Crowdsourced Weak Signal Collection in Corporate Foresight
In Finpro, a Finnish nonprofit trade promotion association, foresight is used as a method in internationalization consulting. It is used as a tool for anticipating forthcoming changes in the global markets and spurring companies in exploring new business ideas or concepts.
The approach is based on crowdsourcing, where every employee of the organization is involved in observing weak signals. Finpro employs nearly 400 people in over 40 countries. A collaborative online tool, TrendWiki, is used to collect the signals. Subsequently, a dedicated foresight team is responsible for sense making.
This session will be a presentation of the working methods, and examples from concrete client cases will also be presented. The purpose is to raise discussion about weak signal collection and trend constructing.
Participants will leave this session with an understanding of:
- How to do weak signal scanning and the use of weak signals in corporate/organizational context, for example in strategy process and in new business development.
- New ideas to implement in their own work.
Niko Herlin is foresight team leader, Finpro, Finland, and former project researcher at Åbo Akademi University focusing on foresight and scenario planning, Turku, Finland
