Karmen Lemke, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Green Bay
Although the future is really in the hands of our Almighty God, we can use our wisdom to best prepare Catholic Charities for our next years of service. That’s just what we’ve been doing since 1918. Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Green Bay began when the Rev. Paul P. Rhode was appointed to the position of Bishop. His familiarity with outreach to the poor prompted Bishop Rhode to conduct a local survey which highlighted needs for services within the Green Bay area. He created a plan to implement a social services arm of the Diocese of Green Bay.
Alexa Naudziunas, with deep roots in community-building, has accepted the position of Executive Director of Envision. She begins her term September 8 when she joins Envision’s eighth Garry Golden Strategic Foresight Workshop series along with 23 others. In October, she will enter the University of Houston’s certification program on Strategic Foresight.
Alexa was selected from a strong field of candidates after the resignation of Envision’s first Executive Director, Steve McCarthy, who left to return to his home in western Wisconsin. The search committee was impressed by her grassroots experience in building community involvement: She was employed by the city of Oshkosh for eight years, doing major event planning as well as coordinating neighborhood and city committees.
(Excerpts from Leatherby, Lauren. “How a Vast Demographic Shift Will Reshape the World,” New York Times, July 16, 2023.)
Excerpted by Phil Hauck, Envision Board and Economic Transformation Signals Team
The world’s demographics have already been transformed. Europe is shrinking. China is shrinking, with India, a much younger country, overtaking it this year as the world’s most populous nation.
Judy Nagel, Envision Board and Upward Mobility Signals Team
When you think of a drone, how high do you imagine it going, and how long do you imagine it staying in the air? Did you realize that the new “pseudo-satellite” drones can soar to heights of more than 60,000 feet and stay up there for months? That’s the report from Alistair MacDonald in The Wall Street Journal, which labeled such drones the “innovation of the week” recently.
Our first Network Cohort held its second meeting … and they know that ChatGPT will be on the agenda each meeting for quite some time. Participants recounted how they are using it so far, mainly to write contracts and publicity material. One member used ChatGPT to develop a service contract, needing only a few adjustments to make it workable; it saved them $4,000 in attorney costs. Another used it to develop the computer code for a new application, cutting coding time by 75%. And still another member of the cohort uses it daily, along with DALL-E (for images), as part of graphic marketing communications efforts. And yes, members are alert to bad information that might work its way in.
Post-Workshop, you are likely to need some advice or even ongoing consulting to help you implement the Strategic Foresight techniques you’ve learned, to make them more impactful within your team or organization. Envision offers that support. And we start during Garry Golden’s workshop! We now meet with participants after the second class session to make sure they’re using the tools correctly, making optimal use of Diigo and creating an effective Domain Map with good key words to use with Google Alerts or ChatGPT. Then, after the SF Workshop concludes, we meet with participants again to ascertain exactly how they want to ingrain what they’ve learned into their organization, and we offer to help them do that. That follow-up help comes in two ways: Advising and Consulting.
Heidi Selberg, Envision Board Member and Upward MobilitySignals Team
Our team’s previous reports have shown the importance of public policy in supporting upward mobility. Judy Nagel’s reports have outlined international comparisons, demonstrating that several government policies related to childcare, health, and other matters are critical to those countries’ higher rates of upward mobility. But what if upward mobility in the U.S. is not accelerating because our institutions are becoming weaker?
Amanda Johnson, Executive Director, Howe Community Resource Center
One cannot deny that the COVID-19 pandemic has divided our country and significantly reshaped our lives. Its effects on children’s health and well-being have become a great concern. Being that I am in the education and mental health space as the Executive Director of the Howe Community Resource Center, I can’t ignore the blatant signals that, although we are no longer in a pandemic, the effects will last long beyond this generation, touching generations to come.
By Noel Halvorsen, Envision Board Member and Housing & Safety Signals Team
Park Hotels and Resorts, the owner of two of San Francisco’s largest (Hilton operated) hotels, has stopped making mortgage payments in the “best interest’ of shareholders. Slow recovery from the pandemic, a weak convention calendar, lagging return to office numbers, and concerns over “street conditions” (the neighborhood has seen some high-end retailers pull out due to concerns about homelessness, street crime, and drugs).
While one might be tempted to point to the street conditions as a primary driver, it looks to this foresight analyst that the damage is more related to high market costs, and a slow return to normal in terms of room bookings. Choosing to default on a $725 million loan at two of the three largest hotels in a major city can’t be an easy decision. This could be a signal of central city real estate problems across the country as offices sit vacant, conventions continue to sputter in hybrid formats, and homeless numbers swell in the face of inflation and unreachable housing expenses. Read about it here.
Enjoy the July 2023 Horizons, Envision’s bi-monthly newsletter. Board members and a Strategic Foresight graduate describe the application of Strategic Foresight to Catholic education; Green Bay’s designation as the best place to live in the US; early childhood development and upward mobility; and combining Innovation, Design, Engineering, Application and Skills (IDEAS) with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).
