Jan Dietz

Bergen, August 16, 2013

Nordic Statistics:

Ready for the Future?

➜ Statistics in a «Brave New World»

➜ Trends and challenges...

➜ In search of new approaches

➜ Some suggestions for Nordic cooperation

In brief

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

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!

Too much noise -

and too much traffic

Who are the real experts today?

Who is listening or noticing?

Black Swans

Knowledge in «Mediocristan» and «Extremistan»

Big Data - temptation or blind alley

- Big Brother is here

- Big Business is also interested

- Big Trouble ahead...?

Change - nothing new

...but it (almost) always surprises us

An interconnected world

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

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)

«Lydfilmen har ingen fremtid» Bjarne Dietz, ca. 1927

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)

But above all:

We need to reflect on the rationale of

statistics in a nervous and demanding

information-consuming society

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

Scenarios

Scenarios - future situations

Situation today

Years

Domain of forecasts

Domain of scenarios Domain of speculation

Domains and time horizon

➔ 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

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

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!

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

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

Where is Nordic statistics heading?