Jen Stumbles

I have broad experience within the fields of futures research, remote learning, strategy, communications and concept development - initially within the marketing space, and later in a more general business role.

I'm an obsessive researcher and love exploring new perspectives, postures or frameworks which support the breakdown, visualization and synthesis of knowledge in new and useful ways. Curious and creative horizon scanning is one of my daily habits, and I’m interested to explore how we might utilize technology to scaffold both research and imagination, in building a more systematic approach to strategic intelligence.

I see collective learning as part of a much larger transformative social connective process than we sometimes acknowledge, and so understanding the right role for technology in shaping forms of connection, communities of practice, pathways to agency and potential for change . . is something I think a lot about. But I’m also a pragmatist. Having worked for 13 years inside a small-to-medium business organization, with a great many successes and failures, I’ve learned from experience that too much time spent in ‘systems’ and ‘strategyland’ can give even the best of us altitude sickness, especially in the face of pressing challenges on the ground. To this end, I naturally bias toward collective learning and participation through creative forms of presentation to stimulate discussion, springy questions and rich narratives to support change.

I'm in the final stages of completing my Masters of Strategic Foresight at the University of Houston. The area I've been exploring most in my masters focuses around anticipatory futures intelligence and the right role for technology in futures intelligence work.

If you’re working in strategic futures intelligence or innovation somewhere in a space leaning toward better human futures - I’m all ears. I’d love to hear what you’re noodling about or what would be useful in your work.

I’m developing this work with the intention of sharing a kind of open research infrastructure in the hope that it might spark something in someone else. Something others might find useful to share, reuse, test, fork, break or rebuild. Whatever moves it forward.