A conversation with Patrick van der Duin who is a researcher, consultant and educator in Foresight and Innovation Management about how Foresight drives Innovation and Innovation drives Foresight, and that they are two sides of the same coin.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
Links
https://patrickvanderduin.nl/
LinkedIn: Patrick van der Duin
Transcript
Peter Hayward: To many people futures work is particularly about technological innovation. Trying to forecast what innovations will change their world. But is the relationship between Foresight and Innovation so clear cut?
Patrick van der Duin: How organizations recognize the importance of the future, of futures or doing foresight. And by organizations, both commercial and governmental and everything which is in between. And it is what you're saying Peter it's about innovation. Of future drives innovation or drives organization, but it's also the other way around. It's also innovation drives foresight. And I'm very much having this dialectical relationship between foresight and innovation. And my PhD was about how do organizations use for foresight methods and innovation process coming back from this idea based on this idea that the innovation takes quite a lot of time, especially the radical innovations. So I see innovation and foresight it as two sides of the same coin. And more in particularly, I see them as driving each other.
Peter Hayward: That is my guest today on FuturePod Patrick van der Duin who is a researcher, consultant and educator in Foresight and Innovation Management.
Welcome to FuturePod Patrick.
Patrick van der Duin: Thank you very much, Peter.
Peter Hayward: Been a little while since we've chatted. We last chatted quite a while ago in America at a WFS conference.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah, those were the days, Peter. Long time ago.
Peter Hayward: And then you wrote a book, and you recruited me and Joe Voros to give chapters in your book.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah, that's true. The book was called ‘Knowing Tomorrow. How science deals with the future ‘(https://www.amazon.nl/Knowing-Tomorrow-Science-Deals-Future/dp/9059722299) as a subtitle. And I can remember that the idea or the background of the book was that the book was, I think, published somewhere 20, 20 years ago, maybe a bit longer. And in those days, you would still have to explain to a lot of people what you're doing.
Yeah. Now I would say it's a bit different. It has improved. So to say our job, our mission has become a bit more widespread, but 20, 25 years ago, you still have to explain when you go to a birthday, but they're you and Patrick and then, you also have to say, no, I'm not a futurologist. I don't have a crystal ball, but I do a bit different.
But still the topic of the future as it is a search was always there, I think, but it was a bit hidden. And I studied macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam. And that's about economics, but still the topic of the future, about innovation, about making economic predictions, a lot of economic law so to say are not really economic laws but more tendencies.
They do have this forward looking aspect, if prices go up, demand goes down. And the same holds for, I think, for other social sciences like sociology, psychology, philosophy. So then the question popped up with me, What is the role of this concept of the future or futures, as we currently say, in those different sciences? So that's why I started asking people to contribute to the book. And you were, luckily, you're one of the, those people who wrote a chapter in it, Peter. Many thanks still, by the way, many thanks for that, Peter.
Peter Hayward: For you, when you started out, yes, we started out as professionals, and the future is, is that thing that so many of our disciplines face, or try and influence. In your life, even before you got to university, was the future kind of, rolling around in your life at that time?
Patrick van der Duin: The honest answer is no not explicitly. I can remember that then when I was in puberty, I was following politics and I was always looking to those politicians who want to economize on budgets and spend less money in order to have a better future. I'm not sure whether it's an English expression, but in Holland we say the the sour becomes before the sweet. So, first you have to make the effort and then at the end you get rewardedWhich all always implies a short term or long term or the short term. You have to work hard and later on you can rest and enjoy the fruits of your hard labor.
But I was noticing that they're always talking about the short term in terms of, okay, you have to work hard now and later on you can enjoy. But later on never appeared it's always was something you push forward. So, when do we profit from our hard work? And then I thought maybe it's a kind of political trick, and so that might be one of the first, now you asked me, by the way, one of the first examples when I got interested in the future. But actually when I started doing economics at the University of Amsterdam and I had a very, I hope I still have a very broad interest. So it was about economics, but it was also about wealth economics. It was about a little bit of management political science, sociology of economics. So I didn't have a focus and then I realized I'm not a specialist. I'm a generalist. And I like to combine things. I look to things from a very broad view.
I have this bird's eye view on things. And once again, coming back also to my youth, I was an avid reader of books, but I didn't read science fiction. A lot of people in our field have started reading science fiction. I did that later on, but it didn't start with me. But when I studied, I graduated from a professor who was a political philosopher, and we know he spoke about political theories about societies and about liberalism and communitarims and social democracy. I thought it's very interesting because it's very much this context of the economy, so to say.
But for me, it was more connecting things in various holistic approach to look at things. And for me that's the essence, one of the essences, I would say of the future. And the real concrete step from my study to be getting involved in this field and develop myself as someone involved in foresight was actually that when I was a mailman. Every Saturday I was a postman and then so I applied for a job at the Dutch PTT, the Dutch Telecom and Post Operator, and they had this which was called KPN Research. KPN is a Dutch PTT and they had their own R& D facility. Very famous one, very big one as well. All technical research and one of those R& D departments was focused on societal issues and they applied for a job. They sent me a brochure and in that brochure they, they presented a few projects, once again, mainly technological, so I didn't understand those, but one project was from this department on social sciences. And they presented a scenario study on 2015.
Patrick van der Duin: So I applied for a job in 1996 and I was reading it, I think that's fun because they had this, they used this, I think, Wildavsky and Thompson theory on the grid of societies with high and low regulation and less high and low freedom, those types of things. So that's four different scenarios or four different types of societies. And they very much remind me what I just told you about the lessons told by my professor of political philosophy about different types of political theories or societies, if you will. So I saw the connection. So I was very much drawn to the scenarios. And once again, I thought, okay, this is a very general approach. This is good vehicle framework to express my general attitude towards things because in those scenarios, those beautiful future descriptions of possible societies, everything comes together. And I thought that's an interesting way to, to look a bit beyond the company and have this more societal view.
So then I got into this world of foresight and also very good way to to get in touch with people because, as we use those scenarios to not only to write reports, but also to have those workshops and other sessions where you speak with people in my case, from the company I worked for. And also with our clients, by the way, it was also very interesting to have this interaction with those people instead of just writing reports of, it's a way of communication. So that was very interesting and it's also very much because I had once again, coming back to my very general attitude, on the one hand I was very interested in theory and methods and frameworks (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315728513/foresight-organizations-patrick-van-der-duin) , and I had this abstract attitude. And the other hand working at a commercial company also had this notion of: what can we do? How can we change things or influence things? And I think particularly the scenarios I got acquainted with were a very good way to combine those views. On one hand, it's a bird's eye view, it makes things very abstract. And on the other hand, it also means in those discussions and meetings and workshops, you can flesh out what it really specifically means for the company or for people or innovation.
And it was fun to do. It still is. So that's also a very important motivator to stay in this field of foresight. And also in those days there was not much available yet. In terms of nowadays, when I speak to potential clients or whatever, I say if you want to do something with scenarios and other methods, first check out the internet, see what's around there. And then because if you spend so much time and money on just making those foresight studies and you have less time to discuss with it, which actually, for me, it's the most important thing of it, that will be a waste of money. But in those days, and then we talk about, I want to say 1996 until 2001, something like that, and I worked for KPN, there was not very much available.
So you had to produce your own foresight. And so that gave me also the opportunity to to not only use foresight but also to produce foresight in a commercial setting. Although KPN was a kind of private company, but also for 50, 40 percent was owned by the Dutch government. And it was an exciting time. The rise of the internet, mobile telephony. cable company. So it was very dynamic, so to say, but so that kind of raised my interest in foresight and also gave me the opportunity to develop some foresight skills.
Peter Hayward: Were there any people who assisted you in the kind of early stage of you developing your craft? Either they were people you worked with or they inspired you?
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah, there were a few people, because they already did the project. There were a few people who were skilled but not that much because also it was rather new for a lot of people to to think about the future and especially in our case to use the scenario method. But there were a few people who had followed the course and was based on that course were taught, teaching me. Of course, you learn a lot of things in practice, which you don't read in books. That's also one of the things you quickly notice. So I had a few senior colleagues at KPN who, you know, who supervised me, people with a sociological background, by the way, that was very interesting. So not people with a technical background, but people very much looking at society. And once again, that kind of underlines my view of, this is very much about societal issue about a very macro context type of thing.
And in addition to that I started reading a few books. Once again, there were not many, method books on the other side. And I followed a course at the Nijenrode University, which is a Dutch university where the late Kees van der Heijden taught his famous scenario course and I went there, I think it was three or four days. I wouldn't say that changed my world, but that was a big influence, of course, that you really know what's all about and not only how to do it, but also what is the nature of scenarios in particular, but also foresight in general, and that helps you. And from then on, you start reading more and you become your own expert, so to say. And once again, you read, you learn from doing things in practice.
Peter Hayward: And Kees's book, of course, which was about scenarios, but the preface was the art of strategic conversation.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah. It's about the conversation also that kind of taught me in a very early stage that you know the foresight study or the method is very important, but it's a means not a goal. And my all time advice to potential clients or users and say please do not devote too much time on making the foresight study. Of course, if you don't find any relevant stuff on the internet or whatever, make it yourself. And of course, I wouldn't, I'm not principally against that, but I noticed that a lot of foresight studies are not about: and what does it mean for us? What can you do with it? And so it's a bit 80/20 of the rule so 80 percent of it being devoted to the foresight study itself and 20 percent only to the strategic conversation, and I would not argue for the other way around 20/80, but it would be good if it would be a bit more in balance and that then you can devote as much the same amount of time and resources and effort or whatever to also have this very important discussion about the future instead of just writing it down, what it might be. Because I think foresight is very much meant to inspire people, to make decisions and change things. Otherwise it remains in this corner of, okay, nice to know. And we see what happened and we wait until the future arrives. And then, then you're too late because I think foresight is very much on anticipating on, scratch your skin before it aches or itches, that type of idea. So that was a very good starting point for doing foresight.
And then also because what I said, there was not much there, so to say. I'm a bit exaggerating by the way, if I compare it to nowadays, where you have all those journals and PhDs and whatever. So, I still had this ambition to do a PhD and to do some more writing stuff. So then I actually moved back to the university. So after six years of doing foresight in the field, I I became a research fellow at Delft University of Technology and wrote a PhD on foresight and innovation Management. And from then on, you do your PhD, you do a lot of teaching also in foresight actually. You write articles. You probably publish some books, you edit some few books. And also at the university, I, tried to do two things together. So on the one hand, be this abstract academic, which is the essence of science. You take a step back and see what's going around. You don't dive immediately into the pool. And at the same time also because I think foresight is a kind of applied research, you're also still doing it. So I was really trying to balance two things. So the, once again, the really abstract field, so to say of doing scientific research on foresight. And at the same time also have this practical part, what's really happening, how really people are really doing it in action in action or in practice. And yeah, I don't regret that decision, so to say sounds a bit dramatic but no, that, that was good. And yeah, from then on, after Delft University I became an Associate Professor at a applied university in the Netherlands on foresight.
And then I also became later on a Managing Director of the Netherlands Study for Technology Trends (www.stt.nl), which is a kind of public-private funded foresight technology. But relevant developments are not only about technology foresight, it's also about societal foresight and the relationship or perhaps the balance between technology and science, that's the key. Which is a very interesting institute founded in 1968 by Fred Polak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Polak) a famous Dutch futurologist who had some money, so I think, and also because in the sixties, as you probably know, there were a lot of those Foresight Institutes coming up in the U. S., such as the Hudson Institute . And there were a few scientific attachés at the Dutch embassy in Washington and said we see those institutes coming up in the U. S., why don't we have such an institute in the Netherlands? And that's the history of that institution. And they do still do great stuff. And I was managing director there of six years.
And then then I fired myself, so to speak. Now it's time for someone else. And then I took a short sabbatical at the University of Portsmouth. And then I came back to Netherlands. And since year and a half now, I'm a self employed consultant, teacher, researcher on foresight and innovation management. That's basically Patrick history in the field of foresight. Thanks Patrick.
Peter Hayward:
Can we go a bit deeper into your philosophy and notion of practice, as I call it, of this relationship between foresight informs the ways that organizations innovate and, in fact, create their future. And just like you to just tease that out as to how you see those two forces working.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah coming back to what I said before is that my personal interest is very much on how organizations do foresight. So in that sense, I'm not a classical futurologist or really focus on the content of the future itself as being written down or presented in many reports and presentations. Maybe I'm more like scientists who study organizations and particularly how they do foresight. So for me, it's very important to to see really what is happening. How do they do it? And you can look at it on different levels. You can really observe in practice how they are doing it or how they're not doing it.
By the way, this was an important issue. How organizations recognize the importance of the future, of futures or doing foresight. And by organizations, both commercial and governmental and everything which is in between. And it is what you're saying Peter, it's about innovation. Future drives innovation, but it's also the other way around. It's also innovation drives foresight. And I'm very much having this dialectical relationship between foresight and innovation. And my PhD was about how do organizations use for foresight methods and innovation process (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272477777_Qualitative_futures_research_for_innovation) coming back from this idea based on this idea that the innovation takes quite a lot of time, especially the radical innovations. So I see innovation and foresight it as two sides of the same coin. And more in particularly, I see them as driving each other. And I'm not sure where it started with innovation force. And maybe it's not relevant, but at least that's the connection.
That kind of relates back to me that maybe coming back to what I said that foresight is not a goal in itself, but it's a means to make decisions to change things. And the best way to change things is to make decisions and from then on, hopefully things will indeed change. I think it's very important that I very much not only looking at things from a dialectical perspective both foresight and innovation, also present and the future, they're both influencing each other by making decisions in the present. We change the future and the views we have on the future also have an impact on the present. But I also noticed that especially if you look at the real life daily practices of organizations or people doing foresight is that those best practices do not exist. And just as we, in our field say there's not a single future, there are multiple futures. I think the same would hold also hold for the way organizations are doing it and the different methods they apply and different processes and different types of decisions.
So I'm very inspired by this whole contingency approach. Saying there's no one size fits all way to explain or to carry out foresight. With an organization, it very much depends it very much depends, point. And then the question, depends on what? And it depends on what I'll say the type of question, the type of organization, the type of industrial context. And I can remember it was a different conference, Peter. It was in Athens that I presented a paper and very much emphasizing this contingency approach to foresight, thereby also stating that if you do foresight as practitioner, you do it for a company or with a company, you have to adjust your style of doing foresight to your client.
If you work for new project for Intel and you start, presenting all kinds of short term trends on what the new color will be for fashion. Then I think those people working at Intel or another technology company will look at you very, very awkward way. They don't know what you're talking about. So you have to adjust your style. And actually when I presented that, people were very angry with me. I still can remember that there were people that said Patrick, you're a nice guy, but you don't understand this field. And as a foresight, you have to be independent. And you have to go against all those boardroom type of people. And I said, yeah, sure. I fully understand that. I'm not saying you have to adjust the content of what you are saying of the trends, maybe a little bit, but the way you approach your client, the way you try to fit in your work as a foresight practitioner into the wider decision making process or organization process of your client or whoever uses your results, so in that sense, so I would do yeah.
If I'm being asked to supervise a foresight project, I would do things different from the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs than I would do for Coca-Cola. And maybe a lot of listeners would say, okay that's normal, but a lot of consultants do exactly the same thing because that's more efficient, of course. And, if you have one screwdriver, everything is a screw, as they say, but also coming back to this position of the futurologist or the foresight practitioner, who really wants to be this independent person, I have my own view and whoever calls me, this is my story, which is good in itself. But it does not always mean that your your information or your knowledge is being used. A lot of people I have come across the last 20, 25 years in this field, especially those trend watchers and futurologists, I'm not sure where it really are belong to our field Peter, they're involved in the future. We have to accept that they're very good, in inspiring people and getting the information. But then the next step and coming back to what I just said before, what does it mean and what can you do with it? They fell silent.
If they have given more or less the same presentation, but with a different starting slide the next day at a different organization. Okay then things are not going as we as planned, so to say, because then they're telling the same story over and over again to a different audience. And my way of doing foresight and the same holds for innovation management. You have to adjust your way of doing foresight or innovation management to the context in which you operate, which is actually also a kind of logical, especially if you are, if you feel the foresight, because the big assumption, I think that's the right assumption of doing foresight is that things are changing. If things would be in 2024, the same as 1994. Okay. Then why should we change? Whereas we see, no, things develop. We have all those new developments, new trends, new weak signals. The world is a bit different than 20, 25 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, or maybe before October 7th, I'm not sure.
So it's normal that also the way you do foresight will also evolve of course. And that also has consequences for how you do foresight in practice. You can't say, okay, if organization is the same, and this is my story because I'm an independent autonomous foresighter. And, just listen to me and do what I say. It doesn't work like that. You want to have impact, you want to have change.
Peter Hayward: One of the things, Patrick, that a lot of people, and I think you're saying very similar, is that Foresight starts with where the client is. With the question the client is asking with the particular dilemma or question that the client has and the practitioner. Whatever they bring in terms of knowledge and experience is secondary to understanding where the client is and what would be useful or helpful for them.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying that you have to do what your client is saying, but you have to understand your client. To give you one example, when I, get a phone call or people approach me for doing foresight. They say the future is open. And then, yeah, that's true. They assume by themselves that they don't think about the future. They don't have a future. I don't know, come on, you always have a future. You thought, yeah, we have a strategy. Okay, what is your strategy? This is our current strategy. Okay. Behind that strategy, there's a kind of conception, awareness of the future. It's very implicit. They're unaware of it. But I would say firstly start with, okay, what is your current view on how things might evolve into the future? Because apparently your strategy is based on that. And then they look at you a bit, puzzling. Okay. And then what you mean? And then you having this conversation with them and then by posing them certain questions then not only they have, they can explain why the strategy is, but also on what kind of expectations they have of the future.
And that's okay. This is step one, your strategy. Now we know why you have to stretch because now after this. Very good discussion we just had. I know what you expect from the future. Okay. And I'm very happy with that. And then I say, okay, suppose this future you now have sketched out for yourself, suppose the future will be different, might turn out different or will turn out different than you now expect. What then? And then I said, okay yeah, and then we have a problem because our current strategy is not suited for that. Okay. That's interesting. Now we can go on. The danger would be and in that sense, history is indeed important Peter, because decisions from the past have influence on the present situations and thereby on the future course. Sure, that's the case. So they assume a kind of greenfield situation. Now we can do everything in the future, which is not entirely true. It depends how far you look into the future. True, but for a lot of organizations, the time horizon, the average time horizon to make strategic decisions is, 10, 15, 20 years.
Once again, depending on the client, if you go to Coca-Cola, it will be different than if you go to the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure. But this view, even if we have a greenfield, okay, that's not entirely true. And it also makes it at least my work a bit easier because then I have something to hang on because after we established the first chain of strategy and foresight and future. Okay, then by varying the different future in which they might end up in 10 or 15 years from now, then you can say, okay, your strategy is vulnerable or your innovation, you need some, maybe if that happens, yeah. If all those trends, you now see moving in a different direction, what do you do? Okay. And then I find it interesting. And once again, then it's about the conversation you have. It's about decision makers or people within organizations or maybe even in their personal lives, getting aware of that they have, of course, they have this implicit future and by making themselves aware of the future, they also are being able to vary in that.
Listen, if that future, which is often which often kind of visual thinking, of course, is the preferred future. That's often. That's normal. It's not a problem, but you have to be aware of it. You have to be conscious of that. Okay. I do have a future. This is my personal favorite one. And do everything you can to make sure that it happens. But, once again, the future is not something you can engineer. It's very much out there and you have to think about it and maybe adjust a little bit. But be aware of this variety of futures. I think that's the most important thing. And what do you do if this?
Sometimes when I make scenarios, I even ask, maybe it's not allowed, but what is your favorite future? What is your favorite scenario? This upper right scenario, that's my favorite one. Okay. That's favorite one is already in your system, in your mental state. Good. Stick to it and you have thought about if that future will evolve, you're ready for it. But those other three or two or four, you're not ready for that. So one of the tricks or jokes or I'm not sure how you call it is taht if you ask some person, suppose you have this very classical quadrant, four scenarios, and you ask a person, what's your favorite scenario? And that person did say is the upper right one. That's my favorite one because it's, it comes society like, okay, and then you start working with scenarios. I put that person in the lower left scenario. And they look at me and they it's very bad and they hate me at that moment. But if they start working for it, and I explain why they do it, because then I can mentor your, I can broaden your mentalimage or landscape, whatever you call it. They can learn much more and they can be taught by the scenario to think differently. And then later on, after the workshopthey come to you and say, thank you, Patrick, because indeed from the upper right corner scenario, I was already aware of that. That's my preferred future. But the upper left, the lower left one, then if they started working in that scenario, the scenario they don't like, that scenario at the same time becomes a bit more realistic. Maybe not realistic is the right term, but it become more understandable for them that scenario might indeed evolve.
And I recently had this workshop at Delft University Technology where one of the scenario was a very nationalistic, yeah, we'll call it a right wing scenario where, the Netherlands is closing is off from international developments and there was not a very preferred future and also very unlikely, it was considered to be very unlikely. There we had the elections here in the Netherlands and we still have to see what happens, but it's not that unlikely anymore, unfortunately. So I had this evaluation with this with this person after the elections and they said yeah, that's interesting finding to, to really become aware that. After a certain moment, a particular scenario might become a bit more realistic or better imaginable than before.
Peter Hayward: Of the things around you what are you paying careful attention to? What are the things around you that are getting your attention, either because you're excited by them or you might even be concerned by them?
Patrick van der Duin: I have two answers for this. It depends. Sometimes it depends on the industry or societal domain I work for. To give you an example, recently I've done a lot of work in the education sector. And one of the discussions in the Netherlands, I think the same holds for for Australia as well and other. Other countries, of course, is the digitalization of education. How important is it for students to, to use to use digital to use digital means in education and so on. And it's a mixed blessing story. Because on the one hand, it's yeah, we have to change the education and the system itself because it's more or less the same for, some people say for a hundred years, which is a bit long, but it hasn't changed that much. Whereas we see the world around us is changing and now different generations of people having different needs, different ways of learning.
I think in the Netherlands, we are adjusting quite well to that situation where there's a lot of diversity in terms of styles of education. Type of schoolings and so on. And I think a lot of money is being invested in digital means. What I'm trying to say is that, that I'm very much looking for mixed signals because on the one hand now, I think from January 1st, mobile phones are more or less prohibited in secondary schools in the Netherlands. Which I'm not saying is a step back, but it's slowing down this digitalization. And in addition to that, also, there's now a discussion going on that we have a shortage of educational staff, which we can't solve for the next 5 to 10 years. Which is a bitter conclusion, but I think it's truthful. So the discussion comes back now, if you look at the curriculum of secondary schools, it's quite a lot. It's not only about reading or writing or calculations. It's about citizenship and it's about security. As a child nowadays, you have to learn a lot of things. Maybe it's also to go back to the core of teaching, that is, reading, calculating and writing and you start with that. And then see what happens next.
So that's one thing that I noticed because this whole idea of getting back to the basics. On the other hand, so I'm playing a bit of a dual role in that, also I say to people I was told that a couple of years ago there was a student at Delft University who never was physically present at the campus. He was from Pakistan. He followed his, I think, bachelor and master course from his home in Pakistan. He did everything digital. I'm not sure what the reason behind it was, but that's the other part of the continuum. So it's about every time I, for certain for certain industries, I try to look at those very specific signals and coming back to this contingency thinking. I'm a bit afraid I'm reluctant to easily put those type of signals or changes into other industries as well. That's to a certain extent. If you look at the issue of sustainability, okay, that holds both for education and the construction industry or for government. That's, however, how specifically works out, that's different. But that's a very, to give you a period to answer your question, that's a very specific things I'm looking when I'm working in a specific industry.
On a more general level I am, more and more, also looking at the balance or supposed balance between technology and society. Once again, coming back to this very general attitude I have and I've become more and more interested in technological developments, not the technology in itself or what the technology is, but how it develops and in particularly how fast technology is developing. And well, one of the things I'm currently working on is also this. And then so you're looking at changes at signals that people constantly are saying, okay, technology development is going so fast and the world is changing and I think it's exponential and almost every book not if not only every popular book or airport, but also a lot of scientific books are literally starting with those type of sentences saying that things are going very fast. And I'm a bit skeptical about that. I'm more and more looking now at how fast things really going and coming back to this term innovation.
Yeah, innovation might. might go faster and perhaps more exponential, the diffusion rates of innovation. However the phase before that, the development, we're now currently working on doing the research on that, but our first results, so to say, are that it's not going faster. It's not going slower, but between the first idea of technology, the patent or the breakthrough and its ultimate application in a new product or whatever, that period in between is very constant and a lot of technology we currently see are the principles behind it. I might be decades old. If you look at, sustainable solar panels. If you look at, I think the same holds for Australia and also the diffusion of solar panels on roofs is exponential. It's unbelievable. But the whole principle of solar panels first is, I think, end of the 19th century. First cars were electric. The covid vaccination was based on principles from, I think, somewhere in the 1980s. That lady who developed it got, I think, last year the Nobel Prize for it. I don't criticize it. Just coming back to the mixed signals I would like to give to my clients or whatever it's also very much playing with that.
People say things are going very fast. Okay, what do you mean? And you would be surprised, Peter, about the conceptual confusion a lot of people have, for instance, about technology innovations. It's the same thing. No, it's not. If physics would say that molecules are the same things as particles, then, it doesn't work. The same holds for for our field in terms of technology and innovation. So those type of things. I'm looking very much to see how that develops. I think also you said it in the beginning this relationship between society and technology and I just published a paper in Technological Forecasting and Social Change where we just introduced the concept of ‘future technology myopia’ (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040162523006121?via%3Dihub). Meaning that a lot of future expectations of technology to be developed are very much focused on current societal issues and once again, coming back that if technology takes that much time to develop by the time you have developed it and hopefully, put it in a kind of product or innovation, then society might have changed and I think the best way to describe that the thinking is we use in that article a Quote by Wayne Gretzky, and Wayne Gretzky and he's a famous Canadian. I'm not very much into ice hockey. That’s not a very Dutch sport. You've got to actually skate where the puck's going to be. That's the whole point. So a good player skates where the puck is, and a very good player skates where the puck is going.
And if you look at a lot of reports or books or, whatever about technology development, and then people ask you, what is technology, okay, and why are you developing it? They also say, okay we see this development, and yeah, so we see this, okay, but will that development in the future when your technology is being developed, and that's not next year, but next decade or even longer, is that still around there? I don't know. And we give this very funny example of if you would develop a robot that is capable of driving a van and emptying mailboxes. Would you develop such a robot if it takes 10, 15 years to develop? No, you wouldn't, because by the time 2040 you would have developed the robot, nobody is sending you physical letters anymore. So that's the whole. But you would be surprised first of all, we didn't very much notice that in literature on technology development. You have ‘innovators dilemma’, you have ‘not invented here’, but that type of what we call ‘future technology myopia’ is not there. And you would be surprised how many projections or expectations of technology development is based on that notion of disregarding that societal change and just assuming that's constant.
Peter Hayward: I'm wondering if part of what society, as you say, society grows up and is both influential on innovation and also directly becomes culture through innovation. And I'm wondering, particularly in Europe, and certainly in America, we're seeing this rise of what you would call a kind of philosophy of people who feel that things are moving too fast for a culture. And at the same time, people, the ideas aren't new ideas, but what is new now is the technology that people can use to express their ideas. And I'm wondering whether we've actually got a point where there's both a pressure to innovate and almost a wheel going in the other direction through groups in society who have influence or can use technology, digital technology particular, to say we want innovation going in a different direction?
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah it's, you might even consider the battle. And you could say it's almost a battle between the classical technology push and, and societal pull. If innovation is not a goal in itself, but should be a means to improve things, improve society. And what improvement means that's up to people to decide, not to me. But I noticed that I don't have an answer to it or a solution to it, but the first step would be to acknowledge it. And to give you an example, we often talk about the Anthropocene nowadays, and that's true. On the same time, and although I don't have a technical background, we also at the same time in the era of the technology: the ‘Technolocene’. Everything is technology where we, and I'm not saying one thing, I'm trying to be neutral. I'm not saying that's good, but just saying. Although things are not going as fast as generally assumed, my former point, yes technology is a big thing nowadays. And what you now see is the discussion you also raised, Peter, but has it become too big and should we not go to step back or step to the side and put technology under control as well?
And The good thing, let's emphasize a positive point, is that there's a discussion about it. To give you an example, if you, I think you've read those, or you've seen those books before, if you go to the 1950s or 1960s and you see all those futurologists books or advertisements with, flying cars and going to Mars. Let's call it the undertone or the thing behind it was always, shall we ever achieve technologically what we want to hope to achieve? Will we go to Mars or will we indeed have this, develop this pill where you become 150 years old or can we have flying, driving cars? The tone of those advertisements and those photographs nowadays is different. Now luckily you, I use the word luckily, but luckily you see now that if we see a lot of those technologies, AI is the most recent example, but also genetic modification, nuclear technology, where now the discussion once again is coming back due to sustainability. The tone is different. Now we are a bit more say, okay. Do we really want what we can? We can, but do we really want it? And what about the taboo of not using technology?
You probably saw the Oppenheimer movie, that's a kind of thing. I used to work at Delft University of Technology and there was always this group of philosophers and people dealing with ethical issues. That group was very small. 3, 4, 5, perhaps 6 people. Nowadays, they're ruling the faculty. There are 35 people because the whole ethical stuff has been put on agenda. Which is a good thing, and once again, for me, that's an illustration of this. I call it battle, but at least the fact that we become more and more aware that technology in itself is not the only answer and should be embedded in societal societal layer or societal needs.
And luckily, I recently did a project for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs about technology policy management. And more and more, that the policies are not only being formed by the technology itself, the dynamics of technology, which is falsely being considered as autonomous, which is not entirely true, or by economic motivation, but also more, okay what kind of societal challenge does this technology solves or addresses? And if we don't have a good answer to that, why are we doing this? And why should we make policies for that or put money into it? And that's, it's not the other way around. It hasn't flipped fully yet. The mission driven technology policy management, it's more and more coming up societal challenges, SDGs, and of course the jury's still out whether that has really impact on how technology development is going and how this being managed by both governments and commercial companies who have an interest in developing technology. But, it's being put on the table more and more. And I think coming back to the younger generation is more and more being critical of that. And, that's a good thing. That's, I really think so. Yeah.
Peter Hayward: Communication. So how does Patrick explain to people what Patrick does when the person you're talking to doesn't understand what Patrick does?
Patrick van der Duin: I always call that the Aunt Annie test. Have you heard about the Dutch birthdays? If you go to the Netherland, you have to go to the birthday because people are sitting in a circle and talking to each other. And I always sit next to my aunt and she's always, she's a bit forgetful. She always ask me, Patrick, what are you doing now? ? I often have a, this disclaimer of, listen, I'm not a futurologist. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't predict the future. I'm studying how people deal with the future. And because of that I also can help people in organizations to get involved with the future. And when I go to companies luckily, once again, that's a change, very much changed from, when I started 20 years ago. You don't have to explain everything, but I'll say, okay I'm after my disclaimer. I say okay, who is considered with the question, what will your business be in 10 years from now? Or if I go to a government okay what type of issues are you making policies 10 years from now? And then I say, if it's entirely the same things as you, if you all of you think it's entirely the same thing, okay then I'm leaving because then, yeah, you don't need me.
I could stay and convince you that it will be otherwise, but you have to be open to that. So that's basically, I'm not starting with foresight itself. I'm starting at okay we all know that in 10 years from now, things will be different and it can be a relatively different, can be a bit different, slightly different or, and okay, you have to think about how to deal with that question. It's a very strategic issue. So from that point, I reasoned back. Okay, what do you do? Who's responsible? Who's involved in addressing this question within your organization? Who's thinking about that? And how do you do that? And how can I be of any assistance in doing that? So I'm not saying I'm applying causal layer analysis to or scenarios or whatever. I'm saying I'm helping organizations to think, to address this question. What do you do in the future? What will your organization might look like? How do you want to be to look like? That's basically how I explain it. And from then on, often people will raise additional questions. Okay, what does it mean? How do you do that? And, yeah, okay then you have a different discussion, but at least you have a better starting point than starting by giving a formal definition of future studies or foresight or anticipation or whatever it's being called these days.
Peter Hayward: So Patrick, when you go into an, when you meet a person or you go into an organization what are the things you would notice that would possibly encourage you to believe that an organization had an appetite to do this kind of work? Or alternatively, what are the kind of signs, if you notice them, would possibly indicate to you that they in fact may not have an appetite for this?
Patrick van der Duin: There are two things. The first one is the best in terms of when I really have a case where an organization is saying, okay, we missed Brexit, we missed Corona we were too late. Additionally, we also missed the impact. What does, what, how did it impact us? I'm not saying Brexit was foreseeable but especially Corona was different, COVID was very difficult, of course. Yeah, there'll always be pandemics, of course, but the specific way it impacted the organization. Then they say, okay we were surprised in a negative way. The last last few years, we don't want to get surprised anymore. We want to be more prepared. Okay. That's the good sign of the day. The other thing that's a good, I would, I call this a very good indication because they, you don't have to explain why it's important. They made some mistakes and then, okay. Then we, then they, you can conclude, okay. They are ready for it. They've learned their lesson. Okay. If we don't pay attention to new things. We are way back behind again, and we don't want to happen that anymore. We want to stay up front. Okay, that's great. That makes it, my life a bit more easier because I don't have to less do explaining or convincing them. It's important to look to the future.
The second thing would be that I noticed that if I go to an organization and I ask them this open question, Okay, how do you think about the future? And then they start talking about themselves. They consider what they have done and what they are doing. And for me, once again, coming back to how can you define this field? It's about the future, but it's very much context. For me, foresight is very much about looking around you, not only looking forward, but it's also very much what is happening around you. What kind of developments do you see outside your organization? And if an organization is too much focused on itself, then I have a red flag. And okay, this is too much, this is really reasoning from yourself and you think you can decide on how your environment will be. And you can say to our organizations who are also independent, say, okay, this is what you're going to do. But that's it's well meant. It shows a kind of confidence. Maybe it's a little bit of macho, we do whatever we like. Okay then why are you, aren't you successful? You're, yeah, so that's, so the first example is a good one in terms of, okay, they have learned it.
Okay. Then they are, and still you're not there because still you have to And they should be brave enough to say, okay we done the foresight study. We are about to make some strategic decisions based on what we have learned from the reports from speaking to people from the workshop. Okay, we're going to do. Make this decision or decide differently than we expected before we went into this foresight process. That's still a battle you have to have with your client, even though he or she is very convinced and don't want to be surprised anymore. The second example is a bit more difficult, of course, because then you have to, it sounds a bit arrogant, but I don't mean it that way, but you have to explain or convince that things are not going that way. And you are not, you're not the only organization in the whole universe, but there's some other organizations as well. We have, who are a bit different, might be a bit more powerful with, have different roles or different hopes or anxieties or wishes or whatever. And no it's not aligned. It's so hidden. Yeah,
Peter Hayward: Last question, you have just taken on an interesting new role, haven't you?
Patrick van der Duin: I have. Yeah. Since January 3rd, I've become the co chief editor of Futures together with Chris Groves. And Futures is one of the, maybe the most important, it's it's a flagship journal. It's a flagship.. So it's, it has a long history. I think 1968 it was established. It's it's a very good platform for scholars and I think also for other people involved in foresight to present and read and discuss working in the foresight field. And I'm very happy to do it because I was already quite long involved. It was Ziauddin Sardar. One of the famous people in our field. He asked me, I think, 10, 12 years ago, to become a member of editorial board. So you get involved into the journal and do a lot of reviews. And I think two years ago I was asked to become an Associate Editor by Ted Fuller, he was the successor of Ziauddin Sardar. You get more into the journal itself, how it works. And it's a good way to stay informed about the developments in foresight. And it's great also to although every scientific journal is critical, of course, but it's also very good to help people writing good articles and give them the opportunity to present their work to everyone around the globe who's interested in foresight, who works with foresight. And I'm very happy that I can contribute a bit more to to to the whole field of foresight and yeah, with what I said before it's the book on the journals becoming more and more diverse. We really want to become a very global journal where we don't only have papers from Australia, from Europe or from us, but also from other parts of the world.
Because once again, coming back that nowadays foresight is much more I would say accepted them 20, 30 years ago. Everyone around the world is doing foresight in many countries. People are looking to the future, writing reports, doing studies. Use foresight for decision making otherwise. And it's great also to have those well founded stories within the journal. So I'm very happy to to contribute to that to that project and to the effort.
Peter Hayward: Just from this little podcast, and the diversity of people, as you say, around the world that are practicing a form of foresight to a particular end. My question is given the select and elite readership of Futures, you got this broad church of people doing futures work all over the world and I would guess a very small percentage of those actually have exposure to a journal like Futures.
Patrick van der Duin: I understand the problem. You could say that at the end of the day, you are a scientific journal but basically, there are two things. One thing is, of course that we have this whole development to Open Access and so on. And Futures is part of of the Elsevier company and more and more of our papers are also being Open Access, if that's the correct English term. So that's one of the steps. Not only we, but also a lot of scientific journals are making the articles better publicly available. And from another perspective, we also actually trying to encourage and invite people from around the world to, to contribute to Futures and really actively doing that also making our editorial board and our Associate Editors also more diverse, not only from the North, but also from the Global South. And we are also thinking more and more about, we have this special issues, which is a good way also to invite those people and giving them a kind of platform or space within the journal to present their ideas.
So this decolonization development is very much on the agenda of Futures. It doesn't mean that's an easy thing. And also it will not change within two or three weeks. We need some time for that, but we are working on it. We have changed what they call the aims and scope of Futures. One half year ago to get more invited to to be more invitative to those people who are not very much thinking, okay, shall we publish in Futures or not? We're very much inviting those people. I do have the impression that things are getting better in that respect. Yeah. And we get, I see all those submissions coming by and we've also have this, what we call the communications. Also, you don't have to always send or submit a full blown scientific paper, but there's also room for more like a thinking piece or opinion piece. And so we're not there, far from it but it's been taken very seriously. It's on the agenda. We're working on it and yeah, it will be some work in progress for the coming years, I think.
Peter Hayward: Fantastic. Patrick, I applaud you and the work of Zia and Ted and the Board to make futures more accessible to a wider range of people, as you say, decolonize, because Futures has been a very colonized field for a long time. So I applaud you on that. It's been wonderful to catch up. It's been a few years since we've spoken, but it's wonderful to have a chance to have a chat with you and talk about you and your ideas on innovation and foresight and spend some time with the foresight community.
Patrick van der Duin: Yeah. Thank you, Peter, very much for for inviting me to your podcast and thank you for the question. It's always a good opportunity to speak with people like you and, it's also for me possibility to rearrange my thoughts on foresight and the best ways to do it, as we already said in this podcast, is by conversation. I think this was a very interesting and hopefully relevant conversation. Thank you very much Peter.
Peter Hayward: I enjoyed catching up with Patrick again and hearing how his thinking about Foresight and Innovation has developed and I hope you enjoyed it to. FuturePod is a not-for-profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support the Pod then please follow the Patreon link on our website. This is Peter Hayward. Thanks for joining me and see you next time.