Last week we talked about some typical resistances to information about change we see on the client or public side. Lest …
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Sources of Resistance to Information about Change
Last night we had a class in World Futures on wildcards in which we reviewed Oliver Markley’s wonderful piece that …
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Stretching our Scanning: Snowball Scanning
I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately to “help us stretch our scanning.” It’s something we’ve been thinking …
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Futurists as the voice of reason
Is there a new role emerging for futurists? For many years, I’ve used the slide depicted in the figure to suggest …
Check out the Open Foresight Hub! (Drivers included)
The Open Foresight Hub is an exciting new development for all we futures information hounds. It’s a wiki devoted to …
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On the Road Again
I’m about to rack up some frequent flyer miles carrying the foresight message. I have been cutting back on speaking the …
A Technique for Guiding Images of the Future
I'm pleased that “A Technique for Guiding Images: Imagining the Future After Capitalism” has been accepted for …
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What should futurists be able to do?
There are many possible answers to this question, and I think in a healthy foresight ecosystem there can and should be …
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Your Horizon Scanning Library?
How do you collect and organize your horizon scanning? At Houston Foresight, we have some particular needs (see the …
Foresight’s Last Mile Challenge
One of the biggest changes I’ve seen in foresight practice in more than three decades of work is the shift to more …
Red Pill Futures
"All I'm offering is the truth" -- Morpheus in The Matrix But he offered so much more -- an image of a future in …
Foresight Requires Patience
I recently had a conversation with an organizational futurist who had an opportunity to pitch foresight to a higher-up. …
The hard questions are not data questions
As we think about the future After Capitalism, one tempting approach is to pursue AI, Big Data, and the like to find the …
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Houston Archetype Technique Updated
Not new, but updated ... as promised in a previous post. To recap, for several years we and our audiences at the …
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Naming drivers (of change)
One of the annoying aspects of dealing with large volumes of information that we futurists encounter is how to …
Foresight, Regulation, and Collaboration
Last week, I did a talk for the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law at a Seminar on "Foresight Regulatory Analysis” at the …
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UMI: The basic components of exploring the future
If you decided to take the plunge and come to UH for foresight education, what do you get? Or perhaps more …
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A system for scanning and monitoring
If you ask a group of futurists about the most fundamental skill for being a futurist, horizon scanning would probably …
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Longtermism and the futures ecosystem
“What We Owe the Future” lays out a case for longtermism by one of its leading proponents, Oxford philosopher William …
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Understanding, Mapping, and Influencing the Future
What do we teach about the future? What does one need to know to be an effective futurist? The six steps of our basic …
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Begin with the Future in Mind
Some of my more experienced colleagues might remember the Stephen Covey "habit" of "Begin with the End in mind." It gets …
Tips for Thinking about the Future video
Had a blast sharing "A Dozen Tips for Thinking about the Future" for the Transforming Local Government Conference in …
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Champions and Futurists in Setting up Organizational Foresight
Hard to believe it’s almost a decade since I wrote my dissertation on The Role of an Organizational Futurist in …
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History is vital to the future
I just finished Wilkinson and Kupers’ very nice “The Essence of Scenarios: Learning from the Shell Experience,” which …
Automated Scanning: The State of Play
We at Houston Foresight get asked fairly frequently about what is the best automated scanning tool. Our response is that …
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The Future Is [NOT] Faster Than You Think
Abundance proponent Peter Diamandis brings us another volume – The Future is Faster Than You Think in his exponential …
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Adaptive and transformative futures
This is one of the questions futurists wrestle with periodically. What is our proper purpose? Should we be helping our …
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Virtual Professional Certificate in Foresight Starts April 6th!
We still have spots open for our next Foresight seminar starting April 6th! This virtual boot camp immerses you in the …
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Futurist Calls to Action
As so often happens in the classroom, the best ideas come from the students. In a reflection on playing with a climate …
Futurists and their thirsty horses
You can take the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink! How many times have we futurists said this or something …