strategy – matt finch / mechanical dolphin

Peat Hub Ireland Report including Peatlands 2050 scenarios

October 2, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

“What I liked most about the workshop was getting to experience a framework for discourse between different stakeholders where everyone was approaching challenging ideas with an amount of vulnerability and openness. Things like the icebreaker question and being pushed outside of our cognitive comfort zones led to a kind of shared sense of uncertainty and unease that made it much easier for conversation and creativity to happen.”

Words from a participant at the scenarios workshop I led as part of the Peat Hub Ireland initiative, funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and delivered by UCD colleagues under the leadership of Florence Renou-Wilson, including David Wilson, Kate Flood, and Elena Aitova.

You can see the full report, including an appendix on the scenarios, at the EPA website. Thanks to all the colleagues and to the host of our scenario session at Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath – it’s a rare delight to run a scenario workshop with a ninety minute bog walk in the middle of it…

New article: Uncertainty, agency, and the future context of internet governance

September 22, 2025September 23, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

“Uncertainty, agency, and the future context of internet governance: a foresightful conversation” is an article I co-wrote for the Journal of Internet Technology and Politics with colleagues Lucia Vesnic-Alujevic, Sophie Mitchell, Zoe Hawkins, and Cho Khong.

We explore how the structures, dynamics, and value of internet governance may play out in different scenarios – and the implications for the situations and decisions we face today.

Photo by panumas nikhomkhai on Pexels.com

ISPSO 2025: Navigating Conflict in Contemporary Organizations

June 15, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

Organizations are made up of people, so conflict within them is hardly unusual – it can even be a necessary part of meaningful collaboration. But in a highly polarized, digital, and volatile era, where the line between “the world” and “the organization” may be thinning, do we need new ways to define and approach organizational conflict?

Debbie Bing and Eliza Orleans explore this question and consider potential responses at ISPSO 2025 – the hybrid gathering devoted to the study of organizations, with a special focus this year on questions of justice and fairness. I’m honoured to be moderating Eliza & Debbie’s session – Saturday June 28th, 9.30am-11am Eastern – and it’s not too late to register for the conference, in-person or online.

Are we even talking about tomorrow? at UCL Languages of the Future

June 4, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

I’m speaking at the UCL Languages of the Future conference on 6th June, presenting a paper titled “Are we even talking about tomorrow? Uncertainty, agency, and the encounter with the sublime”.

The event brings together contributors from across academia and broader society to think through the complex relationships between languages and times to come. We’ve been given a few big questions to chew on, like: How can “languages of the future” encapsulate specific individual disciplines, embrace diverse knowledge systems, convey the urgency of problems that are yet to arise, and honour the voices of the more-than-human world?

I’ll be standing on the shoulders of thinkers like UCL’s Richard Sandford to explore uncertainty, agency, and the “thick present”: an understanding of the here-and-now encompassing remembrance and anticipation. As Rafael Ramírez and Angela Wilkinson have it,

The future is always an aspect of the present. The future has not “taken place,” but the present always “holds” the future, and holds it as potential. Indeed, the future is never “later,” is it always (experienced, imagined) “now.”

Droplets hanging from a leaf in close up. The image is titled WHAT MIGHT TRANSPIRE? and includes a quotation from Sandford 2023: 'It is precisely action that makes the present thick. Pursuing the ends that we have demands that we weave together pasts, presents, and futures, producing the thick present through the exercise of our agency.'

Oxford Human-Algorithm Interaction Workshop 2025

June 1, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

I’m pleased to be presenting at the University of Oxford’s Human-Algorithm Interaction Workshop 2025, on “Governing the futures you didn’t see coming: artificial intelligence scenarios“.

Do join us in Oxford, 5-8 July, for an interdisciplinary event delving into the complex and evolving relationship between humans and algorithms.

The annual workshop is a gathering of industry leaders, AI pioneers, and leading researchers who will explore the evolving role of AI in business, governance, and society. This year’s theme is “Shaping the future of AI: innovation, ethics and impact.”

Find out more and register here.

Webinar: How Dual-Use Tech Is Redrawing the Global Power Map

May 28, 2025May 25, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

On June 9th, I’m hosting a discussion about dual use technologies for Oxford’s Emerging Threats Group.

A wide range of items are now recognised as “dual use”, capable of being employed for both civil and military purposes. From drones, robots, and software including AI to chemical and biological tools, the term has evolved beyond its original post-World War 2 meaning as a category of nuclear materials that could serve both the energy sector and the development of nuclear weapons.

Today anything is a weapon and may be used as such, especially in hybrid warfare. We live in an era when countless technologies can be used with benign or hostile intent, and when the governance mechanisms of global trade are being shaken under heightened geopolitical tensions. Under such circumstances, innovation, application, and regulation all become increasingly fraught. Businesses may find themselves drawn into new dilemmas if their technology is turned to malign ends, or seek opportunities that arise from a new era of dual use. Governments must act judiciously in an age when many items may be weaponised against them…or by them.

Join me, and four transatlantic experts, to consider the past, present, and future of dual use technology, 5pm-6.30pm BST on June 9th.

“Looking Beyond the Ghost Scenario” in Issues in Science and Technology

May 27, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

The editorial team at Issues in Science and Technology invited me to submit a response to Ed Finn’s excellent recent article on using science fiction to stage conversations about science and technology policy.

You can read my letter, “Looking Beyond the Ghost Scenario”, at the Issues website.

auDA Scenarios @ European Parliamentary Research Service

April 8, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

This Friday, the Foresight Club of the European Parliamentary Research Service hosts a presentation from Sophie Mitchell, Chief Communications Officer of Australia’s domain name regulator auDA.

Sophie will talk about the 2024 auDA scenarios, looking at the future of Internet governance, which are just coming up on the first anniversary of their publication, and can be found here.

Do check them out and, if you’re free, join Sophie and the European foresight community this Friday, 11th April, 9.30-10.30am Central European Time, via Webex.

The Ghosts We See From The Mountains: New book chapter available

January 22, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

It feels somehow timely that “The Ghosts We See From the Mountains“, a chapter co-written with the University of Galway’s Marie Mahon for the Routledge volume Crisis and Body Politics in Twenty-First Century Production, is now live online and open access.

The chapter explores the useful intersection of Oxford-style scenario planning with issues of spatial justice and Verónica Gago’s concept of the “body-territory”.

Thanks to volume editors Charlotte Spear and Maddie Sinclair for bringing everything together.

Title of the Routledge edited volume Crisis and Body Politics in Twenty First Century Cultural Production

Appointment to Futures Council, National Security College, Australia

January 21, 2025Mechanical Dolphin

I’m pleased to have been appointed to the Futures Council of the National Security College (NSC) at Australian National University.

The Council is an international group of individuals with expertise relating to the mission of the NSC’s Futures Hub, a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation resource for futures analysis in Australia.