future mapping

But you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumstances are as anticipated means that there isn’t much slack in the system to respond when the unanticipated happens. Optimization is intrinsically brittle , because it’s about closely matching the

... See more

We need to become better storytellers in such a way that we can, through a variety of media, give people a visceral sense of what a positive future would sound, taste, feel and look like. We need to create stories where the kind of future we want to see becomes commonplace, everyday. We need to tell stories with an underlying sense that the mere

... See more

If we’re to resist the gravity well of banality, extract ourselves from of the containers of the past, escape the stifling grip of pre-packaged thinking, refuse to be complicit in the astro-turfing of culture, and create better, desired futures rather than merely slipstream into default ones, then what we really need is imagination. And the... See more

Our measurements are our agreed-upon codes for what matters, but once they are installed into our culture, it can be very hard to know when it’s time to rethink how we measure things in the first place. Our beliefs and feelings have a tendency to move forward before we have the models to describe them and the artifacts of culture – language, norms,... See more

Whilst incumbents might gravitate to jumping on the latest trend bandwagon or worse – playing into a lazy audience insight – Challengers lean into the fact that they have set themselves ambitions that might feel bigger than their brand. They continually find ways to recontextualise and evolve their message to keep them fresh.

Making the right kind of forecast means thinking deeply about where people are headed and what emerging beliefs, behaviors, mentalities, value systems, ideals and cultural ideas can be brought to the surface with the right conditions.

Technology creates new opportunities and branches in the human path, but it is only larger ideas and mindsets that... See more