Allow me to reintroduce myself

Welcome.

Thank you for signing up for this new endeavour. Let me introduce myself, as you might have only a vague idea of who I am.

My Profile

My name is Johannes Kleske. I was born and currently reside in Germany (Berlin for the last dozen years). I'm in my mid-forties, white, and come from a working-class family.

As a critical futurist, future researcher and consultant for strategic foresight, I have been exploring possible, probable and desirable futures from different perspectives (applied, critical, and scientific) for many years.

My primary motivation is to increase people's capacity for self-determination in an increasingly complex world.

At the intersection of foresight, design, and strategy, I assist my clients in better understanding a volatile and complex world and how to shape their own path.

Since October 2022, I have been Senior Director for Foresight at Edenspiekermann, an international design consultancy. Before that, I was co-founder and co-managing director of the foresight and strategic design studio Third Wave for 12 years.

Over the last ten years, I've given approx. fifty keynotes, lectures, and talks. My talks advocate for a confident and reflective approach to permanent change. I focus on the trifecta of comprehensible explanations of how things work, critically examining the effects and concrete recommendations for a sustainable approach.

In addition to my applied foresight work with clients, I am also involved in further developing trends and futures research. Since completing my master's in futures studies (2020), I have focused in particular on critical futures studies, which deal with the deconstruction and reconstruction of existing images of the future. I am interested in the future's role in society and how it influences decisions and developments.

Explore more

Here are a couple of links if you want to explore more of my work and my thinking:

• My digital garden is where I develop my ideas (and where you can find my master's thesis about future imaginaries)
• A recent interview with Foresight Folks: To shape the future, we must first understand the present: A conversation with Johannes Kleske
• A talk I gave at Republica: The Role of Futures in Capitalism (and Beyond)

My Plans for this Newsletter

This newsletter is my vehicle to externalise more of what's on my mind: from futures studies to spirituality, from (tech) vision assessment to political narratives, from embracing complexity to investigating and imagining futures of cities, health, and publishing.

Here's the rough format that I will start with: each issue will have an article about something on my mind, a week-note-like itinerary of what I've been up to, and a collection of links to material that I find worthy of your attention. The format will change over time based on your feedback.

What I most hope for is your feedback, recommendations, and questions. Always feel free and encouraged to hit reply or comment.