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Nominate your futures champion
The National Housing Federation is asking all housing associations to nominate ‘futures champions’ to attend workshops called ideas labs. James Green explains what it is all about
We all love trying to predict the future. It’s something we do day in, day out. But how good are we at it?
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have spoken with absolute confidence about the outcome of anything from a football match to an election, only to be proved wrong.
That experience has become an almost daily occurrence in today’s world of constant change. I can’t imagine many – if any – of us predicted Brexit, Trump and the last election. There’s a good reason for that: we are rubbish at predicting the future.
My strongest evidence in support of this is that if you look at any book or Hollywood film that imagined the future, none of them predicted the internet.
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So while people were dreaming of flying cars and hover boards, no one conceived of the possibility that wherever you were on the planet, you could have the world’s knowledge in the palm of your hands.
“We want every association to nominate a futures champion.”
This shows that while we are rubbish at predicting the future, we are brilliant at creating it.
That’s exactly what Creating our Future, the National Housing Federation’s new Futures Programme, is all about.
Creating our Future will tap into the energy and enthusiasm of housing association staff at all levels and parts of our sector, to better understand the trends shaping the future and develop groundbreaking ideas in response to them.
Or, put more simply, we are going to come together to co-create ideas to change the world. These will be tangible new products and services that are rooted in our social purpose, could transform lives, and can be scaled up across the country.
The NHF has developed with innovation experts an eighteen-month process that will take us from generating ideas, through trialling and testing them, all the way to launching them at a major expo.
That begins in November with our ideas labs and we want every association to nominate a futures champion to attend one of them.
“We don’t just want to come up with new ideas, we want to implement them on a sector-wide scale.”
These interactive workshops will support champions to not only come up with new ideas, but also to bring the spirit of innovation back with them to inspire their colleagues and generate even more ideas.
Associations can nominate their futures champion at www.housing.org.uk/futureschampions.
Our ideas labs are only the start. We don’t just want to come up with new ideas, we want to implement them on a sector-wide scale.
So we’re delighted that Big Society Capital – the nation’s wholesale social investor – is partnering with us on this programme to ensure our ideas get the investment they deserve. They are looking to invest up to £15m in our most investable ideas, helping to ensure we can make them a reality.
November’s ideas labs mark the beginning of our work to Create our Future.
We’ve got bold ambitions and will have a real impact, but one thing’s certain: where we end up in 18 months’ time will be different, and I anticipate even more exciting, than we might predict today.
But that’s no surprise, as we know we are rubbish at predicting the future, but brilliant at creating it.
James Green, Futures Programme director, National Housing Federation
