Outlook - where from and to?

This study is a product of a particular situation: time, timing, intention, methods, perspective and systems. Knowing these limitations will make it easier for you to appreciate, critique and contribute to what is presented. 

Disclosing our perspective is also aligned with our ethics and wider intention, as doing so: enables easier propagation of specific ideas and innovations, and reflects the practice of systematic research and systemic inquiry.

Methods

Details of methods, resources are described on page 7 of the report. Briefly:

• Location: Fremantle / Walyalup, Western Australia,
• Outlook: towards the Indian Ocean and 32 nations dependent on it,
• Investment: 200 hours, 4 months, $25,000 (time equivalent and cash),
• Methods: literature review, interviews, and use of abductive, inductive and deductive methods to devleop and test specific hypotheses,
• Outputs: to maximise benefit and aligned with research hypotheses, we limited outputs to less than ten propositions, and less than thirty pages in a publication.

Propositions

Phase 1 of For Blue is deliberately exploratory and makes propositions: statements that could be true or false, assertions based on opinion, as sufficient bases for setting forth. They can be read as "invitations based on assumptions", not conclusions or recommendations.

Use of propositions is consistent with lean, startup and customer development methods: using abduction, deduction and induction in combination to refine a core value proposition.

Health

This work focuses on the causes, processes and enabling conditions of health. The perspectives in this report vary, but are more towards health than away from sickness. Otherwise, what health means is exactly, we try to treat as an open question rather than assert particular values. We recognise health and what's desireable varies according to audience's context, perspective, and purpose.

For example, degradation of ecosystems and associated economic activities relative to the previous decade may be perceived as: ‘normal’; as problems to be solved, unwanted; or by others, as exciting opportunities and perfect conditions for enabling transitions to healthier systems and activities in the next decade.

Opportunities

Opportunity’s etymology refers to "fitness, convenience, suitableness, favourable time”. It’s derived from ‘ob portum veniens’ meaning coming toward toward a port. What this report identifies as the nine opportunities are based on our perception of the context, forces that are fitting, suitable, favourable, and also probableand beneficial.

The nine are, of course, selected from a much larger number of possibilities. With the same information, others may perceive different opportunities. Testing stakeholder’s differing perceptions is one of the purposes of this study, publication and wider research.

Foundations

This scoping study owes its existence to, and is signficantly influenced by, the foundations provided by other people, reports, activities or institutions. We list and link the most relevant in the acknowledgements section.Related posts

• About explains the who and why of this work,
• Acknowledgements honour the sources,
• Observations in three domains underpin the propositions.