Webinar: Futures planning using horizon scanning and social computing
6 April 2009
Wednesday 3rd June
9.30pm – 11.00pm (GMT)
Who should attend?About your webinar presenters
Anticipating and preparing for future challenges, trends and opportunities is always an essential component of any organisation's strategy but, recently, in these times of economic instability and unpredictability, as well as constant environmental and climate change, this task seems all the more important and should be at the top of every leader’s list.
Horizon Scanning is defined by the Government Office for Science as: 'the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely future developments, including (but not restricted to) those at the margins of current thinking and planning’ and may explore novel and unexpected issues as well as persistent problems or trends.
Horizon scanning and future, scenario planning is gathering pace as a management discipline particularly within the top echelons of the UK Government.
Now, with the advent of social computing technology, this discipline takes on a new authority and a new application for all organisations.
In this webinar, one of the world’s leading experts in of horizon scanning, Dr Michael Jackson, and one of the world’s leading experts in advanced social computing, Professor Dave Snowden, will come together to explain how these two disciplines can work together to help organisations plan for the future, protect themselves against unexpected threats and exploit forthcoming opportunities.
In this talking heads format, bringing to bear their experience of working with the biggest UK government ministries, your webinar leaders will present key examples of the use of horizon scanning combined with social computing in large organisations.
So, when the webinar has concluded, you will be able to take away ideas for using horizon scanning with social computing technology in your own organisation to help you plan for what is around the corner.
Who should attend?
- Chief Executives
- Chief Officers
- Managing Directors
- Managing Partners
- Senior Partners
- Directors of Risk Management
- Risk Managers
- Finance Directors
and anyone with a leadership role.
About your webinar presenters
Dave Snowden is the Director of Cognitive Edge (formerly the Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity) and one of the leading pioneers in the movement towards integration of humanistic approaches to knowledge management with appropriate technology and process design.Well known for his work on the role of narrative and sense making, he is an entertaining speaker and a formidable realist, and one of the few thought leaders who can bring together the academic and practitioner perspectives into a single, comprehensive purview.
A former director of the Institute for Knowledge Management, Dave has explored the integration of learning and knowledge using models derived from complexity science. His work has always been considered highly original and influential, his style is often described as iconoclastic and provocative, as entertaining as he is enlightening. He regularly consults at board level with some of the world’s largest companies as well as governments and NGOs.
Michael Jackson is a Founder Member and Chairman of Shaping Tomorrow. He also advises businesses on dramatically improving their competitiveness through pioneering work on practical Sustainable Business Strategies. Clients include a number of blue-chip, international and national companies and small to medium sized UK businesses. He is known on conference platforms speaking on business subjects including futures, sustainability, customer loyalty and retention, business process re-engineering, change management, building strategic visions and values and people motivation and communications, ethics, alliances and corporate governance: he has many published articles on these subjects. With over 30 years' experience in Business Management in the UK, North America and Europe, he has significant exposure to corporate banking and consumer finance and, latterly, futuring.
Mike was Chief Executive of Birmingham Midshires Building Society between 1990 and 1998, then the UK's 4th largest. As Chief Executive of Birmingham Midshires he achieved a dramatic change for the better in the Society's fortunes moving from near oblivion to a highly profitable, customer led and multiple-award winning business in just eight years. He was previously a Senior Vice President with Bank of America who he joined in 1986. He held several positions at the Bank which included Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, based in London, Head of Consumer Loans Services and Chief Financial Officer for consumer markets, based in North America (San Francisco). After spells with Hawker Siddeley, the Electricity Boards and the Post Office he began his financial services career in 1973 with Citibank NA as its first overseas process engineer, based in London. He then transferred to Italy, with subsidiary Citifin Finanziara as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, later moving back to the UK with Citibank Savings as Vice President and Customer Services Director, and subsequently Consumer Banking Director.
He studied at Salford University, Manchester, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electronics and a U.S. accredited MBA in Operations Research. He was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration by the University of Wolverhampton in 1997. He is a Fellow of the Institutes of Directors and a full member of the Strategic Planning Society, the Association of Professional Futurists and the World Future Society.
He is a member of the advisory board of European Futurists and a strategic board member of the Customer Service Network in the UK.
