Past, Present, and Future
Organizations, and people, should evolve. In 2002, I co-founded the Foresight Design Initiative (FDI) with lots of ambition but little idea of how it might change as we pursued the then new concept of "sustainability." Over two decades, we accumulated an impressive portfolio of unique public events, educational programs, and consulting projects as one pursuit followed another. Operating as a nonprofit can have limitations. And sometimes past structures don't fit new directions. Building on FDI's legacy, Foresight Collective is a new "social impact" consultancy that is cooperatively organized, owned, and co-created with a new colleague. Based in Detroit and Chicago, we're focused on building a better world by helping launch new initiatives and enterprises; optimize existing programs, organizations, and collaboratives; and create engaging and impactful people-centric convenings. We're already begun to work on some interesting client projects (and are open to more!). The excitement of starting something new usually overshadows the emotional impact of letting go of something else for me. I'm not very nostalgic. While I have plans for a new future for FDI, there is some resonance underpinning this shift that I'm feeling a need to respond to. "It's only failure if you failed to learn," I said in a meeting recently. Being at the forefront of a now somewhat institutionalized movement and working on a diversity of issues has provided a particular perspective. What did that mean? What did I learn? How can that experience be amplified and used to inform future ambitions, perhaps more urgently now than ever?
