Social Work Futures

Recent Ideas from Twitter – Social Work Futures – December 6, 2019

The Future of Work

This particular article is about the future of “not working” – vis a vis the “compelling case for working a lot less.” It is hard to imagine this future, but this piece is part of a continuing (and seemingly growing international conversation) about how working a little less would be a lot better for our health, relationship and community.

Tech Matters

Our city of Portland, Oregon made the news for its plans to have one of the most strict facial recognition bans in the country. I’m a fan of this move.

This piece suggests that “biased algorithms are easier to fix than biased people.” Here’s a piece that notes its making it easier for governments to responsibly adopt AI technology. It’s another effort to come up with some shared ethical and practice guidelines for this powerful technology. It is good to see them coming – it would be even greater to see them adopted widely and used. This piece, for example, suggests we aren’t doing a very good job in that department.

Here’s an interesting article posing the question: Do children think your smart speaker is just another family member? Thoughtful exploration about how the prevalence of technologies in our childrens’ lives is truly changing their experience of childhood in some unexpected ways and with impacts we can’t quite know yet. Without awfulizing, it probably is important to consider.

Should we give our robots citizenship? This piece from 2017 suggest that even as a gag, it probably isn’t a good idea, and is another category of human-tech activity we don’t have legal ground to be ready for what is coming.

Here’s another article that proclaims a crisis in the development of autonomous weapons – and a call to ban them. A slow down doesn’t seem to be coming.

Here’s a new and helpful “Digital Justice Manifesto” developed by a coalition of European data justice activists and organizations. It’s a 2019 document.

Biotech and Genomic Surveillance

We talk a lot about technological surveillance (and it is a concern) but how about “genomic surveillance.” This article suggests it is a growing threat and a human rights evolving story. Without international guidelines, the pace of potential abuses and the prevalence of genetic data is a bad combination.

The 2020 Trends Keep Coming

Tis the season! Here’s a fun overview of “12 themes experts predict will shape the world in 50 years.” (Algae, implantable tech, and lab grown meat anyone??)

What If We Get the Future Right?

Here’s a pretty creative and useful (from a futures practice) article asking the question “what if we get things right? Visions for the year 2030.” I’m excited to use this piece in practice as I think it stretches our creative thinking muscles towards some positive futures. The dystopian futures are a more common feature of our media/entertainment world. I think good positive future ideas are rarer to find and harder to come by. But they lay the groundwork to educate, to stimulate aspiration, to rekindle hope and determination. This is a valuable piece to read for something a little different – and dare I say it – upbeat? Along those lines, here’s a review of a new book by author Joe Tankersley (“Not all futurists are dystopian”) which also lays out a challenge to use our imaginations to build a better future on purpose. I got the book based on this article, but haven’t read it yet!

Also, you may recall that I’m on sabbatical this year. I thought I’d put my sabbatical reading list together to show you the books I’ve accumulated (like a squirrel with a stash of nuts…? Well maybe…) to settle into a cozy winter of some deep review and study. Check it out here.

Interested in looking back to see some of my past posts gathering up interesting items from Twitter? Click here to check them out.

A Futures Lens on Homelessness

As a social work scholar who is also a futurist, I’m interested in understanding how current trends will intersect to set the stage for current social problems and challenges.

Among the most alarming social problems of our time, is that of homelessness (or a preferred term “houselessness”).

Here’s a quick round up of some resources I found illuminating what thinkers, activists and concerned community members see ahead. This list is always under development.

International lens on the issue of homelessness – developed in Finland, this is a collection of essays (policies and practice) on the topic. Entitled Homelessness 2030: The Future of Homelessness. (2019)

The critical number that shows when housing breaks down (2019). Powerful mention in this piece that the UN predicts that by the year 2050, 68% of the world’s population will live in cities. This is an overview of how to get ahead of this issue with an eye toward the future.

New report predicting surge in elderly homeless by the year 2030 (2019)

Why Americans are retiring into homelessness (2019)

Helsinki’s radical approach to end homelessness (2019)

Variety of reports on “resources” tab (and great website overall) discussing the UN’s stance on housing as a human right. (2019)

Four homelessness trends in 2018 and what they mean for the future (2019)

Other links:

National Alliance to End Homelessness

Here’s a link (from the site above) to statistical and graphic overviews including some trend info.

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

National Coalition for the Homeless

US Interagency Council on Homelessness

Laura's Sabbatical Reading List – Some Books!

I’m reading (a lot!) on my sabbatical. A few folks have asked me to put a list together so I did! It’s mostly general futures books (you can find other more extensive academic articles readings elsewhere on this blog). Here you go. Have fun and don’t forget to share ideas of books I may have missed. Note: I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get all of these read on my sabbatical. I have other things I’m doing…but it was a good exercise to get them all together and reprioritize which feel most important for me to read next. Isn’t a GREAT problem to have too many good books to read? I feel lucky.

The Future of Organizations and Work

There has been a lot of focus and dialogue in the last few years about the “future of work,” which is an important and fascinating area of inquiry. Less has been written about what all of this means about the future of organizations as we know them.

That said, there is valuable information about – I’ve tried to gather up a sample to explore. I believe that all of this will be part of the future of work transition – and impact folks in every sector of public and private organizational life.

John Hagel on the future of work (2019) – this speaker does a masterful job of intersecting the future of work with the work organizations need to do to get ready.

A design for workforce equity (in a changing world) (2019)

Institute for the Future’s Beyond Organizations map and information about the future of getting things done (2018)

The evolution of work: New realities facing today’s leaders (2018)

Responsive Organizations (manifesto for organizations of the future in unpredictable times)

The future of work is here – here’s how your organization needs to change (2018)

Four trends facing the future of organizations and organizational development (2017)

The organization of the future: Arriving now (2017)

The past and future of global organizations (2014)

For some basic “Future of Work” resources – see below. Also check out my review of the fine book “The Future of the Professions” here.

State of California’s Future of Work Commission – multiple real time resources here (these meetings are happening right now and lots of great resources are emerging).

World Economic Forum – extensive resources on the future of work here.

The future of work: A Vice news special report (1-hour complete documentary)(2019)

The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow (2019)

What is the future of work, workforces and workplaces (2019)

The digital ready worker (2019)

How business can build a future of work that works for women (2019)

AI forces shaping work and learning in 2030 – Institute for the Future (2018)

Inequality and the future of work (2018)

Note: Additional information available here from a recent post on other resources on this topic!! Here’s another post from this past year on “jobs of the future” from the silly to the sublime!

Macro Social Work, the Future and Foresight Practice

Futures, Foresight and Macro Social Work

Social work has a long tradition of social planning – an implicitly future facing endeavor. Social planning that looks at important intersections of community needs, resources, policies and practices all combine to be a perennial focus of macro social work. Futures and foresight work represent the evolution of this work.

Scenario planning was an intermediary step in this evolution. Based in the idea of catalyzing a group or community’s shared sense of multiple possible futures became popular in the mid-80’s public sector as a planning technique. It was also implicitly future oriented, but urged people to pick scenarios that most aligned with their goals and visions and assist them to develop strategic plans that were believed to be most likely to achieve the envisioned goal. During this same time, a variation of this work had been developing that focused more explicitly on the future. Termed “foresight,” it had much in common with scenario planning, but more intentionally utilized methods of tracking “signals” in the changing socio-political and cultural ecosystem. Increasingly influenced by strong currents and change dynamics due to the influence of technology on modern life and climate change as well as other global dynamics, foresight and “futures” practice involves a set of methods designed to:

Intentionally engage in cross-disciplinary learning about sectors beyond one’s own with special emphasis on emerging issues and their connection and likelihood of complicating historical trends and current realities
Use scenario and speculative design methods to build out possible futures
Increase collective intelligence, agility and imagination across diverse community sectors and identities
Develop plans that reflect all of the above

These methods recast and enlarge the idea of what “readiness for the future” means. Rather than having a detailed step by step traditional plan, often cast as an elaborate “to do” list, a foresight exercise helps organizations and/or communities to have a broader, engaged and agile set of goals about the future, in a well-guided and more expansively informed set of possible risks, opportunities, careful attention to unseen spots and unintended consequences, and a deeper and more creative sense of actions based on preferred futures. Foresight work compels organizations and communities to respectfully engage in how a changing world will likely impact them and how they envision success for themselves given the often surprising and turbulent practice ecosystem in play.

For social work, the technological, climate related, and geopolitical shifts present a number of unprecedented kinds of new risks, opportunities, concerns and challenges to our profession. A sample set of questions in this light for the future of social work might include the following.

How shall social work prepare for:

Utilization of artificial intelligence in ways that fully conform to our ethics and values?
Increasing climate- and geopolitically related increases in migration and immigration (as well as climate-related health and mental health distress)?
A changing health landscape powered and influenced increasingly more by technology yet not necessarily accessible to all and/or using technologies that contain racial, gender or other forms of bias?
New types of mental health treatment that involve a) technology in the forms of “apps” and non-in-person service delivery and b) new types of grief, transition-related trauma, and anxiety currently measurably on the rise due to climate change and other “rate of change” related disorientation due to rapid social change?
Community supporting and advocacy-oriented approaches to smart cities and increasing use of technology for surveillance of the most vulnerable?
An era of anticipated large-scale “technological unemployment” among low-skilled workers in the US, already economically vulnerable, and create economic safety nets that seek to prevent dramatically increased suffering?
New forms of inequity based on technological access and/or development that “leave out” central voices and avenues to power in algorithms and subsequent infrastructure resulting from their use?
An era in which the laws and protections that citizens rely on are thought to be inadequate to protect and preserve human rights and basic civil liberties given such rapid technological change and complexity?

Two important notes. First – there are social work scholars and practitioners around the world and within the U.S. who are currently venturing into these important areas and their work is to be commended and taken seriously. Secondly – many of these readiness questions are actually already in play for practicing social workers – and in this sense – the future is now. Consider emerging use of tech in mental health, AI in child welfare, increases in smart cities technologies in places where social workers operate, unanticipated and unethical shifts in US immigration policy. How comprehensive has our assessment, study, preparation and advocacy planning for these and other developments been? Are we ready for what is (already here) and coming next? A futures lens and agenda for social work, which is also beginning to emerge, can help to connect these important innovations, explorations and innovations to the historical traditions of our profession and help us be more comprehensively future-ready. Social work integration of these futures frameworks require adjustment in the form of more explicit power analysis, equity analysis, and careful integration (and potentially even the expansion) of our code of ethics.

Professions such as medical doctors, nurses, lawyers, journalists and many other professions are actively engaged in a focused and committed processes to prepare themselves for the future. Evolution of our times requires our profession and our tool kits to encourage an intentional, thoughtful and reflective “upgrade.” Futures practice can be a valuable tool in helping to achieve this goal.

Recent Ideas from Twitter – Social Work Futures – November 19, 2019

Data Futures with a Feminist Lens

What happens when you cross data science with feminism? Well – you get data feminism. Authors of a new book by this title Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein suggest that the way we approach data science, the way that we view, apply and understand data can be enhanced by careful examination of their (non-feminist) origins and that revisions to our thinking and methods for humanity are warranted. It comes out in March of 2020 – but reading the previews has definitely got me wanting more!

AI for Good – Is it Really?

I’m not sure I agree with each and everything in this piece but I really appreciate the effort to “complicate” the idea that “AI for Good” is just automatically so. In fact many of the challenges presented deserve careful, ethical consideration. I respect and appreciate this article. Here’s another piece that explores some of the same ideas with a slightly different flavor.

Future of Higher Education

Here’s an article about the “new” split higher education economy – that of online and traditional. It echos a lot of other literature on this topic but clearly shows that the shift many have been considering is happening and likely will not turn back.

Also – more sobering projections about the future of higher education and the coming enrollment “crash.” Along those lines – here’s a helpful overview of declining state support of higher education and the stinging impact this has and will have.

Algorithm World

I have seen numerous articles in the last year (and have included a few of them here) regarding a new kind of “privilege” – the privilege to opt out of algorithms and surveillance of various kinds. This new(ish) article is another in that category and worth a quick look. The authors suggest that the new digital divide is between people who opt out of algorithms and people who don’t.

Other explorations are increasingly considering a power analysis of AI now and in this future. This piece explores “when algorithms decide whose voices will be heard” and this one is called “AI ethics is all about power.” This type of power analysis is important and useful as we make sense of and track our work as social workers.

On that note, I did run across an article from our UK social work colleagues about how they view AI-enabled social work practice.

As always, I’m gathering a variety of items that comment on the issue of AI bias and how to counter it. Here, here and here. Lastly, here’s a new piece from the LA Times called “Rules for a new surveillance reality.“

Is Data the New Oil?

Everyone is using this phrase now…and folks are still arguing a bit about its accuracy. Here’s a great article that makes this case for its validity. I found the various categories to help us understand how your data, my data, everyone’s data is being used (not that I’m always a fan of this!!).

Thoughtful AI Requires Intelligent Human Participation

Here’s another review of a new forthcoming book called The Future Computed by Brand Smith and Harry Shum with some thoughtful ideas about a fast arriving future centering AI as significant driver. The discussion of potential AI-related job loss is notable, and the principles they assert (AI should be fair, trustworthy, transparent and controllable” are important.

Eco-Anxiety and Eco-Grief

I’ve had numerous interactions in the past couple of weeks with the concept of eco-anxiety and eco-grief. Here’s a brief piece I ran across online. But additionally, I’ve met a couple of people who are involved in self-help community eco-grief groups organized by the Good Grief Network. CBS did a story about this back in August.

A Social Work Futurist Goes to the Exponential Medicine Conference – November 2019 – Meeting Download

I had the pleasure of attending the recent “Exponential Medicine” gathering in San Diego, CA last week. For four days, I was surrounded by some of the brightest physicians, researchers, nurses, inventors, investors, health educators, and health administrators I’ve had the privilege of meeting.

This particular image is borrowed from one of the presentations (Dr. Lucien Engelen). He used it to describe the changes that are coming to the entire health care space. And changes that we are not universally prepared for. It was a meeting that was interchangably inspiring, exciting, intense and worrisome. Of course I found myself thinking – how can create pathways for more and deeper interdisciplinary thinking and work with social workers as we navigate these complicated times and opportunties? How can we (as a profession) be part of making sure these extraordinary health breakthroughs are made accessible to all?

This blog post and meeting download is a step in that direction. Fellow social workers – let’s talk about exponential medicine! I would love to hear your reactions to what I’ve put together about my experiences.

This is a long debrief document (you are not gonna be able to read it on the run…you might want to get a beverage and settle in…LOL) – I included slides from photos I took – so this makes the document a little longer, but I was endeavoring to make you feel like you got a taste of all there was to learn. Social workers belong in these spaces too…we have much to offer from our valuable perspectives.

Enjoy – and here’s to an incredible, complicated future.