Cool Jazzy Foresight | Hinesight....for Foresight

I believe in good marketing as much as the next person. Maybe more so. We constantly implore our students at Houston Foresight and our clients to “make it memorable.” BUT …

I am concerned by what I see as the “cool jazzy” phenomenon. A client takes some a mundane, perhaps interesting, and often “new” foresight activity — and with or without the help of futurists — calls it some cool jazzy thing. And proceeds to convince themselves that this means they are now doing cutting-edge foresight. But they are really doing light and fluffy feel-good stuff.

To be clear, if we/they do the hard work under the cool jazzy name, that’s great! But it seems like cool jazzy is substituting for the mundane sometimes boring hard work of foresight. Developing fresh and useful insights is hard work (and no, AI isn’t doing that … at least not yet).

Behind Door #1. I see an activity filling out templates (anyone who’s been through our deal knows this feeling, ha ha). Grinding out the signals, trends, issues, plans, projections, obstacles, drivers etc. Striving to really understand the differences between them, what is really important, how they inter-relate, and what the implications are. Someone asks you what you did, and you kinda grumble a little.

Behind Door #2. Cool jazzy fun activity. It’s light, lively, and fun. We all had a good time. We didn’t learn anything or advance the work. But we experienced a new, new thing. The post-workshop survey said 90% had a good time. Someone asks you what you did, and you say cool, jazzy thing with a smile.

You get the idea. OBVIOUSLY, the ideal is combining the two. This absolutely can be and is done. Just be careful! The truth is s that sometimes foresight involves boring hard work that isn’t all fun and games and is challenging and uncomfortable. The payoff is when you see the results of the hard work, it is a true thing of beauty worth the effort. — Andy Hines

PS: Sounds a little bit like “get off my lawn.” Oh no….has it come to that?

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.

About Andy Hines

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