by Secondary research plays a key role along with primary in understanding the future consumer landscape. It is challenging to rely solely in primary research for a couple of reasons. First, it is challenging to rely on self-reporting. For instance, consumers seem to be pretty poor at forecasting their own futures. Dan Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness lampooned consumer follies in this regard: “Our ability to imagine our personal future happiness is flawed, drawing upon psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics.” Asking people about their values and how they might behave differently is a risky endeavor. Second, there isn’t much primary data available. While the core of the New Dimensions Values Inventory is based on the yeoman’s work of the World Values Survey in gathering primary research from around the globe over the last forty years, it is a fairly small list. Several of the other principal twenty systems identified in the ConsumerShift research had some sort of assessment instrument, they were not aiming at understanding how the values change over time. I am grateful to my colleagues at the former Social Technologies (now Innovaro) for their help in doing the secondary research that identified values that fit with the four types of the New Dimensions Values Inventory. We were able to “test” those values with clients to some extent by seeing which of those we proposed resonated with clients, and which didn’t. Thus, the inventory was adjusted over the years as we learned more. I am working with colleagues Peter Bishop and Terry Grimat the University of Houston’s Futures Studies program to develop a the New Dimensions Values Assessment instrument to further refine the inventory moving into the future. Andy Hines
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.
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