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Reflections on the Future of Cities

The Houston Futures extended family gathered for a weekend of futures fun on April 12 and 13. While a key purpose is to give students, prospective students, alums, faculty and friends a chance to socialize and network in person, there was also plenty of good discussion about the future. The topic theme on “city making” was curated by alum and Adjunct Faculty Dr. Cindy Frewen. Since Cindy and Dr. Bishop are putting on a summer course on Design Futures and design is an integral feature of city-making.

A great part of these events is getting to see familiar faces who we don’t get to see often enough. Professor Emeritus Oliver Markley kicked off the Saturday conference with a stellar presentation on “Alternative Images for Cities of the Future.” Among the points particularly catching my attention was a video (shareable future of cities) he showed from Alex Steffen of Worldchanging.com that raised the provocative notion that perhaps trying to making “clean energy” vehicles is a misdirected approach to clean, livable cities. Rather, he suggests, get rid of the vehicles altogether. He proceeded to demonstrated how make cities, or areas within cities, denser could effectively eliminate the need for vehicles. If everything is within walking distance, why drive? Brilliant!

Oliver was followed by new friend Todd Gentzel, Chief Strategist at Yaffe Deutser in Houston, who gave a brilliant presentation “Psychology and the Field of the Future.” Among his striking points was the introduction of Philip Zimbardo’s work on the psychology of time. Todd shared his framework of six time perspectives:

  • · PAST NEGATIVE (fixated on a difficult past)
  • · PAST POSITIVE (nostalgic for the good old days)
  • · PRESENT FATALISM (resigned to the forces of fate)
  • · PRESENT HEDONISM (living in and for the moment)
  • · FUTURE (planning for a better tomorrow)
  • · FUTURE TRANSCENDENTAL (anticipating the beyond)

Wonderful, such a handy framework in working with clients or audiences. Definitely something we need to work into our curriculum.

Rives Taylor, Director of Sustainable Design at Gensler, who is going to help out with the Design Futures course this summer, presented “Lessons from Houston: Infrastructure of a Resilient City.” I had to suppress a squeal of delight when Rives presented a slide on Integral Thinking for “Resilience Planning.” The use of the integral 2×2 also had my Alternative Perspectives students in the audience smiling as this was a topic we devoted significant class time to. It’s great to see the spread of sophisticated futures thinking spreading.

Finally, Cindy presented “Great Urban Divides” that addressed the issue of how can cities accommodate the influx of population coming in the emerging markets – with their growing levels of affluence threatening to put a great strain on urban capabilities. My greatest takeaway the sharp drops in population forecast for China and India beginning mid-century. Sure, my mental modeling surmised they would level off, but seeing the graph with the decline was somewhat jarring. Reminds us of the important of taking the long view, which, um, yeah, we’re supposed to be doing!

There was more, but those were some high-level personal highlights for me. Of course, putting a bunch of futurists and friends together for a day, I would expect nothing less. Andy Hines.

ConsumerShift

ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape [Paperback]

If you would like a copy, email me at ahines@uh.edu

Values are changing in a consistent direction over time. Understanding these changes will provide critical insight for understanding the future consumer landscape and designing products, services, and offerings that “fit.” The book “translates” the values changes into seven emerging need states, brought to life in the form of seven future personas, and provides a persona customization kits for those who want to tailor them to their specific needs. It will help you and your team make sense of rapidly changing consumer behavior – where they are coming from, where they are going, and what they are looking for.

The pattern uncovered in the research, drawing upon nearly two dozen systems but drawing most heavily on the outstanding work of the World Values Survey and Spiral Dynamics, is that there are four types of values and there has been a consistent “developmental” pattern in their adoption over time. The four types are:

  • Traditional: Focused on following the rules and fulfilling one’s predetermined role, with priorities such as respect for authority, religious faith, national pride, obedience, work ethic, large families with strong family ties, and strict definition of good and evil
  • Modern: Focused on achievement, growth and progress, with priorities such as high trust in science and technology (as the engines of progress), faith in the state (bureaucratization), rejection of out-groups, an appreciation of hard work and money, and determination to improve one’s social and economic status.
  • Postmodern: Focused on the search for meaning in one’s life, with priorities such as self-expression, including an emphasis on individual responsibility as well as choice, imagination, tolerance, life balance and satisfaction, environmentalism, wellness, and leisure.
  • Integral: Emerging as the leading edge of values change, with a more practical and functional approach to employing values that best fit the particular situation, enabling one to pursue personal growth with an understanding and sensitivity to larger systemic considerations.

ConsumerShift presents a New Dimensions of Consumer Life Model for making sense of how consumers are changing along two primary dimensions: inner dimension changes being driven by these predictable long-term shifts in values, and outer dimension changes in society, technology, the economy, etc. This New Dimensions model thus provides a framework for understanding how consumers are changing.

These inner and outer dimension changes are forecast to come together into seven clusters of consumer need states. These need states in turn are brought to life in the form of a representative future personas. Finally, a customization kit is provided for readers and their organizations–whether in business, government, non-profits, or education–to customize the personas to the specific needs of their organizations.

There are eleven reviews of the book posted on Amazon and it is on Global Foresight Books list of recommended business books.

Availability

Individual copies on Amazon: ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape

Bulk copies discounted: Please email Andy Hines, ahines@uh.edu

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Some thoughts on narcissistic leaders

A grad student asked me to take a look at Michael Maccoby’s Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. As I started to back away and cite the size of my reading “to do” list, I was cleverly enticed by his noting that Maccoby cites foresight, systems thinking, and visioning as three of his “five elements of strategic intelligence” deemed essential to building and sustaining a business. So our Houston Futures Studies program is all about teaching foresight, we have a class devoted to systems thinking, and we teach visioning as part of Strategic Thinking and part of a new topical course on Alternative Perspectives I’m putting together for the fall. The other two elements are partnering and motivating, which I wouldn’t say we directly cover in our curriculum, but three out of five ain’t bad!

That was enough to take a peek. First, a narcissist is “the kind of person who (1) doesn’t listen to anyone else when he believes in doing something and (2) has a precise vision of how things should be.” (p.9) Yikes, that’s not exactly the message we want to send to our students. He also notes that a narcissistic vision always starts with a rejection of the status quo. Again, not sure about this either. Our framework forecasting process starts with producing a “baseline future,” which is basically a view of the status quo, and then we challenge that with potential alternative futures. But I would not advise to automatically reject the baseline – sometimes things are going well and one hopes they will continue – although most often we tend to be advocates of change. To reinforce this point about not absolutely rejecting the status quo, when we talk about visioning, we suggest that a vision and visioning process is most appropriate when there is a need for transformational change. If things are okay, changing incrementally, there may be nothing fundamentally wrong with the current vision and the status quo.

Okay, enough on that. I take the point that it sometimes takes someone with a narcissistic personality to stand firm with their vision in the face of detractors holding on to the status quo. I might ask whether this is the only way to do so – can one stand firm and be a non-narcissist?

Another point of interest was the focus on personality type as the lens through which to view the leader. Having just finished a book on values, ConsumerShift, I would put greater emphasis on the values of the leader as a key driver of their goals and style, with personality a secondary influence. But as I noted in the book, I think it is valuable to look at issues from different “centers,” whether values, personality, generations – though I still come out with the view that values makes the most sense at the center.

So a values-based interpretation of the narcissist leader is that it sounds very much like a “modern” style that could work in a modern organization with its emphasis on hierarchical approaches. I suspect it would not do as well in a postmodern organization with a network approach. That said, however, it may not quite be over yet for narcisstic leaders. I’ve often associated Gen Y with narcissism  and I’m not alone Gen Y’s Most Perilous Trait? Yep, a thought worth pondering…..and a style worth considering??? Andy Hines

 

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Which type of futurist are you?

As part of my doctoral research on “Integrating Foresight into Organizations,” at Leeds Metropolitan U, I’ve had to think about the different types of futurists in thinking through what “success” is for foresight, as different types are likely to have different expectations for success. I propose types that vary along three dimensions, with most futurists likely falling somewhere in the middle of each continuum, that is, having a mix of the characteristics of each type.

Along the applied-normative dimension, the applied futurist focuses on helping the client to achieve their goals without explicitly applying their own point of view. In contrast, the normative futurist wants the client to adopt their view. Along the facilitator-expert dimension, facilitator types focus on processes for helping the client develop their own views. Expert futurists focus on providing their expert views for the client to adopt as they see fit. Along the insider-outsider dimension, insider futurists use their political and persuasive skills and intimate knowledge of the organization to help get foresight implemented. Outsider futurists focus on raising challenging questions for the organization, aka “disturbing the present;” and suggest staying out of organizational politics.

Each of the types is an extreme on a continuum and one can imagine a degree of blending or hybrids. For instance, I earlier developed the “inside-outer” role in an organizational futurist capacity at Kellogg’s and Dow Chemical (see “How Foresight Is Being Positioned“). From the success point-of-view, one can imagine that applied and normative futurists would have different view of success, as would insiders and outsiders—probably less so with facilitator and expert. The dissertation goes on to attempt to develop a framework robust enough to handle success for all. But that’s another matter. For now, see what type of futurists you are! Andy Hines

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Thinking about the Future of Change and Communications

Did a lunchtime talk “On the Front Lines of Change” for my friends at IABC (International Assn of Business Communicators). They asked me to suggest some ways they could help their clients anticipate and manage change — a great topic for futurists! I used the Thinking about the Future framework to organize the talk, and ran through some guidelines and examples. It strikes me how simple the suggestions we offer really are, but they are not easily done! The logic of framing the topic, scanning for signals of change, forecasting what the futures might look like, visioning where you want to be in that future, planning how to accomplish that, and acting on it. Simple, right? But not easy….Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight, Talks Tagged With: , , , ,

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Professional Activities & Awards

Activities

  • Member, Council for the World Futures Studies Federation Foresight Programme Accreditation Service.
  • Editor-in-Chief, On the Horizon, 2018-present
  • Advisory Council, Association of Professional Futurists, 2015-present
  • Editorial Boards,World Futures Review, 2015-present
  • Co-Publisher, MISC, 2015-present
  • Chair, APF Most Significant Futures Works Program, 2014-present
  • Chair, Task Force on Professionalization, Association of Professional Futurists, December 2013-present
  • Advisory Board, Innovation Council, Lumina Foundation, Spring 2013-present
  • Practitioner Advisor, FERN (Foresight Education Research Network), 2013
  • Core Committee, APF Most Significant Futures Works Program, 2007-present
  • Editorial Board, Journal of Futures Studies, 2013-present
  • Member, Association of Professional Futurists, 2002-present
  • Board Member, Association of Professional Futurists, January 2006-January 2011.
  • Chair, Association of Professional Futurists, January 2008-December 2009.
  • Vice-Chair, Association of Professional Futurists, January 2007-2008.
  • Executive Director, Association of Professional Futurists, March 2004-June 2005.
  • Founding Chair, Association of Professional Futurists, 2002-2003
  • Member, World Futures Studies Federation, 2002-2008
  • Associate Editor & Hinesight columnist, Foresight, 1998-2008
  • Professional Forum Moderator, World Future Society General Assembly, Houston, July 2000.
  • Planning Committee Member, World Future Society General Assembly 1998.
  • Webmaster, UHCL Futureweb Alumni Web site, 1998-2001
  • World Future Society Metropolitan Washington Area Chapter
    • Tasks: start chapter, get speakers, start committees, maintain database, publicity, mailings, organize workshops
    • President, 1995-1997
    • Newsletter Editor, 1992-1997
    • Board, 1993-1997
    • Secretary, 1993-1995
    • Steering Committee, 1992-1993
  • Millennium Project (Sponsored by the United Nations University and The Futures Group)
    • Review and summarize scenarios for collection of abstracts
  • Editing for The Futurist

Reviewer

  • Book Proposal, Routledge, HR Futures 2030
  • Foresight, 2020-present
  • The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Division on Earth and Life Studies, September 2019
  • IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, July 2019-August 2020.
  • European Research Council – Synergy Grant (Proposal: Future Proofing: The Anticipatory Politics of Food, Education, and Work in the Post-War World), June 2019.
  • Small-Scale Forestry, 2019
  • National Science Foundation (Proposal: Building Retrofits in Organized Anarchy: A Garbage Can Decision Process), 2017
  • Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 2016-present
  • Futures, 2014-present

Awards

National Recognition Award, 50-in-5 Celebration, Wortham House, November 29, 2021.

Fulbright Fellowship, “Internationalization of Higher Education,” Bureau at Higher Education Commission (OHEC), Thailand Ministry of Education, Bangkok, May 24-June 22.

2017 Association of Professional Futurists,Most Significant Futures Work, Methods and Practice, Let’s Talk about Success: A Proposed Foresight Outcomes Framework for Organizational Futurists,

2014 Association of Professional Futurists, Most Significant Futures Work 1st Prize, Methods and Practice, Teaching about the Future

2014 California Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST) Outstanding Faculty Award

2013 California Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST) Outstanding Faculty Award

2007 Emerald Literati Award, Foresight, w/ Peter Bishop & Terry Collins, “Scenarios: The State of the Art”

2003 Emerald Literati Award, Foresight, “An Audit for Organizational Futurists”

1997 Meritorious Achievement Award, World Future Society, Washington Metropolitan Area Chapter

Engagements

Speaking

I have several regular talks on futures topics in which I focus the implications for the audience as well doing customs talks on specific topics. Some of my favorite regular topics  are:

Imagining After Capitalism

It’s a new one, but I’ve been working on this topic for almost a decade now. The books is getting close to being done. I have lots of posts on it in my blog. What’s the gist? The game is ending for capitalism. It may be 10-20 years away, but it’s disintegrating. What’s next? We really don’t have good positive guiding images … until now. This one is fun!

A Dozen Tips for Thinking about the Future

This presentation delivers concrete, practical suggestions on how applying foresight can add value to your organization. It originated with the Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, a book by the presenter that draws upon the collective wisdom of three dozen foresight professionals. I continue to update it with new ideas and insights from teaching and professional practice. This session is designed to be very much about inspiring action. Participants will walk away thinking “I can do that!”

ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape

The old approaches to consumer understanding no longer work. This presentation explores broad-scale patterns in changing values that will reshape the consumer landscape over the next decade. It introduces the New Dimensions of Consumer Life model to help systematically sort out and categorize the myriad influences on consumer decision-making and behavior. It concludes that values, defined as an individual view about what is most important in life that in turn guides decision-making and behavior, is the single best predictor for gaining insight into how consumers may change in the future.

A Dozen Surprises about the Future of Work

This presentation takes a provocative approach in suggesting potentially surprising outcomes regarding the future of work. It builds upon existing trends and covers a wide spectrum of topics that will stretch the audience’s thinking on how work might be different in the future. The session concludes with some strategic implications designed to encourage a lively Q&A and things to do on “Monday morning.”

Which Energy Future? You Decide

Mini-scenarios of possible energy futures are introduced and outlined. We then explore the assumptions underlying each of them, so that participants can see “what would have to happen” in order for each scenario to occur. This approach will enable participants to see a provocative set of potential future outcomes and provide the opportunity for them to make their own assessment on which seems most likely to occur.

“An Organizational Foresight Audit: 10 Questions for Building a Foresight Capability”

What do you need to think about to create or build a foresight function inside today’s organization? It takes time and patience, but armed with a plan and strategy, it can be done. The presenter will discuss a 10 question issue audit that gets at the key issues that need to be considered.

The Future of Youth Happiness

This presentation explores the pathways 12 to 24 year olds will be pursing in their quest for happiness. Like most people, they pursue happiness with a combination of three strategies: the pleasure of the moment, relationships with family and friends, and the long-term search for meaning and purpose. After probing more deeply, though, we found that more than any generation that has come before them, today’s youths recognize that happiness is something that can and should be achieved or worked toward, in essence, a practical approach to happiness. We’ll explore 13 forecasts about the future of happiness and bring these forecasts to life in the form of 7 happiness personas, and share our overall findings that we developed in partnership with project sponsor MTV.

Need Innovation? Try Foresight

Rarely does a discussion of business issues or a CEO speech take place without several mentions of the need for innovation. Equally rarely does the idea of foresight appear in the same context. That’s a shame — and an opportunity — because the two go together quite well. The presenter will share his experiences and insights about applying foresight in support of innovation and discuss ways for audience members to apply it in their particular situations.

On the Road to 2025: The Role of Forecasting in Understanding the Emerging Science and Technology Landscape.

This presentation explores the role of forecasting in understanding the emerging science and technology landscape. The presenter will review how the forecasts he and his colleagues made in their 1996 book, 2025: Scenarios of US & Global Society as Reshaped by Science and Technology, are tracking. He will then describe the lessons learned for forecasting and how he would adjust the forecast….if at all.

I have also talked on a wide range of other topics, including the future of libraries, beverages, food, credit unions, the environment, social media, work, insurance, etc.

Workshops

My workshops are short-term learning experiences that encourages active experiential learning by using a variety of learning activities. Most can be customized to participants busy schedules, with versions ranging from a half-day, full-day, or two days. (More details of each below)

Thinking about the Future workshop
Scenario Planning Revisited
New Business Exploration Workshop
Scanning Workshop
The Organizational Foresight Audit

For a near complete list of workshops that I have run visit here.

Thinking about the Future workshop
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Even the best run organizations can get into trouble by not paying attention to the future and relying on products and services at odds with emerging trends — whether gas-guzzling SUVs, sub-prime loans to debt-ridden consumers, or even film-based photography in the digital era – they all caught up short because what has worked well yesterday may not necessarily work well tomorrow. Employing a foresight perspective can help individuals and organizations anticipate and prepare for the future in a way that identifies and avoids risks and uncovers a wide-range of potential opportunities.

This workshop delivers concrete, practical suggestions on how applying foresight can help position your organization for success in the future. It is based on  Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, a book edited by the workshop leader that draws upon the collective wisdom of three dozen foresight professionals. Participants will learn about a framework for organizing foresight based on the six principal activities of strategic foresight:

  • Framing: identifying the problems clearly and understanding their cost as well as the cost of solutions
  • Scanning: understanding what’s going on out there; the relevant information and trends
  • Forecasting: considering a range of future possibilities; plugging into a meaningful view (pictures) of the future
  • Visioning: deciding what the organization wants to be in the future and determining if the organization is working forward or avoiding it.
  • Planning: creating a pathway to the future
  • Acting: translating foresight into real action on an ongoing basis

In this hand-on workshop, participants learn by doing. We will go through the six activities and practice with an example topic. Participants will learn a variety of ways that they themselves can apply the foresight guidelines to bring practical benefits to their organization in the years ahead.

Scenario Planning Revisited
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Scenarios are an essential part of any foresight toolbox. Scenarios are data-based stories about plausible futures. They are a powerful way to build understanding of possible futures, spark dialogue, and create change. Although scenario planning has become increasingly mainstream, it has also become increasingly stale. This workshop shares ideas for reinvigorating this powerful tool, such as:

  • Using technology to get the right people involved at the right time, for the right amount of time
  • Customizing the technique based on what the data reveals
  • Maximizing the productivity of scenario planning sessions
  • Communicating and tracking scenario results to get and keep attention

This hands-on approach will teach participants the essentials of how to set up and run a scenario planning project.

For individual participants, the objectives are to:

  • Understand the fundamental concepts and tools of scenario planning
  • Understand the key steps and processes involved in a scenario planning project
  • Become familiar with several techniques for doing scenario planning
  • See how scenario planning can help identify and respond to threats or provide opportunities for the organization

For the organization, the objectives are:

  • To help the organization build its internal capacity for scenario planning, using proven tools and techniques that may be applied to diverse business needs now and in the future

Help your organization to anticipate the future and take action in the present by learning this updated scenario approach.

New Business Exploration Workshop
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This hands-on workshop is an overview of how to do exploration for new business and new product development. Exploration involves the process of coming up with new ideas on both new growth areas and specific new business ideas for the organization. The course is intended to cultivate and expand the “explorers” mindset, skill set and tool set for doing new business exploration. It covers a wide range of best practices that have been distilled into a format that guides one from the beginning to the end of the exploration process. The delivery method will be a combination of lecture, discussion and exercises. Participants are encouraged to bring a “real world” new business exploration problem with them to work on.

The course will teach participants the essentials of how to set up and run a new business or new product exploration project.

For individual participants, our objective will be:

  • to understand and cultivate the exploration mindset, skill set, and tool set for identifying, shaping, and communicating new product and new business opportunities

For the organization, our objective will be:

  • to help build its internal capacity for exploration for new business and product development, using proven tools and techniques that may be applied to diverse business needs now and in the future

We will learn by doing. Participants will be asked to come equipped with their laptop and a topic area they would like to explore.

Scanning Workshop
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This hands-on, one-day workshop will teach participants how to do environmental scanning, that is, the identification of potential signals of change in the external environment that could impact the organization. These scanning hits are clustered into trends or issues. The idea is to identify them as early as possible in order to give the organization the maximum amount of time to either deal with the threat or exploit the opportunity.

The course will teach participants how to set up and run a system in their organization in several modules: phases:

  • Developing the mindset of scanning
  • Where and how do we look for scanning hits
  • Tools for evaluating which hits to pay attention to
  • Developing an ongoing system
  • Alternative approaches

Example outcomes from scanning systems will be described and analyzed. It is recommended that participants come equipped with their laptop and a topic area that they would like to learn more about.

The Organizational Foresight Audit
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What do you need to think about to create or build a futures function inside today’s organization? The session goes through a 10 question issue audit for future practitioners and management to discuss and answer. Strategies for moving forward will then be crafted. Participants will come away with a clear set of the issues in implementing foresight within their organization and a plan for dealing with them.

Please contact me directly to arrange.

Speaking

I have several regular talks on futures topics in which I focus the implications for the audience as well doing customs talks on specific topics. Some of my favorite regular topics  are:

How Thinking about the Future Can Benefit Your Organization

This presentation delivers concrete, practical suggestions on how applying foresight can add value to your organization. It is based on the recently released Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, a book edited by the presenter that draws upon the collective wisdom of three dozen foresight professionals. Participants will learn about a framework for organizing foresight based on the six principal activities of strategic foresight: framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and acting. They will also learn more than a dozen ways that they can apply selected guidelines to bring practical benefits to their organization in the years ahead.

ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape

The old approaches to consumer understanding no longer work. This presentation explores broad-scale patterns in changing values that will reshape the consumer landscape over the next decade. It introduces the New Dimensions of Consumer Life model to help systematically sort out and categorize the myriad influences on consumer decision-making and behavior. It concludes that values, defined as an individual view about what is most important in life that in turn guides decision-making and behavior, is the single best predictor for gaining insight into how consumers may change in the future.

A Dozen Surprises about the Future of Work

This presentation takes a provocative approach in suggesting potentially surprising outcomes regarding the future of work. It builds upon existing trends and covers a wide spectrum of topics that will stretch the audience’s thinking on how work might be different in the future. The session concludes with some strategic implications designed to encourage a lively Q&A and things to do on “Monday morning.”

Which Energy Future? You Decide

Mini-scenarios of possible energy futures are introduced and outlined. We then explore the assumptions underlying each of them, so that participants can see “what would have to happen” in order for each scenario to occur. This approach will enable participants to see a provocative set of potential future outcomes and provide the opportunity for them to make their own assessment on which seems most likely to occur.

 

“An Organizational Foresight Audit: 10 Questions for Building a Foresight Capability”

What do you need to think about to create or build a foresight function inside today’s organization? It takes time and patience, but armed with a plan and strategy, it can be done. The presenter will discuss a 10 question issue audit that gets at the key issues that need to be considered.

The Future of Youth Happiness

This presentation explores the pathways 12 to 24 year olds will be pursing in their quest for happiness. Like most people, they pursue happiness with a combination of three strategies: the pleasure of the moment, relationships with family and friends, and the long-term search for meaning and purpose. After probing more deeply, though, we found that more than any generation that has come before them, today’s youths recognize that happiness is something that can and should be achieved or worked toward, in essence, a practical approach to happiness. We’ll explore 13 forecasts about the future of happiness and bring these forecasts to life in the form of 7 happiness personas, and share our overall findings that we developed in partnership with project sponsor MTV.

Need Innovation? Try Foresight

Rarely does a discussion of business issues or a CEO speech take place without several mentions of the need for innovation. Equally rarely does the idea of foresight appear in the same context. That’s a shame — and an opportunity — because the two go together quite well. The presenter will share his experiences and insights about applying foresight in support of innovation and discuss ways for audience members to apply it in their particular situations.

On the Road to 2025: The Role of Forecasting in Understanding the Emerging Science and Technology Landscape.

This presentation explores the role of forecasting in understanding the emerging science and technology landscape. The presenter will review how the forecasts he and his colleagues made in their 1996 book, 2025: Scenarios of US & Global Society as Reshaped by Science and Technology, are tracking. He will then describe the lessons learned for forecasting and how he would adjust the forecast….if at all.

I have also talked on a wide range of other topics, including the future of libraries, beverages, food, credit unions, the environment, social media, work, insurance, etc.

Please contact me directly to arrange.

 

Thinking about the Future, 2nd Edition

An updated second edition is available on Amazon for $14.95 paperback and $6.99 e-book. The changes include:

  • Most important, our additional work on the process of using the six framework activities opened up an opportunity to provide specific “how-to” process advice to supplement the guidelines. Thus, I added a new step-by-step how-to chapter to conclude the book.
  • Some of the guideline examples were getting a bit dated. All the examples of the 115 guidelines were reviewed and 55 were updated. This also add some new references.
  • My friend and colleague John Smart, who inspired several folks to review the book and thus helped deplete the first edition, was adamant that I change the shape of the new edition paperback, so it is now a 6×9 instead of the original square. The cover is redesigned as well.

An essential reference guide to help executives, analysts, and educators prepare for the future

This highly scannable book provides examples, benefits, and key steps that will help leaders securely position their organizations for years to come

“There has perhaps never been a time in human history when strategic foresight is more needed,” says futurist Andy Hines in the introduction to his new book, Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, February 2007).

Precious little guidance is available for executives, analysts, and educators seeking the best way to plan and prepare for the future. That is why Hines and Peter Bishop put together the 231-page paperback, which distills the expertise of 36 world-renowned futurists into an easily scannable guidebook.

Back to the future: What is strategic foresight?

Because the future is not predetermined or predictable, future outcomes can be influenced by our choices in the present, Hines and Bishop explain—and that is where strategic foresight comes into play.

At once highly creative and methodical, strategic foresight gives organizations the ability to create and maintain a high-quality forward view to detect threats and opportunities before they reach mainstream awareness, to guide policy, and to shape strategy. The ultimate goal of strategic foresight is to make better, more informed decisions in the present—making it the ideal tool for exploring new markets, products, and services, or more generally for successfully navigating the rapids of today’s constantly shifting, increasingly complex global environment.

“Although this is a highly logical approach to planning for the future, we don’t expect leaders and managers of companies to know how to do it without any training,” says Hines. “In fact, the reason we wrote the book was to provide essential, need-to-know information that can immediately be put into practice. Whether it is for corporate strategy, government policy, community development, or to better understand customers and markets, I firmly believe organizations that follow these guidelines will be more effective than those that do not.”

How to navigate the guide

The book is packed with case studies, practical tips, and 115 guidelines—yet is highly scannable because Hines and Bishop break the information down into easy to understand categories that mirror the six phases of strategic foresight:

  1. Framing: This important first step enables organizations to define the scope and focus of problems requiring strategic foresight. By taking time at the outset of a project, the team analyzing a problem can clarify the objective and determine how best to address it.
  2. Scanning: Once the team is clear about the boundaries and scope of an activity, it can scan the internal and external environments for relevant information and trends.
  3. Forecasting: Most organizations, if not challenged, tend to believe the future is going to be pretty much like the past. When the team probes the organization’s view of the future, they usually find an array of unexamined assumptions that tend to converge around incremental changes. The task, then, is to challenge this view and prod the organization to think seriously about the possibility that things may not continue as they have—and in fact, rarely do. Considering a range of potential futures is the only surefire way to develop robust strategies that will position the organization securely for any future that may occur.
  4. Visioning: After forecasting has laid out a range of potential futures, visioning comes into play—generating the organization’s ideal or “preferred” future and starting to suggest stretch goals for moving toward it.
  5. Planning: This is the bridge between the vision and the action. Here, the team translates what could be into strategies and tactics that  will lead toward the preferred future.
  6. Acting: This final phase is largely about communicating results, developing action agendas, and institutionalizing strategic thinking and intelligence systems, so the organization can nimbly and continually respond to the changing external environment.

How executives and analysts can use this book

Executives will find both the guidelines and framework of the book to be invaluable when it comes to understanding what it takes to successfully explore the future. Specifically, the book will help leaders:

  • Design strategic foresight projects
  • Develop robust strategies that can stand up to a wide array of possible futures
  • Find how-to answers to specific tasks
  • Provide a refresher for experienced practitioners
  • Adopt guidelines for excellence as an organization

How educators can use the book

Practicing and critiquing the guidelines in a classroom setting will provide a valuable learning experience for undergraduate and graduate students studying political science, economics, policy analysis, education, and more. Specifically, students will:

  • Examine important tenets of futurist theory and research
  • Understand how futurist thinking can powerfully strengthen an organization’s strategic thinking and acting on a day-to-day basis
  • Obtain a strong intellectual edge in preparing for careers in management or consulting
  • Role play and interview analysts
  • Corroborate or modify their own assumptions

“Although this book is for those seeking guidance on the strategic forefront, it is not intended to ‘convert’ anyone into becoming a foresight professional,” Hines concludes. “On the other hand, the lure of long-term change can be compelling. Many who get bitten by the foresight bug want to learn more.”

Availability

Single copies on Amazon @$14.99: Thinking about the Future

Bulk copies discounted: Please email Andy Hines, ahines@uh.edu