Join Daily Maverick Associate Editor Ferial Haffajee, bestselling author Clem Sunter and scenario-planner Mitch Ilbury as they discuss how we can think more effectively about the future and, in the process, make better decisions about our lives.

Event details

Date: Wednesday 4 August 2021
Time: 12:00 SAST
Register for the free Zoom event here

• ‘Reason and imagination must go hand in hand’ – Read an excerpt from Thinking the Future here

About the book

Every decision we make is a decision about the future. We constantly make choices that affect the next week, year or decade, but get blinded by what we want or expect the future to be. Cognitive traps lie everywhere: failing to question our assumptions; believing in greater certainty and personal control than life allows; or missing signals because we’re distracted by the noise.

The post-2020 world demands a revolutionary way of looking ahead, and in these unpredictable times, the key to good futures thinking is good thinking. The goal of constructive futurism is not to forecast specific events, but to plot a series of scenarios that show what could happen. Consequently, we can work towards the future we want, avoid the ones we don’t, and be prepared to manage the risks and opportunities no matter what.

In Thinking the Future, scenario specialists Clem Sunter and Mitch Ilbury teach us the futurist’s art of decision-making, where the flexibility of thinking like a fox plays a key role in adapting to a complex and interconnected world. The book rejects the appealing but misleading self-help narrative that you can decide your future through sheer determination in pursuit of your goals and replaces it with a more dynamic approach.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Book events Book launches Clem Sunter Daily Maverick Ferial Haffajee Mitch Ilbury Penguin Random House SA Thinking the Future Virtual book events Virtual book launches