Launching Future Exploration Network

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I have just established a new organization, Future Exploration Network, which will be the home for a lot of the work I do from now on. This is very exciting for me – the culmination of over 10 years of developing my thinking on business models and creating value for clients. The firm will focus on helping clients think about the long-term future, and what that means for strategy and actions today – this has been a significant piece of my work over the last eight years, particularly applying scenario planning methodologies in new ways. For this venture I’ve teamed up with Richard Watson, who is a fabulous trend-watcher and thinker. While a lot of his work is in driving the trend-watching group Now and Next, he’s also established organizations such as Global Innovation Network and Free Thinking. We’ve worked together on a number of projects, including a major scenario planning project for a large bank, and found that our skills are very complementary. Richard helps people stretch their thinking into new places, while I help take the insights we uncover to build pragmatic strategies. However the core of the model is moving beyond us and our support team to draw on global best-of-breed thinkers to deliver projects for clients. Together we can access many of the top people around the world, tapping our networks to create unique services. Rather than trying to cover all issues, we are focusing on four key themes: the future of global business, the future of technology, the future of media, and the future of financial services. Obviously meaty topics, but ones we have spent a lot of time on over the years. I’ll act as chairman of the new organization, as we build it over time, and continue to use my existing firm Advanced Human Technologies for some of my more traditional consulting work. We intend to generate a lot of interesting content along the way, so a fair bit of our work will be visible – I’ll keep you posted. Content includes a Future Exploration blog that includes posts from myself, Richard, and others, so this is likely to become a good one-stop shop for views on the future, especially – for now – on media. I’ll post about our initial venture on the future of media soon.