Keep an eye, too, on the future of Practical Foresight so that you stay current and
don't fall behing in this, one of your key areas of future intelligence.
Here's our view of how foresight has changed in the past few decades and
how it could over the next five years. But, remember, this is not a prediction
but our provisional view of what we think is the most likely scenario.
Fourth generation (Collaborative Foresight)¹
Social networking
- Social interaction (tagging, commenting, ideation, narrative analysis)
- Global sourcing/outsourcing/global scouting
- Virtual worlds
- Expert panel portals
- Prediction markets
- Integration with business and competitive intelligence
- Shared futures databases/benchmarking/networks
- Surprise and serendipitous discovery
Productivity
- Integrated tools and methods
- Automated scan hit finding
- From text to searchable video
- Web-based modelling and simulation
- Integration with business and competitive intelligence
- Surprise and serendipitous discovery
- Fast action/reaction/low cost/high value added
Source¹: Shaping Tomorrow client requests

Third generation (Trend-based foresight)²
- Horizon scanning
- Trends
- Weak signals
- Indicators
- Reacting to change
- Trend databases
- Monitoring systems
Second generation (Model-based foresight)²
- Quantitative/qualitative modelling
- Extrapolation
- Systems
- Hard science
- Calculating change
- Models and matrices
First generation (Expert based foresight)²
- Expertise
- Qualitative modelling
- Soft sciences
- Change exploration
- Delphi studies
- Roadmapping
- Scenarios
Source²: Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis: Impact of FTA
Approaches on Policy and Decision-Making – Seville 28-29 September 2006 Corporate Foresight in Europe
Further reference
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