Intended for use by individuals or groups in initiating strategic thinking and planning, this document provides national data on 21 dimensions of the environmental scanning process grouped into nine categories and presents a model of strategic planning. Following a brief introduction describing the importance of environmental factors in planning, data from the 1990 Census are described for the following areas: (1) demographics, including the aging of society, increasing racial diversity, and the shifting of the U.S. population center towards the southwest; (2) economics, highlighting the transition from industry to other sectors, disparity between workplace needs and worker qualifications, and polarization of wealth; (3) the political climate; (4) social values and lifestyles, reviewing trends related to at-risk youth, changing families and households, individual insulation from society, and increasing customer demands in an expanded marketplace; (5) the technology/information explosion; (6) the privatization of education; (7) paradoxical public responses to social problems; (8) changes in organizations such as the movement from homogeneity and mass production, increasing female influence, and greater awareness of our limits; and (9) increasing globalization. Finally, a model for strategic guidance is described, discussing predictable shifts in organizational context in the next few years (e.g., increasing dominance of external factors and an emphasis on quality), advocating a shift from product to process orientation, and presenting eight enhancements to traditional environmental scanning (e.g., developing an understanding of organizational relationship to the larger society and monitoring employee attitudes and public opinion). (KP)