From Twitter:

@CDEgger:
Design 4 conditions likely to lead there, yes
See slides 19-28, transferable to any decentralized, multiple-pts-of-engagement system

@gregorylent:
if design = allow, then yes
innovation is sitting in the subtle plane, already existing. allowing implies receptivity as opposed to resistance.
so, creating receptivity = designing for breakthrough innovation … same with teaching or creating anything.

@davidsherr:
You can encourage and set a context, but you cannot design for breakthrough innovation. If you could, play the lottery.

@leashless:
poverty, terror, diverse interdisciplinary groups, alcohol, and six months of getting to know the people you’re working with

@ironick:
Absolutely! design for 1000s of diverse kinds of innovation again & again & again. One will eventually be a breakthrough.

image: gapingvoid.com

What are the changing patterns of work? What are the shifts in perspective and attitude? What do the organization and worker of the future look like?

I’ve been mulling on these questions recently, and wanted to invite a dialogue about it. Below is a synthesis of ideas from a number of reports and articles (references at bottom of post) to get a sense of where we’re at in this narrative and where we might be headed.

From Job Security to Employability

The 20th century pattern of employment featured a steady, permanent job with predictably rising pay. In order to achieve maximum efficiency in that predominantly industrial paradigm, fully anticipated behavior was desirable — Meaning, people were viewed as cogs in a system: not necessarily paid to think, but paid to follow rules. They were designed to be interchangeable, and paid more for clock time than specific outcomes.

That model includes characteristics like:

• full-time exclusive employment relationship
• paid for amount of time spent at work
• common location
• stable hierarchies
• evaluation primarily through the judgment of superiors
• what and how the job is done is prescribed

A sense of security and safety came from the organization, knowing that hard work, loyalty and dedication were a good formula to get you into a lifetime job with regular pay raises, promotions and a good pension at retirement.

In the 21st century pattern, it’s accepted that we’ll have many careers over our lifetime, that movement may be lateral or transitional instead of just linear, and that “job security” will have to come through the individual. We’ll have to take more responsibility for our careers and the direction of our lives through self-awareness and assessment of our strengths and weaknesses, continuous learning, self-improvement, and the ability to be flexible and adaptive to change.

Some characteristics include:

• part-time, flextime, crowdsourced, project-based swarm teams, free agents
• paid to harvest new ideas and tap into community knowledge
• working from home & participating in virtual enterprises
• flattening hierarchies
• peer evaluation, external evaluation, new metrics like reputation, degree of connectedness, and influence in a network
• employees participate in informal communities of practice, work and learning

From Work/Life “Balance” to Work/Life Integration

Work, life, and play used to be more clearly demarcated, and we’d try to “balance” these various identities. Now the edges are blurring and overlapping. We’re trying to close the gap so that “who we are” and “what we do” aren’t different things. We’re rediscovering the need to feel that what we do matters, provides meaning and purpose, and makes us feel that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Instead of balance, we’re looking for an integration where work can become a reflection of a certain way of life, and also a vehicle for satisfying our personal and social motivations.

The Courtship Between Worker & Organization

The interplay between 21st century workers and organizations is a matchmaking dance, where both parties seek to find an alignment of vision and values.

Firms want a talented workforce whose members passionately buy into the vision. Workers want to be inspired to contribute their best to an organization with clarity of mission and purpose.

Firms want to empower and create value for the employee, so the employee will be motivated to interact with customers. Workers want to feel a sense of ownership and control in how they structure their work, and an environment where knowledge and decision-making is decentralized.

Firms want leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset that can leverage new business models. Workers of tomorrow want to be able to cultivate certain dispositions and skill sets are not necessarily prized in conventional work environments, and the support of a management team that can play the role of coach and facilitator.

Both sides of this equation seem to value personal accountability, growth, learning, and continuous improvement. Both seem to be looking for a people-centric approach.

So How Do We Create this Holistic Human Workforce?

I wonder what the dialogue might sound like to kick off this future-shaping.

The organization might say:

“Ok, look. Things are moving fast these days and constantly changing, and our challenges are complex. We need totally rethink our approach to business and transform the marketplace. We need to figure out how to add value for customers that’s totally differentiable, compelling and urgent. We need to question the very nature of the organization and how it’s managed. And we need a stellar team of people who can make this happen — people with courage and imagination.

Please drop your sense of entitlement — we can’t guarantee you lifelong employment. In fact, we don’t even know if we’ll be here tomorrow. We’re moving forward into a shape and location that we’ve never been, so we need people with vision who can take responsibility for the future. The territory we’re entering doesn’t have regimented work processes and things will not be clear-cut, so hopefully you’re comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Accept total responsibility for your outcomes. That includes managing your own learning, skills development and career management. Be creative, be resourceful, take initiative, throw obsolete beliefs out the door, and be completely receptive to new ideas. Let’s go.”

The worker response might be something like:

“Alright. I’m willing to adopt a self-employed attitude, and assume I’m working with (not for) you. I’ll embrace the fact that we’re living in a networked world, that digital technologies allow for rapid information sharing and communication, and that innovation happens when many of us can interact efficiently across these mediums. I’ll work on my emotional intelligence and ability to communicate and manage conflict. I’ll invest in myself and make a commitment to continuous learning, and seek new knowledge by participating in a community of practice. I’ll face my fears and start the process of changing myself, and value enhancement as well as advancement.  I’ll bring my full Self to the table, and I’ll keep upgrading – my attitude, my craftsmanship, my performance. Support me in that.”

So if we pretend that these are the types of forward-focused mindsets that are defining the future of work, what might the next round of questions be?

I wonder:

What if we treated business itself as a platform to support personal and social learning?

How can we create nurturing, immersive environments for workers to satisfy their dispositions and talents?

What dispositions do we want to cultivate?

How can we develop a structure for lifelong learning, mentorship and development?

How can we create motivational feedback loops to improve personal performance and modify behavior?

How can we create working environments that increase human freedom and agency to make decisions and be self-directed?

What else should we be asking as we move forward?

—

references and further exploring:

The Future of Work by David Bollier (PDF)
The Future of Work by Thomas Malone
The Future of Workplaces by GigaOm
The Workplace of the Future: alabamaconnection.org
10 Forces Shaping the Workplace of the Future
The 10 Keys to Building the Flexible Workplace of the Future
12 Rules for Self Management

books of interest:

We Are All Self-Employed by Cliff Hakim
Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
First Things First by Stephen Covey
How to Find the Work You Love by Lawrence Boldt
Zen & The Art of Making a Living by Lawrence Boldt
Do What You Love The Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar
What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles
Making Vocational Choices by John Holland
Applied Concepts of Life Planning by Vernon Zunker
On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
Megatrends by John Naisbitt
Future Tense by Ian Morrison & Greg Schmid
New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World by Price Pritchett

Last year I was contacted by the Journal of Futures Studies with an invitation to contribute an essay in their special issue on the Communication of Foresight, a complication focused on the new communication and media strategies people are using to engage people in thinking and acting about the future.

At that time, we were in the midst of producing the Future of Facebook video series, a pilot project for the Open Foresight methodology being developed in collaboration with professional futurist John Smart and forward-focused colleague Alvis Brigis.

The three of us worked on the following article, which describes our process and project, and just appeared in the new Journal of Futures Studies!

Super exciting to see the work published, and I hope it means more projects like it will be created so we can continue to elevate visionary thinking and the quality of public discourse.

–

Open Foresight

There’s a new global narrative emerging in the way we fundamentally understand ourselves as humanity – how we do business, how we learn, how we generate value together, how we interact. This transformation is being driven both by new communication technologies and by the emergent behaviors these tools enable. The context for our relationships is shifting and we still don’t know exactly what that means for us as a species.

We’re asking ourselves questions like:

• What happens when social networks connect us on a global scale?
• How do new social and virtual currencies challenge our ideas about what money is and how value can be created and exchanged?
• How can we form globally distributed enterprises and collaborative teams?
• What do these emerging business models look like?
• How do we build knowledge together and become more effective learners?
• How are our notions of democracy and governance evolving?
• What role do social technologies play in the evolution of human consciousness?

These are all challenging questions, and we don’t know yet have the solutions.

That may sound terrifying and disruptive, or like an incredible opportunity to shape and bring about the future we deserve. Or, most likely, a bit of both.

to read the article in full, click here 

What are some useful playdecks for sparking creativity and innovation?

That was this week’s question that went out on twitter, and below are some of your responses.

The number of decks out there is large, so I decided to curate this list based on whether there’s a full free version available online, or at the least a nice sample deck to get you started. So below are 21 tools, ranging from general design process principles to cards on game dynamics, facilitation methods, and long-range futures thinking. Under the descriptions, which are excerpted from the playdeck websites, are links to their free downloads. Below that are another 39 decks, toolkits and further resource lists for creative and innovative thinking.

Thanks to all who helped compile this.. Did we miss any?

Enjoy!

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(in no particular order)

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Principles & Processes

1. Oblique Strategies: Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas
keywords: working principles, thinking habits

“These cards evolved from our separate observations on the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation.”

(edition 4 list)

.
2. UXBASIS
keywords: design methods, design process, product design

“It is a process and a set of tools, to help your organisation engage with your users through the online products you develop. Based on well founded principles, it allows you to answer your user and business needs.”

(interactive deck)

.

 
3. SILK Method Deck
keywords: methods, principles, process

“The SILK method deck is a handy collection of methods, principles and prompt cards, which can be used by project teams, designers, project managers, social science researchers, community and economic development experts alike. The method deck includes five categories of methods. Each category includes methods that are likely to be useful as guides, prompts or references at different stages of a project.”

(free download)

Experience & Game Design

4. Strategy Card Deck for Changing User Behavior
keywords: strategy, behavioral economics, decision making, brainstorming, ideation

“This deck of cards provide 21 strategies to change user behavior. This tool will help you or your team brainstorm and design solutions during idea generation. This card deck works best as a synthesis tool if you have at least a basic understanding of user needs and motivations.”

(free download)

.
5. Design with Intent: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behavior Through Design
keywords: decision making, behavior, interaction design, persuasive technology

“Requisite Variety’s Design with Intent toolkit is a collection of design patterns, or ‘gambits’, for influencing user behaviour through design. It’s applicable across product, service, interaction and architectural design, aimed at socially and environmentally beneficial behaviour change.”

(free download)

.
6. nForm Trading Cards
keywords: user experience, design methods, design process

“Originally created for the IA Summit in 2007, this deck of cards show methods, deliverables, and ideas that practitioners can use to design great user experiences.”

(interactive deck)

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7. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
keywords: principles, psychology, game design

“This convenient deck contains 100 unique “lens cards” each featuring key questions that will make your game great, and a magnificent color illustration to help you remember each principle. The lenses span every aspect of game design – story, game mechanics, technology, aesthetics, psychology, creativity, teamwork, playtesting, and even business issues.”

(sample lenses)

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8. SCVNGR Game Dynamics Playdeck
keywords: game design, game mechanics

“SCVNGR, which makes a mobile game with real-world challenges, has a playdeck. It is a deck of cards listing nearly 50 different game mechanics that can be mixed and matched to create the foundation for different types of games.”

(full list)

.

9. Values at Play: Grow-a-Game Cards
keywords: game design, human values

“The Values at Play (VAP) methodology for incorporating values in the context of system design is characterized by three analytically distinct activities: Discovery, Translation, and Verification. These are pursued in tandem, the results of each iteratively affecting successive versions of the system.“

(free download)

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10. Design for Dynamic User Experiences
keywords: methods, process, user experience

“Our physical, sensory and cognitive abilities are not static – they change continuously depending on the contexts and situations that we are immersed in. Within HaptiMap a workbook has been developed with the key objective to make it easier for designers and developers to embed dynamic user experience, and thus accessibility, considerations and practices into the everyday design and development work.”

(free download)

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Communication & Learning

11. BBC Learning Design Toolkit Cards
keywords: learning, confidence, creativity

“The purpose of this toolkit is to help you design experiences that are learner-centred. Each set of cards aims to help you answer one simple question, for example “What are the principles that define your learner experience?” or helps you understand a central theme, for instance Behaviours explores “How people learn in a web 2.0 world.”

(free download)

.

12. Surviving Design Projects: Managing Conflict in Creative Environments
keywords: communication, facilitation, interaction, collaboration

“Collaborating with smart people on challenging problems is, inevitably, fraught with conflict. Conflict can be good for creative work, moving a project forward as designers wrestle with the challenge. But not all conflict is healthy, and frankly most designers aren’t, shall we say, diplomats. Surviving Design Projects is, among other things, a little game to help designers hone their people skills.”

(patterns, situations & traits)

13. Liberating Voices: Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
keywords: communication, social change, public dialogue, empowered citizens

“The Liberating Voices pattern language is intended to help us develop the social imagination we need to better face the future as engaged and empowered citizens.”

(table of contents, all patterns)

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14. Service Design Tools: Communication Methods Supporting Design Processes
keywords: communication, process, methods

“An open collection of communication tools used in design processes that deal with complex systems. The tools are displayed according to the design activity they are used for, the kind of representation they produce, the recipients they are addressed to and the contents of the project they can convey.”

(tools list)

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15. Group Works: A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and other Gatherings
keywords: communication, facilitation, meetings

“The Group Works card deck is designed to support your process as a group convenor, planner, facilitator, or participant. The people who developed this deck spent several years pooling our knowledge of the best group events we had ever witnessed. We looked at meetings, conferences, retreats, town halls, and other sessions that give organizations life, solve a longstanding dilemma, get stuck relationships flowing, result in clear decisions with wide support, and make a lasting difference.”

(free download)

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Visioning & Foresight

16. Mobility Vision Integration Process
keywords: future scenario development, trends, visioning, foresight

“Mobility VIP investigates ways that expert designers can support and accelerate the dialogue about the future of sustainable mobility. The outcome of mVIP is to enable teams of creative people, charged with designing viable, future mobility solutions to deal with wide-ranging, unpredictable and disparate issues that we usually have no control over and to spot otherwise unforeseen opportunities.”

(flash application)

17. Envisioning Cards
keywords: futures thinking, interactive systems, human values, foresight

“We feel it is important to envision the long-term influence of new technology as it spans across time, becomes pervasive throughout society, affects the lives of different stakeholders, and raises issues that touch human values. Based on nearly two decades of work in Value Sensitive Design, the Envisioning Cards are designed to evoke consideration and discussion of such concerns within the context of design practice.”

(sample cards)

18. Drivers of Change
keywords: foresight, emerging trends

“Since our first set of  Drivers of Change cards, we have been producing an ongoing series of publications that deal with key issues affecting the future of the built environment. The intention is for these cards to act as a trigger for discussion, further research and reflection about our future. Each set of cards is arranged and presented within societal, technological, economic, environmental and political domains that together are known as a the STEEP framework.”

(sample cards)

.

Ideation and Brainstorming

19. Mental Notes
keywords: psychology, motivation, game mechanics, behavioral economics

“Mental Notes brings together 50 insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to the design of Web sites, Web apps, and software applications.”

(sample cards)

.

20. ThinkCube
keywords: brainstorming, ideation, SCAMPER

“ThinkCube, a new idea generation tool from Kes Sampanthar, takes the idea of a brainstorming card deck to the next level. Not only does it provide you with a diverse selection of thought-provoking stimuli, it also incorporates a simple innovation process that should result in a higher quality of ideas.”

(about ThinkCube: Handbook & card samples)

21. ThinkPak
keywords: ideation, brainstorming, SCAMPER, creative thinking

“This pack of brainstorming cards was developed to assist people in stimulating their creativity and foster new and different ideas.  It is a tool for coming up with creative ideas for developing new (or changing existing) products, services, names, businesses, processes, marketing materials, etc.”

(google books preview)

—–

people who helped compile this resource:

Bernd Nurnberger - @CoCreatr
Christopher S. Rice – @ricetopher
Seb Paquet – @sebpaquet
Stephen Anderson – @stephenanderson
Jack Bennett – @32000days
Estelle Metayer - @Competia
Gavin Marshall – @nuwrldnf8r
Fabian M. – @Fabian_Metzeler

—-

further exploring:

Quora: What are some interesting playdecks to get creative design inspiration?
IDEO Method Cards
Using Cards in User Experience
Ultimate Game Dynamics List
The Elements of Gaming
Jesper: The creative brief meets story crafting
Creative Whack Pack
25 Recommendations for usability in product development practice
Inclusive Design Toolkit
A Visual Study Guide to Cognitive Biases
BIAS!
Collaborative Consumption Sceario Card Deck by Garry Golden
Foresight Workbook by Garry Golden
Infinite Futures Toolbox
UX Ideas in the Cards
Facilitator Tool Kit
Collection of Creativity & Brainstorming Cards
Creativity Tool Reviews
Strategy Tools
Creativity and Innovation Techniques – an A to Z
Learn Logic – Toolkits
Modelling and Decision Support Tools
Facilitation Card Decks
Learner-Centred Toolkit
UX Ideas in the Cards
Foresight Cards – STEEP Edition
Free the Genie Cards
The Mingle Cards
Greatness Now Facilitation Cards
Change Designs Cards
XPLANE Discovery Cards
15 properties of pattern language
Gamestorming Card Deck iPhone app
inSights: a tool for persuasive design
NLP Coaching Cards
NLP Meta Model
Seeds of Change by Glistening Deepwater
GameGame
KM Method Cards: Guide to Contents

Embarking upon the master’s path is a decision to go on a journey.

It can’t be embraced with society’s quick-fix mentality, expecting instant gratification and immediate results, but rather through a commitment to a lifelong process of learning, development and change.

In Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, George Leonard identifies three patterns of behavior that tend to knock us off the path, represented in the personas of the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker.

Can you identify with any of these characters?

The Dabbler

The Dabbler loves the newness of things. Whether a new sport, career opportunity, or relationship, he approaches it with enthusiasm. The first signs of progress bring him great joy, only to be followed by confused disillusionment when the inevitable plateau that follows that first peak is reached. He then rationalizes why that pursuit was not the proper fit, and moves on to find the next new thing.

“The Dabbler might think of himself as an adventurer, a connoisseur of novelty, but he’s probably closer to being what Carl Jung calls the puer aeternus, the eternal kid.”

The Obsessive

The Obsessive thrives on the upward surge. When the plateau comes, instead of recognizing it as a necessary period for development, he refuses to accept it, and redoubles his efforts. The bottom line is all that matters, regardless of what’s sacrificed along the way.

“Somehow, in whatever he is doing, the Obsessive manages for a while to keep making brief spurts of upward progress, followed by sharp declines – a jagged ride toward a sure fall. When the fall occurs, the Obsessive is likely to get hurt. And so are friends, colleagues, stockholders, and lovers.”

The Hacker (not this definition)

The Hacker chooses comfort over uncertainty, and is willing to settle for remaining in static and unchanging roles. At work, the minimum amount is done to just get by. In marriage, the arrangement is viewed as a static economic and domestic institution, instead of an opportunity for learning and development.

“After sort of getting the hang of a thing, he or she is willing to stay on the plateau indefinitely. He doesn’t mind skipping stages essential to the development of mastery if he can just go out and hack around with fellow hackers.”

I felt a little embarrassed as I read this chapter, as I can relate to all three personas!

Where do these patterns of behavior play out in your life?

1 . A Multiverse of Exploration: The Future of Science 2021

A map by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) focused on six big stories of science that will play out over the next decade: Decrypting the Brain, Hacking Space, Massively Multiplayer Data, Sea the Future, Strange Matter, and Engineered Evolution.

full size image here

2. Map of the Future

Collaborative project between Jane McGonigal of IFTF and DensityDesign, based off of ideas and insights harvested from Superstruct, a six week massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG).

larger image here

3. Design & the Elastic Mind

Design and the Elastic Mind was an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) back in 2008. “It focuses on designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.”

interaction exhibition here

4. Envisioning the future of health technology

Visualization by Michell Zappa of technological trend forecasting firm Envisioning Technology.

full size image here

5. Informal Learning

Poster by information design consultancy XPlane, based on Jay Cross’s book about the future workplace, Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance

full size image here

6. Sustainability Outlook 2020

A joint project between Business for Social Responsibility and IFTF, providing a visual framework for thinking about trends and how to integrate sustainability into business strategies.

7. Envisioning the future of education technology

Visualization by Michell Zappa of technological trend forecasting firm Envisioning Technology.

full size image here

8. Trends & Technology Timeline 2010+

A trends map from 2010 – 2050, compiled by Richard Watson of What’s Next.

full size image here

9. 2020 Forecast: The Future of Science, Technology, and Well-being - (IFTF)

Forecast by IFTF exploring how science and technology will transform human well-being.

full size image here

10. Envisioning emerging technology for 2012 and beyond

Visualization by Michell Zappa of technological trend forecasting firm Envisioning Technology.

full size image here

11. Technologies of Cooperation

Forecast by IFTF exploring opportunities digital technologies present for developing cooperative strategies for solving problems and generating wealth.

full size image here

12. Trend Blend 2009+

By Future Exploration Network’s Richard Watson.

13. Map of the Decade 2008 – 2018

10-Year Forecast by IFTF.

——

others to check out:

The World of 2020 - Ten-Year Forecast Map of the Decade

The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion - Ten-Year Forecast Map

not futures maps, but pretty visualizations by Information Architects:

Web Trend Maps

other sources for data vizualisation:

Information is Beautiful
Information is Beautiful: The Information Atlas
Data Flow
Data Flow 2
Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information

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List compiled with the help of:

Scott Smith - @changeist
Christer Hellberg
Daniel Mezick - @DanMezick
Jan Schlag
Peter Vander Auwera - @petervan
Frank Spencer - @frankspencer
Ross Dawson - @rossdawson