During a bunch of meetings earlier in the week, I was asked some questions about some of the insights which came out of the Shell Technology Futures programme we ran at Innovaro over the last eighteen months. More specifically, people wanted to know how the work helps to get a better understanding of possible futures.

Then last night, I came across a quote which summed this up quite elegantly. It’s from a draft of a book from Bob Johansen at the IFTF:

Foresight is a particularly good way to stimulate insights. While prediction is impossible, provocation is easy. Insights arise from differences: different ideas, different angles, and different moods. If insights were obvious, everyone would be having them. What new development might be created—given the external future forces that are at play? This is a search for “Aha’s!” It is a search for insights, a search for coherence in the midst of confusion.

One of the outputs from the Technology Futures programme this year was a presentation which went under the working title of “Ah-ha’s and Insights.”  It was key comments, quotes and insights into some of the discussions which happened at the workshops in Bangalore and London.   It is designed as an entry point into the complexity of some of the material – namely a book – which also came out of the programme.

Rather than endless words, it’s a series of striking images with very minimal text – and it works well to stimulate further thinking in different directions.

Less is always more.

(The original quote above is from Boing Boing (of all places) via a very circuitous route…)