Future Conference – at a Glance
| What is a Future Conference? | A Future Conference is an event that brings together peers from various sectors to explore trends, develop shared knowledge, and foster innovation, leadership, and collaborative, ethical approaches to shaping the future. |
| What are the objectives and benefits of a future conference? | A Future Conference fosters innovation, strategic planning, and collaboration by enabling diverse participants to explore trends, share insights, and turn ideas into actionable, sustainable outcomes. |
| What are the phases of a Future Conference? | A Future Conference follows six structured phases: preparation, opening, exchange, dreams and visions, strategy development, and conclusion, guiding participants from shared understanding to actionable and impactful outcomes. |
| What are the strengths of the Future Conference? | The Future Conference unites diverse perspectives and industries to explore trends, tackle challenges, and foster innovation, insights, and shared ownership of outcomes. |
| What are the weaknesses of the Future Conference? | Challenges of a Future Conference include high organizational effort, skilled facilitation, careful coordination, and ensuring that diverse interests align and ideas translate into lasting impact. |
What is a Future Conference?
A Future Conference is a participatory conference format that enables peers, teams, and stakeholders to jointly explore future developments and shape concrete actions. As an interactive event, it combines dialogue, workshops, and collaborative sessions to help participants understand how global and local trends, technologies, and societal changes shape the world.
The method was developed in the 1990s by Marvin Weisbord, a bestselling author, and psychologist Sandra Janoff. Their goal was to create a workshop that empowers people to connect, develop shared responsibility, and influence the future through collective action.
Tip: Your shortcut to professional trend insights: explore and analyze emerging trends effortlessly with Trendradar. No demo required; start discovering instantly.
Objectives, Benefits and Value of a Future Conference
The Future Conference offers multiple benefits, including the creation of shared visions for the future, stronger collaboration, and sustainable innovation. Participants gain insights by working with peers from different backgrounds and industries, which supports leadership development and a more profound understanding of complex challenges. The value of the conference lies in turning ideas into real world applications and strengthening commitment to change.
Fostering Innovation
Innovation is at the heart of every Future Conference. By bringing together attendees from business, education, research, health care, and other sectors, the conference creates a focused environment where ideas can emerge. Participants explore trends, technologies shaping the next decade, and upcoming possibilities. This collaborative setting inspires creativity and leads to solutions that are supported by all involved.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning within a Future Conference is based on collective intelligence. Participants collaborate to define long-term goals, explore scenarios, and develop actions that respond to global and local trends. This workshop strengthens teams, supports leadership development, and ensures that strategies are realistic, ethical, and broadly supported.
Networking and Collaboration
A Future Conference serves as a powerful network platform. It allows attendees to connect, build meaningful connections, and collaborate beyond organizational boundaries. Through interactive sessions, workshops, and shared experiences, participants develop relationships that often continue long after the conference has ended, shaping upcoming projects and partnerships.
Leadership Development
Future Conferences support leadership development by creating a collaborative setting where communication, responsibility, and future-oriented thinking matter. Leaders work with diverse stakeholders to align perspectives and guide collective action toward shared goals. The structured process strengthens systems thinking, decision-making, and shared ownership, building a leadership culture that supports sustainable innovation and long-term change.
Areas of Application of the Future Conference
The Future Conference is applied across many industries and sectors. In business, it supports innovation and strategic transformation. In education and research, it enables academics, students, and practitioners to explore future-oriented topics. Communities, churches, and public organizations use the conference to shape identity, culture, and shared visions for the world they want to create.
6 Phases of a Future Conference
A Future Conference follows a structured process of six interconnected phases, each essential for transforming shared understanding into concrete action. While these six phases provide the core framework, their implementation may vary depending on context and specific objectives.
1. Preparation
Goals are clarified, participants are invited, and tickets are coordinated. Organizers design sessions, select a suitable venue within walking distance if possible, and prepare the platform for collaboration.
2. Opening
The conference opens with a welcome on the main stage. The purpose and schedule are presented, creating focused energy and setting the tone for collaboration.
3. Exchange
Participants share experiences, insights, and perspectives. This phase strengthens understanding, builds trust, and allows peers to connect on a personal and professional level.
4. New Ideas and Dreams
Attendees imagine the tomorrow they want to create. Through creativity and dialogue, they develop inspiring visions that reflect shared values and possibilities.
5. Strategy Development
Teams translate visions into concrete strategies, identifying trends, technologies, resources, and practices needed for implementation.
6. Conclusion
The conference concludes with reflection, recognition of contributions, and agreements on next steps to ensure that ideas lead to real impact.
Possible Outcomes, Barriers and Risks
A Future Conference can create a shared vision, actionable strategies, and stronger collaboration, but may face barriers and risks if planning, participation, or follow-up are inadequate.
- Possible Outcomes: A Future Conference can result in a clear vision for the future, concrete strategies and actions to implement that vision, and strengthened relationships and collaboration among participants.
- Challenges: Challenges may arise from insufficient preparation, lack of stakeholder involvement, resistance to change, or time constraints.
- Risks: Risks include failure to implement plans, disagreements on goals or strategies, or the conference becoming purely symbolic without driving real change.
- Mitigation: Careful planning, skilled facilitation, and continuous follow-up help reduce these risks.
- Criteria for Success: The conference is considered unsuccessful if it fails to produce a shared vision, actionable strategies, or participant satisfaction, or if conflicts remain unresolved.
Looking Ahead: Trends and Developments
Future Conferences are increasingly influenced by emerging technologies, including digital platforms, virtual sessions, and hybrid formats that connect participants from around the world. Trends such as artificial intelligence, ethical innovation, and cross-industry collaboration will continue to shape the conference landscape. In a new era, the Future Conference remains a powerful event to explore chances, influence the future, and shape what will happen next.
Frequently asked questions and answers
According to Marvin Weisbord, the Future Conference is a participatory method that allows organizations, such as industry leaders, to create a shared positive vision and plan concrete actions. It focuses on open communication and involves all relevant stakeholders, for example in health care, to define common goals and foster motivation for change. Weisbord highlights the role of self-organization and personal responsibility to achieve sustainable innovation and continuous improvement.
A typical Future Conference lasts two to three days, giving participants the chance to step away from daily routines and focus on the future. Through full-day facilitated sessions, they tackle key challenges, generate ideas, and build shared knowledge across industries. The multi-day format encourages deep collaboration, reflection on long-term trends, and meaningful networking, leaving participants inspired and aligned around concrete, future-oriented outcomes.
The main goal of a Future Conference is to bring people together to reflect on the future, identify challenges, and build a shared understanding. It provides a structured space for collaboration, idea exchange, and networking, while examining long-term trends across industries to support innovation. The conference can succeed with simple tools like pen and paper, generating valuable insights and connections. Ultimately, it leaves participants inspired, aligned, and ready to develop concrete actions that shape the future.
Future conferences at universities provide a valuable opportunity to shape the institution’s future collaboratively. By involving students, faculty, administration, executives, and external partners, diverse perspectives inform long-term development. This participatory approach fosters dialogue, builds a shared culture of innovation and responsibility, and encourages commitment while supporting the creation and implementation of solutions to current and future academic challenges.
Industry leaders benefit from a Future Conference by bringing together diverse stakeholders from different sectors to explore future trends, identify key challenges, and develop a shared vision for sustainable change. Through structured collaboration and open dialogue, they gain valuable insights, strengthen leadership capabilities, and create concrete strategies that support innovation and long-term transformation within their organizations and industries.
Special programming in a Future Conference includes tailored sessions and workshops that address specific themes or challenges, engage participants actively, and foster collaboration. These formats explore trends and innovative solutions while strengthening networks and producing practical, actionable outcomes.
Sources:
- Aconda – Dialog- und Zukunftsprozess: Was ist eine Zukunftskonferenz?, URL: http://www.agonda.de/zukunftskonferenz/zukunftskonferenz.html, letzter Zugriff: 15.08.2016
- Weisbord, Marvin / Janoff,Sandra (2001): Future Search – Die Zukunftskonferenz. Wie Organisationen zu Zielsetzungen und gemeinsamen Handeln finden. Klett‐Cotta: Stuttgart
- Weisbord, Marvin (1996): Zukunftskonferenzen 1: Methode und Dynamik, in: Organisationsentwicklung 1/1996, S. 4‐13
- Weisbord, Marvin (1996): Zukunftskonferenzen 2: M. Weisbord im Gespräch mit Joe Flower, in: Organisationsentwicklung 1/1996, S. 14‐23
- Zur Bonsen, Matthias (1998): Die Methode Zukunftskonferenz, in: Impulse, Zeitschrift des GABAL Netzwerkes Lernen, 2/1998, S. 12 f., URL: http://www.all-in-one-spirit.de/lit/future/fsc01.htm, letzter Zugriff: 30.08.2016
- Zur Bonsen, Matthias (1994): Energiequelle Zukunftskonferenz, in: Harvard Business manager 3/1994, S. 25‐30
