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Alumni College 2010

Technology and Society

An Overview

Jim Kahan

January 20, 2010

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Winter AC (WAC)Jan. 20-22, 2010

Technology

changes

society

Summer AC (SAC)June 2-4, 2010

Society

manages

technology

Something New This Year

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CAC

WAC

SACFAC

MAC

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WAC Starts with Substance

WAC

Jan. 20-22, 2010

Technology

changes

society

SAC

June 2-4, 2010

Society manages

technology

How we eat

How we live

How we relate

How we combat

sickness and death

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SAC Will Look at Levers of Influence

Law

Economics

WAC

Jan. 20-22, 2010

Technology changes

society

SAC

June 2-4, 2010

Society manages

technology

Culture

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WAC FACKeith Allen (1983) leads les Escoffiers

Paul Manson (2001) leads les Haussmanns,

with a little bit of help from Mike Teskey

(Director of Alumni Relations)

Howard Rheingold (1968) will lend a

virtual presence to les Itards; Jim

Kahan (1964) leads the conferences

Laura Leviton (1973) leads les Pasteurs

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AC 2010 Is an Exercise in “Foresight”

• Attempt to see what problems are coming down thepike and deal with them in a proactive manner

• Address technological, socio-cultural, economicuncertainties

• Everybody's doin' it

– Governments (regional, national, supranational)

– Private sector

– Why not us?

• Mostly comes in two flavors

– Forecasting

– Backcasting

Neither flavor is fully satisfactory

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Forecasting Finds the Likely Future

• Statistically analyze the trends to create a "mainprediction" (no matter how unlikely)

– At its worst, lamppost science

– Search for "trendbreaks"

– Problem is that it keeps you within your boxes

• Forecasting is fading out of favor

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Backcasting Finds a Main Track

• Typically, create a "dream" scenario and try tofigure out how to get there (or create a"nightmare" scenario and try to figure out how toavoid it)

• Methods aimed at how to get there (or avoidgetting there)

• Not without its own problems

– Equifinality can confound analyses

– Whose Utopia/Dystopia? Different strokes fordifferent folks

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Bouncecasting: Escape by Doing Both

• Forecast backwards by looking at historicaldrivers

• Backcast from multiple futures suggested by theanalysis of drivers

– Avoid lock-in to predetermined endpoints

– Avoid dependence on trends of forecasting

• Build on what we have learned from history

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Foresight Bouncecasting in a Nutshell

• Examine history to understand drivers of change

• Use drivers to develop multiple futures

• Examine how to exploit possible advantages and

avoid possible disadvantages, for different issues

and for different interests

• Get convergence on what sorts of approaches areuseful over a variety of possible futures, issues, and

interests

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A Foresight Exercise Can Be

a Good in Itself

• People often speak in many tongues

• Exercise helps people to use common terms ofreference and to acknowledge others! viewpoints

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Reedies Can Do Foresight

With the Best• The first two years of a Reed education are

remarkably focused on teaching discourse amongpeople with different skills

– Humanities provides a common, broadsubstantive framework

– Conference method provides the proceduralmeans for learning mutual understanding

• The last two years teach how to think critically ina chosen field

• Post-Reed, we can together create knowledge toaddress pressing social problems

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RE

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s

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Post-Reed

Interesting and Useful

Multidisciplinary Knowledge Creation

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Science

Utilization and

User Feedback

Awareness and AccessProduction

“Innovation cycle”

Applying Foresight to

Technology and Society

Technology and Product

Development

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What We Did on Wednesday

• Morning and early afternoon: introductorypresentations by Kahan, Leviton, Allen, andManson

– Each person got a turn on the soapbox

– Lunch at Commons to talk about what you!veheard

• Mid-afternoon: Symposium and discussion onthe definition of technology.

• Late afternoon: conferences discussing whichtechnologies have most driven eachsubstantive area

• Dinner

• Evening: Screening of Charly--what technologygiveth, technology taketh away

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What We Did on Thursday• Morning session:

– Discussion of Charly

– Video of Howard Rheingold and cooperation via socialmedia

– Analysis of Wednesday!s conference to identify relevanttechnology clusters across substantive areas

• Lunch

• Early afternoon conferences to conduct SWOT(strength/weakness/opportunity/threat) analyses of technologyclusters, separately for substantive areas

• Late afternoon plenary session:

– Enumeration of pressing social issues that could benefitfrom technological innovation

– Report back and synthesis of SWOT analyses

• Dinner

• Evening: Storytelling session on technology at Reed led byCricket Parmalee (1967)

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What We Did on Friday

• Present tasking for cross-cutting conferences on what

technology needs management

– Force multiplier, improving, revolutionizing, and

decentralizing/centralizing technologies

– Technologies that promote, measure, foster strengths and

opportunities, or mitigate/prevent weaknesses and threats

– Look at Knowledge Issues, Environmental Issues, and

Social World Issues

• Conference discussions

• Report back, aiming at producing guidance for SAC on: What

are the important aspects of how technology changes society

that are in need of management?

• Hot Wash

• Adjourn

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AND A GOOD TIME

WAS HAD BY ALL