Futureye Real solutions to real dilemmas

How to use WikiCurve
WikiCurve is easy to use. When you first come to the site you will see the list of issues we are building. Click on an issue to see the Curve. You can then:

• Roll your mouse over an event on the chart to see move information
• Click on an event to update it
• You can add new events by clicking “Add Event”
• You can comment on the issue as a whole or on any event
• You can Like an event just by clicking “Like”
• Let your friends know that you care about an issue by sharing it with them on Facebook and Twitter

What are the Maturation Phases?

Futureye have identified 6 phases of maturation for an issue.

The table below gives a summary of those phases.

[Table]

The other important aspect of a Futureye Curve that WikiCurve helps determine is the momentum behind an issue. In other words, how much do people care about this issue right now?

For example, an issue like slavery is pretty firmly in the Normative Phase (at least in the Western World). So, anyone who came out and said they want to open a business based on slave labour in Australia would face fairly strong legal and social sanction. They simply wouldn’t be able to operate.

Yet slavery is so far along the curve that it doesn’t have a lot of activity or debate around it. (Interestingly, the exception to this is the issue of people trafficking in the sex industry, which is gaining some momentum in certain parts of the world.)

On the other hand, an issue like Climate Change has an enormous amount of momentum – lots of debate and discussion, lots of people care about it – but there are no agreed norms yet. We would argue, in fact, that Climate Change is still in the Challenge Phase, probably moving towards the Governance Phase as different countries bring in carbon abatement and other laws.

Event ImporatnceSome events have a global impact and change the way large numbers of people, governments and corporations view an issue. The Rio Climate Change Summit in 1991 can be seen as such an event and would be a 9 or 10.

Other events are more local. They may impact you, your family or a local community. An event such as the fouling of your local river may be important to your community but not have a global impact. This would be a 3 or 4.

The Futureye Curve is made up of all events, because if there are a very large number of local, low impact events, this shows that the issue has momentum and is impacting a lot of people. It’s really important to capture information about these low-impact, local events to build up a truly global picture.

Event SourcesIt’s important that the Futureye Curve has credibility with the community that creates it and the people who make use of it. If an event happened to you locally and didn’t get any media coverage, that’s fine. There won’t be a reference for that event.

On the other hand, if you read about an event, we’d love to know the source. It could be a web site, a blog, a Wikipedia page, newspaper article. If you have a web address or off-line reference for the event, we’d love you to share it.