Articles

When doing this for a Future of Work project, I was able to identify multiple key points that struck me as being critical for setting us up for success in the face of the the ambiguous challenges of the future.  

Developing and executing business strategy, products and innovative ideas in our current environment demands new approaches and mindsets. Linear methods that rely solely on the extrapolation of historical results are completely ineffective as technological advancements, economic uncertainty, and increased systematic risk become the new normal. To effectively drive understanding, performance, and execution of strategic initiatives, organizations must think and act in “simultaneous multiples” – pressure-testing their strategies in diverse operating environments. 

The Futures School Co-Founder Frank Spencer explains the concept of Creative Complexity, and why it’s critical to good foresight, innovation, strategy and organizational development.

Mashups result from the creative blend of two or more songs, overlaying lyrics from one hit onto the instrumental beats of another.

Public libraries have long been considered to be on the brink of irrelevancy and extinction, fending off assertions that Google would replace librarians – the original “search engines” – or that eBooks would replace print books. Thus, it’s easy for the technophiles to imagine that libraries as “repositories” would no longer be necessary. Nevertheless, libraries were fundamentally designed to evolve and transform into places and platforms of innovation and collaboration. What sets libraries apart from most organizations and institutions is…

Marty Vanags, President of the Saratoga Partnership, and Tim Giuliani, President and CEO of the Orlando Economic Partnership share both a common purpose in pioneering the transformation of the economic development field, and a passion for creating the future. As TFSX Alumni (Marty – Denver 2017 and Tim – Orlando 2018), they began building a collaborative partnership founded on their common purpose and passion shortly after meeting one another through the TFSX Alumni Network Group. Vanags, Giuliani and one of…

As part of a regional 3-year plan to reframe economic development through the lens of broad-based prosperity, the Orlando region has leveraged foresight to develop a series of strategic transformations.  One such initiative has been called “Autonomous Connection” and leverages the growing technology of autonomous transportation as a means to create community-wide access and inclusion to services, education, healthcare, jobs, tourism, cultural diversity, and a broader sense of place and belonging. As the Orlando region increases the use of autonomous…

Author’s Note: (In the process of writing this piece on the future of transportation, I decided to focus on the effect that new personal transportation and disruptive mobility technology choices will have on strategies for transportation resilience.) Predictions about the transportation industry are rife with extremes and contradictions. Can autonomous vehicles make up the vast majority of more last-mile deliveries but also bring an end to congested streets? People look forward to traveling in their personal drones, yet only 37%…

Change management efforts often fail because they focus on the issues as they bubble up to the surface. The result is Band-Aid solutions that fail to address the underlying culture and guiding narratives of an organization. To achieve long-lasting change, we must explore what is beneath the obvious to understand why this issue exists in the first place. Foresight uncovers the dynamics of our present story while also creating pathways to our preferred outcomes. We all have a natural filter…

In 2017, Yvette Montero Salvatico, Co-Founder of The Futures School, conducted a webinar for the Institute for Competitive Intelligence on, “Strategic Foresight – How to Achieve a Forward Looking Perspective.” In this presentation, Yvette explained how a foresight mindset and toolkit propels us from competitive intelligence toward futures intelligence.