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taking place? Is there a movement upward or downward? What are the projections? What are the emerging trends? What external events, policies, or regulatory actions would affect or be affected by the projections? Committee members should look for forecasts by experts, and append their own implications section to the emerging issues, critical trends, or potential developments when they send their information items.
The chair should summarize the articles and their implications in the cover letter when sending the next issue of On the Horizon, and include a questionnaire asking each committee member to rank the five most important items submitted by the committee or included in the newsletter.
The agenda for the planning meeting should include the top items. At the meeting, focused around these items, committee members should draw out the implications of the potential developments for ongoing organizational and program planning. They may want more information about a particular trend or potential event. In this case, you could enlist the aid of a research staffer or librarian (who should be on the planning committee anyway).
Regularly circulating information about potential developments and asking committee members to think of their implications reinforces a future-oriented posture in your colleagues. They will begin to read, hear, and talk about this information not only as something intellectually interesting but also as information they can use in practical organizational planning. When this occurs, you know that you have successfully designed and implemented a foresight capability on your campus.
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