Scenario Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine briefing on ‘trends, visions and possible futures’ published by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. We find out what’s in store with its Editor-in-chief and founder, Morten Grønborg.
Scenario was created by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies in 2010. Can you explain the idea of future-proofing and how it applies to individuals as well as organisations?
Hi, thanks for asking! Scenario is the magazine about ideas, trends, visions, and possible futures, and our publisher, CIFS (Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies), has one goal only, and that is to provide decision-makers with a non-biased view on how the world could develop in the future, so they can make the right decisions in the present. It’s a very simple mission, and the magazine shares that: We have no agendas, other than the truth, and we’re not influenced by anyone. We’re simply interested in sharing our knowledge about the future with our readers and to inspire them to shape their own realities.
The current edition has a fantastic spread on Afrofuturism under the sub-heading “a language of rebellion”. There’s a noted rise and awareness of this whether through the music of Beyonce, adverts by Guinness (here in Ireland) or the cinematic success of Black Panther. What do you hope your readers will glean from a feature such as this?
Yeah, we published that article right on time since especially Black Panther’s popularity has renewed the interest in Afrofuturism globally. What we wanted was to point to a visually and artistically interesting movement that will only grow in importance in the future since the African population will boom towards year 2100. For instance, Nigeria is projected to become the 3rd largest country in the world by population shortly before 2050, and towards the end of the century, the African continent will grow from 1.2 billion to around 4.4 billion people, according to UN, while other continents will grow only a little, stagnate or decline.
We simply cannot underestimate the significance and importance of Africa in the years to come, and that’s why we made the feature.
How important are the lessons of history in predicting the future? What other considerations should we bring to mix when crystal ball gazing?
History is in my opinion extremely important in understanding the future, and at CIFS, we have two historians on the team — one of them is C.S. Petersen, the Editorial Manager of Scenario. Why is history important? Simply because it’s much easier to describe where a trend will end, and to detect if it is a trend at all, if you know where it started, and why. Trends with a longer time span and megatrends are often like lines or arrows through history pointing towards the future. But in general, extrapolating these lines are not enough, and it’s important to work with different scenarios on any given field. Rapid technological changes, wildcards, and shifts in the zeitgeist can break the lines and change things.
With scenarios, built on uncertainties rather on what we know or are certain will happen, we offer a broader picture of what the future could look like. Based on that, it’s up to the citizen, the manager or the politician to work for the realization of the scenario they believe in or hope for.
Are there any instances in recent years whereby you consider Scenario was there at the beginning of a trend prediction?
We try to be ahead of curve or right-on-time in every issue. We wrote about self-driving cars and the sharing economy long before the mainstream media, about ethics in AI and big data long before the public debate began, and we pointed at ‘Oil below 50’ as a plausible scenario years before it was a reality, just to give some examples. Our work is conducted not only by the editorial staff, but by the entire team at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, our publisher, so we’re backed by some 30 people with a wide spread of professional backgrounds, and by our Global Scanning Network with informants from all over the world.
AI, algorithms and big data are common current concerns in terms of where they will lead us. How can we take control of our future as individuals or are we powerless to ‘powers that be’?
In the future, the world will be hyperconnected in a way that is almost impossible to imagine, and our future will be like a cybernetic system where our surroundings adapt to us in an intelligent way. This is good and bad. It carries both the possibility of instant gratification, tailor-made solutions and easy lives for everyone, but also the risk of surveillance, manipulation, and control. How things will develop is up to us, the humans, but we must for sure be aware of the powers, we’re playing with.
What excites and scares you most about the future?
The use of data, algorithms and AI both excites and scares me at the same time.
What is the future of print publishing?
The future is bright, but only for niche or very broad publications; the field is polarized. The very cheap or free publications with a large print run will survive, and so will the expensive ones with brilliant design, quality and expensive paper. Everyone in between will suffer, die or transform to an online publication.
€15 digital download (€60 annual)
€20 hard copy (€135 annual inc. digital)
Words: Michael McDermott
