Futures Intelligence: Going Beyond the RearView Mirror

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Futures IntelligenceGoing Beyond the Rear-View
Mirror

• Bob Dunn
• President, ESIAdvisors Partner, Insight Mapping

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Forward-Looking gtFutures Intelligence
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Key challenges

• Norms are not the answer they are about history.
• If the problem were statistical, 2-3 sigma off
  the norm begins to be interesting.
• Current trending is not an answer although the
  trend will eventually be right.
• Our time frame of interest is 6-24 months from
  now.

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Futures Intelligence Off-Trend Awareness
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Visualization helps answer a key business
strategy question

• Question What can we discover now that will be
  important 6-24 months from now??
• Answer Something with increasing relevance,
  significance, and affinity with decreasing
  distance as time goes on.
• Problem How to find theneedle in the haystack
  that is also the right thread to pull!!
• Clue LOOK for items with the right information
  space TF-IDF property and the right information
  attributes.

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InsightMappingTM Analysis Process
Conclude Evaluate/Judge re significance,
prominence, imminence of AHA! report findings
recommend conclusions
Analyze Examine weak signal candidates
discover AHA! Prospects dig deeper
Correlate Cluster to show affinity, distance,
relevance signal strength
Aggregate Language Process Theme Stem
Summarize Set Key Relevance Indicators Extract
Document Attributes
Capture Set Search String Search Select
Documents
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Interaction Across Information Analysis Views
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Self-Organizing Maps 102-105 Correlation
Attributes
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Example of an Insight Map 4 dimensions of
interest affinity, distance, relevance,
significance
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Example Insight Chinese Rural Economy affects
California
1. WTO documents (blue) investigated in
Agriculture information areas (red) in Chinese
Economy landscape.
3. Pollution theme reveals that this issue
affects Americas West Coast.
2. Pollution shown to be a real issue.
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Business Significance Decisions Now?Next?Later

• Decision Types Markets Product Development
  Plants, Staff, Facilities Sentiment Direction
• Decision Outcomes Investment Choices Market
  Positioning Competitive Stance Arbitrage and
  Hedging Campaigns
• Industries Consumer Goods Industrial Equipment
  Financial Services Energy Provisioning
  Pharmaceuticals Information Systems Services
  Advertising PR etc.

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WNC Significance

• Beyond the Region
• Expand Markets and Customer Base
• Expand Reputation beyond place-based economy
• Get a leading position in an expanding market
• Within the Region
• Broader Support for existing talent
• Promote base for greater inter-company teaming
• Expand business for local professional support
  services
• Increase attraction for growth capital