Shaping Tomorrow: Scan

www.shapingtomorrow.com

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Discover “what’s changing?” by systematically scanning, exploring and analyzing the external environment for new Insight (trends, events, uncertainties, and surprises)

Use this early warning system to spot opportunities for innovation, track emerging threats and buy time for and develop considered, appropriate responses

Add automatic and manual ‘Scan material’

Set up continuous tracking of sources and keywords

View latest ‘News’

View our latest trend ‘Alerts’

View ‘All’ potential emerging changes

View ‘Sources’ of change

View your bookmarked ‘Tags’

View your customized ‘Reports’

Track emerging evidence of change

Special features Add, edit and view in your native language Create your own corporate memory Develop your enterprise-wide knowledge management system

http://www.shapingtomorrow.com/


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Managing change is a process that can be systematized

Increasing strategic foresight capability is the first step in change management

Having strategic foresight increases future opportunity and reduces emerging risk

You can use the SCAN service to identify and monitor change going on around you and to look for more evidence of change to confirm or deny the INDICATORS our robot has automatically extracted from the content here

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Scanning is analogous to an early warning radar, a continuous process of scanning the environment to identify signals of change and emerging trends

An excellent early warning radar looks at all aspects of the global environment scanning for (p)olitical, (e)conomic, (social), (t)echnological change .. as this service does

Good scanning explores both new, strange and weird ideas, as well as persistent challenges and trends, today

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By collecting Insight about emerging change, analyzing underlying patterns and picturing what’s likely/unlikely to happen within the global environment, mental models of possible futures can be created from which your preferable future can be chosen

By choosing preferable futures people and organizations shape their and our tomorrows and create leadership positions

You to can quickly and easily

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Tracking and analysing how a trend emerges and diffuses throughout society over time



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Scanning allows you, and your colleagues to ask ‘what if?’ questions by reading Insights

- What if this happened in the world today?

- What does it mean for others?

- What does it mean for us?

- How should we respond and when?

Select those for further investigation and deeper thinking that look as though they will generate significant change in your world and that of your stakeholders

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Look for interdependencies, feedback delays and repeating patterns amongst Insights. Try to:

- See ahead: look to what’s coming next

- See behind: understand the past

- See above: take a helicopter view too

- See below: find the diamond in the rough

- See beside: remove the blinkers

- See beyond: question what’s beyond the horizon - See through: look for fresh essence and meaning

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See above

See beside

See ahead

See beyond

See below

Brainstorming: Nasi 1991 / Mintzberg 1998



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See emerging change using pattern recognition tools: tag clouds, timelines, maps, graphs, tables, voting

Know how your own organization’s and our members thinking is changing over time

Look for patterns, ideas and uncertainties among the presented content

Here is how forward thinking individuals and organizations stay ahead of slower rivals:

Add and share Insights with colleagues.

Speed read each others article titles and/or descriptions

Look for patterns, risks, opportunities across articles and descriptions

Delve deeper into content of interest by clicking on it

‘Refer’ specific trends, ideas, uncertainties and potential

Make it a regular weekly habit

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Use DECIDE to capture specific trends, ideas, uncertainties and potential surprises that need to be considered further



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‘Tag’ articles with keywords, dates, project names, etc.

Add your observations, questions, ideas, conclusions, critique etc. via the ‘Forum’ button

‘Share’ your individual findings via email, RSS, social media etc.

‘Refer’ one item to another

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Scanning involves identifying Insight about change

An Insight is a raw and single point observation of change drawn from reports, articles, PDF’s, videos etc.

For instance, when you read a daily newspaper you will regularly see new events and discoveries being reported

Capturing the Insights systematically underpins the scanning process

This is a mammoth task done manually, but fortunately our system almost completely automates the process

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Here you can add your own scan material by:

Opening your computer’s bookmarks bar before dragging and dropping the link to add Insights wherever you are on the Web

Adding Insights manually or

Following your key sources e.g. rivals, regulators, experts, protest groups, keywords

Automatically add sources by entering:

- RSS feeds

- a Twitter name

- or a Web search Each day our robot (Athena) will visit your sources and automatically add relevant material she finds without any effort on your part. Your additions will appear in SCAN > Sources

Using the robot will save you much time and effort compared to manual scanning

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View latest newsletters

Use these to remain abreast of major emerging changes going on around you

Look for more evidence using the ‘Search’ box

Discuss these at your weekly emerging trends meeting and agree innovations or threats that you should avoid or exploit and that need further research

Contact us to have your own, private newsletter on topics of your choice in the same format as ours but liveried in your colors and logo

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Each week either our robot, Athena, or guest writers create a short Trend Alert on a key emerging issue that is sent to our 21,000 members

Or, ask us for a customised, Trend Alert or in-depth GIST report on any other topic of interest to you

Use these as fire-starters with your executives and managers to get their juices flowing on how these might affect your organization and what to do next

You can use our Question methods under PLAN to prompt their responses

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Use this service to see all Insights in added date order starting from the latest contribution and going backwards in time, or switch to published date or alpha order

Our clients use this to quickly trawl back through the last week’s contributions looking for new potential surprises, fresh weak signals and signs of strengthening or declining trends and just to stay abreast f what is happening around them

We do this too and can absorb last week’s contributions by skim reading in an hour or so

So skim read the contributions and ‘tag’, ‘refer’, ‘report’, ‘share’ with others, or ‘comment’ on those of interest in the ‘forum’

Switching from ‘All’ will show you what you have added ‘My’ or your associates have contributed ‘Our’ (if available)

Pick out the one or two big discoveries you made to share with your associates

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Here is where you can view all the public sources we and our clients, partners and members track continuously in ‘All’

If you have added sources you can see these under ‘My’ or ‘Our’ if you are our client.

Sources also contains its own set of PLAN and ACT tools for you to conduct competitive analysis on your rivals, takeover targets etc.

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Assign tags as you wish, re-name, delete, add or merge tags together

Add multiple tags separated by commas

Your tags appear as a ‘cloud’ from the left-hand navigation bar

The more you tag the larger the typeface will become relative to other tags. Set ‘from’, ‘to’, to watch how your tagging changes over time and to spot newly emerging change

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View item collections that you have added to ‘Reports’

View yours and others’ reports that you have access too

Circulate these to associates as required

You can print your reports using DeskPDF

(separate small purchase rquired)

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Begin exploring the service

Consult the other detailed help ‘GUIDES’ here

Contact us if you have any difficulties or would like up to 40 minutes free, online training

We are here to help. Feel free to contact us

+44 (0) 1273 832221

[email protected]

Skype: shapingtomorrow

Or use Live Chat when we are available online

“We are here to help you make better decisions today, faster and cheaper than ever before”


mailto:[email protected]

Education

Shaping Tomorrow: Scan