Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Think Forward EP 121: Role of Imagination in Futures Work
"The only future we can make is the one we can imagine."
Most organizations treat imagination like New Year's exercise equipment—they know they should use it, but somehow it ends up gathering dust in the corner.
Join me for Episode 121 of the Think Forward Show as we explore how imagination transforms futures work from abstract possibilities into tangible futures we can build.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why imagination is the secret sauce of futures work
- How to break free from the "tyranny of the present"
- Practical tools from the Design Futurist Toolkit
- Making abstract futures tangible and actionable
Ready to flex your imagination muscle? This episode will show you how futures work comes alive when we combine rigorous analysis with creative thinking.
#ThinkForwardShow #FuturesThinking #Innovation #DesignFutures #StrategicForesight #FuturistPodcast #Futures #Leadership #FutureOfWork
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast, where we speak with futurists, innovators, and big thinkers. Come along with your host, Steve Fisher, and explore the future together. Welcome back to the Think Forward show, where we explore the tools and techniques and talk to those helping us shape tomorrow. Today we're tackling something that might surprise you, the critical role of imagination in futures work. As a design futurist, my work is focused on helping organizations envision and create their futures. I've learned that imagination isn't just the fun part, it's the secret sauce that turns foresight into action. Now, I know what you're thinking. Steve, shouldn't we be talking about serious methods of data? Well, put on your creativity caps because today we're exploring how imagination transforms rigorous futures work from abstract possibilities into tangible futures that we can actually touch, feel, and build toward. So let's talk about imagination. Now let's cue up some music to spark those creative brain cells. Okay? Great. I've learned that imagination is like using a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. But here's the thing, most organizations treat imagination like that fancy exercise equipment they bought on New Year's Day. They know they should use it, but somehow it ends up gathering dust in the corner. Let me tell you a story. Back in the early 1900s, when people tried to imagine the future of transportation, most of them just pictured faster horses. That's not a joke. They literally called cars, Horseless carriages because they couldn't break free from their present day mental models. Their imagination was constrained by what they knew, not what could be. Now, I've seen this same pattern play out in countless strategy sessions and futures workshops. People get stuck in what I call the tyranny of the present, where current limitations become mental handcuffs that keep us from seeing radical new possibilities. smartphones. 20 years ago, all the devices like BlackBerry's had physical keys. Anyone trying to innovate included a keyboard in the design until, you guessed it, a device from a little company called Apple came along. This is where imagination becomes the most important aspect of innovation and futures thinking. The most powerful futures work happens when we combine rigorous analysis with imaginative thinking. Think of it like this. If data and trends are the ingredients, imagination is the chef that turns them into something amazing. Without imagination, we're just doing spreadsheet karaoke. Singing the same old song with slightly different numbers. I remember working with a major automotive company that was struggling to envision their future beyond incremental improvements to their existing products. We started using speculative design techniques, creating tangible prototypes of future possibilities, building experiential scenarios, and suddenly something clicked. They stopped seeing just cars and started seeing mobility ecosystems. The data hadn't changed. But their imaginative capacity had expanded. This is why imagination isn't just the fun part of futures work. It's absolutely essential. It's the bridge between what is and what could be without it. We're just extrapolating the present forward. And let me tell you, the future rarely cooperates with our Excel projections, but here's the really exciting part. Imagination isn't just about wild ideas or science fiction concepts, it's about developing the capacity to see different possibilities, to question our assumptions, and to envision futures that are both aspirational and achievable. When we combine imaginative thinking with rigorous futures methods, that's when the magic happens. In the next segment, I'll share some practical tools from my Design Futurist Toolkit that you can use to develop your own imaginative capacity. Because remember, the future belongs to those who can imagine it. Alright, let's open up the Design Futurist Toolkit. And no, it doesn't include a crystal ball or a DeLorean, though. I have to admit either one would make my job a lot easier. What it does include are powerful techniques that help us make the future tangible, because here's the thing. It's not enough to just imagine the future. We need to make it something people can see, touch and experience. That's where design futures tools come in. Let me share some of my favorites that I've developed over decades of helping organizations envision their futures. First up is what I call Future Artifacts. This is inspired by the work of Stuart Candy and Jake Dunigan's Thing from the Future. Imagine taking something from your imagined future and bringing it into the present. It could be a product, a service manual, or even a newspaper from 2035. I once worked with a healthcare company where we created a patient care app from 2030. We didn't just sketch it. We built a clickable prototype complete with features that don't exist yet. It included AI diagnostics, holographic consultations, the works. Was it technically feasible today? Number, but it got everyone thinking differently about patient care and spark conversations about what was actually possible. Another powerful tool is experience prototyping. This is where we create immersive scenarios that let people actually experience a possible future. Think of it like a theater production where the future is the star. I've seen more aha moments during these exercises than in a hundred PowerPoint presentations. Now here's a quick example for a retail client. We transformed a conference room into a store from 2028. We had people walk through and interact with speculative technologies, services, and customer experiences. The insights we gathered weren't just about technology. They were about human behavior. That's the kind of deep understanding you can't get from a trend report. But my absolute favorite tool, and this might surprise you, is storytelling. Not just any storytelling, but what's called design fiction. This is where we create detailed narratives about the lives of people living in those possible futures. I like to call this exercise, people from the future. The key is to focus on the human elements. The daily experiences, the small changes, the unexpected consequences. Remember, we're not trying to predict the exact future. We're creating provocations that help us explore possibilities and implications. It's about expanding our view of what's possible while keeping one foot grounded in reality. Let me give you a practical exercise you can try right now. Take something you use every day. Your phone, your coffee maker, whatever. Now imagine it 15 years in the future. But here's the trick. Don't just make it faster or smaller. Think about how society might have changed. How might our values be different? How might our behaviors have evolved? What might this object need to do in that world? And that's just scratching the surface of what's in a design futurist toolkit. In our next segment, we'll talk about how to break through the barriers that often block our imaginative capacity. Because having tools is one thing, being able to use them effectively is another story entirely. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Or should I say the brick wall in our minds? As a futurist, I've encountered every kind of resistance to imaginative thinking you can imagine. And yes, I appreciate the irony there. But Steve, they say, we need to be realistic. Harpo, or my personal favorite, that's not how we do things here. Sound familiar? These aren't just phrases. They're symptoms of what I call future blindness. Where we're so anchored in today's constraints that we can't see tomorrow's possibilities. Let me tell you about a fascinating project I worked on with a large financial institution. When we started talking about imagining new banking futures, one executive actually said, banking hasn't changed in 400 years. Why would it change now? Well, if we thought like that, double entry accounting wouldn't exist. So how do we break through these barriers? I've developed what I call the yes and approach to imaginative futures work. Instead of shooting down ideas with yes but, we build on them with yes and. It's like improvisational theater meets strategic foresight. Here's how it works in practice. Let's say someone suggests that in the future, all cars will be autonomous. Instead of immediately listing all the reasons why that might not happen, we say, yes, and what might that mean for city planning? Yes, and how might that change where people choose to live? Yes, and what happens to parking lots? See what's happening there? We're not ignoring practical constraints. We're temporarily setting them aside to explore possibilities. It's like taking off your shoes before entering a house. You know, you'll need them again, but for now you're free to walk around without tracking mud everywhere. I remember working with a tech company's engineering team. Brilliant folks, but they were so focused on technical feasibility that they couldn't see beyond current limitations. So we tried something different. We created what a permission to play workshop, where the only rule was that you couldn't say, that's impossible. The results were extraordinary. These same engineers who had been stuck in incremental improvements started imagining revolutionary solutions. And here's the kicker. When we later analyzed their impossible ideas, About 60 percent of them were actually achievable with existing or near future technology. They just needed permission to imagine first. But breaking through barriers isn't just about techniques. It's about creating safe spaces for imagination. In my practice, I've found that people aren't actually afraid of imagining. They're afraid of being wrong. Looking foolish or wasting time. Once you address those fears, imagination flows naturally. In our next segment, we'll explore some structured exercises that can help you and your team build your imaginative capacity systematically, because like any skill, imagination gets better with practice and I've got some exercises that can help you flex those creative muscles. All right, let's roll up our sleeves and get practical. I'm going to share some of my favorite exercises from my design futures practice. The ones that consistently help people break through to new ways of thinking about tomorrow. First up is what I call a day in the life. Now this isn't your ordinary future scenario exercise. Instead of focusing on big technological changes, we zoom in on the small human moments. What's breakfast like in 2035? How do you commute? What's changed in your morning routine? I used this recently with a group of product designers and something fascinating happened. When we stopped talking about their product in isolation and started embedding it in people's daily lives, the conversations completely shifted. Suddenly, we weren't just discussing features. We were exploring human needs, behaviors, and values. Here's how you can try this yourself. Pick a year. Let's say 2040. Now imagine waking up. What's the first thing you notice? What's different about your morning routine? Don't just think about the technology. Think about the social norms, the environmental conditions, the small details that make up daily life. Another powerful exercise is one I mentioned earlier in the episode. Future artifacts. This is where we actually create physical objects from our imagined future. But here's the twist. We don't just make the object, we create its entire context. What's the user manual like? What are the reviews saying? What controversies has it caused? I once had a team create a children's toy from 2045. They didn't just design the toy, they created its safety warnings, its marketing materials, even its recall notice. The discussions that emerged around ethics, society, and values were incredible. And that's the real power of these exercises, they make abstract futures concrete enough to debate and discuss. But my absolute favorite exercise is headlines from tomorrow. We create new stories from different points in the future, not just the technology announcements, but the human interest stories, the op eds, the social media reactions. It's amazing how writing a fake tweet from 2038 can spark deep insights about social change. Let me give you a real example. Working with a mobility company, we created a local news website from 2035. The main headline wasn't about flying cars. It was about a community protest over automated delivery robots monopolizing sidewalk space. That one fictional headline led to breakthrough insights about infrastructure, accessibility, and social equity. That completely reshaped their innovation strategy. Here's a quick exercise you can try right now. Yes, right now, even if you're driving, just think it through. Don't write it down. I really don't want to be mentioned on an accident report. Now imagine opening your preferred news source exactly 10 years from today. What's the main headline? What are people commenting about? What advertisements do you see? What's not in the news anymore because it's become so normal? In our next segment, we'll explore how to integrate these imaginative exercises with traditional futures methods Because the real magic happens when creativity meets rigor Now we're getting to what I consider the secret sauce of effective futures work Integrating imaginative design approaches with rigorous foresight methods. As a design futurist, I've learned that this isn't about choosing between creativity and analysis. It's about making them dance together. Think of it like cooking. Data, trends, and analysis are your ingredients. Important? Absolutely. Essential? You bet. But imagination, that's your heat source. Without it, you've just got a pile of raw ingredients. With it, you can create something transformative. Let me share a story from my work that really brings this home. We were working with a major health care provider using traditional scenario planning to explore possible futures. The data was solid. The analysis was thorough, but something was missing. The scenarios felt well, they felt like PowerPoint slides, important, but not exactly inspiring. So we did something different. We took those carefully researched scenarios and turned them into immersive experiences. We created physical artifacts, patient journey maps, even mock medical devices from each future. Suddenly those same scenarios came alive. People weren't just nodding at data points. They were engaging, debating, and most importantly, seeing possibilities they'd missed before. Here's how this integration works in practice. Let's say you're using a futures wheel to map out implications of a trend. Instead of just writing descriptions, create quick sketches or prototypes for each implication. Or when you're doing horizon scanning, don't just collect signals. Create design fiction pieces that bring those signals to life. One technique I love is what I call trend materialization. Take your trend analysis and literally make it tangible. If your data suggests a shift toward more personalized healthcare. Create a prototype of a patient's medical ID from that future. If you're seeing signals about changing work patterns, mock up a job posting from 2035. But here's the key insight I've gained over years of practice. Imagination isn't the opposite of rigor. It's what makes rigor relevant. When we combine solid futures research with design led imagination, we create something more powerful than either approach alone, practical application. Want to try this yourself? Next time you're analyzing a trend, don't stop at the data. Ask yourself. What does this trend smell like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like to live in a world where this trend has fully played out? Create something physical that represents that future. Even if it's just a quick sketch or a prototype made from paper and tape. The goal isn't to replace traditional futures methods. It's to enhance them. Think of imagination as the bridge between analysis and action, between knowing and doing, between understanding the possible future and being able to work toward it. In our final segment, we'll look at some real world case studies where this integration of imagination and analysis has led to breakthrough insights and actual change, because at the end of the day, that's what futures work is all about. Not just seeing different futures, but helping create better ones. Let me share some real world examples of how imaginative futures work creates tangible impact. Because while imagination might sound fuzzy, its results are anything but. Remember when Apple first introduced the iPad? Most people saw it as just a bigger iPhone. I saw the PADD prop device from Star Trek The Next Generation, but that is just me the Trekkie. Little, but what they were really doing was imagining a future where computers disappeared into everyday objects. That's design futures thinking in action. Imagining not just a product, but a different way of being. In my own practice, I've seen this play out countless times. Let me share one of my favorite examples. We were working with a large healthcare organization, trying to envision the future of patient care. Instead of just analyzing trends, we created a full scale prototype of a 2035 clinic experience. The executives thought it was just a creative exercise until they started interacting with it. Something fascinating happened. When they physically walk through this future experience, they stopped thinking about quarterly targets and started seeing genuine opportunities for transformation. Within six months, they'd launched three innovation initiatives that hadn't even been on their radar before. But here's what really matters. And this futurist. The most powerful futures work happens when we make the intangible tangible. When we turn abstract possibilities into things people can see, touch, and experience. As we wrap up our exploration of imagination in futures work, I want to leave you with something practical. Here's this week's Think Forward Challenge. Take one future focused project you're working on right now. Instead of just writing about it or discussing it, create something physical that represents that future. It could be a prototype, a mock advertisement, even a short skit. The medium doesn't matter. What matters is making it tangible. Next, remember, imagination isn't just about creativity. It's about possibility. It's about seeing beyond what is to what could be. And in a world changing as rapidly as ours, that ability isn't just useful, it's essential. Whether you're a seasoned futurist, a business strategist, or just someone curious about what's next, developing your imaginative capacity is crucial for meaningful futures work. Because the future isn't something that just happens to us. It's something we actively imagine and create, one tangible possibility at a time. In future episodes, we'll continue our Being a Futurist series. Exploring more tools and techniques for understanding and shaping tomorrow. Until then, keep your mind open, your imagination active, and always think forward. Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at www. thinkforwardshow. com as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
