Recently in Methods Category
Erik Benson is thinking about a way to store ideas generated during brainstorming and how to allow people to rate them according to various criteria (how "cool" it is, how much money it could make, how much time it would take, etc.). He goes on to show some screenshots of the idea database prototype he's working on and briefly discuss what it takes to get something to prototype stage after brainstorming. (Benson's weblog found via Interconnected.)
Yes, I'm on holiday, but I just read this New York Times review of The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets (Amazon US and UK) which is about how ideas from those outside the mainstream can, with some refining, revolutionise it. While the knee-jerk unbounded-capitalism-hating part of me dislikes the commoditization and marketing of such often grassroots ideas, it's also extremely fascinating from a Diffusion of Innovations/Tipping Point kind of angle. There's also a good mini interview with Watts Wacker, one of the book's authors.
Half a dozen signs that a company may be heading for a fall. Perhaps a little more short-term than most things here, and some points are a little obvious ("Watch stock sales by top company executives") but they're handy pointers to keep in mind all the same.
A hefty guide (1MB PDF) to performing foresight studies in regions (generally a geographical area smaller than a nation). Discusses what foresight is for, the different kinds of foresight exercises, and how to structure and implement the exercise. Includes a bunch of case studies towards the end. It all looks pretty sensible. Just a shame it's over 100 pages of bright blue text...
Joel Garreau looks at the benefits of doing a scenario planning exercise around your own future. Will your long-term plans hold up in a a variety of alternative futures? A good article for describing scenarios to those who aren't aware of them. He focuses on the GBN's method of using two axes, each with opposite outcomes of a critical uncertainty.
An article by Art Kleiner from Whole Earth's Spring 1999 issue outlining the scenario building method he uses, a variation on that used by the Global Business Network.