Four Meta-Questions to Help Deepen Conversations about the Future

Last year, over 500 people took part in NewGeo's Weak Signals Survey. The idea was to help us perceive together, things that we cannot see alone.

Over the subsequent months, I began to notice, in my own life and work, a handful of meta-questions that recur, again and again, in any meetings and conversations about the future. Then I realized: the first place I had seen these meta-questions had been in our collective responses to the Survey.

I also noticed that, many times, these meta-questions aren’t ever stated. They’re implicit, behind people’s words. But if you name them aloud, if you make them explicit, then that can really change the conversation. It can help deepen it. It can help make it more impactful.

These four meta-questions have helped me to make conversations about the future more valuable, again and again, these past months. I hope they help you do the same—because they came from you…

(You can also watch this video on YouTube.)

Here are two more Members-only videos for you, with actionable insights from the Survey:

• ​Habits to Help Spark New Thinking​
• ​Paradigm-Busting Questions in 10 Sectors of Society​

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Reflecting on the Long Pause

I've been on an extended break from this writing space—and I'm not quite “back” yet. But I did want to check in, ask how you’re doing, share with you a couple of the things that I’ve been thinking long and carefully about, and also share with you a few of my “most valuable questions” from the past several months.

For me, the war in Ukraine has had a big impact on how I spend my time, and where my head is at. One practical consequence has been: I had to reduce the time I spent volunteering for NewGeo and this newsletter.

A Private Note to Members & Believers

(You can also watch this video on YouTube.)

On the writing front, for the past many months, what’s felt most important to me has been to help create more nuanced understandings and conversations about geopolitics. One way to do that is through story, which, as we all know, can hold our attention for hours at a time. So I wrote a novel (now with my literary agent). It’s set in 21st-century China, during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. (I look forward to the day when you can meet its main characters. They’ve made me laugh and cry—and along the way, they’ve challenged and deepened many things I thought I knew.)

When it comes to NewGeo’s core purpose—creating, nurturing, and holding spaces for people to do “new thinking together”—over the past year, my own personal commitment to that purpose has shifted from hosting public forums to helping to improve government and the services that government delivers to people. One of the most glaring differences between China, which is striving to become the world’s first “advanced socialist society”, and today's “advanced liberal democracies” is how many people in either system profess to trust their governments. In China, it’s over 90%; in many liberal democracies, it’s well under 50%.

When people are asked why they don’t trust their government, ‘poor or declining service’ is one of the most frequent answers. So: improving public-service delivery is maybe a bit mundane, but it’s also fundamental to the success—and survival—of liberal democracy.

One thing I’ve learned during my Pause is that the same convening methodologies and skills that we’ve been developing here at NewGeo (i.e., “how to BaseCamp”) can transfer very powerfully into professional settings. These skills are, chiefly: reflection, listening, noticing, and collective sense-making. NewGeo’s theory is: the more complex the problem you’re grappling with, the more essential these practices become.

We’ve now begun to test that theory within a large-scale, complex, public-service context. We’ve begun to draw in, and learn from, theorists and practitioners from around the world who are experimenting with similar methods. I’m excited about the impact we might generate for democracies everywhere...

On a related note, one final thing that has become clear to me during this Pause is that NewGeo will need to be restructured. NewGeo is a nonprofit, and people like me have been a volunteer at NewGeo since its inception. That model worked to attract a community of beautiful and generous givers (you!), but it hasn’t worked to maintain spaces that serve you consistently. Creating space to do new thinking together feels more vital than ever, and that purpose needs to be resourced properly. So we’re exploring different models whereby people can do this good work and be rewarded for it. (In the meantime, we've suspended our donation-taking functions.)

Most importantly: How are you?

Chris