Month: January 2019

As cities continue to arise, morph and expand – and as the new science of cities becomes a critical field of study for successful human development – we will need to invest much more time and effort in purposefully creating the future of these integrated metropolises of economic, environmental and social interaction. When we look back at the history of cities up to the 21st Century, we will discover a series of successes and failures.

In 2018 Central Florida launched an ambitious plan to reconceptualize economic development through participatory foresight. Kedge had the privilege of partnering with the region’s local economic development organization, The Orlando Economic Partnership (the Partnership), to advance its mission for broad-based prosperity using foresight. The project launched with an immersion phase (including targeted interviews, a survey and extensive trend research).

One of the many topics currently crowding the radar screen of human resources thinkers concerns the multiple generations in today’s workforce. Millennials, Gen Xers, baby boomers, and even some well beyond age 70 are finding themselves working side by side. Figuring out how to engage individuals who have come of age in different eras and with different priorities can be vexing for employers.

What will we RE-THINK? As the Industrial Age gives way to a new era of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, people are being empowered to challenge the old models of business, economics and society. The success that once took a company years to reach can now be achieved overnight by three young entrepreneurs in a garage.

We are no stranger to the question, “Do you have a case study about X foresight work you conducted with X organization?” While over the years we’ve had a variety of briefs detailing transformation in strategy, city development, innovation, change, and culture via our foresight toolkit, we did not have a start-to-finish case study in writing. 2019 is the year that changes!

Let’s kick off with a simple exercise: close your eyes and imagine a black and white image with a vertical line connecting to a horizontal line forming a 90 degree angle … okay, it’s a graph! Most of us are familiar with the innovation/adoption curve used across industries to determine when the majority will purchase a product or adopt a new idea.