future mapping

the why and the how

We need to play at living in the kind of world we want to create.

Rob Hopkins • From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want

It took me a while, but I eventually figured out what he meant. Sometimes the task of rebuilding—of accepting what has been broken and making things anew—is so daunting that it can almost feel easier to believe it can’t be done.

But it can.

Something sinister happened over the past algorithmically driven decade: brands took a sharp turn toward efficiency and benefits mindshare, often focusing on a laundry list of functional and emotional whoop-de-doos.

It’s this paint-inside-the-lines mentality that stokes irrelevancy and meaninglessness. And the whole point of a brand is to create an... See more

From Brand Strategy to Brand Anarchy

there’s simply no way around the fact that we’re pretty fed up with a certain philosophical framework in Silicon Valley. It has many names: the growth mindset. OKRs. KPIs. Even Minimalism — the predominant aesthetic of our era. But at its core, it all comes down to one thing: the relentless optimization of everything in our world.

this mindset has... See more

The Browser Company • Optimizing For Feelings

“the anxiety of doing something that is not conventional is a major sense of something being heavily burdened with risk. And if you're a senior, if you're a CEO or you're a C-suite person, and you see something that doesn't feel familiar, you feel that it's either heavily risky or it's not going to work, because that's not the way X other brands in

When a brand has a prediction at the center of its strategy, it sends a signal to the market that the company not only intends to own that future, but that any other brand playing outside of that future will be sidelined .

Jasmine Bina • There Is No Brand Strategy Without a Prediction

inside-out & outside-in thinking combined, alongside strong brand strategy, are how brands get to rich new spaces for breakthrough innovation.

Keely Adler • Screenshot 2024-05-30 at 3.32.33 PM.png

We need three things to release our imaginative power and exercise that muscle:

* Dedicated time and space to unblock our imagination.

* Permission, which is often withheld in a performance culture, where people may fear humiliation or being laughed at if they exercise imagination.

* Help through portals and exercises, which unlocks not just the... See more

Medium • Rewilding the Imagination