Two calls

Ben Bamber has many talents. Remember he has a  story in the Escape Velocity anthology. For many years Ben has been intellectually involved in the need for our society to be more self-sufficient and environmentally  aware. He has contributed articles and reviews to architect journals on the topic.  Now he has started a website devoted to not only raising awareness but to prepare us for action in the event of  possible  futures.  You just might  have the right stuff to contribute to Ben’s  website to help with this mission. Check out http://www.futuretowns.com/

On a similar theme, the journal Futures is seeking science fiction short stories that help us to consider possible scenarios for business and society. Dr Gary Graham sent me the following:

FUTURES

Special Issue:

Exploring
Future Business Visions Using Creative Fictional Prototypes

Edited:                        Dr. Gary Graham, Leeds University
Business School

Prof.
Vic Callaghan, Essex University School of Computer Science and Electronic
Engineering

Dr.
Anita Greenhill, Manchester Business School

Call for Papers

Although the guest
editors share the premise of legendary Science Fiction (SF) writer Isaac Asimov
(In Joy Still Felt, 1980, Doubleday) that predicting the future is a losing game,
Brian David Johnson’s books (Science Fiction
Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction[1] (Morgan & Claypool,
2011)) & Screen Futures (Intel Press, 2010) offer a revised vision of the
future of management theory/practice in which fictional creations shape
tomorrow’s world of technological innovation. Johnson introduced the concept of
science fiction prototyping in CS’10 “The
1^st International Workshop on Creative Science: Science Fiction
Prototyping for Engineering and Product Innovation” (Kuala Lumpar, 19 July
2010). The SF prototyping process creates science fiction based on science fact
with two main goals. First SF prototypes advance the development of business by
envisioning the impact of future science or technology on people, culture and
wider systems. The second goal of SF prototypes is to offer a possible
management vision for the future that is based on science and reason. This idea
of creating art from science (and vice versa) is not new to the Futures
readership, but there is a need for management theorists to begin directing
their intellectual focus away from predicting the future and to start
developing business visions for all our futures. Therefore the purpose of this
special issue is to invite high quality papers which explore the use of
fictional creations to motivate and direct research into new business visions
and applications (e.g. new products, designs, concepts, identities, brands,
business models, value chains, strategic environments and lifestyles). In
particular we call for science fiction prototyping articles which first,
develop a fictional short story or a series of short vignettes based on an
existing business concept(s) and second, present future theoretical
propositions and applications. Some examples of Science-Fiction Prototypes
(mainly from the science and engineering domain) can be found at
http://www.creative-science.org. It is our intention that the peer-reviewed SFPs
published in this special issue of Futures will consist of futuristic scenarios
written by authors drawn from a diverse set of disciplines including: business,
architecture, humanities, creative arts, media production (films & games)
plus science and engineering. We aim to make the special issue a central
imaginative interdisciplinary facility in exploring potential managerial
futures.

Topics:

We welcome
contributions from a diverse set of disciplines ranging, for example, from business,
through humanities to the sciences. Our only proviso is that the stories should
have an obvious connection between the subject matter and how it shapes future
business models. We are less interested in evolutionary changes and more
interested in ideas than may radically transform the business vista. However,
that said, we also are looking for stories that are plausible, and grounded in
rationality.

Submission guidelines:

Deadline for
submission: 29^th February 2012.

Please email your
submissions to g.graham@leeds.ac.uk; vic@essex.ac.uk; a.greenhill@mbs.ac.uk

Clearly mark on your
email subject “FUTURES SUBMISSION”

Author guidelines for
your manuscript presentation can be found at the following web address:

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30422/authorinstructions

---

[1] Refer to the Graham
forthcoming review in the Times Higher Education Supplement, August 12, 2011.

UPDATE**  article on the BBC News site about the above Intel Tomorrow Project – still use the contact via Gary Graham

Naked women for a start

I had to duck to avoid being hit by a flying half-naked woman.
Gale blowing today so I rode against it into Wales in order to enjoy being blown back home. Riding over a bridge a huge sheet of paper sailed at me from Wales, and landed, briefly, on a Tesco lorry on the A55 below before taking off again. It was that Lynx advert of a beach babe taking off her top. It’s probably over the Pennines now. For those unfamiliar with the advert, the TV version is here>>

That was before lunch, and I really did whiz back  home. Even the electronic  30mph sign lit up for  me – a rare event.

I’ve sent a short  story called Chimera off to Dark  Horizons, The British Fantasy Society’s quarterly magazine. They are publishing my In Absentia story in their 40th anniversary anthology so I thought I’d try the mag. Chimera is a strange one. Inspired by the Jeremy Kyle monstrosity of a TV show where hapless people shout at each other and then by Jeremy, I have a man who discovers a paternity test not only reveals he is not his daughter’s father, but he is not him either. Umm.

I’m still waiting for the final touches of the release  of the latest revised edition of Hot Air from Brambling Books.

My 2.5 years old grandson likes libraries. Look at him in his local library in Manchester. Why pretend to read books when you can play trains?

I liked what the Manchester Waterstones employee said about the rioters – “We are staying open. If they steal some books perhaps they’ll learn something.”

It is prudent to consider how thin a veneer our civilisation is when a few mobsters can burn and loot on nothing more than avarice and seeing others on TV. Using their handheld devices to communicate via tweeter and facebook they can arrange venues for destruction, but surely not without the police being able to trace those calls? Yes, but it takes manpower and the police have up to 20,000 fewer than 15 months ago. Is it a revolt, as in a real political uprising or at least a kick at the system bringing about discontent, unemployment and hopelessness? It could almost be justified if it were. I qualify that. Nothing justifies hurting people, even those yuppies waving hands in the  stock-markets shaping our livelihoods. Sadly, these riots are not the beginning of the revolution, brothers and sisters, but a symptom of lack-a-day boredom and avarice. Why can’t they climb on bikes and venture into the countryside? Get their adrenaline kicks like I do? But then would I want to meet them at the Ponderosa cafe on Horseshoe Pass? Nope.

As I watched the MPs writhe and protest in the Commons I can’t help wondering who is the greater looter – the rioter helping themselves to a  flatscreen TV or the MP who claimed expenses at our expense for a  £8,865 Bang & Olufsen television.