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Photographic composition: Vortex Into The Future. **

In our research blog we want to discuss, study in depth, and provoke a prospective vision of the future without closing the door on the creative and methodological diversity existing in this world. At this point we want to thank the contribution of Doctor and advisor Jordi Serra del Pino, director of Periscopi de prospectiva i estratàgia and Fellow and Executive Board Member of the Ibero-American chapter of the World Futures Studies Federation. We include an excerpt of the initial pages of his article: What Is and What Isn’t Prospective Strategy?, which we consider of considerable interest to social communication. If you want to read more than the excerpt, click on the link to the bibliography of selected works where the documents that are not available to download directly can be retrieved through Communicatheo in form EDWzeen, with the authorization of every author. Print only what is strictly necessary and keep the sources.

Excerpt from:

¿What Is and What Isn’t Prospective Strategy?

The process of decision-making in governments, businesses, and universities

Jordi Serra del Pino*

Prospicio: (latin), to look into the distance, contemplate.
Prospective studies: discipline that studies the future in order to understand it and be able to influence it.
Gaston Berger

Jordi Serra, Prospectivist

Jodi Serra, Prospectivists

To dedicate oneself to prospective means taking on an additional difficulty to that of other professions or academic disciplines: no one knows what it is about, but the whole world imagines that it is something very different from what it actually is.

I witnessed this axiom with my own eyes the day I decided to put on my mailbox:
Jordi Serra del Pino
Prospectivist

That was the moment in which I ceased to be that “nice young man” and became someone rather suspicious. At first it was not too obvious, but I started to note that some conversations abruptly stopped when I arrived, I heard whispers behind my back and even a few chuckles. Finally, one day a neighbor decided to pluck up the courage and confront me directly:

-Hey, all this about prospective… what is it?

Because I did not know the extent of her interest, I gave her an abbreviated definition and decided that depending on her reaction, I would either expand on the subject or leave it at that. But what I was not prepared for was the expression of disappointment that began to extend across my neighbor’s face. I was assessing whether or not I should really begin a more detailed explanation to demonstrate the merits of prospective when she replied:

-Ah, so you don’t read tarot cards?

I was greatly taken aback. I had just discovered that there was something worse than someone thinking your job was not serious enough, and it was that your job was not exotic enough!

It seemed appropriate to start with this anecdote because I believe that it is tremendously illustrative of the incomprehensibility that surrounds prospective. This is not merely because the average human ignores what it is, but because a lot of people imagine it as something completely different.

For this reason, I always emphasize the importance of knowing just as much what it is as what it is not

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*Jordi Serra del Pino is one of the Spanish prospectivists of a more extensive tradition. He was born in Barcelona in 1965; he obtained his Law degree through the University of Barcelona in 1989 and a master’s degree in Political Science through the University of Hawaii (Alternative Future Options) in 1993. Jordi Serra has been able to collaborate with some of the most esteemed experts in prospective, including: Eleonora Masini, James A. Dator, Magda Mchale, Robert Jungk, Igor Bestuzhev-Lada, Josep Pereña, and Hidetoshi Kato.

**From http://www.flickr.com/photos/saufnase/524540326/ -accessed July 31, 2009

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If you want to read the entire document click on the image. >>

EDW: digital paper edition; editorial support by Communicatheo - ¿What Is and What Isn’t Prospective Strategy?

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Volunteer translation by Ashley R. Gonzalez

Ashley R. Gonzalez currently attends the Ohio State University in the United States and will graduate with two majors in Spanish and World Literature next summer, 2010. She has academic experience in Mexico and the United States. Furthermore, because of her Mexican heritage, she has been exposed to the Spanish language from an early age. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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