IMAGINE FORESIGHT
STRATEGIC FUTURES
When you think about it, everything we do in our lives is about the future. The ability to think about the long term future is actually one defining characteristic of being human. Yet, the tools to understand change and the future are rarely taught. Fear not! We are a part of a professional community that takes future thinking very seriously and partners with corporations, national/local governments, and NGOs around the world. We are also the first people to tell you that you shouldn't try to predict the future, instead you should focus on anticipating the changes that are important to you.
We are here to help!
The simple case for Foresight
Time is money. Change costs you time by forcing you to react. Change is already costing you more money than you realize and ANY amount of that change which can be anticipated, allows you to be better prepared which saves you time - which saves you money. Foresight is a cost-saving strategy for your bottom line. A study published in the Harvard Business Review showed that businesses who use foresight have at a MINIMUM 5% revenue increase over businesses that do not.
Chances are that you're in an organization who has a 5-year (or less) strategic plan based on current trends and other hard data. In our present environment of rapid and change, there is simply too much uncertainty in the assumptions behind that hard data and a different skillset is required to anticipate longer term change.
If 5 years is your target time horizon, then you need to anticipate how the world might change in those 5 years. Not only do you want to achieve your goals by that target date, you want to also be set up well to achieve your next 5-year planning horizon goals. This makes it necessary to anticipate change at least 10-years into the future for even a 5-year strategic plan.
You don't want to only base the goals of your strategic plan on the things you wish you had today, which results in you attaining those goals which are prime for a world 5-years in the past.
The truth is that short-term thinking causes more problems than you realize! While focusing on "putting out fires" day-to-day may feel like your top priority, it is a vicious cycle that leads to even more short-termism, more problems and a stress-induced emotional/cognitive decision making burden that you don't deserve.
Foresight will improve your planning, lead to fewer "fires to be put out," provide greater cognitive clarity, confidence and agency for the day-to-day decisions being made. In addition, the process of using foresight - for any purpose - provides a myriad of extra benefits outlined below.
Who uses Foresight?
The short answer is that since everything we do is about the future, it can be used by anyone. The better answer is that we all carry assumptions about the future that shape the way we live our lives and the decisions we make for our organizations. We are all wrong about those assumptions in some way. Anytime decisions are being made that could impact your long-term future, you should be asking whether those assumptions are being challenged.
Businesses
At least 25% of all fortune 500 companies are using foresight either as an internally trained team or through outside consultants. While most foresight is heavily used by large and industry-leading businesses, there are ways to incorporate it for any size. Any business who plans to exist in five years can use foresight, even a small start-up. Any business who plans to sell soon and who has never used foresight before, can also benefit.
Non-Profits / NGOs
Whatever problem in the world you are attempting to fix, you need to understand the future of that problem so that your fixes are sustainable. In fact, if you address any of the United Nations Sustainability Goals (SDGs), the U.N. itself is directing you to use foresight as a central component of your strategy as outlined in the Pact for the Future introduced at the Summit of the Future in 2024.
Government
Foresight is built for building buy-in to a collective future where all parties can see themselves. The U.N. has fully adopted foresight, European countries are heavily invested (particularly Wales), Dubai has become the epicenter of foresight work in the world and requires all government agencies to have a foresight component. Famously, foresight was used in the end of apartheid in South Africa. Any region/city/town that produces a comprehensive plan should be using foresight to leverage community intelligence and to future proof the plan using alternative versions of what the future of your area could be.
Schools
Education is incredibly volatile and constantly trying to keep up with change. Also, most education is centered on preparing children for the future, but we generally don't teach the tools that will help them understand how to navigate the future. There are many futurists working in education and Teach the Future is a wonderful program that pairs normal curriculum lessons with a future twist to develop futures-thinking skillsets.
Leaders
A large part of leadership is anticipation and decision-making that impacts the long-term future. If you are a leader or want to be a leader, you should be using foresight.
Individual Roles in Organizations
Most organizations do not use the term futurist in job titles. You may serve a role in your organization that is future-focused or foresight-adjacent and you may already use some tools of foresight without even knowing it!
What aspects of my organization can be helped by Foresight?
The practice of strategic foresight takes uncertainty about the future and uses it to your advantage. We work closely with our clients, exploring the future as a team to reduce key future uncertainties important to your organization's strategy and help to set up systems for you to continue the work without us. We succeed when our clients become better future thinkers which results in the following:
Future-Proofing Strategic Plans
Better Innovation
Quicker Ideation
Better Visioning
Change Monitoring Capabilities for All Org Members
More Flexible KPIs that Still Stay on Target
Solving Repetitive Problems
Improving Organizational Alignment and Culture
Enabling Managers More Agency
More Confident Decision Making
Quick Response to Threats and Opportunities
Higher Asking Price When Selling Business
What exactly is Foresight?
Foresight is an ongoing process that uses a blend of scientific and creative methodologies to anticipate the future for the purpose of better understanding of internal and external change which leads to better decision making in the present. It begins with hard-data and quantitative forecasting to anticipate the short-term future (1-2 years) but then employs qualitative methods to anticipate further time horizons when the uncertainty of forecasting becomes too large. It is transdisciplinary and utilizes statistics, systems thinking, horizon scanning, social change theories, critical thinking, and more.
How is Foresight used?
While it is most impactful when used as a regularly occurring activity of monitoring and discussing change, it can also be used in one-off engagements particularly beneficial for vision development, tutorials on horizon-scanning techniques, or for businesses who plan to sell in the near term to add value to asking price.
As outside consultants, we act as a partner to help guide and focus your team's ability to utilize your expert knowledge on your business/industry. You are the experts of your business, we are the experts of how to think about the future.
What is a Futurist?
A futurist studies the future just as a historian studies the past. We both look for evidence that tells a story and evaluate the assumptions behind the evidence. Historians are asked to explain changes in the present through the lens of history, but to us that is like crossing the street while only looking one direction. It's only half of the story. Similar to a lawyer finding evidence to argue a court case, we look for evidence to challenge assumptions about the future and how it could be different than the present at world/regional/industry/local levels, . The primary work of a futurist is to use the future as a tool to reframe how we understand the present and to present clients with alternative futures through scenario development, that is, alternative stories based on evidence of what the future could be like, because it can't be predicted.
Most working futurists have some specialty in the future of a particular industry, but we are all trained to be generalists and transdisciplinary thinkers. Sometimes the word futurist is applied to people such as business leaders (often tech) whose focus is on changing the future, and others who have attained popularity projecting or arguing for particular visions of the future. While these are aspects of foresight and futures-thinking, these people are not the everyday consultants and researchers that we represent.
Why us? Why Springfield?
We are local 417ers who are university-trained foresight experts/futurists who have each earned a master's degree in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston (the world's longest running foresight program that turned 50-years old in 2025). Since completing our training, we have individually worked on foresight projects for global industry leaders and government agencies. We were both participants in the 2024 U.N. Summit of the Future in New York and have been invitees to the Dubai Future Forum (the world's largest gathering of futurists held at the Museum of the Future). We are also both members of the Association of Professional Futurists, the world's leading professional organization for foresight practitioners that provides professional standards to abide by, of which Seth was selected as one of six early-career futurists to receive special though-leadership and mentorship from top futurists around the world for two years as an Emerging Fellow and now serves as an officer of the board. Lena continued her education through a PhD program and most recently worked helping NASA utilize foresight.
As the only two individuals to have attained this level of training in Springfield we wish to bring the benefits of foresight to our community because we are one of you and we understand the unique needs of our area and can relate futures-thinking in local terms.
Team
GET TO KNOW US
Seth Harrell
LEAD FORESIGHT ADVISOR
Seth earned a M.S. in Foresight from the University of Houston and has worked on projects ranging from the future of pipeline construction to the future of food technology. He was named a 2022 Emerging Fellow by the Association of Professional Futurists and currently serves as the Treasurer and North American Regional Developer.
Lena Young
FORESIGHT ADVISOR
After serving in the Navy, Lena pursued entrepreneurial interests before earning a M.S. in Foresight from the University of Houston. She is currently applying her foresight skills towards a PhD. Lena loves to inspire an infinite mindset in others.
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Have a particular challenge you’re trying to deal with? Contact us today and see what we can do for you.
Springfield, MO
