Personas in foresight | Hinesight....for Foresight

Is it just me, or has the use of personas in foresight gone quiet? We used to use them quite regularly in my consulting days in the 2000s. Below is a snapshot from part of a persona project back in 2007. Perhaps, they are used so routinely now that they are just taken for granted? I’ve been doing a review of methodology development for an upcoming book chapter, and while my research has not finished, my initial review caught only on piece by my colleague Alex Fergnani “The Future Persona.”

The personas question came to light in teaching World Futures class when my wonderful TA, Miranda Mantey made the suggestion that one way to improve our discussions might be to ask the discussants to embrace different perspectives or worldviews. We do a good job of getting at global issues, but we often discuss them from the perspective of who and where we are. So, we decided to try an experiment with personas. We crafted 8 personas, well about half of the persona, and then assigned the 8 to various students and asked them to personalize the other half. So, one student shares their review of an article, and the persona people then share their reaction to the article from the perspective of the persona.

I’ll close with two questions:

Are you using personas in your foresight work?
If so, what for?

–Andy Hines

About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

Are you using personas in your foresight work?

If so, what for?

About Andy Hines

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