Oct 28, 2024 | Upward Mobility Signals
Jim Golembeski, Upward Mobility Signals Team
As we prepare for Greater Green Bay’s fourth annual celebration of World Futures Day, I can’t help but reflect on how things were in northeast Wisconsin 25 years ago—if we’d only known then what we know now! But we did not, and we paid a huge price. Read about missed signals here and here.
Sep 22, 2024 | Strategic Foresight
We welcomed 15 new strategic foresight students, representing GRACE, Schreiber Foods, Oneida Professional Services, YMCA of Greater Green Bay, Packer Freight, and the Inclusa Foundation. See their pictures and read their collective story. Meet the 2024 Fall SF Cohort.
Sep 22, 2024 | Strategic Foresight
Nanette Nelson, Envision Board Member
The State of the Future 20.0 is a whopping 500-page overview of the current situation and prospects for the future of the world—a report card for humanity. Nearly a thousand futurists, scholars, and other experts organized by The Millennium Project have produced this magnum opus, which provides humanity’s prospects for the future in clear, concise language. Learn about The State of the Future 20.0.
Sep 22, 2024 | Strategic Foresight
Nanette Nelson, Envision Board Member
Those practicing strategic foresight have heard about signals and drivers. But how are they different, and how are they used to envision the future? Understanding the role of drivers is important. Learn about drivers of change.
Aug 31, 2024 | Upward Mobility Signals
Jim Golembeski, Upward Mobility Signals Team
Our Wisconsin workforce continues to set records. Numbers from June 2024 show a record 3,048,600 people employed in our state with a Labor Force Participation rate of 65.5%, 3% above the national average. So who are these people, supposedly sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to work? Read about the housing our workforce.
Aug 31, 2024 | Upward Mobility Signals
Judy Nagel, Upward Mobility Signals Team (with guest authors Paula Breese, Lynn Coriano, and Sarah Inman)
Upward mobility is driven by policy – which can catalyze or sabotage. In the United States, due to our policies, it takes five generations to move from low income to the middle class. The world’s top five countries in terms of social mobility all have this in common: a solid foundation for early childcare and development. Read about our local childcare crisis.
Aug 2, 2024 | Economic Transformation Signals
Nanette Nelson, Economic Transformation Signals
Read Burge’s insightful book to meet this increasingly significant group – Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. Read the review here.
Jul 15, 2024 | Signals to Watch
Nan Nelson, Upward Mobility Signals Team
A recent American Library Association report found younger generations using public libraries, both in person and digitally, at higher rates than older ones. And they’re not just reading, but gaming, playing music, hanging out — essentially reimagining learning. Read the story here.
Jul 15, 2024 | Signals to Watch
Nan Nelson, Upward Mobility Signals Team
With AI’s future still unwritten, Nightshade, a project from the University of Chicago, gives artists recourse from AI theft by rendering data useless or disruptive to AI model training. Ben Zhao, a professor who led the project, compared it to “putting hot sauce in your lunch so it doesn’t get stolen from the workplace fridge.” Read the story here.
Jul 15, 2024 | Signals to Watch
Heidi Selberg, Envision Board President
Economic challenges come with a shrinking working-age population. An analysis published in the New York Times Interpreter newsletter describes how depopulation (primarily because of declining birthrates) leads people to become particularly receptive to far right politics. This is why: As the population decreases, the economy slows down because fewer workers generate tax revenue. The government pulls back services—schools close, public transportation becomes less available, even hospitals might close. People begin to feel neglected and undervalued by politicians.
Immigrants and disadvantaged populations can be scapegoated by far-right politicians as a way to attract voters. Then immigration – a partial way to address depopulation – becomes less likely. The authors conclude the article by saying, “ ..being able to attract and integrate large numbers of immigrants will be an important competitive advantage for countries in the coming decades. Doing so, however, will require overcoming political barriers that arise, partly, out of the same demographic shifts.”
Read the article here. “How Shrinking Populations Fuel Divisive Politics” by Amanda Taub and Lauren Leatherby, New York Times-The Interpreter, February 2, 2024.