Innovation Collider Series--June 7

Description

Intentional Future Making
We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
 
The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent.  Analysts predict that 50 percent of the S&P 500 will be replaced over the next 10 years, and almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even exist yet.

How can a business or organization survive such a world?  The answer is Intentional Future Making
 
Please join us to learn how we can collectively imagine and create the futures we want to inhabit before we lose that chance.

Dr. Anne Balsamo
Dean, UTD School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication (ATEC)

Topic: Taking Culture Seriously in the Age of Innovation
Balsamo asserts that the real business of innovation is the transformation of culture over time and over place. In this talk, she explores how and why we should think about matters of cultural and social good during the innovation process. In her work, and that of the School of ATEC, innovation is understood as the process of intentional future-making. She challenges innovators to recognize how their work inevitably creates the cultures of the future.


Gwen Ishmael
Senior Vice President, Head of Qualitative and Senior Consultant, Escalent

Topic:  Intentionally Absent for an Intentional Future
Digital ethnographic research can intensify our understanding of the past and present by “removing” us from the environment, allowing natural, spontaneous behavior to take center stage. We’ll share methods for achieving this intimacy, examples of their use, and trends revealing the approaches of tomorrow. Then we’ll demonstrate how to diffuse the resulting insights throughout the organization, transforming them into guideposts to the future.



Ted Farrington
Retired, Kalypso Consulting Fellow

Topic:  Using Strategic Foresight and Scenarios to Guide Your R&D InvestmentWhile no one can predict the future, it is possible to investigate the future in a structured way in order to be better prepared as the true future unveils itself. This seminar will introduce the audience to the use of scenario methods to inform an organization’s R&D portfolio and strategy. Unlike most portfolio management approaches, scenario planning enables decision-making based on robustness across multiple possible futures, not just a single financial metric or scorecard.  The history of scenarios, back to the 1950’s, will be briefly reviewed.  The two most common types of scenarios, deductive and inductive, will be defined.  An example of the application of each type to a firm’s R&D agenda will be presented.  Finally, several references will be provided for audience members who wish to learn more about this exciting field.

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