Published by admin on 02 Feb 2008
State of the Future Index (SOFI)
The “State of the Future Index,” or SOFI, is a high-level futuring method used to describe a holistic system in the context of real and emerging trends and weak signals.
The United Nations Millenium Project created a SOFI using a modified Delphi method. You can read abou the 2007 results here.
A SOFI can be created at any level of society, but as higher level indexes are created, it can help those that fall under it. For example, one blogger used the United Nations SOFI to make observations that were relevant to the communications industry. See here.
A SOFI is particularly useful as a vision or as a framework for a vision. When the world is in a constant revolution, as ours is today, the SOFI helps create a formal visual of what is changing now, what could change soon, and what we might expect in the future.
In some ways, a SOFI is a high level forecast and change agenda. It provides a snapshot of the future and what needs to, or might need to change.