News/Research

Alum Jane McGonigal Teaching How to be a Futurist at Stanford

08 Apr, 2019

Alum Jane McGonigal Teaching How to be a Futurist at Stanford

This Spring at Stanford University, you can take a course taught by BCNM alum Jane McGonigal on the process of thinking like a futurist. Running from May 4-5, the course offers participants the chance to become a more creative thinker by introducing playful tools into their daily life.

From the course abstract:

Can you picture the three most important technologies in your life twenty years from today? Could you tell a vivid story about the single biggest challenge you’ll personally face five years from now? What about the biggest challenge the world will face in fifty years? Thinking about the far-off future is more than an exercise in intellectual curiosity. It’s a practical skill that new research reveals has a direct neurological link to greater creativity, empathy, and optimism. In other words, futurist thinking gives you the ability to create change in your own life and the world around you, today. In this course, you’ll learn essential habits for thinking about the future that will increase the power of your practical imagination. These futurist habits include counterfactual thinking (imagining how the past could have turned out differently), signals hunting (looking for leading-edge examples of the kind of change you want to see in the world), and autobiographical forecasting (anticipating how you will adapt your strategies and goals as the world around you changes). We’ll discuss the scientific research that explains how each habit can have a positive impact on your life, from helping you become a more original thinker to making you a more persuasive communicator. By the end of this course, you will have the playful and practical tools you need to imagine how the world (and your life) could be very different—and to use your newfound imagination to create change today.

To register for the course see here!