Welcome traveller!
In lieu of an introductory post.
After a long day mulling over reports and working towards the ever-elusive “inbox zero” you find yourself at a local pub. In the far corner a small group of students cheerfully playing a board game that has no business needing quite so many dice. They don’t seem to mind. At the bar a man in a black turtleneck sipping on a pint, reading a copy of “High-Rise” that has definitely seen better days. He chuckles. There’s a single empty table halfway between the bar and the stage. It would afford you an opportunity for a cheeky couple of emails before an 8:00 pm event. “Inbox sub-one-hundred” doesn’t sound half bad, does it?
If you found yourself mentally picking your seating option, this blog might be for you. Roll 4 Future is a passion project where nerd culture meets civil service. The name is a play on “rolling for initiative” common in tabletop role-playing games. There are four themes at the core of this blog: futures, stories, games and policy.
Policy needs visions, stories and games
There isn’t a single policy in existence that wasn’t once a vision for tomorrow. Every politician, activist or keynote speaker is a storyteller. It’s where visions come to life or - depending on the speaker - go to die. We wouldn’t be talking about 4D chess, if games weren’t key simulations of conflicts and strategy. I could easily have called this a blog on visions, framing, agency and design, but where’s the fun in that?
The idea for this blog came about a couple of years ago. As part of that year’s Creative Bureaucracy Festival I held a brief, inspirational session. Any policy-maker worth their salt, I boldly claimed, must add science fiction to their toolbox. I don’t know what I expected, but not a room full of people listening intently, nodding along and policy consultants in immaculate suits mumbling in agreement.
I have since shared my sci-fi enthusiasm several times over as public sector barcamps and innovation-minded civil service veterans kept inviting me. If I had to guess, it was the fun of talking about short stories and novels instead of policy briefs that appealed to them.
Nerds are everywhere (and that's good)
I remember that sprinkled in with a largely serious looking crowd were a handful of nerds who must have felt vindicated that afternoon. In the months since I have learned that the public sector is full of nerds.
Mention science fiction, board or video games, pop- or sub-culture and you’ll find like-minded people where you least expect them. Roll 4 Future is a blog for them, but not just for them. That is until it will inevitably bring the rest of you over to the nerd side.
What to expect
Jokes aside, with Roll 4 Future I hope to achieve three things:
Firstly, to share media (books, short stories, tv series, games,...), methods (e.g. Strategic Foresight) or articles at the intersection of the blog’s key themes. Maybe there will even be interviews.
Secondly, to foster a community for public sector innovation with a nerdy twist.
Lastly, to find novel and fun approaches towards better policy design.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, I’d be delighted to have you as a subscriber and if there are any topics, policies, articles, stories, games etc. you’d definitely want me to cover, please let me know in the comments.