Building futures for Massachusetts in 2040
My son is about to enter Pre-K. In 2040, he’ll be graduating high school. That may seem like a long time away, but the decisions our elected officials are making now will shape the world that welcomes him into adulthood.
However, they too often make those decisions in response to the latest crisis, news story, or the last person who talked to them.
In order to act for the future, we need to be aware of what the future may hold. But forecasting is never a sure thing.
Governments and businesses have created a system to tackle the need to plan without knowing what the world will be like 10, 20, or 30 years in the future: scenario planning.
I’ve led scenario projects for the European Parliamentand others. As a part of my campaign, I’m bringing you into the process to create four different futures for Massachusetts in 2040. This will help guide legislative planning in 2027 by identifying the areas that need attention that may not be in the headlines today.
The process will be run in public and proceed in phases:
Identifying what matters: Complete this form to tell me some of the things that you think will shape the Commonwealth over the next 14 years. I’d love to hear your thoughts. This closes on July 19
Ranking the most important variables: We’ll then rank all the top factors to find the two that are the most important and two that are the most uncertain. This phase runs from July 20 to July 26.
Creating four worlds: The two most important and uncertain factors will create four alternate worlds. You’ll tell me what you think would happen in each. Be creative. This phase will be from July 27 to August 1.
This will result in a report detailing what each world looks like in the first week of August that can then trigger discussions about what legislation is needed to steer us away from the threats and towards the opportunities.
While this is not a typical project for any political campaign - much less one for state representative - I believe that you cannot be an effective representative if you do not have a direction in which you’re looking to lead, and a map of where you’re going.
For more about scenario planning in the Commonwealth, you can also read the MBTA’s Focus40 report, which used the process. The four futures it produced are described below.
