The Big Picture – trends, drivers, wild cards, discontinuities and weak signals

Following work done in the UK, Canada and now starting across Europe,1 there appears to be renewed interest in charting the boundaries of what to expect between 2010 and 2025 as the character of the 21st century begins to become firmly established. What are the shaping forces, or sources of change and what might be their impacts, particularly where these may create entirely new challenges and opportunities?Futures experts (attendees of the FTA 2008 Conference) were invited to state their opinions on these questions by considering the trends, drivers, wilds cards, discontinuities and weak signals likely to shape the future through the Big Picture Survey. The survey was launched 6 months prior to the Conference. More than 250 responses were submitted by the Conference date. The results collected were synthesised and presented back to the attendees in a plenary presentation by the authors.The current paper aims to clarify the concepts first by suggesting definitions and discussing the distinctions between them. The paper then presents the rationales of conducting the Big Picture Survey (BPS), presents its methodology and discusses the results of the survey in a greater extent.