History

Our work with foresight began a decade ago.

Early ideas were sparked by conversations with colleagues around the world, and we began turning what we learned from those conversations into a set of tools through the mid-1990s.

In conjunction, we introduced a new course series about foresight and long-range innovation at Stanford University that integrated the tools with existing materials. In 2002, we offered the first of these courses, focusing on innovating with emerging technologies, and the courses soon expanded to include topics related to foresight theory, process, history, multimedia, and more. We worked across multiple disciplines from engineering to humanities to design.

Within several years, we had a growing network of students, researchers, and managers learning how to apply long-range foresight methods to their own efforts at innovation. Our students helped us experiment by asking naïve questions and testing the limits of our framework. Managers from companies of all sizes presented us with applied questions that helped us to further refine the foresight methods using real-world examples.

We ultimately developed a robust methodology and toolset that helps to bridge long-term strategy and foresight with execution and results.