What is Integral Futuring?

The book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson (http://www.culturalcreatives.org/) is based on research that shows the U.S. has divided into 3 distinct classes of values:  modernist, traditionalist, and cultural creatives.  Modernist being the 'get yours' culture of self-interest, the traditionalist being conservative and religious, and cultural creatives being a massive group of people that have created a new values system.  As this site says, "The Cultural Creatives care deeply about  ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression."

What's interesting about this is that when they interviewed these cultural creatives each thought there were few or no others like they were.  They were basically living is a sea of people just like them, but they still thought they were 'the only ones.'  There is strong evidence that this is a global phenonmena, and not limited to the U.S.

We are entering a time with thousands of individuals that currently don't see each other, will come together, unite their efforts, and as such radically increase their influence.

Dialogue will be the key to bringing these groups together.  This includes both virtual dialogue and in person dialogue--as Rick Smyre, president of Communities of the Future puts it, from an "And/Both" (instead of "Either/Or") perspective.  Here are a couple of definitions of dialogue:

Dialogue is about what we value and how we define it. It is about discovering what our true values are, about looking beyond the superficial and automatic answers to our questions. Dialogue is about expanding our capacity for attention, awareness and learning with and from each other. It is about exploring the frontiers of what it means to be human, in relationship to each other and our world. --Glenna Gerard, 1995.

Dialogue is a foundational communication process leading directly to personal and organizational transformation. It assists in creating environments of high trust and openness, with reflective and generative capacities. One might think of dialogue as a revolutionary approach in the development of the following organizational disciplines: continuous learning, diversity, conflict exploration, decision making and problem solving, leadership, self-managing teams, organizational planning and alignment, and culture change.--Linda Ellinor , 1996

Source:  http://www.thedialoguegrouponline.com/whatsdialogue.html

Ultimately the intent of this site is to help create 'growth paths' that allow people to come together and dialogue as they seek areas of growth.