The Swedish labour movement has financed the cost of half of these suitcases, and Drambo hopes to start 5,000 Futures Circles within three years. Already he has trained 25 trainers and he is negotiating the introduction of Future Circles with 30 commune local authorities in the North of Sweden. There will be a prize for the best project undertaken by a Futures Circle - the prize probably consisting of a free trip to the EPCOT 'Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow' in Orlando, Florida. The following extracts from his introductory booklet have been translated by Marilyn Mehlmann of the Swedish Institute for Social Inventions (SISU). Any organisation prepared to consider translating the whole suitcase package and the Life-style game into English and helping to distribute it, is invited to make contact. Extracts from Leif Drambo's description of his project follow.
The future is created by you. This is your right - and your duty. If you do not do it, someone else will on your behalf. And you may not like it. By taking part in Futures Circles you can actively influence the course of events. Tomorrow is born of today's decisions and actions. It does not just happen: it is created here and now. And creation is always an act based on knowledge.
No one knows what the future holds. It is truly unknown. What we can do is to prepare ourselves for the unknown - for the future. By learning to discuss and understand probable, possible and desirable futures we increase our ability to cope with uncertainty. The processes of change are inevitable, but we can see to it that they are constructive.
The objectives of a Futures Circle are development and renewal, for you, your place of work, organisation, company, authority, residential area, school, association, borough, region, country. Each circle must determine its own focus. You can network electronically or otherwise with other circles, arrange conferences locally or regionally or even nationally. You can develop exhibitions or futures workshops.
The first thing you will find in your Futures Toolkit is a little book, Introduction to Futures. It describes three different styles of future: the probable, the possible and the desirable. Combined in a special way, these three styles give you 'the four stories', where the future is the new story. The book concludes by helping you to write your own story of the future.
The briefcase also contains four cassette lectures: Twelve transformations is about the most important factors that are likely to affect every individual and activity in the future. The information age concerns what is happening as we shift out of the industrial era. Visions shows how visionary thinking can be used as a powerful management tool to form and create a desired future. The knowledge society describes one such vision, and teaches how to test new possibilities and to create what we truly want to create.
A Jonathan Livingston Seagull videotape is included for relaxation and to encourage the formation of pictures in the inner eye - and to encourage answers to the questions: What are your dreams? What are your opportunities, here and now?
The next main course is a book, Infotopia, which takes a trip backwards in time to meet some of the foremost Utopian visionaries. But you will also be confronted with the possibilities and risks of modern technology. How will working life be affected by new technology?
Then it is time for a diversion, a party game that is more than a game. Life-style has no winners or losers. The point is to live a life from the age of 20 to the age of 80 as happily as possible. The game is played by drawing cards from special packs, including a pack of 54 scenario cards and 96 experience cards. You will find yourself confronted with a large variety of events and situations. Some will affect you personally, whereas others affect society around you - economically, politically, technically, culturally and so on. It is not always easy to reach a decision. But then, who said that life should be easy?
Next follow eight exercises in visionary thinking such as Me - ten years on and City of the Future, designed to help develop your social imagination and problem-solving abilities, and to give a basis for discussing value judgements concerning future developments.
Scenarios are also included: an article from a paper published in 1999, and a description of a future family.
An embryo Futures Data Base, 'Infoteque', is included, for you to add your own information to as it accrues. The need for new tools will become apparent as the circles progress. Only our imagination sets the limits. Imagine too if all circles could communicate with each other via electronic mail to exchange experience, information and knowledge. Each new circle could get a head start by tapping in to the problems, solutions and methods of other circles. This may not be just a dream - industry is beginning to talk of installing computer terminals free or very cheaply in almost every home, along the lines of the French experiment.
So far we have been concerned with how to study the future. Now is the time to decide what you want to renew or deve-lop, in other words to select a focus for the circle's activities. The possible range is very wide. Here are some examples:
The briefcase then introduces you to Future Methods in 8 steps to help organise the work of the circle to achieve its desired results. The essential point is to select a focus which feels relevant and important for all members of the circle. Future studies are intended to bring into being the potential of the here and now. Projects need to develop new possibilities or to solve old problems, so as to move from now to a perhaps previously 'impossible' future.
Leif Drambo, Effekta Future AB, Box 3445, 16203 Stockholm-Vallingby, Sweden (tel 010 46 8 387300).