Appendix 3. Resources – Media and Tools for Better Futures

Online Platforms

Below is a starter list of noteworthy web-based platforms helpful to the Eight Skills of foresight. Most were previously mentioned in the Guide. Expect many more of these, and many more millionaires launching future platforms, as our world gets a lot smarter, faster, wealthier, digital, and more connected in the next few decades.

99Designs. Pioneers in web graphics and design crowdsourcing.

AngelList. Social network and funding platform for angels funding early-stage startups.

Assembly. Early-stage crowd-owned crowdfounding company.

BrightIdea. Enterprise innovation management software.

Brightline. A platform and community helping teams bridge the gap between strategy and delivery.

Cerego. A personalized adaptive learning technology platform, based on spaced repetition.

Chrome. The best browser, period.

CogniStreamer. Ideation management platform.

Coursera. MOOC-based educational technology company. Uses machine learning for peer education.

Crowdspring. Online marketplace for crowdsourced creative services.

CrunchBase. Massive crowd-edited database of innovative tech companies, run by TechCrunch/AOL.

Datastation. Enterprise innovation and ideation management.

DevonThink. Information management software. AI serves you context-relevant DB snips as you write.

Engage. Customer feedback management platform.

Evernote. Knowledge management software. Efficiently capture, nurture, and share experiences & ideas.

FIBRES. Software tool for trend tracking, strategic foresight, and strategy execution. Helsinki, Finland

Forward Indicators. ShapingTomorrow’s lit review and web search tool, highlighting indicators of change.

Futurism. Curated platform for news, infographics, and videos about the future.

Futurium. EU’s crowd futures platform for visions and policy ideas for Europe’s digital future to 2050.

Good Judgment Project. Research plaltform using the wisdom of the crowd to forecast world events.

Google Alerts. A free tool to monitor foresight topics on the public web. Filter alerts into folders.

Google Calendar. A very smart group calendar, with location-based and other contextual alerts.

Google Drive (Docs). A full featured, less evil online collaboration and cloud storage platform.

Google Now. The best conversational prediction and context engine for mobile phones.

Gust. Connects startups with a large collection of investors and accelerator programs globally.

Hangouts. A better (less evil and intrusive) free videoconferencing system than Skype.

Helpouts. Google’s platform for anyone to offer help and tutoring via live video hangout.

Huunu. Prediction market methodology and platform, by Consensus Point.

Hype. Idea and innovation management software.

Imaginatik. Innovation management and training.

Indiegogo. International crowdfunding site. Backing emerging crowdfounding (JOBS Act) policies.

InnoCentive. Open innovation company using commisioned R&D competitions.

JobHuk. Social recruitment marketplace, incentivizing independent recruiters and consultants.

Kaggle. Predictive modeling and analytics competitions. 95K participating data scientists.

Kickstarter. World’s largest crowdfunding platform for creative projects.

Lattice Engines. Industry-leading predictive analytics for marketing, lead scoring, and sales.

LevelEleven’s Compete. Sales gamification platform. Works with Salesforce.

Lumosity. Focused daily practice on memory, attention, speed, flexibility, and problem solving.

MarketSight. Inexpensive, powerful survey, data analysis, and market research platform.

Narrative Science. Automated narrative generation for enterprise. NLU turns data into reports.

NextIT. Intelligent virtual agents for call center and self-help automation.

Notable. Better (free, nonbloated, browser-based) PDF annotation and sharing tool than Adobe Acrobat.

oDesk+eLance. Leading onlline workplace. 8 million freelancers, 1 million companies.

Open English. English language learning via videoconferencing.

Open Ideo. Crowdbased interated design platform. Focused on “solving big challenges for social good.”

Palantir Technologies. Intelligence and analytics platform, for government, defense, and finance clients.

Performance Curve Database. A modest effort to collect and measure technological performance curves.

Piquora. Marketing suite for the emerging Visual Web (Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, etc.).

PredictIt. Real-money political prediction market.

Predictix. Predictive analytics and decision support for apparel, grocery, and hardlines.

Primer. A cloud AI platform that reads and analyzes documents, discovers insights, and generates reports.

Quid. Platform for narrative analysis, technology and industry landscaping, and trend analysis.

Quirky. Consumer products innovation and crowdfounding platform.

Quora. Leading question-answering platform. You can follow topics, like Foresight, Future of AI, etc.

r/Futurology. Irreverent Reddit community crowdsourcing pop futures info and data on the public web.

RAHS (Risk Assessment & Horizon Scanning). Singapore’s leading scanning, intel, and foresight platform.

RealClear Future. Curated platform for future stories. Robots, Transport, Info, Entertainment, Energy, Biotech, Space.

Reddit. Leading global collaborative forum-style discussion platform. Scads of subreddits, by topic.

Recorded Future. Web intelligence, tech and industry network analysis, and predictive analytics platform.

Revolution Analytics. A leading lower-end predictive analytics platform, using open source R software.

Rootclaim. A community doing first-principles causal analysis and Bayesian inference prediction of societal events.

Salesforce. Leading customer relationship management platform. Free to nonprofits.

Shaping Tomorrow. Collaborative scanning and foresight platform.

SpigitEngage. Ideation and innovation management software platform.

Statistical Packages. Languages and platforms for data mining, statistical computing, and graphics.

Talkwalker. An alerts and social media analytics platform for monitoring brands.

TeamPulse. Employee engagement, project management and customer feedback platform.

TechCast. Collaborative technology and social forecasting platform.

TutorVista. Live 24/7 tutoring from India, in any subject, at a disruptive price ($12-20/hr).

Twitter. The leading short-form news and status posting platform.

Udacity. MOOC based for-profit educational organization, focused on technical courses for professionals.

Wikistrat. A “massively multiplayer online consultancy (MMOC)”, running multiday scenario simulations.

Wise.io. Machine learning as a service, for pattern recognition in big data sets.

Wolfram Alpha. A free computational knowledge search engine.

Yelp. Leading business crowdrating and service reviewing system.

YouTube. Still the top video posting and viewing platform. Terrible interface, inane comments section.

Zocalo. Open source toolkit for building inexpensive, simple prediction markets.

See GlobalForesight.org’s Foresight Resources pages for many more online platforms, databases, search tools, models, games, trends, statistics, scenarios, weak signals, quotations, problems, and solutions of interest to futures and foresight students and practitioners. Want more? Become a Volunteer Editor at GlobalForesight.org and help us build a great foresight directory for everyone around the world. We wish you a fantastic future!

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Table of Contents

guideintrobookwhite

Chapter 2. Personal Foresight – Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 2: Personal Foresight

Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 4. Models – Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 4: Models

Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 7. Acceleration – Guiding Our Extraordinary Future

Chapter 7: Acceleration

Guiding Our Extraordinary Future (In Process)

II. Global Progress: 5 Goals, 10 Values, Many Trends

Innovation: Our Abundant Future
Intelligence: Our Augmented Future
Interdependence: Our Civil Future
Immunity: Our Protected Future
Sustainability: Our Rebalanced Future

III. Universal Accelerating Change

Great Race to Inner Space: Our Surprising Future
Entropy&Information: We’re Running Down & Up
The Puzzle of Meaning: We Have No Einstein Yet
Trees, Funnels & Landscapes: Intro to Evo Devo
Big Picture Change: Five Scales of Accelerating ED
Transcension Hypothesis: Where Acceleratn Ends?
IDABDAK: Social Response to Accel & Developmnt
We’re On a Runaway Train: Being Accelaware

IV. Evo Devo and Exponential Foresight

Seeing It All: Accel., Diverg, Adapt, Convrg, Decel.
Natural (I4S) Innovation: The Evolutionary Drive
Natural (I4S) Intelligence: The Human-AI Partnership
Natural (I4S) Morality: Why Empathy and Ethics Rule
Natural (I4S) Security: Strength from Disruption
Natural (I4S) Sustainability: The Developmental Drive
S-Curves: Managing the Four Constituencies
Pain to Gain: Traversing the Three Kuznets Phases
Hype to Reality: Beyond Hype Cycles to Reality Checks
Exponentials Database: Measuring Accelerations
TINA Trends: Societal Evolutionary Development
Managing Change: STEEPCOP Events, Probs, Ideas
A Great Shift: A Survival to a Sentient Economy

V. Evo Devo and Exponential Activism

Building Protopias: Five Goals of Social Progress
Normative Foresight: Ten Values of Society
Top & STEEPCOP Acceleratns: Positive & Negative
Dystopias, Risks, and Failure States
Three Levels of Activism: People, Tech & Universe
A Great Opportunity: Exponential Empowerment

 

Chapter 8. Your Digital Self – The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

Chapter 8: Your Digital Self

The Human Face of the Coming Singularity (In Process)

I. Your Personal AI (PAI): Your Digital Self

Digital Society: Data, Mediation, and Agents
Personal AIs: Advancing the Five Goals
PAI Innovation: Abundance and Diversity
PAI Intelligence: Bio-Inspired AI
PAI Morality: Selection and Groupnets
PAI Security: Safe Learning Agents
PAI Sustainability: Science and Balance
The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

II. PAI Protopias & Dystopias in 8 Domains

1. Personal Agents: News, Ent., Education
2. Social Agents: Relat. and Social Justice
3. Political Agents :  Activism & Represent.
4. Economic Agents:  Retail, Finance, Entrep
5. Builder Agents :  Work, Innov. & Science
6. Environ. Agents : Pop. and Sustainability
7. Health Agents :  Health, Wellness, Death
8. Security Agents :  Def., Crime, Corrections

III. PAI Activism & Exponential Empowerment

Next Government: PAIs, Groupnets, Democ.
Next Economy: Creat. Destr. & Basic Income
Next Society: PAI Ent., Mortality & Uploading
What Will Your PAI Contribution Be?

Chapter 10. Startup Ideas – Great Product & Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs

Chapter 10: Startup Ideas

Great Product and Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs (In Process)

I. 4U’s Idea Hub: Building Better Futures

Air Deliveries and Air Taxis: Finally Solving Urban Gridlock
Ballistic Shields and Gun Control: Protecting Us All from Lone Shooters
Bioinspiration Wiki: Biomimetics and Bio-Inspired Design
Brain Preservation Services: Memory and Mortality Redefined
Carcams: Document Thieves, Bad Driving, and Bad Behavior
Competition in Govt Services: Less Corruption, More Innovation
Computer Adaptive Education (CAE): Better Learning and Training
Conversational Deep Learning Devsuites: Millions of AI Coders
Digital Tables: Telepresence, Games, Entertainment & Education
Dynaships: Sustainable Low-Speed Cargo Shipping
Electromagnetic Suspension: Nausea-Free Working & Reading in Cars
Epigenetic Health Tests: Cellular Aging, Bad Diet, Body Abuse Feedback
Fireline Explosives and Ember Drones: Next-Gen Fire Control
Global English: Empowering the Next Generation of Global Youth
Greenbots: Drone Seeders and Robotic Waterers for Mass Regreening
High-Density Housing and Zoning: Making Our Cities Affordable Again
Highway Enclosures and Trail Networks: Green and Quiet Urban Space
Inflatable Packaging: Faster and Greener Shipping and Returns
Internet of Families: Connecting People Over Things
Kidcams: Next-Gen Security for Child Safety and Empowerment
Kidpods: Indoor & Outdoor Parent-Assistive Toyboxes
Microdesalination: Democratizing Sustainable Fresh Water Production
Noise Monitors: Documenting and Reducing Noise Pollution
Oceanside Baths: Sustainable Year Round Beach Enjoyment
Open Blood Scanners: DIY Citizen Health Care Sensor Tech
Open Streaming Radio: User-Centered Audio Creation and Rating
Open Streaming Video: User-Centered Video Creation and Rating
Open Values Filters: Social Rankers, Arg. Mappers, and Consensus Finders
Personal AIs: Your Private Advisor, Activist, and Interface to the World
Pet Empowerment: Next-Gen Rights and Abilities for Our Domestic Animals
Safe Closets: Fire-, Earthquake-, and Intruder-Proof Retreat Spaces
Safe Cars: Reducing Our Insane 1.3M Annual Auto Deaths Today
Safe Motorcycles: Lane Splitting in Gridlock Without Risk of Death
Shared Value Insurance: User-Centered Risk Reduction Services
Sleeperbuses and Microhotels: Demonetized Intercity Travel
Space-Based Solar Power: Stratellite Powering and Weather Management
Stratellites: Next-Gen Urban Broadband, Transparency, and Security
Touch DNA: Next-Gen Home Security and Crime Deterrence
View Towers: Improving Urban Walkability, Inspiration, and Community

Chapter 11. Evo Devo Foresight – Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Chapter 11: Evo Devo Foresight

Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Appendix 1. Peer Advice – Building a Successful Foresight Practice