50 years of Foresight
In May of 2025, I attended the University of Houston foresight program’s annual Spring Gathering event. This particular Spring Gathering was particularly special as it was a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Houston Foresight program. The event was filled with recent and current master’s students, and included some folks who graduated in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as folks who completed the UH Foresight professional certificate program. Almost predictably the theme of the celebration was looking at both the past and the future of Futures over the next fifty years.
I had the honor & pleasure of presenting a talk with my former classmate and friend Martin Davis on a topic near and dear to both of us - the intersection of Design & Futures. Some brief context - Martin & I met during our time at UH in the Design Future course. We’re both seasoned design professionals who have pivoted (are pivoting?) to a focus on foresight in the last several years; and we’re currently working as foresight practitioners within design functions of larger organizations.
Our presentation (or maybe bit is a more apt description), was a design style-critique of design and foresight, covering topics ranging from:
- the varied definition of design & the impact that has had on design in corporate contexts
- the commoditization & de-valuing of design at the hands of design thinking
- where for-profit foresight needs to rethink & improve itself
- what aspects of design foresight should be leveraging (spoiler alert: it’s not “futures thinking” or personas)
To accompany the design crit style, we created three virtual pin boards meant to evoke the classic design studio style of pinning sketches or observations up and seeing how they fit together. External processing, they call that. The boards are also chalk full of wonderful links and resources to support our dialog
We also leveraged Miro’s QR Code stickies tool to allow us to balance speaking and interacting with the audience in real time. The audience seemed entertained and engaged, and this sticky left by a session attendee is
Session abstract, miro, and TL; DR below.
Session abstract:
Creativity Conundrum In an era where the boundaries between disciplines are increasingly blurred, the intersection of design and strategic foresight applications presents both challenges and opportunities. Both fields are keen to adopt something from the other, but what does that look like in practice? This hour-long discussion, led by Martin Davis & Joe Carpita, seasoned professionals with extensive experience in design, innovation, and foresight, delves into the provocative question: "Does foresight have a creativity problem?"
Using design critique as a method of inquiry, this session will explore how traditional foresight practices—known for their analytical depth and emphasis on long-term vision—can gain from the creative and iterative processes found in various design methodologies. Conversely, we will also consider how design practices might benefit from the structured analysis typically employed in foresight.
The discussion aims to uncover whether foresight's potential creativity gap is a result of its methodological constraints or if it stems from a deeper need to integrate more imaginative and creative approaches. And as we move forward, can each even potentially exist on its own?
Participants will expand their notion of the practices of design, gain insights into the fundamental differences between human-centered design, design thinking, and strategic foresight, examine the differences & similarities of each discipline, as well as the macro-historical contexts that are informing the present state of enterprise & institutional applications of design and foresight.
This dialogue promises to offer practical pathways for integrating these complementary approaches, ultimately fostering a more dynamic and creative foresight practice. Bring your plain black t-shirt, dark denim, and funky glasses.
Session Miro (view only):
TL; DR:
- The corporatization of design should be a cautionary tale, not a roadmap for expanding the foresight discipline in the corporate world
- simply mashing design tools or language into foresight (or vice versa) is not doing either discipline or practitioners any favors
- if foresight is borrowing anything from design it should be the soft skills like designerly ways of working, not hard deliverables like future personas or nonsense like design “thinking.”
That’s right, I called design thinking nonsense.