The Wicked Opportunities Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Futures School
The world is filled with Wicked Problems - incredibly complicated predicaments that don’t have simple solutions. However, the real problem isn’t our complex world, but rather our outdated mindsets. The way that we see the future directly impacts the actions that we take today, so a better world requires better visions. Join futurists Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer each week as they use the Natural Foresight® Framework to reframe our Wicked Problems into the transformational ideas that they call Wicked Opportunities.
The traditional approach to a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment has often involved attempts to eliminate uncertainty, simplify complexity, and overcome volatility and ambiguity. This relies on mindsets and systems built on ideas like strategic hindsight, efficiency, simplicity, certainty, and control. Recent events have highlighted that these existing systems are ineffective. Attempts to solve complex challenges with simple or temporary solutions often fail because they don’t address underlying structures, values, and narratives.
The universe is, in its very nature, VUCA. Instead of battling it, we should consider embracing it.
Embrace the Long Now.
The Long Now is not about compressing time but stretching it. It’s an idea of integrating the best of the past and the most vibrant aspirations for the future to inform decisions in the present. It means seeing the “now” not just as immediacy, but as a longer span, recognizing that our actions today have long-term effects and build upon the past. It is about a mindset that includes the past, present, and future together as one comprehensive timeframe.
Embracing the Long Now means leaning into the unknown, mystery, and emergence. It recognizes that complexity and uncertainty are not problems to be solved but inherent aspects of the universe. When embraced, this environment can lead to greater opportunities, generativity, resilience, and abundance. This shifts the focus from trying to control everything to being in a perpetual state of readiness for any future that unfolds.
In this formative interview, TFSX co-founder Frank Spencer speaks with world-renowned social systems scientist, futurist, cultural historian, attorney, consultant, speaker, and author Riane Eisler, diving deep into the (re)framing of a society built upon cooperation, partnership, and deep care. As she states during the conversation, the belief that humans are inherently competitive, egocentric, and violent is utterly false, drawing upon decades of research around the past, present, and future of human equity, empathy, peace, transformation, and models of economic and social partnership. As Riane notes in her book Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future, “…humans are capable of living in egalitarian social systems where neither dominates the other, where violence is minimized, and where prosocial cooperation and caring typify social life. This image is not a utopian fantasy but rather a set of potentials, if not inclinations, stemming from our evolutionary heritage.”
We’ve waited a long time to interview Riane, as her ground-breaking work is foundational to our passion to democratize the cooperative evolutionary trait of perceiving the emerging “whole” that fosters imaginal anticipation and the co-creation of transformational realities, This is a MUST LISTEN for anyone who cares about the future of humanity, planet, and our cosmic journey, and knows in their heart that there has to be a better way.
The urban legend of Generational Warfare has haunted us all for far too long, and it’s high time that we pull the mask off of this specter that has caused so much age-related fear and loathing.
During this month's WO Live!, we are exploring the idea of the People Cloud where we can connect with individuals around the globe based on shared passions and goals rather than the outdated construct of generational warfare. This is more than just a discussion, it's an opportunity to join a movement that's committed to creating a more connected, equitable, and empowering world.
The People Cloud offers a framework for addressing current challenges related to social division, the changing nature of work, the impact of technology, the need for new ways of thinking and learning, and global collaboration.
This livestream is an invitation to:
- Challenge the assumptions of generational warfare and other limiting narratives that hold us back.
- Reimagine systems and structures through a lens of abundance and possibility, focusing on a post-human and post-material way of seeing life.
- Connect with a community passionate about building a future where everyone thrives, using frameworks that support a shift from "individual rights to collective liberties".
- Learn how to apply the mindsets of sense, mesh, and transform to bring about a more abundant and collaborative future.
The People Cloud isn't just an idea; it's a call to action to rewrite our stories and move toward a more equitable, connected, and empowering future for all. Don't miss out on this chance to engage with fellow visionaries and contribute your own unique perspective to the future of the People Cloud.
In the world of foresight, we’re no strangers to complex challenges. But perhaps none feels as pervasive and daunting as the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This age-old narrative of scarcity and competition for limited resources shapes our decisions, our systems, and often, our very outlook on the future.
As activist and founder Adrianne Wright says, “the scarcity mindset is how we tell a fundamentally American tall tale about a nation built on notions of individualism; a male-dominated story filled with loners who suck it up and ride off into the sunset as others applaud our resilience. Shifting our stories from scarcity to abundance honors the fullness of our humanity.”
As foresight practitioners, we understand that the future is not a fixed destination, but a canvas for our collective imagination.
Join us for our next Wicked Opportunities Live! where futurists Frank Spencer and Yvette Montero Salvatico will guide us on a journey beyond scarcity, toward the liberating power of Imagination Literacy.
This livestream is an invitation to:
-Challenge the assumptions of scarcity that hold us back.
-Reimagine systems and structures through a lens of abundance and possibility.
-Connect with a community passionate about building a future where everyone thrives.
Welcome to 2025… it’s time for Wicked Opportunities® to take the stage!
As we begin our collective journey down the path of the new year, it’s imperative that we seek out new minds, new hearts, and new spirits – not only for ourselves, but for one another as well. However, this will mean that we will be defying gravity, soaring beyond the hold that a world in crisis has on our minds. With the collapse of one world at hand, we must embrace transformation of all that we know, and enter into alternative realities that change us all for the better.
Join Futurists Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer as they introduce an exciting new initiative that will have us all flying high – Wicked Opportunities: Reimagining Systems for Transformational Realities. Over the span of 7 months, How to Thrive in Uncertain Times: 7 Lessons to Empower Hope will be presented as a once-a-month interactive livestream + an accompanying course that will dive deep into the research around our 7 Shifts in the Age of Opportunity, reframing one wicked problem each month as a Wicked Opportunity… and empowering you to do the same!
“The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be live.” – Gil Scott-Heron
Real transformation doesn’t come from headlines or top-down decisions. It happens in the hearts, minds, and actions of people – of us.
Join Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank W. Spencer IV for a dynamic Wicked Opportunities® Live! session as we explore:
🔹 How love, empathy, and activism fuel real change
🔹 Why advocacy and empowerment are essential for the future
🔹 The undeniable power of community to ignite societal transformation
✨ The future isn’t something we watch – it’s something we build together.
Sophie Strand – one of our favorite thinkers, writers, and “life-weavers” – shared in her article entitled “Myco Eco Mytho” that, “Stories don’t belong to human beings. But human beings belong to stories. Let’s enter back into the complex, tangled work of letting go of authorship and letting ourselves be told.” This call to rewild our role across time, space, and experience – past, present, and future – sets the stage for this captivating interview where Sophie covers ideas such as the importance of ecological storytelling (creating households over heroes); fantasy as much-needed “feral futures” over the “fake realism” and of our human-centric and diagnostic stories; the responsibility we have around “creative self-fulfillment when imaging possible futures; and engaging humanity as “lovers” rather than information gatherers.
Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Give her a salamander and a stone and she’ll write you a love story. Sophie was raised by house cats, puff balls, possums, raccoons, and an opinionated, crippled goose. In every neighborhood she’s ever lived in she has been known as “the walker”. She believes strongly that all thinking happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including Spirituality & Health, Atmos, Braided Way, and Art PAPERS. She is the author of The Flowering Wand,The Madonna Secret, and the forthcoming memoir The Body Is a Doorway as well as the creator of the popular Substack “Make Me Good Soil.” You can follow her work on Instagram @cosmogyny.
In this episode of the Wicked Opportunities® Podcast, TFSX Principal Frank Spencer speaks with physician, aquanaut, dive medical technician, speaker, martial artist, skydiver, and VP of Immersive Medicine at Luxsonic Technologies, Dr. Shawna Pandya.
Dr. Shawna Pandya has a vision for shaping the future of medicine through transdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
Breaking free from conventional thinking, TFSX Principal Frank Spencer delves into futures through an "art-based" lens with ARTEFACTO Founders Andrea Busquets and Pablo Reyes Arellano. Explore their innovative approach, liberating us to envision new futures, "dream ourselves awake," and contribute to cultural evolution through civic participation.
TFSX Co-Founder Frank Spencer discusses her new book, Combining, in-depth with Nora Bateson. Listen as Nora discusses poems, passages, and concepts from her book that reinforce our need to elevate our sacred connection to the cosmic whole to discover/engage with understand/undergo ancestral and generational transformation.
We know… it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way. (At least that’s what Mac Davis said back in 1980, and when was he ever wrong?). Nevertheless, we all need to realize that we hold only a small part of the larger human, planetary, and cosmic story, and such a realization will attune us to the deeper picture within various situations, as well as helping us to take our personal viewpoints, perspectives, and self-importance out of that picture. When this happens, we are better positioned to see what really desires to emerge for the betterment of the whole rather than designing a future that only serves the few. Or, as Spock so eloquently put it, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” We’re not suggesting that only a Vulcan can practice humility, but we do hope our podcast becomes galactically popular.
When you think about the future, does the idea of connection come to mind? It did for Kermit the Frog! (Well, at least in relation to rainbows, lovers, and dreamers). In reality, connection is a critical mindset when it comes to practicing rigorous foresight. Exploring alternative possibilities through the lens of ecosystems, interconnectedness, and the “larger whole” - past, present, and yet-to-come - is the only way to perceive the deeply emerging realities necessary for robust futures-readiness and futures-empowerment. Join connectors-extraordinaire Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer as they dive into the IDG of Connectedness to surface pathways toward holistic well-being, global community, and positive outcomes. Or, as our favorite green muppet once said, “What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing, and what do we think we might see?” I guess you’ll have to listen to find out. (Thanks Kermie!)
You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop… the Relating dimension! (Thank you for letting us includea Twilight Zone reference - this is a foresight podcast, after all.) Our first stop in this new dimension within the Inner Development Goals: Appreciation, a skill, and trait that enables us to cultivate wonder, gratitude, and awe - important capabilities if we want to become deep imaginariums and generative wellsprings of alternative possibilities and transformational realities. Without the ability to appreciate the unfolding world around us and to recognize the joyous potentialities that reside in spaces that are yet to be, our futures thinking will fall prey to the systemic dominance of a seemingly inescapable “nowism” or a fatalistic vision of self-fulfilling apocalypticism. As the inspirationalist Wayne Dyer once said, “The Universe provides abundantly when you’re in a state of gratefulness.”
In this last episode within the Thinking dimension of the Inner Development Goals, TWOP hosts Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer get to talk about their favorite subject: Kevin Bacon! Correction… we meant to say “visioning.” (But who doesn’t also love a good 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon story?) Embodying the trait of visioning is about much more than supercharging our imaginations for greater possibilities, though that’s an important part; it’s about having the inner ability to sustain and act upon those visions so that we don’t lose heart on our journey to transformative outcomes. And that’s not all! Visioning also empowers us to expand our field of passion, purpose, and potential, both individually and collectively, enlarging our initial ideas to encompass spaces beyond our wildest dreams. So roll up for the magical mystery tour - we’re hoping to take you away. (Don’t worry, we’ll bring you back again, but we can’t promise you’ll be the same.)
You want a story? Ok, “Once upon a time, there were two crazy but incredibly smart podcast hosts who loved to talk about the future…” Oh, you want us to help you find the stories all around you? Well, why didn’t you say so? We love to empower people to look for the puzzle pieces, the interconnections, and the patterns that make up the stories that are actually shaping our realities. This is what is meant by sense-making - the critical skill of structuring the unknown, engaging with diverse lived experiences, and understanding our perception of the things we experience. Join Yvette and Frank as they explore the topic of climate change to demonstrate how we can deepen and broaden our stories about the world by becoming better sense-makers and how this IDG trait can unlock our inner futurists. Who knows, they might even throw in a short story of their own for good measure. (Don’t they always?)
Are you curious about our next episode in the 23 and Me series? If so, you’re in luck because this one’s all about being more open and curious. (See what we did there?) Our present-day political, social, and economic landscapes have created an unfavorable environment for fostering perspectives that are culturally rich and tend to narrow our assumptions and blind spots. This means that we have to be even more intentional in our pursuit of perspective-building than ever before. Join Yvette and Frank in their invitation to travel down the rabbit hole where things become “curiouser and curiouser” in order to grasp better that our view is… just one view. (And, like Alice in Wonderland, you may even be “so much surprised, that for the moment (you will) quite (forget) how to speak good English.” Y&F certainly have.)
In most contexts today, from businesses to governments to social development, we’re told to view complexity as our mortal enemy - crush it, vanquish it, overcome it, and do everything in our power to simplify it. How would you feel if we told you this is the opposite of what you should be doing? (Obviously, that’s exactly what we’re about to do!) For many years, we’ve allowed a landscape built on repetitive efficiency to snuff out the grand potential found within the matrix of creative complexity, and it’s high time that we shift our thinking to embrace this feature of all maturing systems. Join Yvette and Frank as they explain the intimate dance between complexity and foresight, and explore how ecosystems of wildly diverse connections open up a whole new world of possibilities for those who feel like bustin’ loose. (Hey, Nelly fans, Chuck Brown did it first!)
We’re now entering the“Thinking” dimension of the Inner Development Goals. If you weren’t already 100% convinced that the 23 traits and skills highlighted in the IDGs are the same attributes necessary for robust futuring, then these next several podcasts should do the trick. (Honestly, what else do you want from us, friends!) In this episode, Yvette and Frank take a critical look - very meta of us - at the need for foresight to continually ask the “who, what, where, when, and why” questions when presented with any issue or idea, and to avoid the temptation of falling into the “face value” crowd. This means that we’re going to wrestle with the way that foresight often makes us feel threatened - a sure sign that futuring is less about changing the world around us than it is about first challenging the world inside of us.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself”? It certainly seems like a lot of governments and organizations have never listened to Hip Hop, and that lack of awareness is making us an Endangered Species. (Two Ice Cube hits, and we’ve barely gotten started!) Without being able to reflect deeply on our own thoughts, feelings, and desires, we can’t possibly hope to effectively engage with our world of exponential complexity. Join Frank and Yvette as they challenge the inner stories we tell ourselves about the world and navigate the processes that short-circuit our ability to be constructively provoked by the future.
A famous axiom states that “If you never know, you’ll never grow; if you don’t grow, you’ve got no place to go.” (OK, we just made that up, but it’s pretty catchy… right?) Even if it isn’t an actual timeless idiom, the sentiment holds true - when we’re open to learning and expanding our field of knowledge instead of becoming closed to ideas that shake up our cherished worldviews, we discover ideas, experiences, and wonders that exponentially expand our identity, capacity, and abilities. A life filled with constant curiosity produces amazement, awe, and untapped potential in each and every one of us, and when that happens, we become empowered to enact transformational change.
Join Yvette and Frank as they skip the light fandango toward a life-long exploration of learning, unlearning, and relearning that can make transformation our present reality. (Bonus points if you can spot the Procol Harem reference; “Trivia Royalty” status for those that can name that tune!)
In a zeitgeist of extreme tribalism and partisanship, it may seem that having integrity and authenticity means standing firm in your worldviews no matter how they might impact those around you. The truth is that acting with sincerity has much more to do with the ability to be vulnerable due to the maturity that comes with a deeply developed identity that is not easily threatened or manipulated. Foresight and Futures Thinking challenges its users to foster this type of awareness concerning their inner processes, reactions, and emotions, allowing us to embrace the diversity around us without falling prey to hiding from the world or becoming defensive. In this episode, Yvette and Frank uncover woke-washing, “values hacking,” and free speech vs. free reach. Spoiler: None of these things are on Santa’s Nice List.
Welcome to 23 and Me, a series that explores the synergy between Foresight and the 23 skills and qualities that comprise the Inner Development Goals. The IDGs represent the inner capacity needed to deal with the increasingly complex environment and challenges represented by the Sustainable Development Goals and also mirror the inner skills needed to be a robust futures thinker. Join Futurists Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer as they kick off the series with the skill of Inner Compass - the necessity of caring for generations past, present, and yet-to-come. (2023… 23 skills… 23 and Me as a reference to your personal DNA… see what we did there?)
When it seems hard to think about the future with intention. When you feel surprised by events that could have been easily imagined, when nostalgia for the future seems impossible to embrace, if you or a loved one have struggled with any of these symptoms, you may have Foresight Deficit Syndrome. FDS can be hard to manage using the well-worn approaches in our present-day systems, but help is available. If you want to be free from the tyranny of short-term thinking - and want to bring others along with you on this journey of freedom - then Foresight and Futures Thinking may be right for you. Don’t hesitate to overcome FDS - join Futurists Yvette and Frank on this episode right away! (Side effects may include dry mouth from trying to explain foresight to others, blurred vision from seeing multiple viewpoints, and temporary confusion from overcoming persistent biases and assumptions.)
We are fond of saying that foresight is a team sport, but what happens if you are the sole player on your squad? Whether because of funding constraints or due to a lack of organizational support, navigating foresight implementation all alone can feel overwhelming. How do you build a futures thinking culture and avoid burn out you while wearing all of the hats in your foresight practice? Join Frank and Yvette as they share proven tips to survive and thrive as a foresight team of one.
The ideological war that has raged between the youth and the traditional environments that they are born into is nothing new. However, our present-day “meta crisis” - the confluence of climate change, supply chain disruption, authoritarian governance, digital misinformation, extreme economic inequality, and a rising sense of impending global armed conflict - is stirring our youth to become more involved in civic activism than during any other time in history. If a call to avert collapse is motivating young people in unprecedented ways, how much more might cultivating empathy, hope, and transformation through foresight empower them (and all of us!) to co-create a brighter future for all? Join Futurists Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer as they talk about how today’s youth are changing the world, and why Futures Thinking should be a critical part of their toolkit to inspire better tomorrows.
Welcome on board! Let's go on a metaphorical flight from the turbulence of prediction to the friendly skies of perception, recounting every foresight practitioner’s most agonizing journey - the screening process of organizational professionals who demand that we pack a crystal ball. Join us in the airport lounge of podcasts where you’ll be upgraded to a status beyond traditional forecasting, organizational bets and incremental innovation (those are the cheap seats).
While an organization may care about the “future of hair care in-shower,” framing our future thinking efforts around immediate concerns and very short time horizons will only reinforce organizational blinders that result in missed opportunities. Instead of doubling down on near term trends like #nopoomovement, we must stretch our thinking to address provocative ideas that open our eyes to the real change outside of our company and industry.
Traditional long term planning does not really consider the future; it extrapolates the past. Often our Five Year Plans include only an asterisk alluding to future "threats" and "opportunities." It's time to stop making the future just a footnote.
It was the great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer that said, “Nobody’s free until everybody is free.” We would add that unless everybody is empowered to think proactively about our collective tomorrows, then we will continue to see foresight treated as a luxury for the privileged few who control the future. In other words, nobody is empowered until all voices are included in futures thinking. Join Yvette and Frank as they challenge governments, businesses and social influencers to stop making excuses when it comes to engaging foresight and the diverse voices that hold the key to better futures. Foresight is more than a right - it’s an obligation!
How do we explore the future if we are tethered to today? Framing our foresight efforts can be a challenging balance of the "right now" and the "what's possible." Hear Frank and Yvette share how they've helped clients expand their vision beyond the obvious.
Foresight inspiration can come from anywhere, and Disney's hit film Encanto is a great example. The movie is a tale of an enchanted family with a painful secret: Bruno, their prophetic uncle, has become a sore subject for the household and villagers alike due to their negative view of his visionary gift. What can we learn from Bruno's prognostications, his exile, and the lessons learned by his family? You may be surprised to discover that Bruno isn't the only futurist in Casa Madrigal!
What have you done for me lately? Today's short attention spans usually result in clients asking practitioners to reduce a 100-year old discipline into pithy soundbites and back-of-the-napkin explanations. As frustrating as this can be, it is possible to drive home the benefits of long-term thinking in a short period of time. Short interventions can drive big impact, and can open the door to a deeper dive.
We introduce our special, year-long collection with a "good bye" instead of a "hello." Join Frank and Yvette as they share lessons from client engagements that didn't go as planned. Learn how Frank's failures in journalism, supply chain management, and construction led to his success as a foresight professional. ;)
Victor Frankenstein created a single body out of spare parts, but we need to create a set of products, services and experiences out of many different bodies. Listen in as Yvette and Frank give life to "Tik Tok education," open source research and environments of play that expand the laboratory of science to the masses. A new perspective on being alive is awaiting us all!
“Trust the science!” But what if the science hasn’t traditionally included me? Mapping the future to our Wicked Opportunity requires us to consider simultaneous multiples: resilient, adaptive, and transformative paths forward. We challenge our institutions to clean up their act, call for more inclusionary scientific practices, and consider a world in which science moves beyond the STEM silos. You might be shocked to discover that “Science” needs a hype man.
Did these trends start in a petri dish, or did they emerge from the broader social landscape outside the lab? Our scan hits this month include designer babies, citizen science, the billionaire space race, and gamers saving the world. Does the research point to more “cowboy science” or are there signs of more inclusive experimentation on the horizon? Join us to find out!
Welcome to Victor Frankenstein’s foreboding lair strewn with insane equations, strange artifacts and miscellaneous body parts. Is Frankenstein a lone genius unlocking the mysteries of life for the benefit of humankind, or a mad scientist seeking to fashion the world in his own image? The masses certainly want to attack his monstrous laboratory with torches and pitchforks, but what if we instead used our collective energy to create a new workshop of widespread learning and creativity?
To see like an alien requires us, "to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!" Join Yvette and Frank as they prototype "out of this world" metrics, messages, and modifications to the human experience. By naming these formerly "unidentified future ontologies," we hope to make believers out of everyone. Our flying saucers are real!
When mapping the future, there are so many possibilities that we don’t have the Space or the Time to Continuum. However, it is hard to ignore the obvious alien in the room which has invaded every facet of our lives for the last 18 months. Whether we build a wall, create a herd, or foster an empathic mutation a successful, sustainable response to this novel virus will require that we embrace "alien" ideas.
The truth is out there, and it's not for the faint of heart. The search will surely result in the unearthing of aliens, but you may find that embracing uncertainty and curiosity is even scarier. Join Agents Salvatico and Spencer as they attempt to make first contact with topics such as disgust, exclusion, and our place in the cosmos. As we comb through all of these X-Files, what weak signals point to societal transformation?
"Take cover! It's the little green men!" That's what those who claim to have seen aliens in the famous "Close Encounter at Kelly, Kentucky" in 1955 might have said. Of course, alien visitations have been documented around the world, and stories of invaders from outer space continue to supercharge our imaginations (and our hysteria). Why do we fear these "others" so much, and what can we do to cultivate an alien perspective that just might transform our world for the better?
You know the drill: to stop a zombie, you must "shoot the head or you'll be dead." However, a headshot in the landscape of the Global Brain takes on a whole new meaning. Instead of simply eliminating anything that threatens to consume our cognitive capabilities, we can design a world where products, services and experiences expand our collective imagination. Join Yvette and Frank as they end this month turning fiction into reality. Honestly, it's a no-brainer!
In horror flicks such as "Night of the Living Dead," zombies are portrayed as slow-moving, awkward "predators who are totally independent from a physiological needs of any kind." (Thanks Max Brooks!) However, modern zombies have gotten much faster, making it more likely that you (or your slower friends) will fall prey to their ravenous hordes. They've definitely become more resilient, adaptive and transformative in our VUCA world. Have you?
Zombies are among us! However, they come in many different forms. In this week's episode, your hosts Yvette and Frank will take you on a tour that reveals how the Zombie Apocalypse is manifesting through our use of technology, psychology, and biomimicry. Warning: not all zombies are so easy to recognize. Some are scary. Others may signal the way to a better future. Can you recognize the difference?
Braaaains! Historically, this is how zombies have been portrayed: as undead, flesh-eating corpses. Unlike other monsters - which are mostly a product of superstition or fear - today's zombies reflect our viral subjugation to technology in the form of social media, algorithms, and screens. What if we reframed the Zombie Apocalypse as the Global Brain - a mutual consumption of knowledge that creates a worldwide superorganism?
We’re wrapping up our first collection of podcasts, but we’re just getting started! Hopefully, the same holds true for humanity’s performance as generative designers in the ongoing story of the universe. We have the power to play a major role in this unfolding narrative - look at the positive and negative impact we’ve had during our time on the show - but we must realize that our part is dependent on co-creating alongside the rest of the cast. If we can have this revelation we could be destined for bigger things! With the spotlight on various leaders - spiritual, organizational and societal - how can we redefine humanity as the “transformational protagonist?”
This is the last time that we will be using the Point of Impact questions to create a future map (at least for awhile), so we didn’t want to waste this opportunity to “GO BIG!” As you may have already noticed during the first 2 weeks of this topic, the idea of humans making an evolutionary jump plays a big role in the transition from being a species of parasites to instead becoming life-giving symbiotes. (How’s that as an Easter egg for all of you Spiderman fans?) If we are truly going to achieve our potential as a creative force in the cosmic dance, we need new ways of measuring value (and what’s truly valuable), as well as a new role for the human race.
You might be thinking, “Really Yvette and Frank, you believe that the human species can transcend beyond our base wants and desires to become a higher expression of conscious evolution?” We CAN, and we SHOULD! If you’re a regular listener, you know that we have been using the second episode during each series to demonstrate that our Wicked Opportunity isn’t just “pie in the sky” (you’ve got to love those metaphors!), but can be realized by leveraging today’s trends and emerging issues. A landscape of Anthropological Regeneration will need input from every driver and domain, but the bridge definitely exists!
Welcome to Month 7 - the last series in our first collection! (Wait, you didn’t know we were creating collections of podcasts based on overarching ideas? Hmm… there might be a challenge awaiting our listeners in this episode!) In this series, we culminate with the Wicked Problem of “Homogenecene Extinction” or the human-imposed sterilization of our otherwise biologically and culturally diverse world. We might think the solution to ecological degradation lies in using less plastic straws, but the seemingly unrelated problems of racial segregation, industrial siloing and dominant narratives hold the key to our self-imposed undoing. Can humans shift from being the problem to becoming a life-giving opportunity?
Futures thinking isn’t about waiting for the future; it’s about bringing the ideas for better futures into the decisions we make today! Can imagining alternative futures really change the way we approach the domains and disciplines that we practice today? Specifically, can the Wicked Opportunity of Decentralized Prosperity reframe the way that we practice law enforcement (BTW, police officers have often been referred to as “Peace Officers.” How can we make that a reality?), banking and financial services (that have been fashioned to largely serve the privileged in society), or education (which is plagued with discrimination)? Let’s do it!
Our well-worn maps that detail the landscape of housing, employment, healthcare, civic engagement, democratic participation, and due process are no longer serving us in a world of increasing complexity and changing social dynamics. Many would argue those maps never served us very well, as they were fashioned around ideologies based on separation and superiority. We not only need new maps, but a novel approach to human cartography that highlights the complex and transformational nature of cultural interactions, relationships and needs. What does a map of Decentralized Prosperity look like? Come find out!
The injustices exacerbated by the “powers-that-be” are unlikely to change through a purely top-down effort, as the factors that lead to these prejudices and inequalities are rooted in our local and individual beliefs. That’s not to say we shouldn’t fight for just government; rather, widespread prosperity must become part of our global psyche so that it is practiced in our businesses, neighborhoods and families. Government is way overdue for an evolutionary transition - it must grow and morph just like any other human entity, and life tends toward decentralization. It may seem like a big task, but the bridge to a more prosperous future for all already exists!
If any Wicked Problem has been front-and-center in recent times, it’s certainly the Systemic Barriers that have marginalized various individuals and groups, denying them full access to the rights, opportunities and resources that must be available to everyone. These barriers are largely based in fear and hatred, but are then expressed as laws and regulations that alienate people from the social integration and human rights that are central to overcoming so many other planetary dilemmas. Can futures thinking act as the “mental technology” that shifts our collective actions from designed inequity to a world of justice?
Each month our end-of-series episode imagines alternative expressions for traditional professions, but this month during Wicked Creations we are drilling down even further as we focus on the “new identity of identity itself” - how meta of us! What would embracing an Extended Reality - a mutually interdependent environment that promotes “we” over “me” - mean for domains such as big tech, entrepreneurship and (gasp!) government? Join us as we seek out new realities for humanity to inhabit as a means to transform the human experience and co-create a world in which we all thrive.
Are you beginning to see a new identity for humanity on the horizon, rising out of the ashes of the broken and outdated identities of siloed, disconnected and closed systems? Futurists and foresight professionals use various methods to create alternative visions of the future, and that’s exactly what we’ll do during this episode, painting a picture of a world that adopts the Wicked Opportunity of Extended Reality. How can we redefine the way we think, frame, connect, produce and use to co-create an environment that promotes the idea of “we” over the corrosive crisis of “me, me, me”? A new vision requires a new way of measuring meaning.
Now that you’ve journeyed with us past the Wicked Problem of Identity Crisis, and been introduced to the novel landscape of Extended Reality, it’s time to create a new visionary persona that we can all identify with (see what we did there?) for greater care, capability and creativity on a global scale. Rather than only dreaming about a healthier human expression that fosters equity, unity and prosperity, we can leverage today’s trends to connect ourselves to realities of restoration and growth that exist beyond our present landscape of dysfunction. Oh, the places we’ll go! (Yes, we love Dr. Seuss.)
Greetings Wicked Wizards! It’s time to begin a new series, and this month we’re going straight for the jugular. Our world is in the grip of a widespread identity crisis - from the speed of technological change that disrupts work and meaning at an individual level, to the shifting social demographics that threaten to upend our national ideologies. If we’re going to survive the turmoil that rises from the fear of losing our traditional affiliations and tribes, we must reframe the concept of identity to fit the ever-expanding landscape of the 21st Century. A new definition of identity will mean reimagining what and who we really are!
We’ve challenged the idea that battling VUCA should be traded for a greater embrace of a long now perspective, but what does that mean in practice? More specifically, what does it mean for those who are practicing foresight in their institutions, governments and lives? In the final episode of the Embracing the Long Now series, Yvette and Frank question the role of the futurist as a discipline that tackles uncertainty, and instead offer the persona of the anticipatory transformationalist that empowers organizations to stretch time as a means to realize emerging possibilities and unseen opportunities. What can we say… we’re contrarians!
Now that we’ve built a bridge to leveraging our VUCA world instead of waging war on the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that defines a cosmo-centric universe, it’s time to imagine the advantages that a long now approach can offer us. Such a world promises to look quite different from the structures and players that we are used to, but also holds the potential for solving long-standing issues around our blindness to transformational novelty, our false separation from nature, and our failure to recognize higher order purpose within the systems we birth and the communities we inhabit. Even Ripley might not believe it!
Moving from a mindset of battling a VUCA environment to one of embracing a long now perspective is certainly no easy task. However, it’s a shift that we must engage in if our hopes for humanity extend beyond a struggle for survival or a surrender to certain obsolescence. The bridge to a mysterious future may be covered by the fog of legacy systems, but our collective fear of such a future - one that beckons us to reframe the way we define organizations, governments and society - can be cleared by understanding the generative world that awaits us on the other side. Yes, we see the troubled water. That’s why we're building a bridge. ;-)
Welcome to the first episode of 2021! Throughout 2020 there were a plethora of voices reinforcing that we live in an increasingly VUCA world - volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - and for very obvious reasons. Facts being ridiculed, stable governance under assault, and a pandemic that completely altered life around the world - all manifestations of a VUCA environment that has unraveled business as usual. In reality, we’ve always lived in a VUCA world, and the real lesson of the previous year is that we need to shift our mindsets to align with the movements of the cosmos. This is VUCA liked you’ve never heard it before!
If you haven’t realized by now, this isn’t your grandparent’s century. In order to excel in a future of converging quantitative and qualitative metrics, unfolding possibilities and transformational realities, each and every one of us will need to reframe our approach to work, planning, output and actions. In this last episode of 2020, futurists Yvette and Frank invite listeners to examine how various domains and disciplines should react to the Wicked Opportunity of Co-Creative Emergence, focusing on those roles that typically have a data-centric focus. New visions definitely require a new way of measuring. (The Wicked Opportunities Podcast would like to thank everyone for listening and joining us on this exciting new journey. See you in 2021!)
Emergence is a property of exponential complexity in which the unfolding nature of reality can look very different from today’s parts, pieces and expected pathways. However, this does not mean that we have no agency when it comes to charting the future. Humanity is not separate from nature - we are a part of nature - and as such, we play a co-creative role in recognizing, understanding, embracing and cultivating transformational realities. Join Yvette and Frank as they use the Point of Impact questions to map out how we think, frame, connect, produce and use in a world of increasing emergence. (And don’t forget, this month’s graphic map is now available. Mercator would be proud!)
The number of books suggesting that humanity must embrace complexity, emergence and transformational change in order to manifest better futures have exploded over the past several years. However, it’s one thing to point out the need for a shift from Analysis Paralysis to a landscape of Co-Creative Emergence, but another thing to make it a reality. How can we move away from the Wicked Problem of living in a data-obsessed world to thriving under the Wicked Opportunity of biocentric anticipation? Join Yvette and Frank as they create a bridge over the troubled waters of today’s “push” to tomorrow’s “pull” using trends such as Transmedia, Maker Movement and Augmented Reality. (Special thanks to Simon and Garfunkel!)
The Wicked Problem of “Analysis Paralysis” is often used to describe the act of overthinking an issue to the detriment of taking action, but it also reflects our current infatuation with quantitative-heavy measurements as the gateway to a perfect world. The current belief that “if we can just gather more data, we can overcome any and every obstacle” has created an overly simplistic narrative in a world of increasingly complex interactions, and this is manifested in a deluge of predictive technologies and data-crunching platforms. Is there a better way to chart the course of humanity’s tango with a cosmos of unfolding realities? Yvette and Frank are waiting for you to join them on the dance floor. (Tik Tok choreography not included.)
Breaking past the closed idea of Generational Warfare into the open spaces afforded through a People Cloud will mean that our ideas of talent, work, learning, skills, expertise and knowledge creation will radically shift. In reality, our ability to both survive and thrive as a species may depend upon this transformational way of defining life. Join Yvette and Frank on this month’s final episode as they envision what a People Cloud would mean to the practices of Computing and Information Technology, Anthropology and Teaching. Who knows, they might even tell us how the prevailing “warfare” narrative is toxic to democracy as well.
If we’re going to create a landscape that benefits from a People Cloud full of human cooperation, open access, unlimited knowledge and convergent insights, we must redefine the closed environments, systems and stories that have separated people across time and space. Can we build platforms of understanding that weave a tapestry of unique and unseen interconnections rather than simply surrendering to the differences in our individual traditions and perspectives? Join Yvette and Frank as they probe how we can reframe the way that we think, frame, connect, produce and use in a world of transformationally diverse integration.
If we’re going to overcome the insidious idea of generational divide, we will have to do more than build a Venn Diagram of the various age-cohorts that highlights a few areas of common interest between the old and the young - we will need to carve a path to inclusive knowledge creation, decentralized ideation and a “global brain.” In this episode, join Yvette and Frank as they move past the seemingly devastating challenges that generational silos have constructed all around us, and instead build a pathway to an unlimited reservoir of networked expertise, cognitive wealth and higher-order creative consciousness. Let’s trade in our walls for clouds!
Welcome to the October edition of The Wicked Opportunities Podcast! We won’t need a crystal ball to unravel our next mystery, but we WILL summon the future. The urban legend of Generational Warfare has haunted us all for far too long, and it’s high time that we pull the mask off of this specter that has caused so much age-related fear and loathing. Join your favorite meddling kids as they expose this monstrous enemy of organizational, governmental and societal connection, and exorcise the demons that have stood in the way of unfettered collaboration and vision. RIP generational designations.
When systems are in flux and the world is transitioning to a new way of thinking and acting, it's important that we consider how humanity will be redesigned, how we will reframe the world around us, and what novel responses we will offer. Listen in as Yvette and Frank put the finishing touches on a pathway toward Imagination Literacy through the use five futures-focused questions known as the Point of Impact. These questions drill down on the implications of Imagination Literacy to our global sense-making, connective abilities and creative processes to unveil an exciting map of untapped potential.
The opportunities afforded to us through an environment of emerging complexity are useless unless we act upon them in the here and now. Rather than imposing the fixed ideas about our present-day disciplines, industries and practices on the future, we must remain open to learning, unlearning and relearning as a means to co-creating novel capabilities and approaches. In the final episode of the Imagination Literacy series, Yvette and Frank examine the future-empowered roles of a Chief Resilience Office, an HR Talent Manager and a Food Scientist, and then ask their listeners to take this journey for themselves.
Cultivating limitless imagination across the globe might be the solution to our paralyzing mindset of resource scarcity and social inequality, but it’s definitely a lot easier said than done. How do we empower people to cultivate Imagination Literacy in a world captivated by quantitative measurements, linear thinking and a race to the lowest common denominator? Join Yvette and Frank as they use a foresight tool called “6 Degrees” to build a bridge between today’s emerging issues and a landscape of imaginative possibilities using various trends in society, technology, economics and the environment.
Welcome to the first installment of The Wicked Opportunities Podcast! We dive right into the deep end of the futures thinking pool, tackling a long-standing problem known as “Tragedy of the Commons” - the dilemma in which shared resources within a system are gradually depleted due to self-interest and a lack of collective wellbeing. Tragedy of the Commons can be seen today in everything from social equity to climate change, and the scope of this problem can seem overwhelming. Is there another way to view this challenge that could transform how humanity redefines the concepts of scarcity and abundance?