Futurist Book Group
by Ken Harris
The Futurist Book Group of the Washington chapter of the World Future Society has met at Politics and Prose on the first Wednesday of every month except August since 2004. 10 of our 33 members attend nearly every meeting; and several people who don’t attend also read our selections. We hold lively, wide-ranging discussions of non-fiction books to learn about the future. Lists of our past and scheduled selections can be found online at
http://www.natcapwfs.org/events_archives.htm and
http://www.natcapwfs.org/events.htm.
Here are five key factors in our success:
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We choose readings by group consensus to give members a stake in what we read.
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We schedule readings well in advance to allow time for Politics & Prose to order the books and for our members to read them. We read very long books, such as Collapse, over 2 months.
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We don’t invite authors to our meetings in order to encourage members to talk rather than listen.
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We strongly encourage, but don’t insist, that attendees read the books. If they haven’t read the book, they can learn what it is about and relate relevant life experiences in the discussion.
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We minimize administration. As leader, I prepare questions and comments to get the discussion started and keep it moving, let Politics and Prose know what books we have chosen, maintain the list of potential selections and schedule, and send the members an email after each meeting.
We invite you to attend our meetings. You can learn more about the World Future Society at http://www.wfs.org.
- Ken Harris is leader of The Futurist Book Group at Politics and Prose, Chairman of The Consilience Group LLC, a Bethesda, MD, futurist consulting firm, Transportation Field Editor of Techcast.org, a professional member and Secretary of the World Future , and a member of the Association for Professional Futurists.
