Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Main Street 2040: The Emotional Work of Changing a City with Hauson Le | EP 152
Hauson Le cried in his first foresight session. A Disney executive's mentorship pulled him out of data analytics, and three six-hour sessions later he had found the thing he now says he would let go of entirely if it meant making a bigger impact. Today he builds foresight cultures inside American local government through the Alliance for Innovation, where the fires never stop and the pace of change keeps outrunning the pace of decision.
His core insight reframed how I think about resistance to change, mine included. Show leaders the facts and the methods, and they will agree it all matters. Then they will not move. In his words, not touching the heart leaves people saying yes, I see the path you laid out for me, and I just have too much at stake right now. So he runs a simulation that compresses years of disruption into fifteen minutes, until the room says this is exactly what it is like to work in local government now. We get into the culture that always wants to be the first to be second, why growth is the blind spot cities carry toward 2040, the AI risks city managers actually name, and what it would take for residents to stop describing their city as a vending machine and start describing it as home.
If you have ever laid out a clear path for a room that agreed with every word and then did nothing, this hour is for you.
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This Week's Companion Issue
The companion Future Proof issue built on this conversation, Anxiety is Not Foresight, lands Thursday. It is Part 3 of a four-part series called Reading Yourself Like a System, and it takes Hauson's argument into the personal register: why worry creates such a convincing impression of preparation, and how to tell them apart.
Read on Substack: https://befutureproof.substack.com/
Read on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/future-proof-7303526412311842816
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Chapters
0:00 Why Facts Alone Fail Leaders
0:24 Meet A Civic Futurist
4:40 Finding Agency Through Foresight
8:55 Why Local Government Is The Front Line
14:35 Anticipatory Government Versus Firefighting
20:55 The Growth Mindset Blind Spot
23:55 AI Risks Data Trust Thinking
31:10 Experiential Futures And Emotional Barriers
34:55 What A Future Ready City Feels Like
37:35 How To Get Involved
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About Hauson Le
Hauson Le is a civic futurist with the Alliance for Innovation, where he delivers strategic foresight training, research, and capacity building across American local governments. Trained in the University of Houston's foresight program after an executive mentorship that pulled him out of data analytics, he is an award winner from the Association of Professional Futurists for his experiential futures work, and one of the few people building genuine futures capacity inside city government rather than writing about it from the outside.
Connect with Hauson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hausonle/
Alliance for Innovation: https://www.transformgov.org/
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Go Deeper
📬 Future Proof, my weekly newsletter on foresight and leadership, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/future-proof-7303526412311842816 and in full on Substack: https://befutureproof.substack.com/
🌐 Join the Future Proof Community for conversations about the future: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/10084416
📖 SuperShifts, my book on the forces reshaping business and society: https://www.supershiftsbook.com/
👤 My website: https://www.stevenfisher.io/
My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfisher/
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Why Facts Alone Fail Leaders
SPEAKER_02A lot of leaders, when I only focus on the facts and you know the the structures, they recognize it's important, but not touching the heart makes it so that they're like, Yes, I see the path you've laid out for me, and I just have too much to at stake right now. Or like I just can't, I'm I'm too swamped. That's too many fires, right?
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
Meet A Civic Futurist
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Think Forward.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01Excited for this conversation. Um looking forward to it. Uh, you know, you've been uh up in a rising star in the futures community, and you've been doing a lot of great work in the uh as a citizen as a civic futurist, uh working in local government. Those who might not be familiar with you uh could share about what you do, your journey, and how you know your journey in the futures work. It would be great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so yeah, my name's Housing. Like, how's it going? And um yeah, my dad's name is Hal, I'm the son. So, you know, that's that's how I landed here with the most Asian American name possible. But yeah, I think for me, as soon as I had to think about a career, the idea of just not doing fulfilling work really scared me. And so I had experienced a time in a moment in my life where I've had, you know, really constricted my life, like had no agency over the quality of my relationships. And then I had someone ask me, you know, like, how do you make friends? And that kind of question helped give me the agency to say, wow, like this is a skill. This isn't just something that um I'm born with. And so I was able to practice like talking to strangers and reading books and and all that stuff to really improve the quality of my life. And that's how I arrived at this idea of crystallizing a sense of agency for for people in shared spaces, right? And so that's kind of what I was always looking to do. And as I um had my undergrad in data analytics, you know, I was gonna help a company that's giving water, electricity uh to a billion or more people, you know, you know, who don't have it. I was like, okay, I'm gonna provide insights for those people, and that's gonna be my thing. And and extracurriculars as like a 19-year-old was working, um, was supporting leadership development. And then uh got paired up with doing executive mentorship program with uh Richard Ramsey, who was the head of uh HR at Disney at the time. And you know, he gave me a choice, you know, continue the data analytics route. Like I was like, I can connect you to that world if you like, or I can introduce you to this future system thing. And I figured, well, you know, I know enough about data analytics from you know undergrad, I could probably figure that out. I'll never have another chance at this uh foresight thing. And so we did three uh six-hour sessions, just one-on-one, what future is one-on-one. And um, I cried the first session because as someone who I didn't even know how to find a college, I literally just looked up business college and hope for the best. And to like have to have this sense of um alignment, of crystallizing sense of agency for folks and having you know, being able to use futures as helping people really shape and expand and stretch the way that they think about the future, and therefore how they make actions, um, how they take action today was just the greatest degree of alignment I could have had. So um, yeah, from there I went to um Richard partnered a lot with KEG or TSFX now. Yeah. And um, so I went to their three-day training and then found myself wanting to focus on um applications. So Richard introduced me to Mina McBride, and Mina was told me, if you want application, go to the University of Houston. So that's what I did. And you know, I think one year in, I uh into the program, I started working in local government, um, helping deliver strategic foresight, uh, training, research, uh, capacity development.
SPEAKER_01So where did the you know, during this, I mean it's a very fortuitous uh thing, which is you know what I would call kind of the destiny, you know, or higher power or just kind of purpose, you know, that it a lot of people try
Finding Agency Through Foresight
SPEAKER_01and do this work and it, you know, the the jobs are becoming more available and the the field is becoming even more standardized across organizations, but it is especially this trying to you know kind of equate work to other roles, but you know, the word futurist, like when did it really click for you? Like you work with Disney, I mean you've been so you're surrounded by all these foresight individuals, very talented people, but when did it really kind of hit you? Like this is what I'm this is what I am, this is what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think before I really I think before the cat the TSFX training, I would tell people like I'm gonna make 20-year business plans. Like that's gonna be what I what I'm gonna do. This is for that's like what my understanding of you know what it meant to be a futurist. And to be honest, I don't even know like through Richard's training if the word futurist was explicitly used. Kind of a crazy side story though. In the high in high school, they did a like a train, like a choose your career thing, and I actually got futurist for my um recommendation, and I just didn't think that was a real thing and just moved on. But yeah, I think it really clicked for me. I mean, I would say just once I um saw the practice of framework foresight, it and just all of these, but specifically social change theory around just like how how change happens or how change can happen. It was a lot of letting go of this idea of you know, here's an insight, and that is going to totally give you that agency. It's a lot of it is relational and you know, and kind of shaped my philosophy for how I'm going about it nowadays, which is more capacity building, like leadership development and futures, thinking a bit of like convening and holding space to imagine multiple futures as a leadership capacity. Yeah, that's that's kind of the shift for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, you you chose to focus the foresight work specifically on local government. It's not the sexiest, but it is definitely one of the most important. Well, why, you know, a lot of people will kind of go for the you know, the the global policy changes, you know, World Economic Forum type of stuff, or, you know, national state for you, but I think what what others missed, which I wise is such an important conversation, what did you see that other, you know, that others were missing? Like the kind of so what moment for this kind of audience?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it was really not I think for me local government was very I kind of fell into it. I I wasn't familiar with, you know, like the the leaders taking care of the streets and making sure the trash gets picked up and making sure you know we have energy and water and and all the services that make our day-to-day better. But I I think I've always really just cared about impact. I think for me, I've always willing to let go of foresight if it meant making a bigger impact. And that was just kind of you know, it's really one of the best ways that you know to this day that I still think about it.
SPEAKER_01I think about the local uh aspect of it, like City Hall and uh oh I mean, I'm trying to imagine for those parks and rec fans, like if Ron Swanson met a futurist, right? It's like let's let's walk inside the building. Like, what does it actually look like? You know, let's what is it what like walking into a city manager's office, parks department? Like I'm here to do strategic foresight. Like, what is what is their reaction? Like, what is it like to kind of get people engaged in this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think it's really they're more receptive than I think that people who don't work in local government might might think. Um I don't know. I've never
Why Local Government Is The Front Line
SPEAKER_02I've had very few instances of really hard pushback. The hardest pushback I get, like they can't think this way. Like I'm doing, I'm running a backcasting exercise, and they just cannot fathom starting from a preferred future and working backwards. And it didn't really matter how quick like I like step by step I would lay it out for them. They they were just stuck. And sometimes people they won't even they just won't even interact. But I I think really what local governments are experiencing on the front lines are this is this pace of change. You know, I've we've done the uh post-normal kind of city game that Wendy uh Schultz, Maya Ben Limpa, and Chris Jones developed, and we've adapted it for local government. And so within that, we can do we've done like a three-hour version and then a 15-minute version. And the 15-minute version really involves people designing a city, they have a goal, and you're trying to maybe attract a certain business to grow uh in in revenue for for your to serve to provide services, and then we start hitting them with disruptions uh after three minutes, and then the pace of the disruptions keep going faster. So every three minutes drop a disruption, then every two minutes, every one minute, every 30 seconds, and it creates this overwhelm of emotion. And after when we talk about reflections, they're like, this is exactly what it's like to work in local government nowadays. And so there's a shared recognition that pace of change is is coming fast, it's accelerating, at least you know, how they experience it. And, you know, what do they do? Right. And so typically anytime I introduce force, I I really, you know, I go for the classics, right? Like FUCKA, like nothing super fancy, but tell them about FUCKA, tell them about, you know, the need for change in terms of how we make decisions, drawing, not drawing from the past, uh, but complementing it with the future. And um and they're I think the novelty, like the fact that they've never really experienced or heard of this is a reason why. I think local government, they don't really care what they use as long as it gets it done. And so there's a certain level of openness of like the people who do recognize it, they implement it within the next time. Like I'll do a CLA workshop and they work on metaphors for the belongings of the of the unhoused, right?
SPEAKER_01So you're you're unwittingly, you're you're you're creating futures fluency with them. Like they know that they're starting to know the terms, they're starting to know and get more comfortable with it. Because I would suspect that a lot of people in local government, uh, the thought of change is not it's it's slow. It's it's you know, it has to be purposeful. But when I like you use the term anticipatory government. People talk about participatory, right? Democracy, you know, where you know the United States is a constitutional republic, right? It's like there's a participation in that. But but anticipatory. So break that down. Like like when you you started to kind of, I think, touch on it with some of the terms and people kind of getting ahead of it. Like, what is take a city that pr that practices that kind of thinking versus one that doesn't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I think a few maybe examples. You know, one is there's the one of the most common themes I see in cities when they're first kind of introduced to this is this lack of time for strategic thinking, which I am sure is in the private sector as well.
SPEAKER_01They just feel they don't have the time, they feel they don't have the time for it because they're so busy with the bureaucracy, the day-to-day bureaucracy. Is that yeah, okay exactly.
SPEAKER_02Always putting out fires. And and part of I think there's two key areas. One is being able to connect the fires with anticipation in the preferred future, right? So we're experiencing a problem today. How can we use futures to help solve that and make a bridge over? Often like the the when it comes to innovation, I would say in local government, making things better is kind of the the status quo. Like lean six sigma, just continuous improvement, that is that is can like gold, I'd say like the gold standard of what I see very often.
SPEAKER_01But it's glacial change, but it's like glacial change. It's like very slow, step by step, you know, not at the speed in which maybe other industries or other places move, which is in their town, right? Or their to their city, right? So they it's a it it creates like a misalignment, right? In that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's really like well, as long as we're making the same thing better, we're doing our job. Right. There's this kind of metaphor I hear sometimes in local government with us say local governments always want to be the first to be second. Right? Great.
SPEAKER_01First to be second. Well, yeah, it leads to like what do you think are some the what are you what are the biggest foresight blind spots that are in local government right now? I think you you just started to touch upon a few of them, I think, but what do you think that they're just not looking at?
SPEAKER_02I think one of the biggest would probably be this idea of growth as success. Like right now, like a lot of cities, I that's some of in some of the you know the research that we do, we have scenarios around basically really
Anticipatory Government Versus Firefighting
SPEAKER_02the fastest growing cities in the country right now. You know, when do they stop setting that as like when do they start altering their goal to have a more sustainable growth kind of scale? Because at the at the rate that they're going in a few decades, they're gonna have grown so fast that their services can't keep up, right? The infrastructure can't keep keep up and handle that, right? And so, and a lot of cities are hitting capacity limits on transportation, on waste, right? So they're already seeing, you know, pockets of that today. And so helping cities reimagine what success can look like outside of population growth, which is already reducing in terms of its value. Um, like 50 years ago, you know, increasing population growth that increased a lot of productivity. Like that's why, that's part of why um population growth mattered so much. Yes, you get um, you know, more tax, you know, property tax increases in sales and all that. But uh the productivity was a big factor too. And now growth in terms of a a city a million or more, uh, like that advantage is decreasing and it'll only continue to decrease over the next 50. Right. So there's this paradigm shift that I think is, in my opinion, one of the biggest blind spots of local government is like their growth, that growth mindset got them here, but how do they transition into what's next? Right, where they can't rely on population growth in order to serve. And so there's there, they some of the local most of the local governments I work with are what they would uh what some would call like the tip of the spear, right? So they they're really here to learn from other leading local governments, and they have this age of, you know, we have so much because we really prepared well and we focused on growth, but now we see that we're gonna start hitting plateaus in uh population, right? In um in workforce supply. Like there's a lot of people are retiring now too. So how do we imagine a future where we can thrive, deliver services differently is the kind of is the conversation that I I can have one-on-one, but in the larger rooms with city manager's office, it's a it's a little harder. So I think it's a longer journey to get to that level.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's interesting you uh talk about it in this frame because as a product, as an experienced designer, it makes me think of service design. You know, for years it was about mapping the process flow big in Europe because resources are less, space is less. How do they do certain things or refine or or tune process, but they're not going far out. So it's almost like this is an evolved version of service design because we're trying to, like you said, look at the preferred future or other possible futures. And you know, when you mentioned people retiring, they're not hiring back, that kind of leads me to the the elephant in the room, which is AI. I I I read uh some of your uh posts of your work. You worked with the League of Minnesota Cities Conference. You did an AI workshop, right? Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. We it was it was some kind of uh it was like a training on the introduction to AI and just holding space for leaders to think about, you know, like certain applications and you know, what are they most excited about and interested in?
SPEAKER_01What are they yeah, what are they worried about? Or and what are they excited about? What are they not worried about that they should be? Like, you know, it's such a big opportunity space, but at the same time, I know a lot of people are you know trepidatious, fearful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's a certain level of recognition that you know AI is necessary. Uh there's not too, I don't hear too much of like, oh yeah, we're not doing that. Um I'll start from I guess what they're most aware of, and then I um have like three that I'll go down to maybe the the least aware of. And I think the first is around who owns the data, right? So like local governments have a ton of data, but oftentimes, you know, startups or AI companies will want that data to make their product better. And sometimes uh an AI company will use a local government's data to train, and then they'll just end the contract and keep and keep the improved model, right? So like having to navigate service agreements where they can keep, you know, they keep their data or they have a certain like that's still kind of up, like that's literally the problem that uh city managers will tell me on why they're slower on integrating AI. Uh number two in terms of is trust, right? Is I got I think I've been able to shift the conversation with the local governments that I work with from it's like a feasibility challenge to more like is your AI building trust? And and like what is, you know, like what future are you trying to create when it comes to your relationship with AI? Like not just efficiency, but how do how does how can we use AI to build trust? Because there we're starting like really it's just optimizing systems that re residents already distrust. Like local government may be the highest, highest compared to the state and federal, but it's you know, with it's still an industry problem is people don't know they exist, despite the amount of uh influence that they have on local communities, right? So there's already an like an awareness problem, and so how can they use it more intentionally to integrate community and co-design with them rather than just keep on making things more efficient. And then the last is uh was is really around like there's this which I I really like. I had one person in a workshop on AI tell me, like, yes, we as people are still accountable for the outputs, but ultimately it's just easier not to review it,
The Growth Mindset Blind Spot
SPEAKER_02right? And there's this kind of like erosion of critical thinking that like they they recognize that like lowest energy cost wins. And so they're just gonna like slowly start like I guess outsourcing some of the capabilities that help them build a connection with community and and yeah, like what does that mean for collaboration and culture of the organization internally and and how that shows up in in terms of resident experience externally. So those are kind of the three that I've been seeing.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's well said. I and I wanted to sh kind of shift and connect it with uh civic futures, but you've done a lot of experiential work and you know call it the emotional work of change. Uh you did a project, uh you won an award with the Association Association of uh Professional Futures or the APF. Uh some of the people listening might know about. You did a project um set in twenty fifty two. It was actually sex education curriculum, but You know, if you want you can walk through that, but why you kind of made, you know, kind of went in that direction, because this is related to the insights. You know, it's it kind of reveals something about your work. Transformation has emotional barriers, right? That applies directly to local government. And what tell us about that? Because I think you know, this kind of exploration of things, this is like we'll get it, we'll connect it back into City Hall, but I I would love for you to kind of explain that creative, that process to the to the listeners.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's yeah, so it's a it's a sex curriculum, sex it being an acronym for social emotional excellence. And so we imagine a world without shame. And you know, what would whether that's good or bad, you know, whether that we want that or not is a different question. But in a inner world without shame, you know, do what would it education look like in order to maintain that? And and so that was kind of the the container that we built where I I would play the professor, and then my friends and colleagues, David, David Gay would play the uh, he'd play the principal, and then Ingrid Fritado and Elizabeth Herfle and uh Mushfrika Jamaluddin, like they would play just either either parents or kind of staff, and we'd have participants come in as the parents. And so this is their opportunity in 2052 to co-create, to really like I guess co-create and experience the curricula that their high school students would be going through. And and so it's we took a lot from um experiential futures, and and you know, we brought tea, chocolate, kick-lit candles, provided flowers, we brought a bunch of toys for for
AI Risks Data Trust Thinking
SPEAKER_02the senses, and and really that was to connect, um, connect, like make futures more tangible. This is like intangible, make the intangible tangible, and therefore shift, I guess, the way and using using sex as kind of the vehicle to connect with two emotional, I guess, highs and in transformation, right? It's a very touchy subject. We've had people get into shouting matches over some of the content. Yeah. And you know, it's really, it can create very high, uh, it can create emotional highs. And so I I think that was really part of, I guess, my exploration and recognition that you know we have to, there's like emotional, there are emotional barriers to to change. And so what's the role of experiential approaches to help kind of like surface and then shift them? And yeah, it's powerful. It's powerful stuff.
SPEAKER_01It's it's very powerful because it makes me think back to this conversation about people, you know, the bureaucracy, incredible, the the the first place to be in second place. You know, it's like being second is the is the the winner, or you know, best practices. I mean, you know, that but that's comes to shame, fear, embarrassment. People don't want to make a you know, screwing something up in local government, you know, you're gonna you're gonna hear about it at the bar. You're gonna hear about it because they know you're a city player. They're gonna you're gonna it's gonna be right in your face, but it's but it's it's an interesting aspect that I think you bring to your work. I mean, how does it shape how you facilitate? Do you bring it into the with city leaders? The reason why I get this is because I think this is key for other even business leaders' innovation, the emotional work of change, like you just talked about, right? It's it's uh interesting push.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think it's uh I think that goes back to the the post-normal city game, right? Just having just throwing disruptions at people, impacting something they're trying to build in a very condensed amount of time. I think that does that did more lifting than 20 minutes on here's what futures is, right? Like they they got to experience like the problem and create a shared language within all of the leaders in the room on okay, here's what we're trying to address. And and that created an openness to, okay, so like tell us about the shared language, what are the methods, what are the mindsets that are going to help us be better prepared to navigate uh this change. And and so I'm I'm looking to, you know, I'm always thinking about ways to incorporate more of that experiential piece because there's just so much, there's never enough time in a session, right? And um, there's a certain level of expectation around um like agenda setting and just adult learning theory and having to go into here's what it is, here's how you do it. Now let's try it. Now I think fair share. So um having to walk that line of building trust with a with a member, with a member city, and and seeing what like what are they used to already? Like, because some some cities will have innovation teams that focus on capacity building um across organizations already. So sometimes I'll have I'll be the only person in the room with 100 city management, and then sometimes other times I'll have a team of I'll have uh internal facilitators at each table, right? And I think that's very helpful for navigating the emotional piece. And so every each time is different, but one thing is is certain is I think uh engaging with that emotional piece is is necessary because a lot of leaders, when I only focus on the facts and you know the the structures, the methods to get them to where they want to go, they recognize it's important, but not touching the heart makes it so that they're like, yes, I see the path you've laid out for me, and I just have too much to at stake right now, or like I just can't, I'm I'm too swamped, that's too many fires, right? So you almost have to create an experience where they're like, oh, like, oh shit, you know, like I you're right, I gotta go do this.
SPEAKER_01So well, let's let's go big picture, let's kind of zoom out, um, you know, talk about let's get it, let's put our our futurist hats on. So, like, you know, what is a what is a genuine, let's the year's 2040. What is a genuinely future ready city government look like? Like what's it doing? How's it organized? How does it feel to be a resident of that city?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think it yeah, I mean, it's a question I I'm always learning from other other city managers as well, just like the fit for some of the types of governance that we have. But I think for uh for a resident, right, one of the things that I would be interested in is um deal from dark a few, I'm a big fan of Dark Matter Labs. And so, you know, one of their uh initiatives is called repermissioning the city. And that really changes the structure around who gets to how does permission flow in terms of who gets to use space and for how long and why. And right now it's very permit driven, and you know, the local you have to ask permission from the local government and get through all the forms before you can finally do something, which results in the problem of you know, like the pace of change being faster, citizens needs evolving faster than the local government can provide, right? So with repermissioning the city, the idea is to basically create three layers of permissions, one from the local government, one from the community, and then one specifically for the space. And you know, once all three are once you navigate all three, you can just use it, right? And so they'll track data around like the history of space and you know how like shifting the metrics just from population growth to like how often is a space used, right? And for what purposes. There's not a ton of visibility on that, right? And so shifting power and ownership to residents on terms of how they use their city and for what purposes align with their needs rather than focusing on solely local government, right? So that's kind of shifting them from the gatekeepers of who gets to do or the protectors, right, of space to more of like they're the facilitators of allowing their residents to co-create with them. Because they can only do so much, right? And I think there's a lot of you know external forces, whether it be like workforce amount or polarization or revenue, like more and more power going to state. Uh, right, like they they need more people power. And I think you know, that is one of the cornerstone ways of knowing is
Experiential Futures And Emotional Barriers
SPEAKER_02like to what extent are they able to rebuild the social fabric and engage residents in in building the city together rather than having them do it all alone. Uh, like one metaphor that was surfaced from a member city is they asked, you know, what would a resident think of us as a city? And someone said vending machine. And I think that says a lot about, you know, just the transactional nature of how residents relate to their city or the local government now. And a future-ready city is is really more one in which they feel like the entire city is their home, right? Like that piece of trash on the ground, like they should pick that up because this is their home too. It's not just outside of my house. I I think there's a certain, yeah, the the co-creation piece, not to not to mention the you know, just how local governments work together, I think incorporating futures methods and embedding within conversation, you know, what changes do we anticipate? What's the future we want? What's what needs to, what do we need to let go of, right? Like there's from the futures triangle from Three Horizons from CLA, there's just the way that we work together, if we incorp, if we weave in futures into that, um I think the specific challenge is cross-departmental collaboration. Like that's probably where it can most specifically fit best. Then I think that's part of internally how you know a city of the future would would operate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I was putting together the questions and I was thinking about this. I I live in a town of 50,000 or 100,000 that's incorporated as a city here in Massachusetts. And it most of it's a town model. If the city has, you know, we have a mayor, we have, you know, we're you know, smaller city compared to Boston. But I would imagine in like 2040, I mean, we're gonna be way beyond with artificial intelligence, robotics. I imagine everyone, digital identity-wise, is and this goes for the people in the city. Everyone has a digital uh twin of themselves. And all of the records and stuff, because I'm trying to figure out uh connecting to a sewer connection. Like, how do I do all that? Right? It's like you have to find the person, you have to find the regulation, like like that stuff would be like I could give that task to my age, you know, my digital twin, and they could run all that. So I think there's a process level that will disappear, which would hopefully lift up the people. And to your point, if I'm looking to, I don't know all the spaces in this town or where it could be used, but if I wanted to hold uh uh, I don't know, a fun get together or Dungeons and Dragons get like what what space is available? Or wanted to do music or do a farmer's market? Like I think being able to ask those questions and have those things answered, it frees up the people in the city hall, like you said, it's more of it's my city, it's not just a place I live. And the people that are working there, it allows them to serve better and do the things that they may have wanted to do. So I think I see that in like in a 2040 environment, a more efficient place. But so what you know, I think so. What people listening to this show, like business leaders, the innovation people, the people in the in the in the local governments, you know, why should they care about that? Like why why should they try this? Like what should they be doing now? Like what can they what can they do to kind of learn more, get engaged? I think that's a good way to help people kind of keep connected to this because it's such an important conversation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, so you know, we the nonprofit that I, you know,
What A Future Ready City Feels Like
SPEAKER_02work work for is called the Alliance for Innovation. And so, you know, if you're listening to this and you know you want to get more involved uh within your city, you know, I I think one thing you can do is is connect with um, you know, really someone who works with in in your local government. I mean, city manager is always great, but even just like any sort of like community engagement um, you know, like person, right? And just like we can have a call the three of us, right? Or you can say, yeah, I'm interested in my local government, you know, that's providing me services as a taxpayer to be you know prepared for the future. And you know, I want to start that conversation, right? And uh I'm always a fan of co-design and partnering on um context-specific needs. And so yeah, I think like you as a resident within your specific community, you can take action. Um, whether that be in a larger group setting, right? Like um economic board of um development, right? Like there's different convening spaces too that also work with local governments. They really connect with nonprofits, churches, any sort of uh player in the ego ecosystem, right? So wherever you find community, have them engage, work with them to engage with the local government. Uh I mean, this this matters. Like to my knowledge, you know, there's no organization that only serves local government in a foresight capacity. And so we're at 100 members and you know, we're looking to increase that, right? And we really facilitate spaces for to for learning, right? For learning between leading local governments. And so if you want your local government to be part of those conversations, learning from the best, then yeah, feel free to like reach out and we can start a conversation on what that can look like.
SPEAKER_01We'll definitely put the links in the show notes. They should be able to find them. Uh and for you, like where do people find you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think uh LinkedIn is probably the most effective way. Um always open to a conversation. Yeah, and I'm here. I'm just I'm on the I'm on the same journey for impact as always. Yeah, I I talked to I was mentoring under Richard Haymes at the a Futurist. Uh he wouldn't want to be called a futurist, but uh Richard Hayes. And yeah, he he said like I asked him what is like the way to increase impact
How To Get Involved
SPEAKER_02um that that I can have given my current kind of setup. And he said that um he still asks himself the same question to this day, him being in his 80s, you know, like that that that just shows, you know, like this is never-ending journey of of of learning and impact. So uh would happy to connect and you know, what am I missing? Right? Like I am not married to any approach. I just am taking the one that I um that thinks that I think would work best. So happy to learn as well from others.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Alison, uh great to have you on. Um everyone can uh check in the show notes and reach out to him. He's a great resource and uh a bright star in uh especially getting local government engaged. So thanks for being on the show today. Thank you so much, Stephen. Appreciate you for your time.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Think Forward Podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at www.thinkforwardshow.com as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
