Articles

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.

Last month, Kedge had the honor of partnering with branding firm, Picnic, to host The Future of Brands event in Madrid, Spain. Marketing professionals, brand executives and creatives from across multiple industries joined us for two days of thought-provoking foresight imagining the future worlds that brands will need to prepare for. The topic is timely as most organizations we partner with share that maintaining relevancy is leadership’s top concern.

An abundance of questions surrounds the future of AI. Is it a threat or opportunity? Will it destroy or enhance humanity? How will it affect politics, laws, jobs, health, transportation, business and other facets of our lives? Will our AI future bear more resemblance to a utopian unfolding of The Jetsons or develop into the dark, dystopia displayed in The Terminator? AI technology promises to alter every industry and field as it transforms our individual lives – and even possibly…

Most of us cannot fathom the profound changes that are at our doorstep. Following are just some of the disruptions that will transform the nature of innovation and breakthroughs in today’s organizations.

Have you ever read an action-thriller novel or watched a mystery movie that kept you on the edge of your seat, only to learn near the end of the story that things are not what they seemed? This famous literary technique known as the “plot twist” jolts an audience’s perception, introduces a surprising conflict, or radically alters the context of the story in order to produce an unexpected outcome.

In 2018 Central Florida launched an ambitious plan to reconceptualize economic development through participatory foresight. Kedge had the privilege of partnering with the region’s local economic development organization, The Orlando Economic Partnership (the Partnership), to advance its mission for broad-based prosperity using foresight. The project launched with an immersion phase (including targeted interviews, a survey and extensive trend research).