The Wicked Opportunities Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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?