avslutning: nordic statistics ready for the future?
DESCRIPTION
Nordic Statistics: Ready for the Future?TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Jan Dietz
Bergen, August 16, 2013
Nordic Statistics:
Ready for the Future?
![Page 2: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
![Page 3: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
➜ Statistics in a «Brave New World»
➜ Trends and challenges...
➜ In search of new approaches
➜ Some suggestions for Nordic cooperation
In brief
![Page 4: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Nordic statistics - a success story
- Pervasive influence - and in
everyday use
- Difficult to imagine Nordic
welfare (and democracy!) without
statistics
- Unique continuity
- Taken for granted and
sometimes invisible
Observing the phenomenon, changes the phenomenon
![Page 5: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
An impressive past - and a challenging future
- Rational planning has lost credibility
- «Everybody» assembles and distributes
information
- Statisticians see the world chiefly from the
inside-out (rather than from the outside-in)
Statistics may be in danger of becoming marginalised!
![Page 6: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Too much noise -
and too much traffic
Who are the real experts today?
Who is listening or noticing?
![Page 7: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Black Swans
Knowledge in «Mediocristan» and «Extremistan»
![Page 8: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Big Data - temptation or blind alley
- Big Brother is here
- Big Business is also interested
- Big Trouble ahead...?
![Page 9: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Change - nothing new
...but it (almost) always surprises us
![Page 10: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
An interconnected world
![Page 11: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Unpredictability and uncertainty
= Understanding the future ever more crucial - and it
cannot be extrapolated from the past
= Quantitative data must be supplemented and
enriched by qualitative analysis and human judgement
= Greater need for the «Big Picture»
Better roughly right than precisely wrong
![Page 12: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Failed forecasts (a few examples)
- A New Ice Age (experts ca. 1988)
- Collapse in Western societies (Alvin Toffler)
- The 1987/88 stock market crash
- The financial crisis in 2008 (everybody)
- The Russian Revolution (including Lenin)
- The fall of the Berlin Wall (including
Vaclav Havel)
- Higher education means more tolerant
societies (sociologists in the 1920s)
- The Internet (including Bill Gates)
- The Arab Spring (not even Israeli
intelligence)
![Page 13: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
«Lydfilmen har ingen fremtid» Bjarne Dietz, ca. 1927
![Page 14: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Looking for new approaches
- Emphasis on anticipation of needs (rather
than on being told)
- A greater interest in the dynamics of
change and interplay of trends
- Knowing the limits - and improving the
quality - of probability estimates
- Experimentation with new methods and
techniques, drawing on i.a. foresight
(especially scenario methodology)
![Page 15: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
But above all:
We need to reflect on the rationale of
statistics in a nervous and demanding
information-consuming society
![Page 16: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Three interesting areas
☛ Migration patterns in a global perspective
☛ Climate change: Mapping social effects
☛ Financial systems: Actors, networks and
behaviour
Examples of new possible approaches to content
![Page 17: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Scenarios
Scenarios - future situations
Situation today
![Page 18: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Years
Domain of forecasts
Domain of scenarios Domain of speculation
Domains and time horizon
![Page 19: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
➔ Comprehensive, radically different stories about the
future
➔ Concerned with uncertainty (rather than probability)
➔ Plausible futures (not science-fiction!)
➔ Must not be confused with predictions, projections
and forecasts
➔ Preferably made through interactive, multidisciplinary
dialogue
Hallmarks of scenarios
![Page 20: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Perspective: Outside-in
←←↑ Nordic model
Financial system
Power shifts Europe, Asia, USA
New technology
Environment, climate
Global economy
Nordic innovation
Demo- graphic changes
Values and attitudes
Migration
![Page 21: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Nordic cooperation - why it makes sense
✔ A chance to experiment with foresight and new
approaches in a bigger yet familiar setting
✔ The major (strategic) challenges are largely
common to the statistical bureaux?
✔ Many of the external driving forces in a globalised
world are the same - and may be studied jointly
✔ Also diversity in perspectives!
![Page 22: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Project 1: Scenarios about the Future of Nordic Statistics
- A scenario process that investigates the driving forces
that shape or determine the future of Nordic statistics,
e.g. looking towards 2033
- Using scenarios to delineate the range of uncertainty
and to explore both opportunities and threats for the field of
statistics and the Nordic bureaux
- Using the scenarios to anticipate change and to
become (more) proactive in relation to governments and
the public
Understanding the role and proper influence of statistics
![Page 23: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Project 2: Horizon Scanning - New and Emerging issues
- A horizon scanning project with the aim of detecting new
and potentially important issues that need to be
addressed by the Nordic statistical bureaux
- Searching the periphery for weak signals, seeds of
change and new patterns: The social issues of tomorrow
- Complementing and improving ongoing studies and
time-series analyses
Renewing both method and content
![Page 24: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Where is Nordic statistics heading?
![Page 25: Avslutning: Nordic statistics ready for the future?](https://reader034.vdocuments.net/reader034/viewer/2022042623/54b571154a795925358b459d/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)