Scanning the Fringe | Hinesight....for Foresight

On the heels of a very successful “Good Futures Work” meeting, the Houston Foresight program is ready to announce next year’s meeting topic and dates: “Scanning the Fringe” on April 14-15, 2018. This will be the 8th annual Spring Gathering for the program, which brings together students, prospective students, alums, and friends for a week of fun and futuring. And we’d love to have more “friends” this year, so if you’re not associated with the program, don’t let that stop you. Drop me a note and let’s talk!

On to the topic. First, we’ve been working on being more systematic about our approach to scanning the last several years and we’ve made some good strides. But I feel like we’ve hit a little bit of a wall. We talk a bunch about weak signals and the fringe, but our instructions or advice on how to find them is, well, um….there is room for improvement! So, a key focus of this meeting will be putting our heads together and getting serious about the fringe.

Second, time and time again futurists identify topics in their scanning long before they emerge and migrate into the mainstream. But we seemingly don’t cash in on this, so to speak. Being early doesn’t get us any credit. As developments move from Horizon 3 to Horizon 2, other voices grab the stage and we move on to the next Horizon 3 topic. Maybe this is okay, but it seems like we have an opportunity to improve our timing and tracking. To suggest to folks that a Horizon 3 development we’ve been watching for a long time is ready to “hit.”

And much more…These Saturday meetings are super-informative, but also informal and fun. For me, I feel the true joy of sharing the work that we love to do, and want to keep it that way. So, if that’s how you like to operate, come and join us (ahines@uh.edu) — Andy Hines

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About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

Comments

DrShannon Frazier says

May 27, 2017 at 8:34 am

I’m extremely excited and let king forward to this forum! I am a recent doctoral graduate from Regent University, with an emphasis in Foresight! Please continue to post upcoming events. I look forward to engaging in the discussion with other minds whom are future focused!

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- DrShannon Frazier says
  
  May 27, 2017 at 8:37 am
  
  My autocorrect made some interesting changes to my post…however, I look forward to this forum!
  
  Reply

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