Cultural Foresight
What practitioners around the world told us about the human side of futures
The futures will be lived by people, so that is where we start.
Cultural foresight looks at how values, behaviours and everyday habits are shifting, and helps us see where tomorrow is already taking shape in the way people live today.
50
practitioners in 26 countries
58%
of them already work with the ideas of cultural foresight
3
readings of this one term: Foresight about culture, culture as a lens within foresight, culture as a source of foresight.
8,3/10
how the participants rate the potential of cultural foresight in organisations
Most change becomes real when it reaches people - when it shows up in what they buy, how they work, who they trust and what they hope for.
Understanding culture is perhaps the best way to make sense of where things might be heading, and why some futures catch on while others never leave the drawing board.
We work with cultural foresight in two ways. As a method, it gives us lenses and tools to read signals in society and turn them into scenarios and strategy. As context, it reminds us that every foresight process happens somewhere, shaped by the people, organisations and places involved.
Whether you work in insights, brand, innovation or strategy, cultural foresight can help you understand the people you serve a little better, and give you a clearer sense of the futures they might want to live in.
Add your story
The Cultural Foresight Whitepaper is a starting point, and we’d love for it to keep growing and expanding.
We’re collecting stories, examples and artefacts from people who work with culture and futures, whether or not they call it cultural foresight.
Maybe you’ve run a workshop that changed how a team saw its customers, spotted a signal in your community that others missed, or used a method or a lens we didn’t cover. Perhaps you simply disagree with something in the paper. All of it is welcome.
We’ll share selected contributions in an open gallery, credited by role and country (unless you’d like your name on it), and they’ll feed into the next stage of our work.
Cases
Insights
Apply Cultural Foresight with us
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Cultural Foresight Masterclass
A practical introduction to reading the futures of people - how values, behaviours and everyday habits shift, and what that could mean for your organisation.
You can get started on your own with the replay of our Cultural Foresight Masterclass, co-led with Chloé de Ruffray. It comes as a downloadable package with the full session, a transcript and the recorded Q&A, so you can work through it at your own pace.
If you’d like to bring the whole team along, we can also run a tailor-made masterclass built around your sector and the questions you’re working on, with cases and exercises that fit your organisation.
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Futures Research & Intelligence
A tailored deep dive into the cultural shifts shaping your audience, your market and the people you serve.
We combine horizon scanning, expert interviews and conversations with people on the ground to map changing values, emerging behaviours and the signals that sit just below the surface. From there we work through sensemaking and scenarios, so the findings become something your team can actually plan with.
It gives you an outside-in view of where people might be heading, which can help you test assumptions, spot blind spots and make decisions grounded in how lives are really changing.
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Futures Field Trip
A guided expedition into the places where the future is already being lived, from stores and neighbourhoods to subcultures and new kinds of workplaces.
We design the visit and the route, brief your team on what to look for, and facilitate the sensemaking afterwards, so the observations turn into signals, patterns and questions worth acting on.
Seeing change up close tends to move people further than any report can. It’s probably the fastest way to get a leadership team or project group thinking about tomorrow’s customers together.
Get in touch
Looking to do great work together, got questions, or a cool idea for a collaboration on the horizon?
Fill out the form, and let's explore the futures together!
Or send us an email via hi@anticipate.dk