little bit of a rant here. The really good news is that foresight and futurists are being introduced to more and more people every day. One of our jobs in introducing the future is to simplify and help new folks grasp the basics. Another way of putting this is that we operate at the “pop” level; talking in terms of basic concepts and perhaps focusing on trends. And we go deeper as clients or audiences learn more. BTW, I noted that the “pop futurists are bad” sentiment has emerged once again on the APF list, as it does about once a year. Think of a healthy ecosystem, diversity, etc…..Thankfully, lots of cool heads joined and balanced out that discussion.
One “simplifier” we use with beginners is STEEP, which is an acronym for Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political categories. They are good “starter” categories when one is doing environmental scanning (that is, looking for signals of change). I’ve noted that STEEP seems to be taking on a life of its own — as an important “concept” that has to be accounted for. It’s an acronym, for goodness sakes. Maybe one could argue that it has “evolved” into a notion of there being some basic categories one ought to cover in scanning, perhaps, but let’s not get carried away even with that. Starter categories are just that: starters, and not requirements or the end-all, be-all. Let’s not make STEEP a strait-jacket.
Okay, I think that’s it for now 
Andy Hines
