What do the futures of work look like? Jerome C. Glenn from the Millennium Project shares 3 alternative future of work scenarios in 2050. How well can we anticipate both the incremental and more rapid consequences of transformation?

Scenario planning can be used for engagement, which means building bridges and forming collaborations. The focus is on influencing and communicating. “During a big merger between companies, they disagreed on everything but then did a scenario exercise to start working together and exploring the future,” Drenth cites an example.

When we start to challenge business as usual and the ‘way we do things around here’, alternative futures can be revealed, like hidden worlds coming into view. We move from this idea of the default future, one future as an extension of now, to many.

Discussions about financial support mechanisms for the losers of globalisation and the economic crises, about the joint handling of the refugee issue, joint police efforts – in other words, about solidarity in general in Europe – show that further European integration is challenged.

In the Greek tale of 'the lion and the man', Androcles removes a thorn from a lion's foot. Years later, the lion repays the favour when facing Androcles in the Roman Colosseum. Afterwards, people would say "This is the lion, a man's friend; This metaphor is of how a man and a lion benefitted by helping each other, but what lessons are there for small rural regions to learn from large cities?