We help people to think long-term

We are foresight consultants exploring multiple futures with you to open up possibilities, plan for uncertainty, analyze assumptions and prepare for change.

We design programs in service to your goals using multiple methods.

foresight
what solutions are you looking for?

Futures Present opens up a constructive place for independent thinking. We help you with practical activities to keep your strategic plan relevant over time.
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Developing the habit of scanning the present for trends creates shortcuts in the future. However, if you are analyzing data from the same sources as your competition, it may lead to similar conclusions. We help you to think ahead about real concerns within potential environments of tomorrow.  

​Foresight is not about predicting
​the future, it's about minimizing surprise.
​Karl Schroeder

CHANGE
how might long-lasting change affect you?

Futures Present helps shift the inner workings of an organization to support strategy and innovation. We work with clients to locate focal points for change that widely affect how a new strategy is implemented.

Our carefully designed interactions within your organization draw out the wisdom, creativity, and enthusiasm needed at a times of transition and innovation.

Consistency not intensity.
​Simon Sinek

learning
How do NEW IDEAS PRovoke CHange ?

Priority is a function of context.
Stephen R. Covey

Futures Present designs learning experiences tailored to you, because skill acquisition is a process, and not just a certificate.

Whether online or on-site, we build experiences based on the specific challenges of a client-learner. Learners develop practical skills for practical solutions to real-life situations. 

innovation
what if you disrupt your own business?

We cannot solve our problems
​with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein 

Futures Present creates a place for you to discover alternative solutions that may be outside of your comfort zone. You won’t be alone in discovering opportunities for disruption and taking on new forms of responsibility.

We have designed new engagement methods, worked with cutting edge industries in the tech sector to develop better products, and increased the economy and well-being of regions as far away as Korea.

We are your partners in helping you envision futures and make plans.

Maggie Greyson

Innovation consulting​​​
​Foresight & impact ​assessment
Strategic design ​

People tend to think of the future as menacing, unknowable, and blurry. Let's use these assumptions to decide what we really want. 

David Buwalda

​Learning design
Group process facilitation
Organizational change​
​Community development

Long-term thinking doesn't always come naturally. With a little practice and a little support we can learn a lot looking far forward.

We publish multiple narratives to communicate big ideas.

Our Think like a Futurist hands-on workshop at the Interior Design Show #IDS20 was our favourite project in January. 

School of International Futures awards Maggie the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Special Award for North America.

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A discussion about Making the Futures Present with Maggie and David about the personal experiential futures workshop.

Futures Wisdom - Engaging Ambiguity Through Speculative Design co-authored by Maggie, David, Nate Gerber, and Howard Tam. ​

Centennial College's STORYWORKS journalism students share their experience working as Futures Present journalists.

Futures Essay A Path to the Circular Economy written by Maggie, APF Emerging Fellow

We help you to value uncertainty and embrace the change you seek.

Find out more

​The recognition that no knowledge can be complete, no metaphor entire, is itself humanizing. It counteracts fanaticism. It grants even to adversaries the possibility of partial truth, and to oneself the possibility of error. 
Alvin Toffler

These are testimonials from our workshop participants.

Robin Lobb
​President of the Toronto Entertainment District Residents Association

It was interesting for me to have us mull over what a future might look like and then discover the delta between where we are and where we need to go. And then to hear it all come back to narrative. Over and over again, improving our understanding of the narrative, developing narrative, multiple possible narratives ... we need all that to make better decisions.

Kashfia Rahman
Designer, Researcher & Strategist

Foresight is really hard, and thinking about the future or futures is really, really hard. And trying to do it quickly and with people that you may not really know is always a difficult process and I think the way the space was facilitated was amazing. We got to have some great conversations immediately. I wish I had acknowledged how hard it is from a facilitator perspective and a participant perspective.

Eric Kamphof
​Urban Cycling Entrepreneur

While I realize that the things that I’m doing are connected to a larger ecosystem, I don’t always get to experience the context of that larger ecosystem. Something like today was really great, I met people that are asking all the same questions I am, but they’re asking them in a much broader or much more specific way. I feel like a piece of the puzzle, but you can see the whole puzzle on a day like today which is nice.