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October 24, 2018 8:10 AM   Subscribe

Tell me more about Preferred Futuring, Preferred Future Visions, Ron Lippitt, Edward Lindaman, and visioning - especially for individuals and small informal groups.

Thanks to this great interview with Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's posted by MovableBookLady, I learned about visioning and preferred futuring, which appears to focus on developing a very concrete, vivid picture of what you'd like the future to be (your personal future, a company's future, whatever), and writing it down in the past tense as if it had already happened, as a way of generating ideas and energy toward making that future come to pass.

I can't find much detail with a regular web search - there are some books, but they're not widely stocked at the libraries I checked - so I turn to the vast collective wisdom of AskMe:

Are there resources for individuals?
Are there resources for small groups?
Are there case studies besides what Ari Weinzweig talks about?
In particular, has this approach been used by non-profits or community organizations?
Have you done this sort of thing? What was it like? How did it go?
Where can I find out more?

Please tell me everything you know!

Thanks!
posted by kristi to Society & Culture (3 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Weinzweig's written about it - A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Building a Great Business, and excerpted bits. More publications and a dedicated website (selling seminars and workshops and whatnot, but also has free articles).

Visioning overview, with resources (books, case studies) at end.
Lippitt's Future Before you Plan .pdf
Planning for the Future: A Handbook on Community Visioning .pdf
Strategic Planning for Reference in a Team Environment: The Preferred Futuring Model
The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future

Could you put in a request at a library for those books you've found? (Example - San Diego Co. Library system has intra- and inter- library loan options)
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:36 PM on October 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I follow the practice and writings of two uk companies proboscis and rhizome who work in the area of visualisation (among many other tools and practices), especially social and community themes.

Searching both sites from a searchengine using keywords of - creative visualisation future - gets some useful results.

http://rhizome.coop/reflect-action-org/reflect-participatory-tools/

And as most of what we do happens in real spaces...
When I studied we were taught the basics of using writing in creative visualisation to explore built and unbuilt space. The premise was that you could unearth social and physical aspects of a space which don't come up with graphical analysis.

I've since used this on complex streetscapes and it certainly works, and is very rapid. 30 minutes of writing and I had a way forward that many hours of drawing would not have worked (in that particular case). You just have to be willing to play; invent people you're meeting; imagine yourself in a new discipline; where do you meet people and does the space facilitate conversion etc.

I hope this is useful
posted by unearthed at 2:41 PM on October 24, 2018


Response by poster: Thanks so much for the great replies!

Iris Gambol, I have requested some stuff via interlibrary loan; I'll have to see what comes through.

Thank you!
posted by kristi at 10:30 AM on October 27, 2018


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