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Yasemin Arikan Promoted to Director of Futures Research
NEXT Generation Consulting (NGC) announced the promotion of Yasemin Arikan to Director of Futures Research. Arikan will lead the company’s efforts to...
June 11, 2024
Is Your Housing Market Ready for Your Future?
One of the biggest problems facing many cities and towns is inadequate housing. This problem is most acute for seniors, veterans with disabilities, and low-income groups ...
August 10, 2023
Three Things Martha Stewart Gets Right About Return to Office (RTO)
The original influencer and the person who invented the "Home" retail category, Martha Stewart, became the latest CEO to tell employees to get back to the office five day...
June 30, 2023
Three Keys to Get Unstuck and Ignite Innovation
Is your community or organization in need of a jump start? We have big problems to solve, but uncertainty, complexity, and fatigue can get in the way. Kate shares why and how Strategic Doing is the right tool to get unstuck and rebuild momentum.
May 16, 2023
The Creativity of Foresight and the Future of Creativity
In this Q&A session, Rebecca Ryan delves into the world of Teva Dawson, the visionary founder of Group Creative Services, a public art consultancy. Exploring the intersec...
May 9, 2023
The History and Future of Work in 3 Acts
“Nothing can happen for decades, and then decades happen in weeks.” - Scottish MP George Galloway Act 1: The Before Times Let’s accept that work has always been and w...
March 8, 2023
We Are What We Communicate
One day I walked in the front door of our offices with the mobile phone stuck to my ear. I was having a rather pointed conversation about a project, and the frustration I...
February 28, 2023
A Clear Vision is a North Star. It's Not a Destination. It's a Guidance System.
[Author's note: this was originally published in our newsletter. Subscribe here.] A couple of years ago, we worked with a senior leadership team to develop a 2050 vision...
January 27, 2023
Five Weak Signals for 2023
[Author's note: if you want to be the first to see content like this, join thousands of change-makers who subscribe to our Signals newsletter. Want to read back issues? H...
January 22, 2023
The Future Is Ours To Disrupt
Disruption is inevitable. How ready are you or your organization? What do the H1N1 and the Covid-19 pandemics teach us about effective preparations?
November 12, 2022
4 Ways Cognitive Biases Help You
Are cognitive biases bad? No. We need cognitive biases. Our brain developed these biases, AKA shortcuts, to prevent us from becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed by lif...
August 12, 2022
Preparing for a new day in leadership, finance, and innovation
Insights from our Futures Friday episode with experts in municipal finance and governance, government innovation, and foresight
July 12, 2022
What Does Your BIG Future Look Like?
Defining a "Big Future" is an art and science. David offers examples of how this looks at the personal, business, and community levels.
June 30, 2022
Insights from Chambers of Commerce for Brighter Futures
Lessons from chambers of commerce facing a triple challenge -- a pandemic, economic recession, and civil unrest
June 28, 2022
Exploring Crypto’s Future Using VUCA Analysis
Introducing the VUCA approach and how you can use it to address the uncertainty that’s implicit in nearly every organization and community
June 7, 2022
Local Government Futures: What do we have to get right?
What do local governments have to get right to create brighter futures for their communities?
June 3, 2022
Strategy + Foresight: A CEO’s Perspective
David Brown reflects on 35 years as CEO and how his perspective on strategy has evolved.
May 31, 2022
Cognitive bias - what it is, and how it cripples foresight
When faced with something new or ambiguous, people often have difficulty seeing what it is. Futurists must be aware of cognitive bias.
May 15, 2022
Availability Heuristic
You use Availability Bias when you rely on what you can easily recall instead of what's accurate.
May 15, 2022
Bandwagon Bias
Bandwagon bias is humans' natural urge to belong and conform. It may cause us to think or act in a certain way if we believe others are doing the same.
May 15, 2022
The Strategy Paradox
Those who are paid to think strategically spend an average of just 90 seconds to 4.5 minutes per day doing so.
April 22, 2022
How Ready Are YOU For These 5 Weak Signals?
Which of these weak signals are relevant to your community or organization? How ready are you to respond to them?
April 20, 2022
What Is 'ESG' and Does it Matter to My Future?
How are you preparing to attract and leverage ESG criteria and investments?
March 23, 2022
Walking our Talk: Exploring Market Opportunities à la Futurist
We pull the curtain back and share how we apply foresight internally
March 11, 2022
Hope as a Strategy
From our conversation with Australian futurist Rowena Morrow: What’s hope theory? How might we use it? How does it relate to strategic foresight?
January 7, 2022
Why We Future This Way
Here are some of the shared principles we use in our work to tailor the strategic foresight process to each client while keeping it relevant, practical, engaging, and fun.
December 13, 2021
Think like a Futurist: Understanding bias in futuring
Good futurists recognize their cognitive biases and work to overcome them. In this article, we go over examples and hacks.
June 29, 2021
Navigating the Messy Middle with Three Horizons
Three Horizons is a useful foresight tool to help you navigate between old systems and emerging systems.
June 15, 2021
Post traumatic growth: Four strategies after COVID19
COVID19 has traumatized many of us. In this article Dr. Charlie Grantham explains trauma, what the danger zone is, and four strategies to emerge stronger.
April 19, 2021
Getting through the ‘Messy Middle’
Tips for writing generative questions and a process for brainstorming and choosing a series of kick-ass projects like domino pieces to build a path to what's coming.
April 13, 2021
5 questions reveal what matters
Confronting the future - in this case, your death - can be deeply clarifying. This is Rebecca's 5-question technique to jump-start a more intentional life.
April 7, 2021
New to foresight? Start here.
What do professional futurists do? What is strategic foresight? How is this related to strategic planning? How can I learn more? And more!
April 1, 2021
Oxen don't pivot - why 2021 is the year for steady, strategic progress
Forget about making a "pivot." Futurist Rebecca Ryan argues that we've already pivoted. Now it's time to get to work on building brighter futures.
February 16, 2021
Upcoming Events: Join us at Futures Friday
Here's a list of upcoming webinars. Please join us!
February 12, 2021
Finding the way forward among alternative futures
In strategic foresight, “crossover levers" are strategies that allow us to shift from “What could happen?” to “What are you going to do about it?”
November 18, 2020
Developing a futurist’s mindset: stop watching the news and start noticing
How do futurists think? Learn a technique to become a better futurist, visionary, and change maker.
November 2, 2020
Developing a futurist’s mindset: signals and sensemaking
Your ability to detect and make sense of signals is critical to developing a futurist's mindset. Rebecca shares tips, techniques, and examples.
September 13, 2020
How Red Teams improve planning
Use this approach to overcome groupthink, challenge assumptions, question the unquestionable
August 26, 2020
Are you an amateur or a pro?
Has your organization’s market position or strategic direction been thrown off course? All of us who call ourselves change-makers or visionaries are trying to beat back today’s goat rodeo so it doesn’t crowd out the long game.
August 23, 2020
Six things to know about Strategic Doing
Use these key concepts for an action-oriented approach to strategy that focuses teams on ideas that have minimum startup costs and maximum impact.
June 23, 2020
How to brainstorm brighter futures
Use this 5-step mental icebreaker game to stretch your imagination and create a more creative, flexible, curious, and futurist mindset.
June 10, 2020
Will the pandemic change us? A discussion with Dr. Peter Bishop
How might we go beyond “back to normal” after the COVID-19 pandemic? These ideas are inspired by Rebecca’s conversation with Dr. Peter Bishop and a community of over 130 participants to discuss brighter futures.
June 10, 2020
What to tell your team when everyone’s freaked out
A great antidote to being scared is to do some planning. If you’re wondering, “How does a futurist plan for a mess?”, here’s an answer.
May 6, 2020
Things that were unthinkable are now possible: the Overton Window
As our communities move through the COVID health emergency and its related economic crisis, there will be plenty of room for ideas that were once unthinkable.
April 21, 2020
One capability leaders need now
Sensemaking is a capability that all of us should be using right now to stay out of the “chaos” zone and in the “calm confidence” zone.
March 29, 2020
Scenario planning for anxious times
When you have no idea what your future will be, how can you plan? Here’s a 6-step process to get clear and get ready.
March 24, 2020
What good leaders do when anxiety is high
What do good leaders do when anxiety is running high?
March 23, 2020
Two lives: Which do you want?
This exercise helps you take the time to articulate your vision for what it means to live a meaningful life based on your felt experience.
October 15, 2019
Q&A with Zen Master Ginny Whitelaw about her book Resonate
This book was inspired by Gordon Greene Roshi’s plea to “change how change happens” with respect to our glacially slow response to climate change.
August 25, 2019
The future of truth in 5 acts
How has the definition of truth evolved over time? Rebecca Ryan breaks it down in 5 acts.
July 18, 2019
The best thing I've invented (so far) didn't make sense to anyone...but me.
Futurist Camp is a prayer that current leaders get it right so that our next generation can have it better.
June 10, 2019
I screwed up in my book, ReGeneration
I wrote a book called ReGeneration and got an important date wrong. Here's what happened.
May 18, 2019
7 performances to inspire your creativity
You’re creative, but sometimes you get stuck. Here are 7 performances to help you rev that gorgeous creative engine of yours.
January 10, 2019
8 lessons, 46 years, 1 life, and counting
"What if this was the last speech I ever gave?" Rebecca Ryan shares 8 life lessons.
December 26, 2018
