Disruptive Futures Institute Launches New Programs For Sustainable Futures
Disruptive Futures Institute, San Francisco, 3 October 2023 — Six months ago, the Disruptive Futures Institute released its fourth and final Volume from The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption. The response to our guidebooks and interest in our work has been overwhelming, and so here is an update on our recent milestones and strategic direction.
Bestselling Thriving on Disruption Six Months On: Six Milestones
Six milestones, six months after publishing our seminal four-volume collection:
- Bestselling Guidebooks: The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption sold thousands of copies. The books are now included in many bibliographies for academic programs, and case studies based on our frameworks continue to be developed. The books reached bestseller and #1 new release in several categories.
- Media Coverage, Podcasts & Reviews: There was glowing media coverage of our research and publications globally, from India to Brazil, UK, Europe, via Australia, the US, Japan, South Korea, and South Africa… Many more rich conversations over the past few months came through some incredible podcasts, which dive deeper into our key topics and concepts for you to explore.
- A New Book: Given the reception of The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption, we received strong interest from a number of publishers to explore our work further. Roger Spitz is now writing his fifth book to be published by Kogan Page.
- Scaling & Launching New Programs to Create Sustainable Futures: Inundated with interest for our talks, executive education, and courses, we will be launching updated programs for organizations, professional certificate courses for individuals, and a flagship initiative for our DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy. We will also focus on applied research through our Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence.
- Boards & Anticipatory Governance: We are scaling our programs globally to train Board Directors on Anticipatory Governance, Foresight Competency & Boards of the Future.
- Disruptive Thinking Canvas®: We have received the trademark registration from the USPTO for our proprietary Disruptive Thinking Canvas®. After a period of beta testing, we are now rolling out our canvas offering an actionable methodology to uncover and create disruptive futures on your terms, with tools designed to develop new mindsets for becoming change agents.
A Personal Request: Amazon Reviews Help!
Before diving into these milestones and highlighting active projects below, we have a personal favor to request.
We are delighted with the many reviews received on Amazon, in the media and other platforms for The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption’s four-volume publication. In today’s world, having many ratings and reviews on Amazon really makes a difference. So if you enjoy our work and are able to support, these ratings help our ideas gain further visibility:
- Here is the Amazon link with our four-volume collection if you are willing to rate/add your own reviews
- Here is a sample of testimonials and media coverage received
#1 Milestone: The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption
In 2023, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption was showcased at the major international book fairs, and we sold thousands of copies worldwide.
The books reached #1 Bestseller in Green Business (Kindle), #1 in Future Studies (Ingram), #3 Bestseller for Sustainable Development Economics (Kindle), and #5 in Green Business (print) on Amazon.
Volume IV, Disruption as a Springboard to Value Creation, also reached #1 New Release (Amazon Kindle) in the following categories: Strategic Management, Business Planning & Forecasting, Business Education, Organizational Learning, and Business Technology Innovation.
Showcasing Business Planning & Forecasting
It’s not every day that we wake up to find our work featured alongside Philip Tetlock (Superforecasting), Mervyn King (Radical Uncertainty), or Peter Diamandis (The Future Is Faster Than You Think).
The photo below showcases two of our volumes from The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption, namely “Disruption as a Springboard to Value Creation” (Volume IV) as #3 Best Seller and “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty” as #12 Best Seller (Volume II), for Amazon Kindle category Business Planning & Forecasting.
“Disruption as a Springboard to Value Creation” later reached the #1 New Release in that category, Business Planning & Forecasting.
Tetlock’s, King’s, or Diamandis’ classics were published years ago, and clearly these giants are standing the test of time. At our level, we were grateful and inspired to see our two books positioned alongside in such an important category.
Curriculum Support, Academic Bibliographies & Bulk Orders
A number of institutions now include our four-volume collection of The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption as part of their course syllabus, bibliographies, and recommended reading. We also enjoy seeing the impact of our frameworks being used in practice, with case studies developed based on them. We look forward to sharing some of these case studies as they will be released in journals and other publications in 2024.
To discuss bulk orders or custom curriculum support, please reach out to: info@disruptivefutures.org.
Media, Podcasts & YouTube Channel
We have had many rich conversations over the past few months on some incredible podcasts. You can find these podcasts on our Thriving on Disruption site.
Do subscribe to our YOUTUBE Channel, where we have recently uploaded many of the podcasts, together with short clips, other webinars, and talks.
As we develop beyond our origins of a strategic foresight practice and education platform into a broader media group, we also have our own plans for a podcast (and more) at some point. Stay tuned!
Scaling & Launching New Programs for Sustainable Futures
We will be launching updated programs for organizations, professional certificate courses for individuals, and a flagship initiative with our DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy. We will also focus on applied research through our Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence.
The Disruptive Futures Institute offers education, strategic foresight, and practitioner research globally, and is now organized into four integrated activities:
- Disruptive Futures Institute (Education): Helping organizations worldwide develop futures intelligence, build foresight capabilities and resiliency through tailored executive education programs, masterclasses, and custom workshops.
- Techistential (Strategic Foresight): Advising leadership teams and their organizations, boards, investors, and policymakers on anticipatory governance, sustainable value creation, and system innovation.
- DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy: Sustainable futures practice and flagship center for climate education.
- Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence: Researching and advising on ethical, existential, and technology foresight.
Launching Certificate Courses
The demand worldwide from organizations for our talks and executive programs continues to be strong. We are also seeing significant interest from individuals globally inquiring about the Disruptive Futures Institute’s courses for their personal and professional projects:
- Virtual live & digital courses for individuals: We have decided to broaden our courses to the general public, both as Cohort Based Courses (virtual live) on the Maven platform and also asynchronous digital formats.
- Timing & accrediting council: We will roll out these new virtual and digital courses in 2024. In this context we are also assembling a DFI Futures Intelligence Council.
Boards & Anticipatory Governance
We are getting traction around Futures Thinking & System Innovation for boards and governance bodies, working with many organizations to deliver our programs for their “Masterclass for Directors” on Anticipatory Governance & Building Resiliency for the Unknown.
We have shared masterclasses with governance organizations as influential as the Institute of Directors (IoD) in India, Instituto Brasileiro de Governança Corporativa (IBGC) in Brazil, and Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
These topics are foundational for our work, and we will continue to advise, teach, and publish on these themes, with practical tools and case studies.
Selected Disruptive Futures Institute Projects
In addition to our corporate and strategic foresight advisory work, which is often confidential, we highlight below five exciting projects in the public domain which we are involved in and can talk about:
- IBM Center for The Business of Government: Network of experts and contributor on resilience and preparing institutions for future shocks. You can check Roger Spitz’s interview on the podcast by IBM Business of Government: Special Leadership Edition.
- Cascade Institute Mapping: Cascade Institute’s Inter-Systemic Polycris.org Stakeholder Mapping included the Disruptive Futures Institute for our continued work on the intersections of risks in a number global systems; and our development of frameworks to study and seek to address intersecting crises. The Cascade Institute is dedicated to addressing interconnected global crises, with a team focused on investigating how systemic risks are converging into a global polycrisis with its own emergent dynamics, as well as resources for responding to these.
- Project North Star, Strategic Foresight for U.S. Grand Strategy: Member of Advisor Committee working with the Foresight Strategy team at The Aerospace Corporation. In response to challenging and urgent issues, we explore the concept of a National Grand Strategy and investigate how strategic foresighting methodologies could be used to formulate institutional strategies that are resilient in complex, unpredictable, and nonlinear environments.
- Association of Professional Futurists (APF) Foresight Evaluation Task Force Report: Member of Foresight Evaluation Task Force Committee (Building Field and Foresight Practitioner Evaluation Capacity). The APF Foresight Evaluation Task Force explored the challenges and opportunities for expanding foresight evaluation capacity, including surveying the APF membership on existing evaluation capacity. It used this information to guide the development of useful and accessible evaluation capacity-building resources.
- IEEE: Network of experts and contributor to the Disclosure, ESG & Sustainability standards group of Planet Positive 2030.
Our AAA Framework Adopted as Case Studies
The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption, Volume II — Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty focuses on our AAA Framework.
We use the letters “AAA” to represent our “Antifragile, Anticipatory, and Agility” framework that defines what skills need to be developed to stay relevant in the 21st century, to improve our abilities as the world becomes more complex and computers continue to learn. The AAA framework offers the tools and mindset to build Antifragile foundations, develop the capabilities to be Anticipatory, and use emergent, strategic and cognitive Agility to bridge the short-term with long-term decision-making.
In addition to our frameworks being used in practice, a number of case studies are being developed based on them for applied research. We look forward to sharing some of these case studies as they will be released in journals and other publications in 2024.
We have been invited to contribute a chapter (The AAA Framework: Responsible Leadership for Sustainable Futures) from our framework which will be published in 2024 as part of a broader book and body of work on Anticipatory Governance & Resilience.
Disruptive Thinking Canvas®
We have received the trademark registration from the USPTO for our proprietary Disruptive Thinking Canvas®. After a period of beta testing, we are now rolling out our canvas offering an actionable methodology to uncover and create disruptive futures on your terms.
Disruption creates space for novelty, opening doors for fresh approaches. Uncertainty and fast-changing environments drive these new opportunities and gaps. Disruptive thinking allows you to find those gaps and explore them. Our proprietary Disruptive Thinking Canvas® is a roadmap and process to design, implement, and drive disruption for yourself, your projects, or your organization. The canvas offers an actionable methodology and tools designed to develop new mindsets for becoming change agents by anticipating disruptions.
Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence
We coined the term “Techistentialism” almost 5 years ago, before the latest hype around artificial intelligence.
“Techistentialism studies the nature of human beings, existence, and decision-making in our technological world. Today, we face both technological and existential conditions that can no longer be separated. We define this phenomenon as Techistentialism.” — Roger Spitz
Through our Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence we continue our applied research on ethical, existential, and technology foresight. We are working on expanding our seminal paper “An Existential Framework for the Future of Decision-Making in Leadership”
(Spitz, R., & Nykänen, R. (2021), in T. Mengel (Ed.), Leadership for the Future: Lessons from the Past, Current Approaches, and Future Insights. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK).
We are involved in many artificial intelligence initiatives globally, including with IEEE (as network of experts and contributor to the Disclosure, ESG & Sustainability standards group of Planet Positive 2030), on the Advisory Council of the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (AI ethics, governance, law, and policy) and Board Advisor & Expert of the Lifeboat Foundation (AI & Robotics, Complexity & Futures).
Our Social Media Handles — Stay In Touch
Join the tens of thousands who follow us across various social media platforms:
- Linketree: https://linktr.ee/disruptivefuturesinstitute
- Instagram & Twitter: @disrupt_futures
- YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/DisruptiveFuturesInstitute
- Website: https://www.disruptivefutures.org/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/disruptivefuturesinstitute/
