Those in attendance included:
The meeting began with self introductions of the Planning Committee
Members in attendance, plus invited guests.
Jerry Glenn gave a briefing on the project's background and current status. The project is proceeding on schedule and with initial budget as outlined at the first Planning Committee meeting, February 14, 1996.
Ted Gordon reported on progress on the first two rounds of the 1996 Global Look-Out study. The first round collected 142 items. These developments formed the basis for the second round. In the first section of the second round, the 250+ Millennium Project participants were asked to rate the likelihood, importance, and agencies that might be expected to take leadership in forming and executing strategy for each item. The second section was customized. Participants received only the full-text of those developments in their domains and were asked to comment on the development and strategy.
Approximately 80 participants have responded to Round 2. In discussing the composition of the global panel, Hazel Henderson suggested that greater attention be given to participation by women and developing countries.
In anticipation of the analysis of the responses, Ted Gordon presented some "Themes" that seemed to be emerging from the set of development It was also suggested that the Project Domains not be the only way of organizing information. Many developments over-lapped domains, and participants had to look for additional domains in Round 2 if their primary domain did not include a specific development on which they were interested in commenting.
The discussion that followed made it clear that effort spent in organizing and sorting this material would be useful, especially for the 1997 State of the Future Report.
Allen Tough suggested that factor analysis be considered.
Bruce Lloyd suggested that a key word index system be used.
Hazel Henderson suggested that the analysis include an examination of strong and weak interactions.
Horacio Godoy suggested the report be available in "hypertext" to organize interactions and relations within the report.
Paul Werbos suggested attention be paid to causality - what causes what.
(Later in the week, Professor Wendel Bell, Yale University futurist-sociologist, commented that it was important to have the items in such a set expressed at the same level of generality).
All of these comments will be considered by the staff in organizing and preparing the material for Round 3
and in the final analysis of the study's results. Nevertheless, it was agreed that the original
categories still illustrate the range of issues the project addresses and helps in communications about the project.
Plans for Round 3 and 4 were discussed. Using the ratings of
likelihood and importance from round 2, the leading developments
will be used to form the leading 15 composite issue statements,
formatted into two- or three page sheets using both the textual
responses from round 2 and further research by project staff.
These will form the basis for round 3 which will ask for suggestions
and evaluations of potentially effective strategies. This round will
be distributed to the participants, and possibly translated by Millennium
Project Nodes into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
Round 4 will consist of interviews with leaders in politics, business,
UN organizations, and NGOs conducted by Project staff, nodes,
and participants. Results of Round 3 will be ordered by most effective
and practical and grouped by judgments about potential leadership
responsibility. Those items that were identified by participants
as being the responsibility of government will be the subject of
the interviews with political leaders; those items that were
identified as being the responsibility of UN organizations will be
addressed to leaders of UN organizations, etc.
Jill Montgomery made the suggestion that the staff consider holding a meeting(s) of Government-UN-Corporate-NGO leaders to discuss the strategies.
Bruce Lloyd suggested that the results of round 4 be distributed to groups of leaders such as the Institute of Directors.
It was also suggested that the study team analyze the strategies suggested to find those that might be "cross cutting" that is, be applicable to many of the issues addressed.
It was also suggested that the annual state of the future report
include a list of the most important decisions that have to be made.
Sketches of four backdrop scenario were distributed at
the meeting. In addition, a matrix of the four
scenarios and the 142 round 1 developments were also handed out.
The scenarios were prepared by project staff in consultation with
The Futures Group. Results of the Look-Out study will be used to
further detail these scenarios. Hazel Henderson suggested and it
was agreed that at least one normative scenario "a Win-Win scenario"
be added to the four.
The Millennium Project's Homepage and listservs were discussed and agreed to continue their development as described in the project's feasibility report. Paul Werbos suggested the Project keep up-to-date with new ways of organizing information such as the "clip board" application on the Internet
.In addition to corporate sponsors, Ford Motor Company and Monsanto Corporation, the U.S. Environmental Projection Agency and the Army Environmental Policy Institute have given oral confirmation of their agreements to support the project and said that paper work was soon to be completed. Both gave a briefing of their interests in future studies and why they look forward to collaborating with the project.
Lunch was served while Ted Gordon gave a preview of his speech at the World Future Society on "Decision Making and the Role of Futures Research." Uncertainty, risk, morality psychology: all perspectives have to be involved in making good decisions when uncertainty is high.
After lunch the concept of project nodes was discussed followed by a status up-date from each Project node chair. It was agreed that a memorandum of understanding would be written, circulated for comment among the node chairs, and then posted on the homepage. A Millennium Project node is a self-organizing group of institutions and individuals recognized by the Project that will facilitate the Project's research or conduct autonomous research in support of the Project. A node is a method to decentralize the management of the Project, facilitate the collection and application of recommendations to regional and/or local areas, and a channel to connect cultural and local issues with multicultural global civilization.
Horacio Godoy, chair, South American Node explained the regional approaches that explore globalization from the
Hassan Wageih Hassan, chair, Cairo Node explained how private sector, government, and university collaboration has begun with Al Azhar University, Al Arham Press Institute, and the Ministry of Education of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The initial plan is to begin with advanced training in futures methodology, then the introduction of futures curriculum development, and lastly long-range educational strategies.
Nadezhda Gaponenko, chair, Moscow Node shared information about the methodological collaboration between the Millennium Project and the Analytical Center for Technology and Industrial Policy of the Ministry of Science and Technology Policy of the Russian Federation. Selected Millennium Project methods work was translated into Russian, and Russian methods and applications were translated into English. A concept paper was prepared and accepted by the Russian Ministry on "Forecasting & Policy Applications of Research in Complexity, Chaos, and Self-organization for Social Transformation: A Case Study of Russia. This paper was prepared by a steering committee of George Cowan (Founder Santa Fe Institute); Nadezdha Gaponenko (Analytical Center on Science and Industrial Policy); Jerome Glenn (Co-director, Millennium Project); Ted Gordon (Co-Director, Millennium Project); and Mihaly Simai (Director, UNU/WIDER). Dr. Gaponenko said that she would like to focus at boundary between chaos and complexity in social systems and to identify indicators for this boundary.
Bruce Lloyd, member, London Node explained that a personal tragedy prevented Dave Mercer the chair of the London node from attending the planning meeting. In his place Lloyd explained that the node had several members and that the second round of the 1996 Global Look-Out study was circulated to others in London and that several responses have been received.
A. Hisao Shibusawa suggested that it was important to seek out an Asian node by adding representation in Beijing or Tokyo or both. Jerry Glenn reported that Rusong Wang, member of the Planning Committee had volunteered to chair the Beijing node, but due to his heavy travel schedule he was unable to attend the meeting to report on prog