The (potential) futility of futures work

A musing triggered by a meta chat on the futures of futures work earlier this week

Earlier this week a few of my fellow Group of Humans got together for our weekly Human Futures session.

A colourful cast of characters discussing COVID and the futures beyond

Ever since the start of lockdown, we have been meeting online at different cadences. Initially fortnightly, then weekly. With a varying cast of colourful characters. Tapping into the curiosities, observations and creativity of my fellow ‘humans’.

Some very early framing of our musings near the start of lockdown

We’ve explored signal databases. Played with different foresight and futures tools. Generated market propositions. Come up with product-service ideas. Even explored generative AI tools to generate new potential worlds around topics like the futures of cities that we had been exploring. And we’ve also done some client projects with some of the team.

A little Miro board frame of some of the early Midjourney sketching we did on some urban futures

A power to unstructured oral sketching

Most of the time, we’ve done a lot of talking. Often agenda-less. Sometimes with a topic. But with a lot of emergence. Many threads re-emerged over the past few years. Decentralisation. The commons. Power. Resilience. Politics. Identity. Authenticity. And so many more things.

Many people along the way have struggled with the lack of structure. ‘What are we going to do with all this, beyond talking?’

We have tried some things. But to be honest, with a group like ours it’s hard to get the sort of commitment to make something tangible. We all have our own businesses. It can take time to make something together. To create a product or write a report. Somehow distilling all of our chat and thinking into something concrete, fixed and dare I say it, ‘marketable’ and appealing to buy, in order to justify the investment we would need to make in the first place.

And yet there has been beauty in NOT doing any of that. The value being in the conversation. Exploring topics. Prototyping ideas. Sketching sentences. Meandering to better places. Value to ourselves individually. Possible value to the collective hive mind that may lurk in our slack channel. Strengthening our muscles of observation, curiosity and verbal ideation.

As we anticipate a barrage of reports towards the end of the year talking about updated trends and predictions for 2024, I wonder what the more useful alternatives might be.

Futures of futures work

In our session a small group of us started off our session talking about the future of futures work. Reflecting on our different experiences in these fields. There was a perspective about the lack of interest in Futures work when people are so focused on survival. Of saving their pennies. Especially when layoffs still seem trendy. Another of us reflected on his experiences bringing external agencies in to his longer term work. He wanted them to push the boundaries more.

A latent need for imagination injections

And then I chipped in with an emerging hypothesis. As design has scaled increasingly within orgs I’m wondering whether they need injections of imagination. After all, they may have oiled the machine. Hired loads of designers to focus on optimising something they know has value. Maybe they have focused too much on exploitation at the detriment of exploration. Some of the questions within being along the lines of:

• Do we have capacity to think broader?
• Do our team have the capabilities to do that?
• Have they had that capability before?
• Could they develop that capability and capacity?
• Should we get some outside help?

I guess this doesn’t have to be levelled at futures alone. But I see futures as part of a range of lenses, processes, tools, or imagination injections that orgs may benefit from to explore new potential.

Possibly wishful thinking I know. Especially given it’s a space I often work in.

A slide from one of my slide decks, with a statement of my offer at a high-level that plays into a lot of common futures narrative, but also relates to my work history and current as a coach, consultant and designer

Confusing supply

So, I believe there may be a need. A latent if not explicit demand. But I think there is also an unclear and confusing supply. Lots of packaged takes. Lots of variations on the same. Futures wheels, trends databases, shiny reports with cute and catchy wordplay, futures cones a-go a-go. Lots of academic journalism. Big reckons. Some intriguing fields. Speculative Design. Design Fiction. Futures Design. Strategic Foresight. Just plain old product, or innovation strategy. It’s yet another minefield.

How does an organisation know what they need?

And how do people and organisations that could help, position themselves to better provide that support, or injection?

Adapting the generic takes on futures. Or using them with the utmost confidence.

A lack of integration?

If I really reflect on my click-baity title, I don’t really think that futures work is futile. Though at times I believe it can feel that way.

My issues with a lot of futures work usually relates to the lack of integration into an organisation. Into it’s imagination. It’s product and service development. Into the team. And like with Service Design, Product Strategy and a few other fields I play in, I never quite feel like I should call myself a Futures person. There’s just some picky gatekeeping going on. And to me, it’s just another way to look at challenges and opportunities. Another input. Another output. A part of a process of strategy, design, innovation or sometimes marketing.

I’d be curious what you think?