Foresight Careers Conference
FERN’s Foresight Careers Conference is our main (ideally annual) social event.
It serves two purposes:
1. To network and support global foresight students (degree programs andcertificate programs), foresight alumni, and foresight advocates, improve their skills, and connect them with top foresight employers around the world.2. To network and support foresight educators, improve their skills, and help them improve the job-relevancy and validation of their curriculum, program marketing, and placement of their graduates in great foresight careers.
Foresight Careers will be held as soon as we have volunteer Directors and staff to run it.
We are seeking five Directors (Planning, Logistics, Marketing, Employer Liaison, and Educator Liaison) to plan and run the event. We are looking for foresight students, alumni, and advocates who can help make this event happen. Can you volunteer to help us produce it? If so, please email FERN Exec Director susanchesleyfant{at}gmail.com or Fundraising Director johnsmart{at}gmail.com if you’d like to help!
We are seeking five Directors (Planning, Logistics, Marketing, Employer Liaison, and Educator Liaison) to plan and run the event. We are looking for foresight students, alumni, and advocates who can help make this event happen. Can you volunteer to help us produce it? If so, please email FERN Exec Director susanchesleyfant{at}gmail.com or Fundraising Director johnsmart{at}gmail.com if you’d like to help!
Thank you for volunteering! Volunteers know that no one else is going to help us find the great foresight jobs we all need.
It’s up to us to do this, together.
Our First Conference will probably be held in the SF Bay Area (Stanford University is one option), as this area has a particularly large number of local foresight employers. In the months beforehand, FERN volunteers will extensively research potential foresight employers in the host city, add them to our Foresight Employers and Jobs page, and invite their hiring reps and their leading futurists to attend. Long Term Vision: We can move the conference to each of the 21 megacities that have the greatest number of foresight employment opportunities, researching foresight employment in each city in depth as we go. Eventually we can cover all 130 of the global cities.
Our First Conference will probably be held in the SF Bay Area (Stanford University is one option), as this area has a particularly large number of local foresight employers. In the months beforehand, FERN volunteers will extensively research potential foresight employers in the host city, add them to our Foresight Employers and Jobs page, and invite their hiring reps and their leading futurists to attend. Long Term Vision: We can move the conference to each of the 21 megacities that have the greatest number of foresight employment opportunities, researching foresight employment in each city in depth as we go. Eventually we can cover all 130 of the global cities.
Foresight students, alums, advocates, educators, and employers can attend in person or virtually. All conference attendees will have the opportunity to request a limited number of informational interview and job interview appointments with attending foresight employers and mentors, and there will be plenty of open networking and job fair time as well.
In addition to general events each day, we are planning two parallel tracks:
1. Foresight Careers Track. This track will network and support the foresight students (currently in or alums of primary or secondary foresight degree programs and top certificate programs, and foresight advocates, with foresight employers around the world.
2. Foresight Education Track. This track will network and support the foresight educators, help them improve the job-relevancy of their curricula, the validation of their research, their program marketing, and placement of their grads in great foresight careers. Most members in this track will be encouraged to join Peter Bishop and Jay Gary’s University Foresight Network.
Some workshops we might offer:
- Skills Workshops. Classes in Presentation, Graphics, Layout, and Web software useful to foresight professionals.
- Foresight Curricula Workshop. Edit and critique each other’s current curricula and develop new curricula together.
- Foresight Journalism Workshop. Edit and critique each other’s pre-print publications or write new draft articles together.
- Foresight Certification Workshop. Develop a program certification metric for the University Foresight Network.
- Fundraising Workshop. Call potential donors, raise donations for FERN’s Foundation or Operating Funds.
- Chapter Workshop. Help students local Future Salons, WFS, APF, and FERN chapters globally.
- People Database Workshop. Find more high-priority foresight contacts and get them in our public database.
- Wiki Workshops. Edit or build new ones on GlobalForesight.org, Foresight Employers, or other FERN wikis.
- Other Workshops. Want to do something of value for the Foresight Careers community? Let us know.
Volunteer Needs: We presently need student, faculty, alum, and advocate volunteers to:
- Research foresight contacts at potential local employers and add them to our Foresight Employers and Jobs page,
- Contact and work with foresight employers to describe and develop their internship programs and invite them to attend.
- Market the event to undergrad and grad foresight students, alums, and attendees locally and globally, first to the 20 primary graduate foresight programs.
- Develop and lead collaborative workshops at the event.
- Take responsibility for conference siting, website design, speaker invitation, technical production, and other activities.
We also will have Unconference time at this event. Unconferences are facilitated, participant-driven events centered around a community-important theme. Ample open time is available for multiple parallel participant-created presentations (one-to-many) and seminars (many-to-many), and workshops where collaborative work gets done. Virtual attendance via streaming, and twitter feeds for in-person and web audience questions are also part of the event. Both in-person and to a lesser degree virtual attendees have a chance to participate, as best they can.
Foresight Careers will cover the following 12 foresight employment sectors:
Education - K-8th
Education - High School (9th-12th)
Education - Undergraduate and Graduate
For-Profit - Large Corporate (500+ employees)
For-Profit - Midsize (100 to 499 employees)
For-Profit - Small and Startup (1 to 99 employees)
Non-Profit - Large Corporate (500+ employees)
Non-Profit - Midsize (100 to 499 employees)
Non-Profit - Small and Startup (1 to 99 employees)
Government - International and Transnational
Government - National (Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Defense)
Government - State and Local
Foresight Careers focuses on careers in the following 26 Primary Foresight Specialties. We will also feature employers in some of the Secondary Foresight Specialties, in particular employers in the bold specialties below.
| Primary Foresight Specialties (26) | Secondary Foresight Specialties (33) |
| Alternative Futures Comparative Analysis and Competitive Intelligence Corporate and Organizational Foresight Critical Foresight (Causal Layered Analysis, etc.) Development Studies and Acceleration Studies Emerging Issues, Cross Impact and Pattern Analysis Emerging Tech Analysis and Technical Intelligence Ethnographic, Culture, and Subculture Foresight Forecasting and Modeling/Simulation (basic) Foresight Frameworks and Foundations Foresight Journalism and Metrics Game Foresight (Strategy, Serious Games, Wargames) History and Analysis of Predictions Horizon Scanning and Weak Signal Identification Images and Artifacts of the Future Personal Foresight Development Prediction Markets and Foresight Networks Predictive Surveys and Delphi Roadmapping (Long-Range Ind., Tech, Policy Maps) Scenario Development, Planning, and Learning Strategic Foresight Systems Thinking Transhumanist and Ethics of Emerging Tech Studies Trend Extrapolation and Learning Curves Visioning, Intuition, and Creative Thinking Wildcards / Black Swans (Hi-Impact, Low-Prob. Events) |
Actuarial Science and Risk Assessment Anthropology and Culture Studies Cognitive & Social Psychology (Personality Profiles, etc.) Collaboration, Facilitation, and Peace/Conflict Studies Critical and Evidence-Based Thinking Decision Theory, Uncertainty, and Real Options Analysis Demographics and Sociology Design, User Experience, and Art Economics (Cliometrics) Ethics and Values Studies Evolution, Complexity and Systems Studies Forecasting and Modeling/Simulation (advanced) Futures, Sci-Fi, Utopian, and Dystopian Lit Studies History (Alternative Histories) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Studies and Networks Innovation Journalism and Metrics Integral Studies and Thinking Intelligence Studies/Analysis Investing and Finance (Long-Term) Leadership Studies and Organizational Development Library Science and Knowledge Management Marketing (Predictive), PR, and Consumer Behavior Philosophy (Normative Alternative Futures) Political Science and Policy Studies Probabilistic (Statistical) Prediction Religious Studies (Future Beliefs) Risk Management, Operations Research, Game Theory Security/Defense Studies and International Relations Science and Technology Studies and Technology Analysis Socially Responsible / Triple Bottom Line Management Strategic & L-R Planning, Decision Analysis and Support Sustainability and Development (Economic) Studies Urban Studies and Planning |
Thanks for reading, and we hope you can join us in planning and attending the first inaugural Foresight Careers Conference.
