Category: Innovation

Leaders and companies often tell me how much they love design thinking. It provides them a tangible way to “think outside of the box” and create new pathways toward innovative action. However, once they integrate it into their organizational strategy and processes, they also tell me that they feel like a key element is still missing.

A failure of imagination is the undoing of many great design strategies. With Strategic Foresight, you scan to identify trends, analyze and identify patterns, create multiple future scenarios, and test strategies against these scenarios and adjust to make them adaptable.

I had no idea that what I was doing in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s cultivate a passion in my heart for “artifacting the future” – creating the landscapes, devices, utilities and materials that would both define provocative images of the future and be born out of them.

Clare Cooper, design lecturer at the University of Sydney, describes how futuring techniques can help us think collectively and build agency, particularly when we feel it is slipping away.

The following case study showcases the value, in terms of practical impact and tangible outcomes, that foresight drives in innovation. Situation With a series of product misses, the research and development (R&D) division of a Fortune 500 hospitality company was struggling to create breakthrough innovation.

Today, we live in a world where creative destruction is happening faster than we can react. Whether the radical changes are in products, services, experiences, technology, or organizational models, we seem to have entered an age of perpetual instability in business and society where the new mantra is “disrupt or be disrupted.” What if we could build proactive organizations that aren’t constantly in the act of chasing or being chased?

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. 

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

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…

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.