Practical imagination

Imagination, in this light, becomes a foundational asset—not just for speculative design or cultural expression, but for shaping the next generation of institutions and business models. It enables a shift from reactive, short-term thinking to proactive, regenerative strategies that can thrive in complexity and uncertainty. For entrepreneurs committ... See more

Practical imagination, then, is not a luxury. It is a cultural and political practice. It refuses the idea that the future is something to be predicted or owned. Instead, it understands the future as something to be imagined with others, through contradiction and against the assumptions of the present. This requires transforming how imagination is ... See more

Imagination is a socially shaped, foundational human capacity that is critical for navigating complexity, challenging dominant systems and shaping more just and desirable futures.

Imagination must be understood as a critical responsibility—not as a resource to extract, nor a differentiator in markets, but as a capacity that must be cultivated and protected. In a world increasingly driven by predictive models, short-term optimization and commodified creativity, the role of designers is not simply to generate novel ideas, but ... See more

The firm as an engine of imagination”, Bronk and Beckert argue that corporations are not just economic entities but producers of imaginaries.

If the Enlightenment was a revolution in thinking, the survival of the human species may well depend on a revolution in imagination. This revolution would not center reason and mastery, but interdependence, care and the capacity to imagine otherwise. It would demand that we challenge what we think is possible, not through extrapolation, but through... See more

Contemporary scholars such as Sohail Inayatullah, Roberto Poli and Riel Miller emphasize the importance of futures literacy, which is the capacity to imagine, critique and reframe multiple futures. Futures literacy expands our ability to navigate uncertainty and enables people to generate new meanings rather than simply extrapolate from current tre... See more

Creativity versus imagination

Creativity typically refers to applied problem-solving, often operationalized through practical techniques. It is possible to train creativity like a muscle—to generate novelty through recombination, transformation or adaptive iteration. Creativity thrives within constraint and is usually focused on producing outcomes.... See more

Ann Pendleton-Jullian explains how this capacity is not only practical—it is also performative and embodied. When we admire characters like Sherlock Holmes, it is not simply for their logic. Holmes, when asked if he has a solution, often answers with a number—“Yes, three” or “Yes, seven”—signaling the number of hypothetical scenarios he has already... See more