This was a quiet week on the blog, but not for my work load. On Tuesday, I signed a contract with the Institute for the Future to serve as the guest editor of the 2007 Ten Year Forecast project. This project will run through the end of December, and will be published in March of 2007 (initially for the IFTF membership, although they will likely publish parts of it online later on). This is IFTF's big annual project, and this will be the first time they'll have used an outside editor -- in short, this is a big job, and a bigger honor. Part of being asked to work on this project includes joining IFTF's team of Affiliates, a network that includes such worthies as Howard Rheingold and Jerry Michalski.

The Ten Year Forecast (TYF) is something IFTF has been doing for a couple of decades now; you can find a few of the earlier versions at the IFTF website:

• 2005 TYF Perspectives (PDF)
• 2004 TYF Perspectives (PDF)
• 2003 TYF "Map of the Decade" (PDF)

I'm excited about this project for a variety of reasons, but I'm especially happy because it will give me a chance to work hands-on with a foresight methodology that differs significantly from the GBN processes with which I'm most familiar. Foresight/"futurism" is still far more of an art than a science (although academic programs such as the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Research Center for Future Studies are clearly trying to create a formal process); in that spirit, I'm eager to learn new artistic styles.

Best of all, this won't be a 24/7 project, so I'll still have time for other pursuits... such as Open the Future.