Uncharted: Imagining the future

Margaret Heffernan’s thought-provoking book ‘Uncharted’ is a strongly-recommended read for attendees of our Data for Nonprofit Leaders training course. Here, our Co-CEO Sian Basker writes about her personal reflections on reading the book, and how it encouraged her to imagine a positive future.

Sian Basker, Co-chief executive, Data Orchard

Uncharted

... for leaders, parents, children (that’s all of us), and anyone who wants to create a better future.

My copy of Uncharted, filled with bookmarks

Sometimes I cry when I finish reading a truly brilliant book. I stare off into the distance, try to reassemble my ‘blown mind’ and feelings, and slowly process a sense of grief that it's over… and face the fear that I'll never find another book so powerful, meaningful, and important ever again.

Last March I saw Margaret Heffernan delivering the closing session at the ACEVO annual conference for social sector leaders and took away a free copy of her book ‘Uncharted’. I spent nine months reading it. It took this long because I wanted to savour it.

It's one to read in quiet, thoughtful moments, when I'm not tired or short of time. As a CEO of a social enterprise, with teenage children and elderly parents, those times are rare and precious. It also requires a lot of ‘head space’ to think radically, globally, back and forward in time, about our planet, our people, our organisations. So, I read slowly.

Our profession gives me hope

On a professional level the book resonated deeply. My work is about enabling nonprofit organisations to use data effectively to achieve their goals. In an increasingly complex unpredictable world, the need for good data to inform discussion, decisions, and action has never felt more important. Margaret's emphasis on experimentation and newer, faster ways of thinking and collaborating to enable our organisations to be more impactful and resilient captured me at the core.

I know I'm not alone in sometimes finding the enormity of the challenges we face overwhelming: climate crisis, inequality and justice, war, and economic downturn. Whilst it can make me feel small and powerless, I rarely feel hopeless. Perhaps that's because being part of networks and working with brilliant, forward-thinking charities, social enterprises and public sector organisations is so inspiring and fulfilling. I know the work my colleagues and I are immersed in is important and meaningful. I know there are lots of smart organisations with committed, visionary leaders who are open, sharing, and working collaboratively to make our world a better place.

Connection and shared ambition

Being part of ACEVO , Social Enterprise UK, WISE100 and SE100 means I don't feel small, alone, or powerless. It makes me feel united, proud, part of a bigger force for change. And, in my grander thinking moments, revolutionary! It's not just those wider networks though. Closer to home my hopes and ambitions are entwined and upheld collectively with others. With my leadership partner (Co-CEO Madeleine Spinks), my incredible team at Data Orchard, and our magnificent board of volunteers. Together we share the load and drive our direction to be both resilient and innovative in this fast and forever-changing world.

We have of course included Margaret’s book ‘Uncharted’ on our recommended reading list for Data Orchard’s pioneering Data for Nonprofit Leaders course. It’s very pragmatic and realistic about AI and the power of prediction. (Do get in touch to find out more if you’re a leader interested in harnessing data in the fight for your cause.)

It’s personal too

It's not just about work. Part of the reason the book chimed so deeply is because it's personal too. Thinking about and preparing for our futures and the love and the care of our friends, families, and communities are things I've begun to focus on increasingly as I’ve got older. As I reach the latter stage of middle age, death and dying have become a more familiar part of life. The notion of a good death and/or meaningful older life are becoming new considerations. Margaret Heffernan’s posing of the possibility of one's death being ‘a gift to our children’ hit me like an epiphany. It enabled me both to root some of my feelings about my mum's high speed cancer death five years ago and consider how I might choose to handle my own for my loved ones when the time comes. And even – back to work – the cycle of renewal: how we think about leadership, succession, and the growth and sustainability of organisations.

Imagining the future and returning to now

Imaginable, by Jane McGonigal

Earlier this year I organised a weekend away with 12 of my closest women friends. For a long time I'd wanted to talk about the future and write a letter to my 75 year-old self. My friends were up for exploring this together. Of course I took Margaret’s book ‘Uncharted’ but I also took and posed questions from the astonishing book ’Imaginable’ by the amazing futurologist Jane McGonigal. (She ran a simulation game of a global respiratory pandemic with 2000 people in 2008!)

I think I'd expected to come away with my own personal guide and a useful ‘To Do’ list that I’d open on my 75th birthday. But when we imagined our futures: when our ‘futures’ would start, what we/life might be like, what we’d need, where we’d be, what we’d be doing, who would be with us… weirdly, it returned me to the here and now. I’ve returned to the importance of supporting my children into adulthood, of spending time with our remaining parents and their closer end of life love and care, and – back to work again – to the importance of data and the next generation of data-for-good champions who will help to change the world for the better. Watch this space!