Tag Archives: futurism

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2024

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of February 2024Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are February’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Will Innovation Management Leverage AI in the Future? — by Jesse Nieminen
  2. 4 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Futurist — by Braden Kelley
  3. Master the Customer Hierarchy of Needs – Embrace Customer Expectations — by Shep Hyken
  4. Science Fiction Becomes Innovation Reality This Way — by Greg Satell
  5. Are You Engaging in Innovation Theater? — by Mike Shipulski
  6. Innovation the Star of the 2024 NBA All-Star Game — by Braden Kelley
  7. This One Word Will Transform Your Approach to Innovation — by Robyn Bolton
  8. Announcing the Second Edition of Charting Change — by Braden Kelley
  9. Resistance to Innovation – What if electric cars came first? — by Dennis Stauffer
  10. Goals Are Not the Goal — by Mike Shipulski

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in January that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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4 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Futurist

An Introduction to the FutureHacking™ methodology

FutureHacking Foresight and Futurist Primer

by Braden Kelley

The starting point for becoming your own futurist is of course to first understand what futurology (or a futurist) is. Then we must also understand what strategic and market foresight are as well.

What is Futurology (or a Futurist)?

  • Futures studies, futures research, futurism or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will live and work in the future. Predictive techniques, such as forecasting, can be applied, but contemporary futures studies scholars emphasize the importance of systematically exploring alternatives.

Source: Wikipedia

What are Strategic and Market Foresight?

  • Strategic Foresight is about combining methods of futures work with those of strategic management. It is about understanding upcoming external changes in relation to internal capabilities and drivers.
  • Market Foresight is about the consideration of possible and probable futures in the organization’s relevant business environment, and about identifying new opportunities in that space.

Source: Aalto University

Now we are ready to look at the four simple, but powerful steps to becoming your own futurist using the FutureHacking™ methodology:

STEP ONE: Picking the Signals That Matter

FutureSignals™ Radar & NowBuilder™ Canvas

  • Identify up to the eight most critical signals to monitor or amplify in order to look back, reach an innovation goal, describe them and capture for each signal what the status quo, small change and big change scenarios might look like – and which scenario is most likely.

STEP TWO: Mapping Signal Evolution

FutureSignals™ Radar Summary & Tracking

  • Summarize the most likely scenarios for up to the eight most critical signals along with their descriptions and whether you plan to monitor or amplify each. Use a tracking sheet to record changes in the signal over time – revisit and re-prioritize as needed.

STEP THREE: Choosing the Possible, Probable and Preferable Future

FutureCanvas™ & Picker (macro view)

  • Leveraging your FutureSignals™ summary, create a headline for an imagined future. Then capture the problems that have been solved, how society has changed, the new problems that may now exist and what we must do to shape the future. Rinse and Repeat.

STEP FOUR: Making Your Preferable Future a Reality

FutureSignals™ & FutureCanvas™ Action Plans (micro)

  • Leveraging your FutureSignals™ summary, create a headline for an imagined future. Then capture the key signals related to this headline, how the customer is changing and how the company must change in response.

These four simple steps to becoming your own futurist are accelerated by adopting the 20 new tools of the Futurehacking™ methodology that I have created.

“FutureHacking™ is the art and science of getting to the future first.”

It’s a methodology I’ve created that contains a suite of simple, but powerful tools at its core that will enable you to be your own futurist.

FutureHacking™ is designed to make foresight and futurology accessible to the average business professional.

Prototyping the Future

FutureHacking™ is a revolutionary approach that empowers cross-functional leadership teams to visually prototype the future and collaboratively create the roadmap and guideposts for manifesting your preferred, possible future.

FutureHacking Tool Collection

Why is Investing in Futures Research (or a Futurist) important?

  • Every stakeholder-responsible organization is compelled to realize its vision, execute its strategy, and achieve its goals – indefinitely. But, the future is uncertain. We cannot extrapolate that what has made an organization successful this year or last year will make it succeed in future years. Responsible organizations must invest in understanding the possible futures and realizing their preferable future. FutureHacking™ makes this investment much easier, cheaper and faster – helping you get to the future first.

“FutureHacking™ tools help you facilitate the future.”

Click the image to download a PDF flipbook:

Two Ways to Join the FutureHacking™ Ecosystem

  • Data and trend research partners to create service offerings as an input into the FutureSignals™ component
  • Futurists, consulting partners, and technology providers (interactive whiteboarding, etc.) to get FutureHacking™ certified and profit from the delivery of services to help people leverage the FutureSignals™, NowBuilder™ and FutureCanvas™ tools

One Way to Connect and Succeed

Contact me if you think you have a compelling partnership value proposition and subscribe to my newsletter below to find out when the certification program and facilitated off-site offerings are launched!

Image credit: Pixabay

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Thinking Like a Futurist

Thinking Like A Futurist

GUEST POST from Ayelet Baron

A CEO’s recent request for a workshop on Thinking Like a Futurist got me thinking. We all have the power to engage with the unknown and be active players in shaping our future.

Imagine being invited to attend an interactive workshop where you bring an item—real or conceptual—that might shape life two decades from now. What’s your “future artifact”?

Thinking like a futurist is not a guessing game. We become navigators with a vast imagination and curiosity. We observe, consider possible scenarios, and ask what it means for us. It’s about connecting today’s reality with a horizon full of opportunities; not problems to be solved.

We do more than just talk about the future. We connect with people from different backgrounds to get a full view of what’s coming. The goal is to highlight futures that make us want to be a part of them right away.

Being a futurist isn’t just about thinking; we spark action. We highlight opportunities that need our focus now, setting the stage for a healthy future for everyone. We lead in a way that combines tech with our human side. First comes our purpose, and the rest falls into place.

If life doesn’t improve for people, it won’t be because our machines are too smart or not smart enough. It will be because we quit dreaming big. If we ever stop imagining and creating, then we’re no different from machines.

Navigators of Possibilities

Business landscapes are evolving at a dizzying pace. The old playbooks no longer work and structures are falling apart. This is especially true when tech and systems mess with our mental health and keep unconscious leaders in place.

The way forward? Craft vibrant visions of the future and dive headfirst into experimentation. We’re not confined to notions of success or failure; it’s about exploring what comes to life when ideas turn into tangible creations that suppprt our wellbeing.

Being a futurist helps you see the big picture. Looking at many kinds of work and gathering ideas makes our view of the future richer. Waiting to see what the future brings? That’s like missing out on life.

We can take charge. When we know different ways the future could go, we can change course. Even if something unexpected happens, we’re ready for playing with the mystery of the unknown.

So why not envision a world where we’re all futurists? A world where we don’t dwell in the past but engage fully with the present, piloting new possibilities right here, right now.

Imagination is our window into the future. Advancing the edge of possibility means that someday, with our contributions, these visions of the future can become a reality.

Maybe each one of us in not only an architect of the future but also is here to be an architect of our own humanity.

Architects shape more than just buildings; they shape experiences. They create parks that invite community gatherings, libraries that become havens for thought, and community centers that encourage social bonds.

As an architect of humanity, we know what’s healthy and unhealthy for us so we create a healthy life.

Let’s focus on creating a future that nurtures our humanity, supports our values, and deepens our connections with each other. Opening doors wide to our future is crucial to thinking like a futurist.

Think a Futurist could help your organization thrive? Reach out to dive deeper into possibilities …

First published, 9.21.23 Daily Trek.

Image credit: Pexels

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Unintended Consequences.  The Hidden Risk of Fast-Paced Innovation

Unintended Consequences.  The Hidden Risk of Fast-Paced Innovation

GUEST POST from Pete Foley

Most innovations go through a similar cycle, often represented as an s-curve.

We start with something potentially game changing. It’s inevitably a rough-cut diamond; un-optimized and not fully understood.  But we then optimize it. This usually starts with a fairly steep leaning curve as we address ‘low hanging fruit’ but then evolves into a fine-tuning stage.  Eventually we squeeze efficiency from it to the point where the incremental cost of improving it becomes inefficient.  We then either commoditize it, or jump to another s-curve.

This is certainly not a new model, and there are multiple variations on the theme.  But as the pace of innovation accelerates, something fundamentally new is happening with this s-curve pattern.  S-curves are getting closer together. Increasingly we are jumping to new s-curves before we’ve fully optimized the previous one.  This means that we are innovating quickly, but also that we are often taking more ‘leaps into the dark’ than ever before.

This has some unintended consequences of its own:

1. Cumulative Unanticipated Consequences. No matter how much we try to anticipate how a new technology will fare in the real world, there are always surprises.  Many surprises emerge soon after we hit the market, and create fires than have to be put out quite quickly (and literally in the cases of some battery technologies).  But other unanticipated effects can be slower burn (pun intended).  The most pertinent example of this is of course greenhouse gasses from Industrialization, and their impact on our climate. This of course took us years to recognize. But there are many more examples, including the rise of antibiotic resistance, plastic pollution, hidden carcinogens, the rising cost of healthcare and the mental health issues associated with social media. Just as the killer application for a new innovation is often missed at its inception, it’s killer flaws can be too.  And if the causal relationship between these issues and the innovation are indirect, they can accumulate across multiple s-curves before we notice them.  By the time we do, technology is often so entrenched it can be a huge challenge to extract ourselves from it.

2.  Poorly understood complex network effects.  The impact of new innovation is very hard to predict when it is introduced into a complex, multivariable system.  A butterfly flapping its wings can cascade and amplify through a system, and when the butterfly is transformative technology, the effect can be profound.  We usually have line of sight of first generation causal effects:  For example, we know that electric cars use an existing electric grid, as do solar energy farms.  But in today’s complex, interconnected world, it’s difficult to predict second, third or fourth generation network effects, and likely not cost effective or efficient for an innovator to try and do so. For example, the supply-demand interdependency of solar and electric cars is a second-generation network effect that we are aware of, but that is already challenging to fully predict.  More causally distant effects can be even more challenging. For example, funding for the road network without gas tax, the interdependency of gas and electric cost and supply as we transition, the impact that will have on broader on global energy costs and socio political stability.  Then add in complexities supply of new raw materials needed to support the new battery technologies.  These are pretty challenging to model, and of course, are the challenges we are at least aware of. The unanticipated consequences of such a major change are, by definition, unanticipated!

3. Fragile Foundations.  In many cases, one s-curve forms the foundation of the next.  So if we have not optimized the previous s-curve sufficiently, flaws potentially carry over into the next, often in the form of ‘givens’.  For example, an electric car is a classic s-curve jump from internal combustion engines.  But for reasons that include design efficiency, compatibility with existing infrastructure, and perhaps most importantly, consumer cognitive comfort, much of the supporting design and technology carries over from previous designs. We have redesigned the engine, but have only evolved wheels, breaks, etc., and have kept legacies such as 4+ seats.  But automotives are in many, one of our more stable foundations. We have had a lot of time to stabilize past s-curves before jumping to new ones.  But newer technologies such as AI, social media and quantum computing have enjoyed far less time to stabilize foundational s-curves before we dance across to embrace closely spaced new ones.  That will likely increase the chances of unintended consequences. And we are already seeing the canary in the coal mine with some, with unexpected mental health and social instability increasingly associated with social media

What’s the Answer?  We cannot, or should not stop innovating.  We face too many fundamental issues with climate, food security and socio political stability that need solutions, and need them quite quickly.

But the conundrum we face is that many, if not all of these issue are rooted in past, well intentioned innovation, and the unintended consequences that derive from it. So a lot of our innovation efforts are focused on solving issues created by previous rounds of innovation.  Nobody expected or intended the industrial revolution to impact our climate, but now much of our current innovation capability is rightly focused on managing the fall out it has created (again, pun intended).  Our challenge is that we need to continue to innovate, but also to break the cycle of todays innovation being increasingly focused on fixing yesterdays!

Today new waves of innovation associated with ‘sustainable’ technology, genetic manipulation, AI and quantum computing are already crashing onto our shores. These interdependent innovations will likely dwarf the industrial revolution in scale and complexity, and have the potential for massive impact, both good and bad. And they are occurring at a pace that gives us little time to deal with anticipated consequences, let alone unanticipated ones.

We’ll Find a Way?  One answer is to just let it happen, and fix things as we go. Innovation has always been a bumpy road, and humanity has a long history of muddling through. The agricultural revolution ultimately allowed humans to exponentially expand our population, but only after concentrating people into larger social groups that caused disease to ravage many societies. We largely solved that by dying in large numbers and creating herd immunity. It was a solution, but not an optimum one.  When London was in danger of being buried in horse poop, the internal combustion engine saved us, but that in turn ultimately resulted in climate change. According to projections from the Club of Rome in the 70’s, economic growth should have ground to a halt long ago, mired in starvation and population contraction.  Instead advances in farming technology have allowed us to keep growing.  But that increase in population contributes substantially to our issues with climate today.  ‘We’ll find a way’ is an approach that works until it doesn’t.  and even when it works, it is usually not painless, and often simply defers rather than solves issues.

Anticipation?    Another option is that we have to get better at both anticipating issues, and at triaging the unexpected. Maybe AI will give us the processing power to do this, provided of course that it doesn’t become our biggest issue in of itself.

Slow Down and Be More Selective?  In a previous article I asked if ‘just because we can do it, does it mean we should?’.  That was through a primarily moral lens.  But I think unintended consequences make this an even bigger question for broader innovation strategy.  The more we innovate, the more consequences we likely create.  And the faster we innovate, the more vulnerable we are to fragility. Slowing down creates resilience, speed reduces it.  So one option is to be more choiceful about innovations, and look more critically at benefit risk balance. For example, how badly do we need some of the new medications and vaccines being rushed to market?  Is all of our gene manipulation research needed? Do we really need a new phone every two years?   For sure, in some cases the benefits are clear, but in other cases, is profit driving us more than it should?

In a similar vein, but to be provocative, are we also moving too quickly with renewable energy?  It certainly something we need.  But are we, for example, pinning too much on a single, almost first generation form of large scale solar technology?  We are still at that steep part of the learning curve, so are quite likely missing unintended consequences.  Would a more staged transition over a decade or so add more resilience, allow us to optimize the technology based on real world experience, and help us ferret out unanticipated issues? Should we be creating a more balanced portfolio, and leaning more on more established technology such as nuclear? Sometimes moving a bit more slowly ultimately gets you there faster, and a long-term issue like climate is a prime candidate for balancing speed, optimization and resilience to ultimately create a more efficient, robust and better understood network.

The speed of AI development is another obvious question, but I suspect more difficult to evaluate.  In this case, Pandora’s box is open, and calls to slow AI research would likely mean responsible players would stop, but research would continue elsewhere, either underground or in less responsible nations.  A North Korean AI that is superior to anyone else’s is an example where the risk of not moving likely outweighs the risk of unintended consequences

Regulation?  Regulation is a good way of forcing more thoughtful evaluation of benefit versus risk. But it only works if regulators (government) understand technology, or at least its benefits versus risks, better than its developers.  This can work reasonably well in pharma, where we have a long track record. But it is much more challenging in newer areas of technology. AI is a prime example where this is almost certainly not the case.  And as the complexity of all innovation increases, regulation will become less effective, and increasingly likely to create unintended consequences of its own.

I realize that this may all sound a bit alarmist, and certainly any call to slow down renewable energy conversion or pharma development is going to be unpopular.  But history has shown that slowing down creates resilience, while speeding up creates instability and waves of growth and collapse.  And an arms race where much of our current innovative capability is focused on fixing issues created by previous innovations is one we always risk losing.  So as unanticipated consequences are by definition, really difficult to anticipate, is this a point in time where we in the innovation community need to have a discussion on slowing down and being more selective?  Where should we innovate and where not?  When should we move fast, and when we might be better served by some productive procrastination.  Do we need better risk assessment processes? It’s always easier to do this kind of analysis in hindsight, but do we really have that luxury?

Image credit: Pixabay

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What are Strategic and Market Foresight?

What are Strategic and Market Foresight?

by Braden Kelley

In my previous article What’s Next – Through the Looking Glass we explored the notion that time is not linear and this is a key part of the FutureHacking™ mindset.

To paraphrase, we get to the future not in a straight line, but by hopping from lily pad to lily pad and as we do so our landings create ripples outward in all directions and our jump direction choices and the amplitude of the ripples at each waypoint determines the shape of our path choice and our view on the potential future. And ultimately futurology and futurism are the disciplines of exploring potential, possible and preferable futures.

Only from a continuous commitment to this exploration can any organization have any chance of ongoing success. But trying to make sense of the future and to find productive ways to shape it – feels incredibly dauting to most people.

To simplify this complexity, I created the FutureHacking™ methodology and tools to enable us average humans to become our own futurist.

“FutureHacking™ is the art and science of getting to the future first.”

This is our goal. To get better at finding the best possible path and the best ripples to amplify. Doing so optimizes our distance and chosen directions so that we arrive at our preferred future. The FutureHacking™ methodology and tools make this not only possible, but accessible, so that we’ll put in the work – and reap the benefits!

This article is another in a series designed to make foresight and futurology accessible to the average business professional. Below we will look at what Strategic and Market Foresight are and how they drive ongoing business success. First some definitions:

  • Strategic Foresight is about combining methods of futures work with those of strategic management. It is about understanding upcoming external changes in relation to internal capabilities and drivers.
  • Market Foresight is about the consideration of possible and probable futures in the organization’s relevant business environment, and about identifying new opportunities in that space.
  • Source: Aalto University

Strategic Foresight and Market Foresight are two tools in our toolbox as we sharpen our focus on the potential and possible futures as we work to define a preferable future and a path to creating it.

Market Foresight gives us permission to explore how the market we compete in is likely to change as we move forward. This includes looking at how customers may change, how their consumption of existing products and services might change, and how changing customer wants and needs will create the potential for new products, and services, and even markets. Economics, demographics, trends and other factors all have a factor to play here, and we need methods for exploring the impact of each.

Strategic Foresight gives us permission to make shifts in strategy. The magic happens when we productively look both internally and externally to identify the most important changes that we can influence AND that we would monitor. The better we can understand the external changes most likely to occur (or that we want to occur), the more focus we can bring to identifying the internal capabilities that we will need to strengthen and the capabilities that we will need to build OR to buy & integrate.

The most successful organizations do a good job of matching their timeline for strategic and capability changes to the pace of market changes that are occurring. And while not explicitly mentioned, the pacing and branching of technology is a big consideration in both Strategic Foresight and Market Foresight.

Good Market Foresight will give you a better view to where the lily pads will be, and good Strategic Foresight (and investments) will help strengthen your jumping legs and propel you through a more optimal path – increasing your chances of getting to the future first!

Public resources for those that want to learn more about Strategic Foresight:

To learn more about Market Foresight, increase your knowledge of:

  • Market Research methods
  • Trendwatching/Trendhunting
  • Innovation frameworks

FutureHacking™ is Within Our Grasp

I’ve created a collection of 20+ FutureHacking™ tools to help you be your own futurist.

These tools will be available to license soon, and I’ll be holding virtual, and possibly in-person, workshops to explain how to use these simple tools to identify a range of potential futures, to select a preferred future, and activities to help influence its realization.

I think you’ll really like them, but in the meantime, I invite you to share your thoughts on how you look at and plan for the future in the comments below.

Finally, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to get our weekly collection of articles, along with updates on the forthcoming FutureHacking™ set of tools.

Keep innovating!


Accelerate your change and transformation success

Image credit: Pixabay

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Chance to Help Make Futurism and Foresight Accessible

I’ve been hard at work building all kinds of tools to help innovation, change, transformation and design thinking practitioners be more successful in their jobs.

The number of human-centered tools in the Change Planning Toolkit v13 from the initial fifty (50) to more than SEVENTY.

I also introduced lots of inexpensive tools like the:

  1. $9.99 – Problem Finding Canvas
  2. FREE – Innovation Maturity Assessment
  3. FREE – Visual Project Charter™
  4. FREE – Experiment Canvas™
  5. FREE – ACMP Standard for Change Management® Visualization

And the core of the forthcoming Human-Centered Innovation Toolkit is well underway.

But I’ve also been exploring the very obtuse realm of futurism and foresight and pondering how to make it more accessible to us ordinary humans, and I think I’ve done it!

Chance to Help Make Futurism Accessible

I’ve created a set of TWENTY (20) simple but powerful foresight and futurism tools to power my FutureHacking™ methodology.

To spread them farther and faster I’m looking to partner with a forward-thinking organization to bring them to market.

  • Does your organization view itself as leading its customers into the future?
  • Are you looking for an amazing marketing opportunity?
  • One that would empower thousands of innovation and strategy professionals to do their own foresight and futurism work?

If so, then contact me here and we’ll build a launch plan together that connects your brand to a powerful new FutureHacking™ movement!

FutureHacking Tools Collection

Benefits to you will include, but will not be limited to:

  1. Joint promotion of your brand via my site, social media, email newsletters, etc.
  2. Presence of your logo as a sponsor on the tools and educational assets
  3. Access to the tools for your employees
  4. Other ideas you suggest!

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