Making the Future Visible: Reflections Twenty Years on

Abstract

A commentary after twenty years by the author of “Making the Future Visible,” written in 1999 and previously only circulated informally. Expanding on the idea of a “psychological landscape of the future” proposed in the 1999 paper, the author recalls the background and motivation for the original paper, and proposes that there are three psychologically distinct types of future—Cognitive, Affective, and Conative—each of which should be developed in any futures work intended to lead to strategic action. The identification and development of these three types of future also provides a means of resolving the so-called “scenarios to strategy problem.”