Description: Book review on "The Foundations of Futures Studies" by Wendell Bell.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. An update on Futurism Section activities followed by an introduction to common techniques of futurism. Examples are given how actuaries can use these techniques in their day-to-day work.

Description: Panelists discuss key factors that may affect actuaries of the future. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 2.

Description: The second of a three-part series introducing the technique of visioning. Part I appeared in the June 1996 issue of Actuarial Futures.

Description: In this discussion, Peter Bishop provides an update of the topics and conclusions of the July meeting of the World Future Society and expands upon the issues most relevant to actuaries, including the status of current futurism research and the significance of emerging knowledge. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 3.

Description: As a group, the forum participants brainstorm to identify several key factors affecting the future for actuaries. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 1.

Description: This study note introduces the methodology and tools of applied futurism. Actuaries must explore new methodologies and tools for dealing with open unstable systems. The discipline of futurism has developed and tested a methodology and tools to apply to these systems. This note intends to provide sufficient knowledge, skills, and attitudes about applied futurism, so the tools and perspectives can be used daily by an actuary. In the note, we will orient you to the general field of futurism by reviewing its history and comparing it to similar disciplines such as strategic planning, economic planning, and actuarial science. We will also bring you up-to-date on the current state of knowledge about how change happens in our world of complicated open systems, and why we need the tools of applied futurism. Finally, we will describe the methodology and tools of applied futurism. If you wish to learn more about applied futurism,provides a basic bibliography of important works in this area.

Description: This presentation, session number 44PD, took place at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 15-18 in Chicago. “This session identifies meaningful, evolving dramatic insights arising from the studies and techniques of futurism. It shows how such insights are measured and affected by each other and existing dynamics through the use of actuarial models and related tools.” The presentation notes that “future studies basically takes over when the assumption of continuity in models is a weak assumption or in which there is some reason to believe that one might not be able to use the same model throughout the whole forecasting period.” Discussion from participants is included. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 26, No. 3.

Description: This session will discuss how the business environment will change even more in the next ten years than it has in the last ten. From Session 56PD of the New Orleans Annual Meeting.

Description: Complete Actuarial Futures newsletter from January 1998.