I was intrigued to read on the BBC today that a Western shipping company has successfully delivered cargo via the once impassable North East Passage. The significance of cannot be understated for it’s impact on world trade:

…the once impenetrable ice that prevented ships travelling along the northern Russian coast has been retreating rapidly because of global warming in recent decades. The passage became passable without ice breakers in 2005. By avoiding the Suez canal, the trip from Asia to Europe is shortened by almost 5,000km (3,100 miles). The company behind the enterprise says it is saving about $300,000 per vessel by using the northern route.

One of the ships was named Beluga Foresight.

I recently got in touch with Bill Cockayne at Stanford.  The conversation was wide and varied – as you’d expect  – and among other things we discussed the Shell Technology Futures work I’d done with Innovaro. As he lectures at Stanford on foresight and innovation, I was interested in his perspective on some of the issues that I had encountered with various organisations.  With that in mind, I asked him four questions:

1. While a lot of people may describe you as a futurist, your work extends a lot further than that.  Do you have a title that sums up your work?

Innovation is the simplest word.
My team and I take the stance that future that will exist is the one we build.
We’ve developed our tools and methods with the goal of helping potential innovators move from thinking critically about the long-term to building… starting today… the future that will emerge.

2. In my work I see a continuum between foresight, strategy, innovation and design. I expect that you have a similar view, and, if so, where do you see the links between these disciplines?

The links are the most important part, and at the same time the last understood. But they are not hard to understand.

The links exist at the boundaries between “disciplines.” But like the ampersand in R&D, the link is often viewed as a boundary between research and development. I’m sure we’ve all heard the old adage about “throwing it over the wall” as being the biggest problem in actually doing R&D. And at the same time we’ve read the stories of the innovations that can occur when real researchers and developers made the link.

Viewed this way, the links that make the innovation process work — from foresight to the next new thing — are the result of the practitioners. Our tools and methods help, say, a foresight thinker to anticipate the information that the strategist and engineer need, then work hard communicate his learning to them. At the same time, he must play a role in helping the strategist and engineer to understand his needs as a partner in the overall process. So it is with these two pieces — an understanding of how the knowledge I create in the innovation process will be used by others, and a focus on communicating it in a way that they can use it — that the links work.

3. Many consultancies confuse the four disciplines, and try to sell themselves in areas where they lack experience.  For example, I’ve witnessed one of the worlds best design agencies try to sell themselves as strategists. In your experience which organisations have a good understanding of how to traverse the spectrum between foresight and design?

The list of companies that have succeeded in bringing truly innovative solutions to the world span industries, eras, and inventions. So it is from these stories that I’d look for our best understanding of connecting foresight to innovation. The answer to the question of who has the best understanding is the same in each and every story — it is the people who imagine building a better future, and who then take it upon themselves to do the building.

4. Given the current economic climate, what is your advice for an organisation that is toying with the idea of cutting back on strategic innovation?

As we’ve all read, this economic environment is the best time to invest in the discovery and creation of the next big thing. The reasons are well understood, and yet it’s not easy for companies to be thinking and investing long-term when they are so busy delivering the next product. My only recommendation to companies lately is to worry less about “thinking long-term” and more about “planning the next few steps.”

A company knows when it hopes to deliver that new product to its customers. The company is planning for that next new opportunity developing in the marketplace. And it has developed the financial and talent plans for making these events happen. Any company that is thinking ahead, planning, and then making sure to measure how well it performs to plan, is doing exactly the right thing in this and any other economic environment. At which point I might mischievously ask, “if you are happy with your plans… have you thought about what you’re going to do after those plans come to fruition?”

There’s a nice bio of Bill here, along with a video of him speaking at LIFT 08.

In futures thinking there is an increasing level of conversation around sustainability, and the concepts that surround it.  It’s worth a closer look, and with this in mind I asked Tim Nichols to weigh in with his view. Tim came recommended by a colleague and as a recent graduate, brings a fresh and informed perspective (in June 2008, he completed a Masters in Strategic Sustainable Development at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden).  Here’s Tim’s view:

What is meant by sustainability? For many people who work to promote the idea, the essence of the concept is centred on cultivating long-term thinking. The goal is to get people to be thinking about the repercussions of the actions beyond their lives. In essence, think about your grandchildren.

This seems easy enough, but it actually goes against human nature. We thrive on immediate satisfaction; feed me when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired, etc. And we have ingrained this methodology for life into the fabric of existence, with everything at our disposal and disposable. The “take, make, waste” mantra of our culture has put us on a speeding train into an unknown abyss. And currently, actions to try to stop the train has had been the equivalent of throwing marshmallows on the tracks, soft, easy to swallow but doing nothing.

Fortunately, sustainability was the buzzword of 2008, so the seeds have been sown. And it is unlikely that the core targets of sustainability: degradation of the environment, pollution from heavy metals and toxic chemicals, and the destruction of humans ability to meet their basic needs, will not be as easily altered as changing buzzwords. The current economic atmosphere offers the perfect opportunity for society to call on business and government to come together to form a model that has a more long-term view.

Without risking being called an alarmist, or underestimating the brilliantly resilient nature of humans, it seems we have been given another, possibly last, chance. With a plethora of scientists claiming that we are pushing the ecological thresholds of multiple natural systems, as well as the ever-increasing population surviving on constantly decreasing natural resources, there’s no time like the present.

Sustainable Futures covers an area too wide to fully define. However, it will require the collaboration of business and NGO, Government and 3rd Sector, communities and business, and on and on to ensure full participation. These groups must come together to establish where sustainability needs to be, and understand where it’s at now. They can then develop a plan to move from where they are to where they want to go, always with that clear, collaboratively formed vision of a sustainable future.

Timothy J. Nichols is an independent Sustainability Strategist for the public, private, and third sector. Current partners include Energizer Batteries, Clarks Shoes, Student Partnership Worldwide and the Brixton Pound, a local community currency to be launched in September 2009. The Brixton Pound is part of a greater movement called Transition Town which seeks to engage communities on how they can move towards becoming low-carbon communities. Tim is also affiliated with The Hub, a worldwide organization which provides a space for entrepreneurs focusing on social and sustainable projects.  In addition to sustainability, Tim is passionate about writing, biking and beer.