The University of Houston Foresight Activation Lab is hosting the hour in which I’ll share some insights, a panel will discuss their thoughts on the work and we’ll have some open Q&A. Sign up here: (Event link)

Bizarre when you think about it. The means have become the end. Instead of the economy being a tool for a healthy society, it has displaced it. I remember hearing this years ago from then Labor Secretary Robert Reich. And the point was made strongly in my review of Karl Polanyi’s wonderful Great Transformation. This […]

Join us on Thursday February 20th at 12 pm CST for an exciting virtual gathering to celebrate the release of this thought-provoking book. Author Andy Hines will be there to answer all your questions about the themes and writing process of Imagining After Capitalism. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to dive deep into discussions […]

I recently spent 40 minutes talking with futurist and economist Vinny Tafuro about Imagining After Capitalism. He just kicked off this podcast to explore how design thinking can revolutionize economics for the 21st century. It was nice that he chose Imagining After Capitalism to kick his series off. NOTE: I’m posting my media stuff on […]

We don’t need to say this or that will happen in the future (we’ll leave that to the predictors and soothsayers). When we come across a signal of change, we don’t need to decide whether it’s going to happen. When you are scanning, if you take a position on how the signal will turn out, […]

The advent of the Industrial Revolution launched modern values and solidified capitalism as the dominant economic system. Modern values are focused on competition, achievement, growth, and victory. and progress. They epitomize the idea that money buys happiness. As the Industrial Revolution unfolded these modern values provided the perfect rationale to support capitalism’s often harsh logic […]

Not exactly, but there are signs on the path to After Capitalism. Back in 2018 I posted Degrowth: A Growing Issue in the Future? that asked “is it okay yet to talk about degrowth in polite society or mixed company yet?” Last year I noted the growing opposition to degrowth is a sign of progress. […]

In After Capitalism, we acknowledge and do not under-estimate how clever the current system is at saving itself. Reform is often simply a way to deflect and buy time for the existing system. My view is not to waste time and energy “fighting” that, but rather getting on with the longer-term goal of transformation.

Short answer: everywhere. Honest answer: the ideas are still a blip in the daily discourse. We need to be honest with ourselves. The discourse around how to organize lives is dominated by the current capitalist operating system and supported by a hard-wired power structure. If you try to start speaking about After Capitalism to power, […]

Join Andy Hines on the latest episode of the New Books Network podcast as he delves into the future, economics, and transhumanism among other things. 🎙️ 🦾🧠Listen in to learn from the expert Futurist ahead of his new book release: https://lnkd.in/eDAma8ue NOTE: It’s 50 minutes and goes over a nice range of topics!

Or both? Populism is in full force and [mostly] promising a return to the good old days of market capitalism, sans regulations or other pesky interventions. [NOTE: See Polanyi’s Great Transformation, which argues that there never was a pure market capitalism] For After Capitalism, this certainly seems like bad news and a step backward. It […]

Here is the final installment of the quarterly check-in for 2024 on what the signals are saying regarding After Capitalism. (See Q3 2024 here.) Drum roll please! Frustrated with their small city’s government, residents voted to end it Some of the city’s roughly 260 residents spearheaded a petition last spring to dissolve the government over […]

I think we’re seeing a shift in client demand “back” to preferred futures. And dare I say visioning. I did a piece a few months suggesting the relationship between the two — the preferred future could be thought of as an expression of an organization’s vision. It is part of a nice special issue on […]

A few months ago I shared some research that explored pathways to transformation and asked y’all to speculate on whether the more common pathway was Collapse and New Equilibrium. I confessed that the study team guessed Collapse and the actual research found that New Equilibrium (NE) was the more common route. Let’s take a closer […]

Some history today … for those of who haven’t clicked away yet, thanks 😊 Good futures work is all about context. While we primarily focus on the future context, we do acknowledge the importance of history in shaping how we got to our current context and what clues that provides for the future, in our […]

I put together a short video summary of the essential info about Imagining After Capitalism including (1) why I wrote it (2) the need for positive guiding images of the future (3) the disintegration of capitalism (4) seven key drivers of change and (5) the three guiding images: Circular Commons, Non-Workers Paradise, and Tech-Led Abundance. […]

E-Book Now Available [limited]  & Paperback Launching February 10, 2025. It took over a decade, but perhaps that timing is perfect? There is much concern and plenty of gloom-and-doom about the future. I’m reminded of one my favorite M*A*S*H episodes in which Hawkeye jumps upon on the table, bangs his tray, and leads a chant […]

Thinking about what the election results mean for After Capitalism (plz, no current politics … important, but not here). A few years back I set the timeframe for After Capitalism at 20-30 years. Part of me thought, don’t be so timid. The other part of me recalled my own frequent warning that transformation scenarios avoid […]

Here is the third installment of a quarterly check-in on what the signals are saying regarding After Capitalism. (See Q2 2024 here.) Drum roll please! [NOTE: For many years I captured my hits in Diigo, but it has become unreliable and I have been trying out Factr. So far, so good.] Parametric insurance gains traction […]

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 […]

I think we have to check in with ourselves now and then on this question. The first thing we have to do is check our assumptions on the health of the systems we are working in or with. I have noticed in our work with clients that more and more of our Baseline scenarios (present […]

We specialize in introducing foresight to people and organizations to foresight at the University of Houston Foresight program. We’ve been on a somewhat maniacal quest to find ways to improve the applications and results of foresight work. In the feedback we get about our work, we often hear something along the lines of some participants […]

It’s been a decade now that I’ve been leading the Houston Foresight Program. We’re preparing the next generation of the program’s leadership. This provides a great opportunity to reflect and really focus in on what to carry forward as we consider improving, updating, upgrading, and redesigning. There are many things about Houston Foresight that “we […]

I’m sure every futurist has been asked this question. Maybe lots of times. We may have developed a stock answer. We may vary it. I was asked recently and I thought back to 2007, when I was fresh off the publication of the first edition of Thinking about the Future with Peter Bishop. We gathered […]

We at Houston Foresight are always tweaking our core Framework Foresight process. The short version of the process is the first 3 steps map the future and second 3 are about influencing the future. We have seen much more client emphasis on the influencing piece, basically in the form of “what should we do?” We […]

Oh wow, a definitions discussion … how exciting. Bear with me. I think there is some juicy stuff here! We futurists all know the struggle with different interpretations of key terms. Variety is the spice of  life, but it can be a pain when trying to explain our work. Let’s start with good news. I’m […]

More from our “Mapping Archetype Scenarios Across the Three Horizons” research. Today, we look at how to apply it. Conveniently, we have the After Capitalism research, which is a domain for which we are looking ahead to the long-term future. “Mapping Archetypes” starts with the Baseline that describes the current system in Horizon 1 (H1). […]

There is no doubt that the work of the futurist can be frustrating. We see opportunities or threats ahead but our advice is not taken. We fret about how we might have communicated better and redouble our efforts to be more successful next time. Looking back over three decades of experience doing this work, I […]

The tub of goo refers to the scene in The Matrix when they pull Neo out of the pod. For those who haven’t watched the Matrix 50 times like me, the humans are literally plugged into a computer simulation that presents a fantasy world as they lay in a pod filled with goo. I think […]

Here is the second installment of a quarterly check-in on what the signals are saying regarding After Capitalism. (See Q1 2024 here.) Drum roll please! Recent Trends in U.S. Labor Mobility: Not So Fast “U.S. labor mobility has declined steadily since the 1980s. This decline spans demographic categories of age, income, and education levels. This […]