Futures intelligence: Applying Gardner to public relations

•Current norms in public relations practice and education restrict the ability of the profession to truly emerge with an essential place in strategic planning for organisational futures.•Gardner’s “Five minds” describe desirable qualities for a more critically aware, empathetic and sustainable practice of public relations.•A knowledge of futures planning combined with Gardner’s Five Minds can generate “Futures Intelligence”.•Futures intelligence is forward thinking, strategic, positive and empathetic.•The teaching of scenario planning is described.

This paper explores the relevance of Howard Gardner’s concept of “Five minds for the future” to the field of public relations, both for practitioners and educators. It extends Gardner’s concept by adding a futures dimension to generate what I term “futures intelligence” that I argue is now necessary for the sustainability of the public relations field itself as well as of its clients. Futures intelligence is forward thinking, strategic, positive and empathetic. With its emphasis on future possibilities, futures intelligence not only provides practical ability to use the tools by which practitioners can plan and adapt for the long term but does this by taking into account societies’ collective needs rather than those of self-serving individuals. The paper illustrates a process of building futures intelligence with a description of innovative teaching to post graduate public relations students at a university in New Zealand.