Finding a path through play

How can play help build our resilience and ability to adapt to massive challenges like climate collapse?

Last week I had the pleasure of playtesting a new game with the crew from Amble Studio exploring that question.

It takes a planetary crisis and zooms in to see how this unfolds in a local community. Players grapple with events they may encounter in the next 10 years as the Earth warms, and weigh up what they can do about it - starting where they are, using what they have.

It was a fantastic example of how play can open up themes of individual vs collective action.

We began with a strong focus on we can do to keep our home in order, and slowly opened up to find ways to connect with community to build greater shared resilience.

I particularly enjoyed the tension of balancing the needs of our systems and structures to keep them fit for purpose, but also our needs as individuals maintaining our own wellbeing and desire to thrive.

I did not expect just how energised and capable I would feel after spending a few hours playing out how climate collapse could impact the place I live and work. It was a surprisingly hopeful experience.

And that's part of the power of play.

In play we take actions, find paths forward, try different approaches and create new hopeful stories that guide the way.

I'm so excited to see the next iteration of this game, and to learn what happens when it meets it's first local community in early December.

If you'd like to see how this game could be adapted for your local area, reach out to friendly folk at Amble Studio, or reply and tell me a little about what you have in mind.

An interruption to our usual schedule

This will be my last Fun Futures newsletter for the next few weeks while I am off exploring Te Waipounamu (the south island of New Zealand).

Rest assured - I've got the first few episodes of Flash Futures lined up to run while I am away.

Speaking of...

Flash Futures launches this week!

To celebrate the launch, I'm giving my newsletter subscribers a sneak peek at this new offering when it goes live tomorrow 👀👀

Massive savings, Cyber Monday Super Sale

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The Cyber Monday sale ends in:

My latest FuturePod interview is with Celia Hartanov, an explorer of the future of leadership and adaptable organisation.

We spoke about bringing foresight and organisational development together to break down barriers and invent the next practices for humane, kind, and responsive workplaces.

"I really believe that all of us, all organizations, all individuals, we need to be able to build this foresight discipline. We need to be able to think wider, think more proactively, be more future forward. And it shouldn't just be the large organizations, the organizations who have a lot of funds that can be afforded that...

My whole mission and reason for being is I want to be part of the workplace revolution. I think we are now at the opportunity where we can break out of industrial era thinking.

And that requires all of us to get on board, and all of us to have these forward thinking tools, not just the big companies."

- Dr Ciela Hartanov

Listen in to FuturePod episode 148 for the full story wherever you get your podcasts.

What I'm reading

While I was studying for my Master of Strategic Foresight, I took note of all the books we referred to and amassed a rather impressive reading collection.

This last week I've cracked the spine on Willis Harman's An Incomplete Guide to the Future, and boy do I wish I had got to it sooner.

This is a foundational piece of foresight writing from the 1970s, but despite being 50 years old it feels incredibly relevant for the times we are living in today.

Every action involves some view of the future - as we expect it to be, or as we desire it to be, or as we fear it may be. If our image of the future were different, the decision of today would be different. If our expectations are inaccurate, our decisions are likely to be faulty. If our vision is inspiring, it will impel us to action. If our collective vision arouses no enthusiasm, or if there is no commonly held image of what is worth striving for, our society will lack both motivation and direction.