What is foresight?

Foresight is a structured process for discerning, analyzing, and acting on potential futures. Future-focused activities like environmental scanning play a key role in the foresight process. Foresight can be used by association leaders in strategic planning and strategy development, anticipatory learning, risk management, and innovation and business development. To learn more about foresight processes and how associations can use them, read Why Associations Need Foresight.

What is ASAE ForesightWorks?

ASAE ForesightWorks, powered by the ASAE Research Foundation and supported by research from the futurists at Foresight Alliance, is designed to help association leaders practice foresight. The resources include action briefs that summarize drivers of change identified in the research, along with tools to help association professionals understand and apply these insights.

What is an action brief?

An action brief is a four-page exploration of key information about a driver of change facing the association community and the world more broadly. Each action brief provides a summary description of that driver of change as well as insights on timing, strategic questions, action steps, and keywords for continued reading. The briefs provide broad information that will enable you to conduct more relevant planning and exploration specific to your association or industry.

How do I choose which products to purchase?

Generally, leaders should have at least a broad familiarity with all of the drivers of change. If you would like to engage with all of the action briefs or explore drivers of change across topical areas, we suggest that you purchase the ASAE ForesightWorks Complete Collection. A-la-carte purchasing of individual action briefs will be available soon.

What’s included in the ASAE ForesightWorks Complete Collection?

The Complete Collection includes the following.

• An organizational license to use ASAE ForesightWorks
• Drivers of Change Quick Start Guide
• ASAE ForesightWorks User’s Guide
• Drivers of Change Summaries Brief
• Individual action briefs for all 50 drivers of change organized by thematic area
• Archived drivers of change.

What’s the best way to use the action briefs?

The  is a valuable resource for those who would like more structure for using the action briefs. It can be particularly helpful if you are new to foresight practices or if you are working with a group, such as a board or staff team. The PDF version of the guide is included in the Complete Collection.

Are there restrictions on how I can use these resources?

The ASAE ForesightWorks Action Brief License allows for the use of the action briefs by staff and board members of a single organization. If you have plans to use ASAE ForesightWorks materials beyond that licensed use, please contact books@asaecenter.org.

 

For more information, contact:
ASAE Research Foundation
ASAEFoundation@asaecenter.org