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 …
2021 APF “Most Significant Futures Works” Winners
[NOTE: Sorry for the absence, but as you can see Hinesight got a much needed-facelift!] Back in 2007 I got together with …
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Futurists, get in the box!
For a lifetime we have heard, and likely been advising, that we and our clients should “get out of the box.” In …
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 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 …
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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