Task - Future foresight

Provoke set out to catalyze a series of future foresight workshops. Provoke co-operates with Finland Futures Research Centre. It refines visionary knowledge regarding alternative futures and the challenges and possibilities included in them.

The Centre is the only academic futures research organization in Finland and also the biggest in Scandinavia. The researchers at the Centre are active in many international networks such as the Club of Rome, World Futures Studies Federation, World Futures Society  and Association of Professional Futurists. 

Challenge

The majority of future foresight projects are research-driven or limited to the scenarios and ideas of a single company. Sharing ideas and building on foresight from parallel or totally different fields of business can help create meaningful scenarios with more depth and breadth. Top researchers have unique methods and tools to help - yet most companies do not have access to these methods.

Market changes are always results of changes in human behavior and expectations.  Therefore it is important to understand humans - the end-users.

Process

Provoke ran a Delfoi study and then expanded that knowledge with a series of workshops. The idea was to explore alternative futures with themes around strategics, co-creation, role of design and leadership of the future.

The workshops involved some of the best researchers and a variety of businesses from heavy industry to telecom, banking and food industries. 

Result - Open foresight

Companies involved in the process used it as a learning experience. Building scenarios was a way of building foresight and learning the research methods of experts.

Several new foresight projects were initiated. Knowledge born in the process was later used as the basis in new projects. It enabled companies to innovate new meaningful experiences for their customers.