There are two logics involved with foresight. One is the scenario logic, 'what if' this or that happened, would we be ready? The other logic is a systems logic, 'if that happened, what else would change?'

Many times we are good at the first logic, but poor at the second. This even holds for some futurists. We may gather information to track trends, but we also must use quantitative models to frame baseline forecasts and alternative scenarios for the mid-range future, fifteen years out or further.

Join me for a one day pre-course, "Modeling Global Futures," July 16th, 2009, at the annual World Future Society conference in Chicago. A colleague and I have designed it to help anyone who deals with the long-range future in a global context.

Test yourself. Over this past year, have you been asking any of these questions: What will be the long-term impact of concentration of global oil production in the Middle East? Or continuing poverty in Africa? How will a resurgent Russia impact European stability in a global recession? How will new activist social policies in the U.S. impact global change?

You may already be thinking ahead, but without the ability to model patterns, forecast alternatives and develop risk mitigation strategies, you can't help business executives or government officials weigh long-term dynamics against measurable investment choices.

This logic of foresight, of doing something today, to bend the curve of tomorrow, goes to the core of service, whether you are in business, public service or non-profit enterprises. It also goes to the core of who we are as stewards, rather than just consumers.

Join Dr. Tom Ferleman, in Chicago, for this one-time event.

My colleague for this pre-course is Dr. Tom Ferleman, one of America's leading strategic forecasters. He will show you how to use a public access forecasting tool to develop analytical rigor behind alternative scenarios. Using the International Futures (IFs) computer simulation, he will show you how the European Commission, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and United Nations agencies evaluate public policy choices.

Who should attend: Policy planners, risk consultants, academics, professional futurists, and global advisors who recognize the need for data-driven tools to measure alternative futures; anyone seeking to learn practical modeling and simulation capabilities of a large-scale integrated global simulation modeling tool for long-term policy analysis.

What you'll learn: How to: (1) construct strategic framework forecasts, (2) choose the most critical variables in a domain to represent client interests, (3) create a baseline from the historic data set that comes with IFs, (4) generate an alternative scenario by changing one or more assumptions, run the model, and display impacts of change.

What you will take away: Create long-term global outlooks; provide clients with credible forecasts; offer data-driven scenarios to top management teams; relate your industry-based research to other sectors to inform global decisions.

Since 2004 I have been teaching MBA to Doctoral students at Regent University on how to navigate the 21st century. I encourage you to join me in Chicago, for this introduction to global modeling, a field which has captivated me since the early 1990s.

For more information, see the World Future Society conference web site. The price for this one-day event is $195 members; or $245 non-members. This is the day before the three-day annual conference of the World Future Society. Register now for the whole event and save off the walk in price.