At zonti, we do not take futures for granted.
Rather, we accept that ‘the future’ is plural, provisional, slippery and polymorphous.
We use experiential and speculative methods to work with this uncertainty in critical, creative and collaborative ways. By imagining and modelling future scenarios and worlds using digital and other media, we can rehearse them, explore and know them, then evaluate the options and possibilities, and bring the insights back to inform decisions and actions in the present.
This work isn’t about making predictions. Rather, it’s an open and experimental orientation towards the future, one that imagines, and speculates, and problematises, and asks ‘what if?’, rather than attempting simplistically to solve or predict.
But surely, you may ask, shouldn’t we be focusing on what is going to happen, and what we want to happen? Why spend time speculating about possible scenarios?
The problem is, as a society, we have a terrible record when it comes to predicting change and picking winners. By nature, we tend to see the future as an extension of the present. So by focusing only on what we see as probable and preferable outcomes, we neglect other possibilities, and in so doing we may fail to spot both risks and opportunities. Redirecting attention to other possibilities is the first step in radical transformation.
To quote from the futurist, Stuart Candy:
‘[T]he ways in which we ordinarily think about the future are inadequate to our needs in circumstances of rapid and accelerating change. Our collective survival – not to mention the fates of organisations, industries and communities – depends on grappling more successfully with seemingly “unthinkable” or “unimaginable” potentials.’
There is a large body of practice and research in experiential and speculative futuring, going back over 20 years. These methods are employed by design researchers, researchers in advanced technology in universities, and industrial designers in corporations such as Apple. They are acknowledged as instruments for responsible research and innovation by the EU. And they are being adopted in educational research, including in digital learning technologies.
At zonti we are bringing these methods from research, design and innovation, and applying them to strategy and transformation. We’d love to show you more.
Picture credit: ‘Turn to clear vision’ by rachaelvoorhees on Flickr, https://flic.kr/p/4eA8Mf (CC BY-ND 2.0). Description: colour close-up photo of a public coin-operated telescope (or binoculars) of the kind found in panoramic tourist spots. Between the silver eyepieces, there is a hexagonal lever bearing the following words ‘TURN TO CLEAR VISION’ in striking white capital letters on a red ground.
References:
Augé, M. (2014) The Future. London: Verso
Balagtas, P. (2024) Making Futures Work: Integrating Futures Thinking for Design, Innovation, and Strategy. Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly.
Candy, S. (2010) The Futures of Everyday Life: Politics and the Design of Experiential Scenarios. Available at: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.1840.0248.
Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Escobar, A. (2018) Designs for the Pluriverse. Durham: Duke University Press.
Groß, B. and Mandir, E. (2024) Designing Futures: Speculation, Critique, Innovation. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Hoffman, J. (2022) Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Change, Foster Resilience, and Co-create the Cities We Need. Huichin, unceded Ohlone land aka Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Poli, R. (2019) Working with the Future: Ideas and Tools to Govern Uncertainty. Milan: Bocconi University Press EGEA S.p.A.
Ross, J. (2023) Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies. Abingdon: Routledge.
von Schomberg, R. (ed.) (2011) Towards Responsible Research and Innovation in the Information and Communication Technologies and Security Technologies Fields. Brussels: European Commission. Available at: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/60153e8a-0fe9-4911-a7f4-1b530967ef10.
Wittrock, C., Forsberg, E-M., Pols, A., Macnaughton, P. and Ludwig, D. (2021) Implementing Responsible Research and Innovation: Organisational and National Conditions. Cham: Springer.
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