Professor Profile: JT Mudge
Another Cool Futurist to Know
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing professional futurist and my Social Change teacher, JT Mudge. We covered a lot of ground in an hour and I separated the interview into clips below1.
Introduction
Here JT talks about his background, his many professional hats and what connects them, and what got him into Foresight.
The UH Program
JT shares his love for the UH Masters Program and its supportive atmosphere, how much more interesting it seems than an MBA, Andy Hines’s role in getting him excited, and his various accomplishments while studying — FuturesSlack, projects, and winning the APF student award two years in a row2.
Teaching at Houston
JT explains how the UH program does a good job making way for divergent/alternate methodologies in the service of the client, his work customizing the 3 Horizons and Futures Triangle tools to demystify them, why he was excited to teach in the program and how he was able to create his own spin on Social Change.
Trust as a Driver of Change
JT and I take a side road to talk about trust as a key factor determining change in the global sweep of history, including its impact on governance, the way technology changes trust, and how our expectations around trust have shifted over the last several decades. If I have any skill as an interviewer, it’s an instinct around where something unexpectedly brought up is more interesting to chase down than my initial plan.
AI in Education
JT shares his philosophy around citing AI in academic work, ideas about how to use AI tools to enhance learning and research, whether AI will degrade the value of formal education, and how systems are adapting3.
Foresight at UNDP
JT talks about his work as a strategic foresight advisor for the UN Development Programme4, evangelizing foresight within an organization, the opportunity for transformation foresight presents during a crisis5, and what it’s like to do foresight work with people living with real trauma and the threat of violence.
Building a Foresight Career
JT talks about the allure of consulting, the value of mixing business sense and technical skill, the pressure of continually generating new business, how to create virtual teams, and the importance of being the mentor and letting the client be the hero.
Side note: after the conversation I realized we didn’t get a chance to talk about games, which are a big shared passion of ours with big potential in Futures, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to set up another meeting.
Including a shout-out to pace layers.
Proposal for a slogan: you can’t have a successful development programme without ME! Maybe this isn’t funny to people whose nations of origin taught them to add additional “fancy letters” to words like program.
Including a discussion of Juli Rush’s work.