How our governing systems are changing, insights with Amy Zalman at Get Digital

We spoke to Amy Zalman, who will be speaking at the upcoming  Get Digital event Get Digital is on from 13-16 April 2021. It will be held from 0900 – 1800 Irish Standard Time. It will be held via Zoom.

Tell us about what you’re currently working on.

I am working on a book proposal about the future of governance and government that lays out the ways that we could globally evolve away from the nation-state as the foundation for governance, and move toward a system that distributes governing power among people, companies and differently shaped governments in the future.

What challenges did the last year, particularly COVID-19, present to you professionally?

I missed being able to connect directly with people through keynotes and workshops. Although we successfully brought our foresight training course, the Foresight Sandbox online, it was not the same as being a room with people.

Amy Zalman at Get Digital

Get set for #GETDigital – a full week of #digitalbusiness insights is under way!??

Registration is still open: https://t.co/NlqIzUmD3c

? 60+ speakers
?35 workshops, career insights and industry keynotes
? April 12th to16th pic.twitter.com/9k3OdkhjeV

— The Irish Institute of Digital Business (@IIDB_ie) April 13, 2021

What will you be talking about at GETDigital?

I will be sharing a few stories that really showcase how radically our governing systems are changing. This is an extraordinary moment in human advancement — our next frontiers include outer space, but also ‘inner space’ as the internet penetrates the human body through prosthetics and implants. This is also, of course, a moment in which thinking hard about our global values, as we begin to grow more deeply connected in a literal way. What rules and norms would we like to govern our shared network?

Looking forward to joining! https://t.co/FLkQkL9h9Q

— Amy Zalman | Global #Foresight | Futurist Speaker (@amyzalman) April 5, 2021

Which people or websites do you follow to keep up to date with in your area?

I like Azeem Azhar’s Exponential Growth newsletter; and read updates from Nature and Nautilus quasi-religiously, as well as news. I have begun to do more whole book reading and less “inbox reading”!

How can people find out more about what you are working on?

You can find me at my website amyzalman.com and at my company Prescient at prescient2050.com. Also, I love connecting on LinkedIn

What are your plans for the immediate future?

I am a professor at Georgetown University and we are moving in the direction of “final paper” time, so I am trying to clear out time for students. This spring I am teaching Emerging Technology and the Human Body, which ends up providing powerful food for thought around ethics and the potential future of our bodies, for me as well as students every time I teach it.

Is there anything else you’d like to add ?

If any of your readers are interested in learning more about strategic foresight, they are invited to join our mailing list – you can subscribe directly here: https://prescient205023335.activehosted.com/app/forms/3Also, if you are at all interested in being trained in how to think and plan like a futurist, our next 2-day course will be held in June. You can learn more here: https://prescient2050.com/executive-education/

More about Amy ->

Amy Zalman is a global futurist who helps leaders and organizations explore the implications of critical global trends and prepare their organizations for transformative change. She is a part-time professor of Strategic Foresight at Georgetown University and the CEO of the foresight consultancy Prescient, LLC, which she founded in 2017 after over a decade of hands-on experience accelerating change in public, private and non-profit organizations.

IN HER WORDS

“Although I have had some very different professional roles in my career, I have heard in each a common refrain.  Everywhere I have worked, people have felt that technology and the societies in which we live, work, fight and play are changing more quickly than the institutions they are working in.

That was true in 2005, when I founded Oryx Communications, a boutique consultancy that created communications products for US defense clients. The 9/11 attacks had shocked our clients and they were surprised by the ways the world was changing — technologically, culturally and geopolitically.

Later, as the Chair of Information Integration at the National War College, it was my job to introduce new ways of understanding “information” to future senior leaders.

At the time, it seemed a little crazy to view information as simultaneously tangible (like cables, and code) and ephemeral, located in the invisible, but crucial, social ether, where people communicate meaning to each other. Today, in the wake of election meddling and fake news, it doesn’t seem crazy to see how complex information is.

In 2014, I became the CEO and President of the World Future Society, which was the world’s first and largest membership organization for futurists when it was founded in the 1960s.  Like many organizations of its age, it was in financial trouble and losing members. I led its transformation from a publishing model to a modern membership ecosystem, and left it with a positive bank balance and positioned for renewed global impact.

In 2017, I decided to gather the insights I had learned along the way and founded Prescient (called the Strategic Narrative Institute, for its first  year). Prescient is a foresight firm, and we provide executive education, strategic retreats and other services to firms seeking to transform in the face of uncertainty and dramatic change.

If you are also interested in the challenging, troubling, exciting ways that world is in flux, I’d love to hear from you.”

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