scenarios – matt finch / mechanical dolphin

New strategic plan for Reading Public Library, Pennsylvania

November 24, 2021November 24, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

The new strategic plan for Reading Public Library, Pennsylvania has just been published.

I supported the Reading team through the early months of this year to devise a set of scenarios for the library’s future operating context, and use these scenarios to inform a new strategy. You can read about the process in my paper for the New Librarianship Symposium, “Mapping the Future: Scenario Planning for the Post-Pandemic Library“.

Reading is a fascinating library service which has a proud tradition of negotiating complex strategic circumstances; there’s a reason why the 1971 chronicle of its existence is called The Library That Would Not Die: The Turbulent History of the Reading Public Library. The challenges of COVID-19 and Pennsylvania’s hotly contested politics were only the latest to be faced in its 250-year history. It was my privilege to support the current team in planning for the next four years.

Reading Public Library’s Executive Director, Bronwen Gamble, writes:

“Creating a new strategic plan for RPL was overdue. Our 2013-2018 plan was modified for two years but the process for creating a new one met several obstacles. Enter the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual meetings. I attended the Pennsylvania Bureau of Library Development’s series of workshops facilitated by Matt Finch and was introduced to his Scenario & Foresight Planning process. Our Board of Trustees and library staff feel very fortunate we were able to engage Matt to lead us through our own library’s scenario and foresight planning with Matt in London and the library team in Reading, PA.

Using a mural app, and Zoom sessions, Matt facilitated our conversations around the collaborations, services, and transactions, which shape our work at every level. Matt acted as a guide, making suggestions and providing alternatives rather than telling us what to do or how to proceed. Our team members were enthusiastic and active participants. Imagination was encouraged and everyone had buy-in. Matt’s scenario & foresight planning process is much different than the usual SWOT analysis, and number crunching. We had fun and lively sessions!

Looking back, I believe it is a good thing our old strategic plan was allowed to languish. The changes brought about by the pandemic would have made a strategic plan created in 2019 obsolete in 2020. Our team has ownership of the Reading Public Library’s Scenario & Foresight Planning to Strategic Plan 2021-2025. We looked into the future, found three plausible outcomes, and crafted a plan that works for today and is flexible to accommodate whatever happens in the next five years. Thank you, Matt, for giving us the tools to move forward with confidence!”

The Child Who Had To Grow Up: Using Scenario Planning to Prepare for Uncertain Future Contexts in Digital Education

November 20, 2021November 20, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

My paper “The Child Who Had To Grow Up: Using Scenario Planning to Prepare for Uncertain Future Contexts in Digital Education“, which appears in the proceedings of the Architecture Media Politics Society conference Teaching in a Time of Change, can be read here (PDF download).

The paper discusses the University of Oslo “Schools and/or screens” scenario project exploring the digitalisation of education in Norwegian schools.

You can read more about “Schools and/or screens” at the CO:RE Education blog and the University of Oslo’s “Times of COVID-19” blog, as well as watching a discussion of education and the future of work at the 2021 SHAPE conference.

New Librarianship Symposium: Scenarios for the COVID-affected world?

November 7, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

On November 18th, I’ll be joining the fourth of the New Librarianship Symposia convened by leading information professionals to explore key issues and new agendas for the COVID-affected world.

The symposia mark ten years since the publication of R. David Lankes’ Atlas of New Librarianship, and offer an opportunity to reinvigorate institutions’ approach to the ever-changing information environment.

In the panel on “Re-imagining the future”, I’ll be presenting a paper on “Mapping the future: scenario planning for the post-pandemic library” (PDF download), drawing on a case study of public library planning in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and America’s widening political rifts.

The paper explores both the use of scenarios, and the benefits of attending to value co-creation, in devising library strategy.

My contribution will be in dialogue with thought provoking papers from Seattle Pacific University’s Michael Paulus and a team at the OCLC library cooperative. We’ll consider what might await for information institutions and the communities they serve; how best to move forward in times characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, novelty, and ambiguity; and what it means to practice strategy at different levels, from the global to the deeply local.

Do join us for the fourth of the New Librarianship Symposia on November 18th, 2021.

SHAPE Education: Schools, Work, and the Adaptation Advantage

November 2, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

The archive from this summer’s SHAPE Education event, organised by Cambridge University Press and the Judge Business School, is now online.

I spoke on the future of work and its implications for education with a panel including Bell Education’s Silvana Richardson, Cambridge University Press’ own Ben Knight, and Heather E. McGowan, author of The Adaptation Advantage.

We were also supported by live drawings from the brilliant Rebecca Osborne.

You can find more about the SHAPE conference series online, and explore the University of Oslo “Schools and/or Screens” scenarios, which I discussed during the panel, here.

Publication of the IMAJINE Scenarios for the Future of European Regional Inequality

October 24, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

The four scenarios produced by the Horizon 2020 IMAJINE project to explore the future of European regional inequality have now been published.

The scenarios explore questions of territorial equality – Do EU citizens have equal rights and opportunities regardless of wherever they live? – and spatial justice – Are different places treated fairly? Is your ability to realise your rights compromised by where you live?

Questions of justice are defined socially and narratively – even when a court says it is considering “the balance of probabilities”, it adjudicates between competing stories told by the parties arguing a case. That means we can’t just run the numbers when it comes to the future of inequality, but must explore how notions of fairness and justice might change in times to come – and what those changing notions might tell us about issues in the present.

As Ursula K. Le Guin put it in the quote we chose for IMAJINE’s epigraph, “We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom.”

Each vision of Europe in 2048 offers a different perspective on these issues as they are emerging in the present, and offers an opportunity to reframe the discussion around regional development and inequality. The scenario set includes respondents from a wide range of sectors and institutions around the world, offering further insight into the implications of each scenario.

You can download the IMAJINE scenario document as a PDF from the project website – and there’ll be further updates and expert responses at the IMAJINE homepage as the scenarios are rolled out over the coming months.

Circulating Ideas: Scenario Planning With Reading Public Library

October 5, 2021October 5, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

Bronwen Gamble, Executive Director of Pennsylvania’s Reading Public Library, appeared with me on the American library podcast Circulating Ideas to share our experiences of scenario planning during a pandemic.

Reading Public Library, PA – Image Courtesy of Berks County Public Libraries

You can listen to the show, or check out a transcript, over at the Circulating Ideas website.

All Things Considered? Scenario Planning for Australian Public Libraries

September 4, 2021September 2, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

In the pages of INCITE, the magazine of the Australian Library & Information Association, Mylee Joseph, Brendan Fitzgerald, and I have an article on scenario planning for public libraries at the State Library of New South Wales.

On September 9th, Brendan will join the State Library’s Cameron Morley for a webinar on public library scenario planning, which you can register for here.

Reimagining the future of urban-rural balance

September 1, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

How will Europe’s urban-rural balance shift in years to come? In times of uncertainty, when tomorrow may not look like today, how can researchers and decision-makers best explore future relationships and dynamics between regions? In addition, how can such speculations be related back to pressing questions in the here and now?

In the new issue of the Regional Studies Association’s online magazine, IMAJINE‘s Marie Mahon and I share our experiences using scenario planning to explore the future of regional development in Europe, and answer the question: why are serious researchers spending time dreaming of futures which may never happen?

Learning from futures you didn’t see coming? Scenario planning, education and the (post)pandemic world at CO:RE

August 26, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

It was my privilege to join the University of Oslo’s Niamh Ní Broin and Steffen Krueger at the website of CO:RE, the Children Online: Research and Evidence project funded by the European Commission, to write about last year’s scenarios for the future of Norwegian schools.

These explored different contexts for the digitalisation of education in Norway, considering how the relationship between learners, digital devices, and educational institutions might shift in times to come.

You can read our piece, “Learning from futures you didn’t see coming? Scenario planning, education and the (post)pandemic world”, here.

Tales of the times to come: the humanities and scenario planning

August 16, 2021Mechanical Dolphin

“What do the humanities have to offer strategists, policymakers, and decision-takers in the age of the algorithm? As machine intelligence and computational power increase, as we gather ever more data from ever more sources, do the humanities still offer a valuable perspective on times yet to come?”

Over at the website of the Irish Humanities Alliance, Marie Mahon and I have a piece on what our training in the humanities has brought to our work on the IMAJINE project for the future of European regional inequality.