foresight | Hinesight

Foresight success?

May 13, 2013 by Andy Hines Leave a Comment

I did a five-minute “Little Big” at the APF “Play” Gathering on May 3^rd in Orlando. I called it “A Framework for Discussing Success.” The ideas emerged from dissertation and I am planning to write a journal article on it, but for now here are the main ideas.

I reviewed the foresight literature to see what futurists have said about success. What I found was that the discussion of success included a mix of purposes, goals, and benefits along with ideas about success. I identified forty sources that touched on these themes in a significant way. One common theme was that foresight work is ultimately aimed at decision-making, specifically making “better” or more informed decisions about the future. As the figure shows, the decision-making process can be broken down into three components: learning, deciding, and acting. Learning is about providing information about the future that can inform decisions. Deciding is the making of a decision. Acting is taking action on the decision, because without action, it’s not really a decision, unless the decision was to take no action.

The aspects of success mentioned in the literature sorted nicely into these three categories (not show here for space reasons). What is shown is that the “backbone” of foresight work, that is, the six key activities of framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and acting, feed into these three components of decision-making. Framing, scanning, and forecasting feed into learning; visioning and planning feed into deciding, and acting, of course, feeds into acting.

One way to interpret this framework is that most foresight work is aimed at learning, with a secondary focus on deciding, and a tertiary focus on acting. Put another way, most of our work goes into providing decision-makers with better information about the future to inform their decisions; sometimes they ask us to help with deciding (visioning and planning), and occasionally we help with acting.

My goal in developing this framework was two-fold: to see if we futurists can agree on a common framework for what successful work aims to achieve, and also to share with clients to set their expectations. If we can achieve that, we can then set about the logical follow-on task of exploring how to measure that success. Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: APF, foresight, futurist, outcomes, professional futurist, success

16 things that made me go hmmm at APF’s “Play”

May 7, 2013 by Andy Hines 1 Comment

Thought I’d share some musings from my experience at the APF “Play” gathering. Borrowing from the old C&C Factory song, here are 16 Things That Made Me Go Hmmm.(I’m not attributing as I don’t want to misquote anyone or get them in trouble)

LVC for types of simulation: Live players – football practice; Virtual – people in virtual; Constructive – virtual in virtual
Models –> simulations –> forecasts
Difference between play and games: Play is about exploration, without winners and losers; Games are based on a model and have winners and losers
Two outcomes for training simulations: (1) Learning about the situation, e.g., how to fight fires (2) Learning about oneself, e.g., how did I behave in the situation?
“We don’t care about succeeding…we sometimes fantastically fail…learn….and keep learning”
It occurred to me (andy) that personas are going to move from posters to simulations
I’ve been trying to think of what to call the six activities of foresight we teach: framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, action; I saw some word art on a wall that looked like a spine, but that didn’t seem right, but “backbone” did. Wonder if it will stick? Ideas seem to emerge when you’re in a relaxed environment, with good people, and enjoying yourself.
Evolution of big data from descriptive to predictive to prescriptive
“Smart cities” of the future may not be connected by geography, but rather by the smart ICT platform
It was touching to see “the Godfather” appropriately recognized (nice job, Lee!)
“Research makes zombie games really useful.”
App culture has decimated the game studios, and very few app makers make any money
There is a dark side to gamification – e.g., social games are really about getting your money more than about encouraging social good
On my summer “to do” list: developing more games in our curriculum
APF has done amazingly well in consistently making the gatherings an ideal blend of learning, networking, and fun.
Futurists are really fun people, perhaps a bit crazy, but good crazy! Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: APF, foresight, future, games, gaming, Play, professional futurist, simulation

Reflections on the Future of Cities

April 29, 2013 by Andy Hines 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under: Education, Foresight Tagged With: alex steffen, cindy frewen, cities, foresight, future, houston futures, Oliver Markley, rives taylor, todd gentzel, urban

Futurist: specialist or generalist?

April 22, 2013 by Andy Hines 2 Comments

A prospective student raised a question about specialization in foresight in a recent APF listserve conversation. This question is also a frequent one of our Houston Futures grad students. We discussed the question recently in Pro Seminar and did a ”personal branding” exercise to help us think through how we want to present ourselves to the marketplace in doing our foresight work (see “The Personal Brand in Futures“ for additional thoughts) .

There is no “right” answer, of course. It depends on the individual and their circumstances and capabilities. First, to clarify terms. Generalist refers to one who works on a wide range of foresight topic and use a range of tools. I would put myself in that category, having seemingly worked on the future of almost everything over the last 20+ years. Specialist refers to one who picks a particular domain or topical interest, and becomes an expert in it, along the lines of an “energy futurist,” “transportation futurist,” “legal futurist,” etc. It may also be possible to be a “single method” futurist and brand your expertise in say, doing a particular type of scenario technique, or perhaps being expert simulations and gaming. I haven’t seen much of this, but is seems plausible. For instance, when I think of CLA (causal layered analysis), I think of Sohail.

And, of course, there are hybrid versions. Mostly generalist with some specialization. In my case, for instance, I’ve done so much work on consumer insight and values that I know present that as a specialization. I suspect, over time, that many generalists find this happening. Or you start as a specialist and gradually expand into new areas.

For students, though, is there a better way? One clue might be whether the student already has a subject matter expertise and can then futurize it. It may be that an undergrad major or work experience provides the foundation for specialization. It is probably a bit easier to break into professional foresight with a specialization, as it addresses the credibility question. It’s perhaps tougher to break in as a generalist, unless you are willing to pay your dues and start at the bottom. These are the days of entry-level research assistant that I remember, hmm, somewhat fondly.

It also helpful to take stock of what makes you happy. Would you be okay being narrowly focused, perhaps going over the same ground, giving the same talk, again and again? Or do you live for the challenge of always breaking new ground – and being okay with the risk that you’re going to miss something obvious in an area new to you (every generalist’s nightmare)?

It depends, but knowing yourself and your anticipated brand can help you point you in the desired direction, and, of course, we can always change. Andy Hines

Filed Under: Education, Foresight Tagged With: APF, foresight, futurist, generalist, houston futures, professional futurist, specialist

Future of Knowledge Work

April 18, 2013 by Andy Hines Leave a Comment

I have a new article that I put together with my frequent collaborator Chris Carbone of Innovaro on the Future of Knowledge Work published in Employment Relations Today. It explores how knowledge work is being reshaped by a variety of social and technological forces that together will alter how it is distributed, organized, and performed in coming years. It is based on a research project by Innovaro (then Social Technologies) that used scenario planning to explore four possible futures for knowledge work and was conducted on behalf of 17 sponsors. The domain map below shows how we framed the research.

The scenarios suggest a range of plausible outcomes for knowledge work out to 2020. Virtual Teams Collaborating suggests a future most similar to today, where present trends continue and strengthen and enable a quite manageable transition to a greater reliance on knowledge work. Back to Basics, on the other hand, presents a plausible picture of how a greater reliance on knowledge work is not a given, as tough economic times and security concerns compel a retreat to a world of work more like the past than the present. Socially Centric Work also presents a series of challenges to knowledge work, but in this scenario they are successfully resolved, relying on a much greater integration of social networking tools to manage the transition to the world of knowledge work that goes deeper than Virtual Teams Collaborating. Finally, Personalized Professions presents a more provocative view of knowledge work that has a transformative effect on how work is done, leading to a future in which all workers are thought of as knowledge workers.

It is interesting to note that the trend to more of the 5 “izations” — digitization, collaboration, globalization, virtualization, and personalization — is present in three of the four scenarios, varying in timing and the extent of penetration. Only in Back to Basics, where I/T security concerns are front and center, are the “izations” stalled. Andy Hines

Filed Under: Forecasting, Foresight, Work Tagged With: collaboration, digitization, foresight, future, futurists, globalization, knowledge work, personalization, scenarios, virtualization

What do we call it?

April 12, 2013 by Andy Hines 3 Comments

It’s been great to hear growing interest in developing the field and profession of _______, um, what do you call it?

I looked at this question in my dissertation and found it has received intermittent attention over the years (Cornish, 1977; Horton, 1999; Becker, 2002; Schwarz, 2005; Amsteus, 2008; Sardar, 2010; Masini, 2010; Marien, 2010; Tonn, 2010; Rohrbeck, 2011). The pattern seems to be one of (a) flurry of activity (b) inability to achieve consensus (c) long quiet period, (d) repeat.

One phenomenon I’ve noticed in that last 10 years at APF, which has an active listserv for conversations, is that when this or related questions about the field/profession get raised, two things happen: (1) someone inevitably points out that it’s all been talked about before (2) others suggest it’s not really relevant anyway — and the conversation quickly dies out. Thus, in my experience we’ve actually talked about it very little – and this is a professional association!

I think these are critical questions for those of us interested in building the field and the profession (and fair enough, not all of us are). I suspect that if we simply try to have the conversations again spontaneously, we’ll repeat the cycle above. What I’m thinking is that we first need to figure out a strategy for how to work through these issues before we dive in again. Does that make sense? I think we can do it, but it won’t be easy.

Full disclosure: “Foresight” is my preference. Andy Hines

References

Amsteus, M. (2008) Managerial foresight: concept and measurement. foresight, 10 (1), pp.53-66.

Becker, P. (2002, October) Corporate foresight in Europe: a first overview. Working Paper. Institute for Science and Technology Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

Cornish, E. (1977) The study of the future: an introduction to the art and science of understanding and shaping tomorrow’s world. Bethesda, MD, World Future Society.

Horton, A. (1999) A simple guide to successful foresight. foresight, 1 (1), pp. 5-9.

Masini, E.B. (2010) The past and the possible futures of futures studies: Some thoughts on Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake.’ Futures, 42 (3), pp.185-189.

Marien, M. (2010) Futures-thinking and identity: why ‘‘Futures Studies’’ is not a field, discipline, or discourse: a response to Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake. Futures, 42 (3) pp. 190–194.

Rohrbeck, R. & Gemünden, H. (2011) Corporate foresight: Its three roles in enhancing the innovation capacity of a firm. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 78 (2), pp. 231-243.

Sardar, Z. (2010) The Namesake: Futures; futures studies; futurology; futuristic; Foresight — What’s in a name? Futures, 42 (3), pp. 177–184.

Schwarz, J. (2005, Fall) Linking strategic issue management to futures studies. Futures Research Quarterly, pp. 39-55.

Tonn, B. (2010) What’s in a name: reflections on Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘the namesake.’ Futures, 42 (3), pp.195-198.

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: APF, field, foresight, Futures Studies, futurist, profession

A Futurist Elevator Speech

April 2, 2013 by Andy Hines Leave a Comment

Someone asked me recently for my elevator speech on “what is a futurist?” Basically, if someone asks you what a futurists is, what’s your 30-second response. [And we require our students in the futures studies program to do one.] I’ll confess that I am not consistent, and that there are a whole bunch of calculations I make depending on who’s asking and how interested they appear to be. Nonetheless, here is my current take (coming in at 33 seconds when spoken).

“Historians study the past; futurist study the future. The future(s), actually. We believe there are many ways that the future could play out, and that since there so many factors involved, we don’t try to predict the right one. Instead, we forecast a range of plausible options or scenarios, and then we identify and track indicators to tell us which way the future is heading. We don’t just guess. We have a rigorous set of concepts, methods, and tools that have been developed over the last 50 years. And the whole purpose is influence the decisions we make in the present, so we work towards the futures we would like to see happen and work against those we would like to avoid. ” Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: elevator speech, foresight, Futures Studies, futurist

Ten Do’s and Don’ts for an Aging Futurist

March 26, 2013 by Andy Hines 5 Comments

I just celebrated my birthday and realized that almost half of my life now has been as a practicing futurist – 25 years if you count the two years in the program at UH. In the spirit of eating one’s own cooking, I am forecast that I will at some point be an old or aging futurist (am I there yet?)

In our Seminar class this semester, we are prepping the students for the post-program world. Part of that involves some personal strategic planning (BTW, we use alum Verne Wheelright’s excellent It’s Your Future: Make It a Good One). So, I thought about my personal vision for what kind of aging futurist I want to be and what kind I want to avoid. So, please invoke your sense of humor here, and recognize that I am by no means implying that I am not quite capable of the “don’ts” and I’m not bashing all aging futurists, many of whom are among my best friends!

Ten Do’s and Don’t for an Aging Futurist

	Don’t…	Do….
1.	feel the need to sit in judgment, up on the throne, passing on wisdom to the young folks….and the young folks are literally everyone	remain a participant, a co-creator, and equal among equals
2.	throw cold water on new ideas or proposals…or tell people that “I don’t want to throw cold water on that, but…..” (…you already have)	let the impulse pass – remember the adage: does it need to be said? does it need to be said now? does it need to be said by me?
3.	put the “new people” in their place….publicly	what I can to encourage new people to join, participate, speak out; and if they perhaps are “out of line,” take them aside and talk to them one-on-one
4.	become jaded about the field	celebrate what had been accomplished rather than dwelling on shortcomings. Keep the fire burning!
5.	deflate the energy and enthusiasm for a project or idea by pointing out how “this is nothing new” or “this was already done before,” often by pointing out a critical paper written 20 years ago (that probably was not read then either )	build up ideas rather than tear them down; if there is relevant history, contribute what we can learn from it that aids the present case
6.	be jealous when some “pop” work gains attention and poke holes in it	acknowledge the success of others and try to learn from it and why it was successful
7.	be stingy with praise	never miss an opportunity to praise the work of colleagues
8.	become overbearing such that any piece of foresight work that doesn’t mention climate change, the bottom of the pyramid, or other serious issues is immediately discredited	keep context in mind and don’t get so caught up in my issues that I start sounding like a one-note band
9.	take yourself so seriously and lose your sense of humor (e.g., by getting offended at a piece like this)	remain continually capable of laughing at myself
10.	think all of the above is just related to aging	remember that all the above applies….now!

Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: aging, foresight, futurist, professional futurist

Jay Gary Guest Lecture on Professionalization

March 3, 2013 by Andy Hines 4 Comments

We were very pleased to have Jay Gary, PhD, Assistant Professor at Regent University’s Strategic Foresight program was a guest to our ProSeminar class. He discussed his research on the professionalization of foresight, based on Delphi Survey he conducted with a colleague from Germany, Dr Heiko von der Gracht of EBS (European Business School). Here are Jay’s slides. I’d like to mix in a few thoughts of my own as I’ve been working on a piece regarding the professionalization of foresight (might we have a “hot topic” here?) and it might be helpful to expose a few of those ideas.

The Delphi had 142 respondents with all continents represented globally. The question was raised as to how representative that number was in terms of what percentage of professional futurists that might represent, which stimulated a guessing game that concluded: “we still don’t know.” one of my recommendations is to do a Census of the foresight field. It will be interesting to see what I come up with in terms of “how.”

Jay noted right up front that professionalization is not the only thing that needs to be done. We need to build the field as a whole, which includes, for instance, building the academic base, and building our public profile. Given that, he defined the focus of the Delphi as being on “strategic foresight,” which is focused on “influencing decision-makers” in a competitive situation – noting roles of consulting and organizational futurists with champions and clients. He then used Porter’s 5 forces to situation the competitive landscape. This distinction of strategic foresight fits with my notion that the field ought to be called “foresight” and then we can add clarifying adjectives as needed, e.g., strategic foresight, social foresight, technology foresight, etc.

One very nice slide summarized the 7 marks of a profession. I say “nice” because I’ve taken an academic approach on this question that is perhaps less easy to read – this summary covers the territory and gets to the point:

Knowledge base
Competency profile
Accredited training
Professional body
Global council
Professional skills
Code of ethics

Jay noted that the “Global Council” would probably be the hardest because it requires consensus (and heads nodded) and that the others could be done first.

We then did a quick-and-dirty version of the Delphi, which consisted of 14 statements about outcomes regarding professionalization in 2030.

It’s worth noting that the real-time Delphi tool that the study used is really cool. As you take the survey, you immediately see how your responses compared to others, and can view their comments (all anonymously) so you don’t have to wait for second round as with traditional Delphis. Very sweet software!

We then discussed the results, noting similarities and differences. I don’t way to give away the answers, since Jay will be publishing that (or you can view his slides at the link above if you’re curious).

I will call out that Jay sees a big emerging need to build our “competency maps.” I suspect that is a topic we are going to hear more about in the next few years.

This is hugely important work and we all owe Jay a big thank you. One of the weaknesses of our field is that we lack basic data about what is going on (e.g., how many of us are there?) and this study gives us some solid data to inform our conversations about professionalization. It takes away some of the guesswork and gives us a solid grounding, e.g., claims such as “no one cares about certification” or “everyone wants certification,” can be compared to the findings of the Delphi Survey (which suggests a split). Andy Hines

Filed Under: Forecasting Tagged With: Delphi, foresight, futurist, Jay Gary, professional futurists, professionalization

America sacrifices the future for the present

February 25, 2013 by Andy Hines Leave a Comment

“Instead of sacrificing the present for the sake of the future, Americans now sacrifice the future for the sake of the present.”

Ouch! I’m afraid columnist David Brooks of the New York Times is right in his recent “Carpe Diem Nation” piece. (BTW, thanks to colleague Margaret Tellegen for putting this in my mailbox – I do appreciate topic suggestions….from all!) Brooks dabbles in futures-oriented topics and brings a sense of humor to it that I appreciate. I really enjoyed his book “Bobos in Paradise,” which looks at how intellectual prowess, rather than wealth or material goods accumulation, is the new measuring stick of status.

In his column, Brooks notes how America was founded on a vision of creating a land of opportunity and a place where one could aspire to a better future. This required sacrifice in the present. I think it’s safe to say that sacrifice in the present is more tolerable when you are building toward a future vision. The classic work in the foresight field on the role of vision is Fred Polak’s “The Image of the Future.” This was the book that really turned me on to the future when I read it as an undergrad…so many years ago. Polak provided a historical analysis of how a guiding image of the future was vital to the success of societies. And he fretted that current society (roughly the 1970s) lacked a compelling image of the future. He took a global view (he is Dutch and his work was translated into English by Elise Boulding).

I think it’s fair to argue that we haven’t yet found that compelling image. And perhaps that is a key driver of the current willingness to “get what you can in the present, because who knows about the future (my words, not Brooks).”

It may be that futurists’ greatest contribution to the world could lie in helping to articulate and craft a compelling vision of the future. Andy Hines

Filed Under: Foresight Tagged With: David Brooks, foresight, future, futurists, image, Polak, vision

Categories