Design Futures: May 2021
There’s an age-old question that goes something like this: Do you live to work or work to live?
That question has seldom been pondered by so many as in the past year. People asking themselves: What is the value or a job or career? What does stability look like? What is risk — and what is worth risking? As we’ve seen entire sectors disappear and new ones emerge from the dust, the future of time, money, work, and value look radically different today than they did 24 months ago.
At this point we’re all largely familiar with stories about everyday investors battling venture funds to save businesses like GameStop, or joke cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin growing 26,000% in 6 months. But more than the financial opportunity inherent in the deregulation of currencies and redistribution of wealth, is the undercurrent of a collective generation of people asking themselves: “Does what I do matter?” Or perhaps, “How can I ensure that what I do matters?”
As we kick off our next Futures series exploring the Future of Money, we’re asking ourselves questions along a similar vein:
- What if money carried values in addition to value?
- What might it take to envision ways to design financial equity?
- Can we design pathways to sustainable lives and livelihoods that resemble what Robin Hood set out to do in Sherwood Forest?
And perhaps most importantly — where lies opportunity for cultural shifts, for breaking down barriers, creating unity, and designing a sustainable future in which people both contribute to the good of society and benefit individually?
We hope you’ve grown to enjoy the speculative futures, design resources, and conversations with innovative thinkers we share with you in these emails. Over the next few months we’ll be exploring money in all its grandeur — how to design cryptocurrencies that support economic growth without borders, ideas for emerging technologies to support difficult financial conversations, and ways to use design and systems thinking to support optimistic — and realistic — ways to build better systems, products, and interactions for our future selves — and the generations to come.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Gandhi
Featured Videos & Articles
“Why Design?” Fireside Chats
Our newest installation of “Why Design?” features Dmitri Love, founder of the Bundil Crypto App, which automatically invests your spare change into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.
Dmitri talks with Modernist’s Chad Fisher about the misconceptions of crypto, the importance of finding the right partners as an early-stage startup, and why you have to fail in order to ultimately succeed.
Watch here >
And keep an eye out for conversations with:
- Jennifer Cloer, CEO of Story Changes Culture Media & Consulting; Executive Producer of the Chasing Grace Project; Co-host of the Hyped podcast; and Women’s Media Center SheSource Expert
- Nathan Ryan, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Sky Partners, a boutique consulting firm that manages executive-level projects for growth stage companies and teams
- Jane Clair Hervey, founding director of Boss Babes ATX, a 501c3 amplifying women and nonbinary creatives and leaders
- Andrei Papancea, founder and CEO of NLX, an AI-driven conversational approach to solving customer problems at scale
- Stuart Cook, Chief Digital Product Officer at Valley Bank, who is redefining the traditional approach to banking with a new focus on digitally-enabled community banking
Teaching a Child About Finance
Money is the central tenet of life for many adults in the US — whether we like it or not — but there is a tremendous lack of financial literacy. Can we design a more accessible system? CEO Matt Franks says we can — if we start early. This week on the blog, Matt shares financial lessons that are crucial for adults — and simple enough for children.
Read more >
Roundtable: The New American Dream
We gathered a group of experts in design, finance, and tech for a roundtable discussion on the New American Dream. What is it? How do we attain it — and design for it? And what is the Future of Finance? We hope you are as inspired by these conversations as we were.
Thank you to our fantastic panel for sharing their insights!
- Shane Berry — Head of Customer Experience at Mission Lane
- Jeremy Henrickson — VP Product and Engineering at Rippling & former Chief Product Officer, Coinbase
- Cindy Chastain — SVP, Global Customer Experience & Design at Mastercard
- Meriah Moulton — Chief Design Officer at USAA
- Rachel Kobetz — Head of Design at Expedia Group & former SVP of Design at Bank of America
- Brian Romanko — Software Engineering Manager at Facebook & former VP of Engineering at Bestow
Finding Inspiration
Our team’s shortlist of what we’re reading, listening to, and learning from.
“The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations”
Some populations of neurons simultaneously process sensations and memories. New work shows how the brain rotates those representations to prevent interference. How might this impact AI, machine learning, and, of course, neuroscience?
Read more in Quanta Magazine >
Mindful Money from Headspace
Learn to approach finances through a lens of awareness and compassion with the meditation app’s new Mindful Money toolkit. From spending money to talking about it to coping with the feelings it stirs up, this new collection of meditations, exercises, and videos with experts brings new meaning to the term “financial wellness.”
Check it out >
Made for Love
We’re always balancing the feasible with the absurd in order to keep challenging our own perceptions. This dark comedy walks that line when groundbreaking technology is (mis)used to advance human interactions — and then ultimately fails when humanity overrides prediction. The dry wit and not too subtle allusions to present-day personalities are perfect for a quick binge — with a smile.
Watch now >
“Don’t Let Financial Metrics Prematurely Stifle Innovation”
In the early days of developing a new idea, the metrics that may be most common — number of prototypes, customers interviewed, repeat users — are important, but in order to sustain real innovation, you need a way of transitioning from those early activity metrics to a more defensible way of showing the impact and value you’re creating.
Read the HBR article >
Thank you for joining us on this month’s Design Futures journey. Let’s keep imagining what the future can be.
— Modernist Studio
