How to build a futures-leading organization and team. — I’d like you to imagine two different visuals: one is a machine and the other a school of fish. Machines are purpose-built for various parts to act in unison to achieve some purpose. Machines are fragile, requiring constant care and attention to maintain their function. If their purpose or environment…

From 100-Year Design to Mindful Organization. The foundation of designing the future. — What are the most important things to focus on when we seek to elicit change in a systematic, ethical manner? For an engineer, it might be patience, precision, and collaboration. For a lawyer, perhaps honesty, reasoning, and knowledge. Every discipline or domain will have a unique set of best practices…

Pilots, experiential futures, and shaping a better world. — Life is experienced as a continuous present. Thus, when we talk about the future, it’s always as a distant, abstract concept. For instance, climate change will make the Earth’s average surface temperature higher with further impacts on humidity, volatility, currents, soil, and ice. Yet, most of us won’t directly experience…

A walkthrough of the futures design process and methods. — Futures designers design products, companies, and movements that shape a better world. But how do we do it? How do we design the future? It happens in big and small ways every day. Any time you make an improvement to some process or are kind to someone you're shaping a…

A guide and tools for how to lead your ecosystem’s future. — In 1972 biologists and philosophers Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana published Autopoiesis and Cognition and spurred a generation of systems and business thinkers. Their biggest insights were that entities could be self-sustaining in complex, competitive environments and entities that co-existed in an ecosystem were structurally coupled (i.e., that they co-evolved…

Being a futures designer often isn’t easy. Here’s why and how we handle it. — Humanity is capable of great destruction and incredible kindness and compassion. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch measures 1.6 million square kilometres and contains over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. This swirling vortex of human waste products is more than three times the size of Spain, weighs more than 79,000 tonnes…

What if you could live 100 times? What if your society could? What might the best version look like? — In its lifetime of 6–20 weeks, a worker bee will produce 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey. Alone, that may seem insignificant. But together, worker bees allow future generations to thrive once they’re gone. We are all future ancestors to those who haven’t yet been born. This perspective, of responsibility…

In ways big and small, across our lives, we all lead change. Here’s how. — Consider the night sky (or if possible, look at it now). Each star is a distinct individual. Yet, together they form complex, breathtaking patterns. Over 20 years ago, businesses were usually seen as individual stars, each going through their lifecycle. In 1994 Rafael Ramirez and Richard Normann introduced the concept…

The art and science of building what’s next. — The future echoes through the present Imagine we’re on an island in the middle of the ocean. We’re stranded, unfortunately. As we take in our new (hopefully temporary) home, we notice trees and crabs, and water lapping at the beach. If we wait long enough, we’ll begin to detect deeper patterns, like the tides, weather, and…