Category / Futures Thinking

by Roger Dennis

Interview with Bill Cockayne – Director Stanford Centre for Critical Foresight

I recently got in touch with Bill Cockayne at Stanford.  The conversation was wide and varied – as you’d expect  – and among other things we discussed the Shell Technology Futures work I’d done with Innovaro. As he lectures at Stanford on foresight and innovation, I was interested in his perspective on some of the issues that I had encountered with various organisations.  With that in mind, I asked him four questions:

1. While a lot of people may describe you as a futurist, your work extends a lot further than that.  Do you have a title that sums up your work?

Innovation is the simplest word.
My team and I take the stance that future that will exist is the one we build.
We’ve developed our tools and methods with the goal of helping potential innovators move from thinking critically about the long-term to building… starting today… the future that will emerge.

2. In my work I see a continuum between foresight, strategy, innovation and design. I expect that you have a similar view, and, if so, where do you see the links between these disciplines?

The links are the most important part, and at the same time the last understood. But they are not hard to understand.

The links exist at the boundaries between “disciplines.” But like the ampersand in R&D, the link is often viewed as a boundary between research and development. I’m sure we’ve all heard the old adage about “throwing it over the wall” as being the biggest problem in actually doing R&D. And at the same time we’ve read the stories of the innovations that can occur when real researchers and developers made the link.

Viewed this way, the links that make the innovation process work — from foresight to the next new thing — are the result of the practitioners. Our tools and methods help, say, a foresight thinker to anticipate the information that the strategist and engineer need, then work hard communicate his learning to them. At the same time, he must play a role in helping the strategist and engineer to understand his needs as a partner in the overall process. So it is with these two pieces — an understanding of how the knowledge I create in the innovation process will be used by others, and a focus on communicating it in a way that they can use it — that the links work.

3. Many consultancies confuse the four disciplines, and try to sell themselves in areas where they lack experience.  For example, I’ve witnessed one of the worlds best design agencies try to sell themselves as strategists. In your experience which organisations have a good understanding of how to traverse the spectrum between foresight and design?

The list of companies that have succeeded in bringing truly innovative solutions to the world span industries, eras, and inventions. So it is from these stories that I’d look for our best understanding of connecting foresight to innovation. The answer to the question of who has the best understanding is the same in each and every story — it is the people who imagine building a better future, and who then take it upon themselves to do the building.

4. Given the current economic climate, what is your advice for an organisation that is toying with the idea of cutting back on strategic innovation?

As we’ve all read, this economic environment is the best time to invest in the discovery and creation of the next big thing. The reasons are well understood, and yet it’s not easy for companies to be thinking and investing long-term when they are so busy delivering the next product. My only recommendation to companies lately is to worry less about “thinking long-term” and more about “planning the next few steps.”

A company knows when it hopes to deliver that new product to its customers. The company is planning for that next new opportunity developing in the marketplace. And it has developed the financial and talent plans for making these events happen. Any company that is thinking ahead, planning, and then making sure to measure how well it performs to plan, is doing exactly the right thing in this and any other economic environment. At which point I might mischievously ask, “if you are happy with your plans… have you thought about what you’re going to do after those plans come to fruition?”

There’s a nice bio of Bill here, along with a video of him speaking at LIFT 08.

by Roger Dennis

Sustainability and long term thinking (guest post)

In futures thinking there is an increasing level of conversation around sustainability, and the concepts that surround it.  It’s worth a closer look, and with this in mind I asked Tim Nichols to weigh in with his view. Tim came recommended by a colleague and as a recent graduate, brings a fresh and informed perspective (in June 2008, he completed a Masters in Strategic Sustainable Development at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden).  Here’s Tim’s view:

What is meant by sustainability? For many people who work to promote the idea, the essence of the concept is centred on cultivating long-term thinking. The goal is to get people to be thinking about the repercussions of the actions beyond their lives. In essence, think about your grandchildren.

This seems easy enough, but it actually goes against human nature. We thrive on immediate satisfaction; feed me when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired, etc. And we have ingrained this methodology for life into the fabric of existence, with everything at our disposal and disposable. The “take, make, waste” mantra of our culture has put us on a speeding train into an unknown abyss. And currently, actions to try to stop the train has had been the equivalent of throwing marshmallows on the tracks, soft, easy to swallow but doing nothing.

Fortunately, sustainability was the buzzword of 2008, so the seeds have been sown. And it is unlikely that the core targets of sustainability: degradation of the environment, pollution from heavy metals and toxic chemicals, and the destruction of humans ability to meet their basic needs, will not be as easily altered as changing buzzwords. The current economic atmosphere offers the perfect opportunity for society to call on business and government to come together to form a model that has a more long-term view.

Without risking being called an alarmist, or underestimating the brilliantly resilient nature of humans, it seems we have been given another, possibly last, chance. With a plethora of scientists claiming that we are pushing the ecological thresholds of multiple natural systems, as well as the ever-increasing population surviving on constantly decreasing natural resources, there’s no time like the present.

Sustainable Futures covers an area too wide to fully define. However, it will require the collaboration of business and NGO, Government and 3rd Sector, communities and business, and on and on to ensure full participation. These groups must come together to establish where sustainability needs to be, and understand where it’s at now. They can then develop a plan to move from where they are to where they want to go, always with that clear, collaboratively formed vision of a sustainable future.

Timothy J. Nichols is an independent Sustainability Strategist for the public, private, and third sector. Current partners include Energizer Batteries, Clarks Shoes, Student Partnership Worldwide and the Brixton Pound, a local community currency to be launched in September 2009. The Brixton Pound is part of a greater movement called Transition Town which seeks to engage communities on how they can move towards becoming low-carbon communities. Tim is also affiliated with The Hub, a worldwide organization which provides a space for entrepreneurs focusing on social and sustainable projects.  In addition to sustainability, Tim is passionate about writing, biking and beer.

by Roger Dennis

Shell Technology Futures

From 2006-2008 I spent the majority of my time working alongside the Shell Gamechanger team in The Hague. It was a fascinating exercise on many fronts.

Firstly I was based in New Zealand and working for Innovaro in London for a client which although had some of it’s team in The Hague, could meet anywhere in the world.  Inevitably London and The Hague worked fine for us, although Houston or Bangalore would have equally fine. Personally Europe worked well for me as I could regularly visit Singapore on the way – a city with a firm view on the future (but that’s another story).

Secondly, as an organisation Shell is arguably the best user of scenarios in the world. Innovaro’s Technology Futures programme dovetailed into – and fed – the scenario development.  Innovaro ran the programme in 2004, again in 2007 and there should be another update in 2010.

The Technology Futures programme built a view of the impact of technology on society in the next twenty years. To construct something that was robust  – but still captured enough leading edge thinking – was a detailed process.  the summary is as follows : identify which adjacent sectors can impact upon the core business (either postively or negatively), seek out the subject matter experts in these sectors, gather them together for a week and then synthesise the output of the sessions.

We assembled a huge variety of people – from those who are pioneering the creation of life from scratch, to Mars roboticists and architects that are designing massive new green cities in China (the workshops are held under Chatham House rules which means that I cannot name the people or organisations that were represented). The conversations that resulted were compelling, intriguing, confronting, dynamic and never dull.

From the discussion we created a view of the world in twenty years time.  What is interesting about this view is that we can track everything back to a spark in a peer reviewed journal, or the commentary of a world expert in a certain field.

In this instance there were a series of outputs, the most visible being the book I co-edited and breathed into life (along with Barry Fox of New Scientist fame).  The book is also the only publicly accessible output from the programme, and you can download it here (5MB PDF).

The book is also the only publication to leave Shell without being edited by the PR department and as such is an untouched view of the Technology Futures programme.

The Innovaro Futures programmes are a proven way of seeking out white space opportunities for organisations looking to find new high-growth businesses, but they are also applicable at a macro level.  Innovaro has been talking to Governments about the possibility of running the programme at a country level, and this would be a natural fit for the process.

People get intrigued by the programme, but in the interests of blogging brevity I will close this post.  Howewver if you are interested to know more, please drop me a mail (now *at* rogerdennis.com)

by Roger Dennis

Cisco and innovation cycles

From the Dec/Jan 09 issue of Fast Company magazine comes a great article about Cisco.  Several paragraphs of note including:

Get ready for the upturn. “What’s our vision for where this industry is going with or without us?” That, [CEO John Cambers] says, is a five-year horizon. “What is our differentiated strategy within that vision?” That’s a two- to four-year plan. “How are we going to execute in the next 12 to 18 months?”

Chambers is convinced that the role of the CEO has to morph. He recalls a lesson he learned working for An Wang of Wang Laboratories, whom he has often called one of the smartest people he’s ever known: “One person cannot anticipate a market transition. At Wang, we transitioned four times, but we missed the fifth, from mini computers to PC and software. If you don’t catch them [all], you leave your company behind.”

It is Ron Ricci’s (Cisco VP) job to translate Chambers’s ideas into action — as he puts it, “I’m John’s scaling machine” — and he was the chief architect with Chambers of the new quasi-socialist Cisco. They were inspired in part, Ricci says, by management guru Gary Hamel’s ideas about the need to democratize strategy and distribute leadership in order to stimulate innovation.

Full article here.

by Roger Dennis

The Future of Futurists

Over at Relevant History  Alex Soojung-Kim Pang of the IFTF has one of the most interesting things I’ve read for a while about foresight and futures thinking.  It’s a work in progress as he admits, but there were two paragraphs that immediately caught my attention:

…This could have profound implications for futures. It would shift the profession from one that communicates through texts, mainly influences leaders and elites, and influences strategic processes, to one that communicates through things, influences large number of people, and informs everyday decision-making. But this is an essential transformation, as it would give us the ability to help solve the critical problems of the 21st century– problems that, I contend, futures as it currently is practiced is ill-equipped to confront.

This is something that resonates with me.  I’ve always maintained that black and white documents composed on A4 paper are generally useful only for a small subset of people who love having an office full of filing cabinets.  For the rest of us, they’re about as useful as a rubber cheesegrater.

Give people a document and they’ll file it (a few – if you’re lucky – might read it)

Give people an experience and they will live it.

However I don’t entirely agree with the second paragraph that caught my attention :

To make the consequences of specific actions immediately visible, we will communicate primarily through things rather than texts, through interfaces rather than scenarios or stories. Finally, our work will need to be crafted to continuously reshape small behaviors, rather than grand strategy.

Good storytelling is something that has been proven to work throughout history.  You can tell stories through interfaces, but the stories are the key.

I look forward to seeing how the discussion develops…

by Roger Dennis

GE and “white spaces”

Over the holiday break I caught up on some very long overdue reading.  Quite a bit of it in fact.

One issue of FastCompany magazine had a fascinating article about GE and how the company uncovers new opportunities. It appears to be very much in the vein of the work that we do at Innovaro:

Immelt and other top GE strategists love to talk about the opportunities presented by “white spaces” and “adjacencies” — corporate-speak for untapped markets that the company wants to develop, and for expansion opportunities that one GE business unit can pass along to another.

Given the article was written in the middle of 2008, in the current economic climate it would be very revealing to see if this type of strategic foresight is still going ahead at GE, or if it has been cut back.

by Roger Dennis

McKinsey on strategy in uncertain times

The recent issue of the McKinsey update had a couple of articles that weighed in on strategic planning in uncertain times.  A couple of these were worth sharing:

Remember that the most important decisions for most companies will truly be […the ones where there is little level of certainty.]  Our standard strategic-planning tool kits—the ones that we are most comfortable with and that we learn in MBA programs—don’t do a really good job for that.

So we ought to pay attention to this wake-up call. Embrace uncertainty. Get to know it. In uncertainty lies great opportunity. If you don’t try to understand what’s separating the known from the unknown from the unknowable, you’re really missing out.

(from an interview with Hugh Courtney, author of 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World)

The second article starts with this:

There is nothing like a crisis to clarify the mind. In suddenly volatile and different times, you must have a strategy. I don’t mean most of the things people call strategy—mission statements, audacious goals, three- to five-year budget plans. I mean a real strategy.

For many managers, the word has become a verbal tic. Business lingo has transformed marketing into marketing strategy, data processing into IT strategy, acquisitions into growth strategy. Cut prices and you have a low-price strategy. Equating strategy with success, audacity, or ambition creates still more confusion. A lot of people label anything that bears the CEO’s signature as strategic—a definition based on the decider’s pay grade, not the decision.

By strategy, I mean a cohesive response to a challenge. A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge. The most important element of a strategy is a coherent viewpoint about the forces at work, not a plan.

(From the article “Strategy in a Structural Break“)

Both extracts provide good food for thought with regards to the strategy process – whether in a crisis or not.

(Note – just finished an intensive three day workshop that involved weeks of planning, so apologies for the break regular transmission.  Service will now return to normal…)

by Roger Dennis

Reporting from the Future – Fake NY Times site

For various clients  – on various projects – I’ve worked up fake front page newspapers from the future.  It’s an excellent way of getting people to think about the future in a more tangible manner.

However this site is in a whole new league, and is unbelievably good. Check out the date of the site. What’s more staggering is that the paper also went out in print.

The adverts are as good as the content  – one of my favourites is below:

 Hats off to The Yes Men.

(via IFTF)

by Roger Dennis

Gary Hamel on foresight, strategy and innovation

A quote that resonated:

The future is much more important than the new, the hip and the cool. The fashion and communications industries may rely on a constant feed of zeitgeisty whims, but product designers and strategists need to develop a deeper understanding of change. Our timeframes are too long and problems too complex for such fluff. Management thinker Gary Hamel frames foresight as being “prescient about the size and shape of tomorrow’s opportunities” by building an “assumption base about the future” based on “deep insights into the trends.” His advice that “strategy must be created from the future backwards, not the present forwards” also underlines the short-termism of much of today’s innovation activity which places too much emphasis on what consumers said last month.

From Core77