“As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

First Dream Report for October 2008 (click here for PDF)

WHETHEReport’s mission is to collect and analyze data from precognitive dreams. This page is the repository starting point for all the reports compiled from collected data. To date, however, no reports have been compiled because we are still in a preliminary phase of data collection. We will be compiling scenario report #1 shortly.

WHETHERmap will array data points around a geographic map, effectively visualizing clusters of concepts to the public; WHETHEReport, on the other hand, will examine all dream entry data and prepare scenarios and reports. In our efforts to to alert the public to potential upcoming events and data clusters, high level scenarios and reports will be made publicly available. . We will filter and array clusters that we think will have the most serious impacts.

In addition to public data presentation and report distribution, The Arlington Institute also offers private scenario workshops and strategy building workshops where we work with clients on how to develop plans and methods appropriate to operating in the potential scenario environments. Scenarios and data collected from the WHETHEReport and WHETHERmap portal combined with trend mapping research, will allow us to array an anticipation envelope that has a wide reach. The Arlington Institute’s approach to novelty vectors will offer our clients thinking points and strategic insights not currently offered by other strategic planning firms.

Here is a more detailed look at the set of services that The Arlington Institute’s provides:

The Arlington Institute:

* Knows how to think about the future. We know where to look and how to array information so that current trends inform our clients about possible future operating contexts. We use sophisticated processes and information technologies to scan the horizon for possible big surprise events and early indicators of change which could rapidly shift the familiar fundamentals upon which an enterprise is based. We use systems thinking to look at the driving forces and wild cards in order to understand the complex interdependencies that are the fabric the present and, certainly, of any future. We help our clients think out-of-the-box — and see relationships and possibilities that otherwise might have been missed.

* Is expert in identifying possible futures that would fundamentally affect our clients. We lead groups in developing scenarios, or images, of how their marketplace — or any other environment or relationship — might evolve. We help them identify normative scenarios, or desired futures, that can form the core of a concrete organizational vision. We can assist an organization in extracting its unique business idea from all that it does and then relate those core ideas and competencies to the spectrum of plausible futures that it will confront. For some of our clients, we look for convergent areas of great opportunity. For others, we look for hazards.

* Looks for early indicators of large-scale change that would impact those for whom we work. Our technology will allow us to identify potentially significant information emerging from almost any place on the planet which can then be used to find meaning in subtle events that point toward the possibility of much larger change. Our clients have early warnings of change that are not available elsewhere.

* Has a unique understanding of the future which comes from viewing the emerging environment from a high, integrated vantage point that is informed by a sensitivity to potential unusual events. We have worked for many types of organizations and have helped them in the process of envisioning their future. These varied perspectives, coupled with those from our stable of creative and curious analysts, provide us with a singular viewpoint that tends to be richer and wider than those of most other observers.

This unparalleled combination of skills, experience and perspective can be particularly valuable to an agency, corporation or organization which appreciates the need to seriously and systematically make the future an integral part of its planning and strategic thinking. Our uniquely qualified analysts and unparalleled collection of analytical technology coupled with a growing international network of unusual thinkers presents a potential client with a powerful intellectual resource for considering the possibilities that exist on an enterprise’s horizon. We work with international organizations, government agencies, associations, corporations, and other organizations.

Specifically The Arlington Institute offers the following customized products and services:

* Scenario Development , Business Idea Identification, and Strategy Design - for enterprises or groups of enterprises
* Normative Scenario Development - for individuals, organizations, sectors, and humanity
* Customized Brainstorming and Tutorial Workshops - to catalyze ongoing projects and teach new thinking skills
* Sophisticated Group Facilitation - to achieve specific objectives from groups of all sizes
* Specialized Modeling - using agent-based models to simulate large-scale social response.