Photo Courtesy John Sweeney
Let’s face it: All things considered, it’s a rather exciting time to be an Indonesian. Thanks to growth in the economy, innovation and adaptation of new technology, the general public holds a solid voice in the nation’s decision-making policies and processes. The system is not perfect yet, as transparency and accountability still leave much to be desired. But public dialogue continues to increase, and it will only get better. The question is, how do we take advantage of this agency? The last thing people want is to see is our hard-earned platform wasted on complaints and mindless criticism, with no constructive end in sight. It’s our responsibility to demand the Indonesia we want. But how can we even begin to imagine what that looks like?
Luckily, researchers and strategic foresight specialists like John A. Sweeney and TEDx Jakarta co-founder Kartika Anindya Putri are pushing us all to imagine bigger — to explore the possible, plausible, probable, and ultimately preferable futures of Indonesia.
Sweeney, the deputy director of the Center for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies at East-West University in Chicago, recently traveled to Indonesia where he joined Kartika at the offices of entrepreneurship organization Endeavor Indonesia to lead a multi-stakeholder group of driven Jakartans through a half-day workshop.
Titled “Imagining Indonesia — The Three Tomorrows,” the session was bent on exploring the challenges that lay on the horizon. “The main concern,” said Kartika, who is also a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, “was to move past the belief that ‘nobody knows what the future holds.’ It’s about changing how we perceive uncertainty and change.
Foresight is a systematic way to think and discuss the different ways we’re possibly heading, and that’s crucial to practice in these times of transition in Indonesia.” Foresight, Sweeney explains, is a widely used tool for enhancing the quality and relevance of strategic planning. In expanding the scope of analysis, foresight fosters the ability to develop strategy to navigate uncertainty, ultimately increasing our responsiveness to change.
“I think Futures needs Indonesia as much as Indonesia might need Futures,” Sweeney said. “I would love for the workshop at Endeavour to be seen as the tipping point — the catalyst that led to a large-scale, collaborative foresight project aimed at bringing together a diverse array of Indonesian perspectives to imagine and create a better future.” More broadly, strategic foresight allows for creative dialogue, imaginative innovation, and critical reflection on what might lie ahead.
Some governments, such as Singapore and South Korea, have entire department offices dedicated to it. Strategic foresight might seem a bit daunting at first, but we use it all the time — we just never notice it. Everyone has their own opinion of what President Joko Widodo should be focusing on in the next month, year and five years. At the same time, we hesitate to explore the future, claiming it’s impossible to predict. In fact, we’re all constantly making decisions about the future by thinking ahead, juggling everything from potential ministers lining the new cabinet, to what we might have for lunch.
Foresight is not about correct prediction, it’s about considering the future, uncertain as it is, as something we can shape. Dias Rahwidiati, a development professional working in Jakarta, attended the workshop and particularly appreciated the “what if …” structure of the exercises. “What I really liked was the structured thinking around recognizing trends and how they might influence a near, familiar future, as well as extrapolating those trends to construct scenarios that include variables we haven’t thought of before,” Dias said. “I think it’s the kind of visioning that Joko’s cabinet should probably have conducted in their first week in [office] — what kind of nation do we want to be, say, 100 years from now, and what would it take to get us there?”
For Kartika, on the other hand, futures thinking and foresight are all about enhancing the conversation, whether that is planning an nongovernmental organization’s strategy or mapping out the next big volunteer trend. “Foresight enhances debate and quality of conversation,” Kartika said. “By inviting multiple stakeholders to discuss possibilities, we have the potential to collectively shift our mindset in anticipation of what’s to come.” There have been talks to bring back Sweeney and Kartika for a bigger, more interactive event, possibly combining the government, private sector, media and advocacy groups, to give the Futures team a clear shot at combining the sectors in hopes of enriching conversations and
Sweeney, who recently returned from Tonga where he led the ForesightXchange workshop with the government of Tonga and United Nations Development Program, said he was ready to return to Indonesia to talk about navigating the potentially rocky road ahead.
Kartika Anindya Putri can be contacted at tika@futures.ninja.The main concern was to move past the belief that ‘nobody knows what the future holds.’ It’s about changing how we perceive uncertainty and change.
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