What are the purposes of foresight work? Back in 2009 futurist Richard Slaughter attempted to answer that question by …
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Futurists and naming the field 2021
Here we are again -- having the "what should we call, or not call, our field?" conversation. Why does this keep coming …
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What’s your Foresight Sauce?
In Futures Research class last week, we reviewed our Framework Foresight method from A to Z. I emphasize that my goal …
Change: Confusing movement with progress
[we are guilty of] confusing rapid movement with meaningful progress. Oh my … having truer words been spoken? We have …
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Foresight Slides for a Desert Island
You are exiled to a desert island and you were given permission to print out three slides to take with you. What would …
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The Houston Foresight Vision
We just finished our visioning module in Strategies class. So it seems time to review the vision of our beloved Houston …
Recent After Capitalism Scanning Ain’t Pretty
I continue to lightly scan for After Capitalism even though I’m heavy into the writing phase. I periodically check in to …
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Polak’s Image Criteria and After Capitalism
I recognize the danger of including a reference to Polak’s work in the title. It surely cuts the audience down to those …
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Foresight Emotions: Hmmms, Oooos, Dangs, and No-ways
As futurists, we must pay strict attention to emotional reactions from our clients (and ourselves). Hmmms -- an …
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Monitoring … The Time Has Come!
We’ve talked at a high level about no surprises, wildcard insurance policies, indicator bingo, and even a curse! The …
Tribalism as a Lubricant for Collapse
Tribalism is being used as an umbrella term to capture strong group loyalties that have been making it difficult for the …
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The unbreakable rule: Know your audience
In foresight, rules are made to be broken. Futurists are rule-breakers by nature. We do have some rules at Houston …
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Scenarios start now
Sometimes those new to foresight get the impression that when we create 10-year scenarios, we are somehow just talking …
How foresight strengthens strategic planning
Can foresight help strategic planning? You betcha. We designed Framework Foresight to “feed” strategy, innovation, …
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The curse of the futurist
The curse of the futurist is "why is this change taking so long?" A year ago I posted “change is slower that we think.” …
Most Significant Futures Works Nominations Are In
/What a great crop this year for the APF Most Significant Futures Works Program! Fifteen works will be submitted to the …
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A Tribute to Futurist Richard Slaughter
The best tributes are those with the person being honored in a state of "alive and well." Thankfully, that is the case …
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HAT: Houston Archetype Technique
For several years I’ve been challenging audiences to take up the dissertation-worthy question of whether there is a …
Sustainable Commons or Circular Commons?
Decision time! For at least the last few years I’ve been referring to the environmentally-driven image of After …
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Imperatives of Capitalism
I’ve been working on the growth, enclosure, and monetization ideas that are central challenges addressed by the …
Defining foresight
I recently had a presentation for a group new to foresight. I had a brief time to explain the “methodology” and in the …
APF Most Significant Futures Works 2021
The Association of Professional Futurists (APF) has just launched the nominations phase of the 2021 Most Significant …
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How many varieties of capitalism?
I was reading a story about rainbow capitalism and it struck me that new varieties of capitalism seem to spring up …
A Futurist Wildcard Policy
The pandemic has generated a fair bit of discussion about wildcards. It raises the very fair policy question for …
Values Shifts the Key to After Capitalism?
I think so! As I get closer to the end and conclusions are dancing around in head, more and more I’m in some sense …
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Analyzing After Capitalism Images
It’s finally getting close, as I get to the penultimate chapter of Imagining After Capitalism which covers the Horizon 3 …
The STEEP Cheat: Build your Trend Inventory
Last time, we talked about our typical three-month project. We have four weeks to do the bulk of the scanning. That’s a …
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The typical three month foresight project
In our teaching as well as in our project work, we talk about the “typical” 3-month project. We joke that there is no …
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Who is the futurist’s work for?
Short answer: it’s you, not them. “You” is the person/group who hired the futurist. We are typically hired by …
Design Pizazz for the Framework Foresight Cone
The process is never done (see the last tweak). Sometime we get lucky with students who are not only supremely …
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