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 123: 2024 What A Year It Has Been
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2024 Year-End Special: Shaping the Future with Think Forward
Join host Steve Fisher in this Think Forward podcast episode, where we recap the transformative events of 2024 and look ahead to 2025. From the integration of AI into everyday life to advancements in sustainable technology, climate change crises, and shifts in political and financial landscapes, this year has been monumental. The episode features reflections and clips from conversations with leading futurists and innovators about their groundbreaking insights. Exciting announcements include the launch of a new book and expansion plans for Think Forward in 2025, aiming to deliver a richer, more interactive experience for the community.
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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.
Introduction and Welcome
SPEAKER_00Welcome 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.
SPEAKER_07Welcome to our 2024 year-end special of Think Forward. I'm your host, Steve Fisher. Today, we're diving into the phases shaping our future, starting with a comprehensive look at the drivers and signals that define 2024. First, I want to thank you. This show is nothing without you. We have grown into a strong and wonderful community in a short time. I love interacting with all of you and getting feedback and suggestions on what you want to explore and who we should talk to. Next year is going to be exponentially bigger for Think Forward. I'm glad you're here for the ride. More on that toward the end of the episode.
Reflecting on 2024: Major Forces and Changes
SPEAKER_07Okay. So we're going to look back at 2024. What a strange trip it's been this year. This will, of course, be our annual clip show. And we're going to talk about drivers and signals of change as well. And what's in store for us in 2025. So let's go. As we like to do in these reflective and educational episodes, is put some great flowing music on in the background. Okay? Great. Now
Technological Advancements and Climate Challenges
SPEAKER_07let's begin with the major forces that reshaped our world this year. In the technology sphere, we witnessed AI's transformation from an emerging technology to an essential part of daily life. Generative AI tools didn't just enhance our capabilities, they fundamentally changed how we work, create, and solve problems. The breakthrough in neurosymbolic AI particularly stands out, pushing boundaries and human AI collaboration in ways we're only beginning to understand. But it wasn't just about AI. There's expansion of 5G networks, early research into 6G, and that has laid the groundwork for an increasingly connected future, one where the digital and physical worlds will continue to merge in unprecedented ways. Another challenge we've had this year is that the climate crisis has reached critical milestones in 2024. So let's just sink in. We officially recorded the hottest year in human history, crossing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold above pre-industrial levels. We saw this play out in real time with record-biking floods affecting 45 countries. But with these changes came innovation. Technologies like atmospheric water harvesting showed us new paths forward and adaptation. No matter which side of the spectrum you might fall on and how you believe about the climate, the world is changing. So we have to be able to create opportunities for us to navigate this change. On the political
Political and Financial Shifts
SPEAKER_07front, 2024 was a year of significant shifts. We're seeing an erosion and destruction of old institutions and how we view the world. It's also a reshuffling of the world order. On the financial side, we saw the SEC's approval of Bitcoin ETFs here in the United States, and that marked a turning point in the mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency, sending ripples throughout the global financial system. So much to cover there, but we're looking in this cycle as Bitcoin is going to have another really good year ahead of itself, and we're excited to see where that's going to go as well. Okay,
Emerging Technologies and Sustainability
SPEAKER_07so now let's explore the deeper currents, these tectonic shifts happening beneath the surface. The convergence of emergent technologies, particularly in synthetic biology, push the boundaries we once thought immovable. We're not just talking about lab-grown meat anymore. We're seeing bioplastics, personalized medicine, entirely new materials that could revolutionize our interaction to the physical world. And decentralization accelerating in fascinating ways. DAOS, which also stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization, began reshaping our understanding of governments and collective decision making. Meanwhile, the rise of micro supply chains started reducing our dependence on vulnerable global systems. In the sustainability sphere, carbon capture has moved from theoretical possibility to market reality. The emergence of carbon sequestering concrete in mainstream construction marks a pivotal moment in our approach to sustainable development. Now, let's turn our attention to those subtle whispers of
Weak Signals and Future Trends
SPEAKER_07change, the weak signals that might be tomorrow's headlines. So the rise of algorithmic sovereignty emerged as nations and corporations are developing independent AI systems. This is pushing back against tech centralization and oligarchy. We're seeing digital diasporas form, communities existing entirely in virtual spaces, challenging our traditional concepts of borders and belonging. Perhaps one of the most fascinating developments is the concept of synthetic wilderness. It's a bioengineered ecosystem designed to combat biodiversity loss. This raises profound questions about our relationship with nature and our role as steward to the planet. We're also witnessing the emergence of synthetic identities and hyper-personalized storytelling, where AI systems are crafting narratives tailored to the individual psychographic profiles. This isn't just changing media and advertising, it's reshaping how we experience reality itself. As we stand at this crossroad of change, these trends and signals point to a world evolving at unprecedented speed. The convergence of technologies, the redefinition of planetary boundaries, and the decentralization of power aren't just changes to observe, there are opportunities to shape a better future. For us as futurists, innovators, and thinkers, our challenge is clear. We must connect the dots and transform these drivers of change into actionable strategies. Whether we harness AI for societal benefit, tackle climate change, or prepare for power redistribution, the decisions we make today will echo throughout the years ahead.
2024 Think Forward Conversations
SPEAKER_07Now, let's explore some of the leading minds of futures thinking in approaching these challenges. As we explored these massive shifts through 2024, we were fortunate to speak with some of the most innovative minds in futures thinking. So let's revisit some of these crucial
Conversation with Jo Lepore
SPEAKER_07conversations that helped us make sense of these changes. One of the most compelling aspects of hosting Think Forward this year was exploring how many organizations are reimagining their relationship with the future. Let me tell you about a conversation that really struck me. My discussion with Joe Lapore from McDonald's. Now here was someone building foresight capabilities from the ground up in one of the world's largest organizations. And what fascinated me was not just the scale of her work, but her nuanced understanding of how AI and human wisdom need to coexist in futures work.
SPEAKER_02I think it holds great potential for our fields, but I do worry about it as well. I think there's a difference between obviously knowledge and wisdom. I think it's giving us a lot of knowledge and we're forgetting that we need to do the wisdom bit afterwards. I do think that the the most beneficial part of futures when it's applied is the critical thinking part. Because like I've seen some AI tools that do a futures wheel analysis where it's spitting out implications for you. And I'm like looking at this stuff going, there's no imagination in that. I don't know. It's just, I feel like it's best done when it is done in combination with people. And I don't think that you obviously can outsource that. But I do think that there it is very exciting, the ability for us to stop wasting so much time and gathering Intel and automate that process and make sure that we're getting like a really good, broad, geographically diverse set of Intel that is readily available to us, but no human being can access all of that in the way that AI can.
Conversation with Dr. Dimeji Onafuwa
SPEAKER_07One of the most thought-provoking conversations I had this year was with Dr. Jemeji Anafua. His work in pluriversal design challenged my thinking about sustainability and durability. I love what his perspective is and how it completely reframes our relationship to the products and experiences. Listen to this.
SPEAKER_03And the reason I try to simplify it is because I feel like designers need to understand this concept. So Escobar draws the definition of pluralists from the Zapatistas who are engaged in liberation struggle in Mexico back in the day in the 80s. A world where many worlds fit. But I've seen another definition that I actually really is where diverse hopes are sown, multiple opportunities are cultivated, and a plurality of meaningful lives are achieved by the richly different people that we are. I like that definition. That's great. Because what it yeah, it's really great. Because it says that and I often map that to my thinking of design, that when we design, we are actually seeking to understand how we live together in this world. That is my version of design. And so if we frame design that way, and we ensure that we have to think that then the features that we are making should include the lived experiences of everybody, including those we are ignoring. So it means that we have to draw from multiple perspectives. And that's the perverse, that's the kicker. That's a beautiful part of the perverse. The perverse forces us to think less in binary terms and approach our practice from a different paradigm. And we have to ask ourselves whose stories are we ignoring? Escobar talks about and he draws from the decolonial theories and talks about the linking from epistems and ideas of the ways of the world that are rooted in a Western ontology and relinking to new perspectives that actually bring us to shift, it's a systemic shift in a way we understand our world and relinking to new perspectives that are non-Western and so that we can broaden it. So the idea is removing or decentering from purely Western ideas around design to multiple centers and actually bringing all different ideas about designing to the fore. And actually saying that now everybody can participate in this new way of designing. And it's a very radical argument when you think about it, it's quite radical.
SPEAKER_07In a recent
Conversation with John Smart
SPEAKER_07conversation, I spoke with John Smart, who's a well-known futurist, and he brought a fascinating evolutionary perspective to our show. What I particularly appreciated about the conversation was how it helped bridge the gap between chaos and order in future thinking. So his framework for understanding change really resonated with me. Check this out.
SPEAKER_09So we can rename that pyramid of the three P's into the three mandates. Three mandates are we want to create, that's evolution, we want to protect, that's development, and we want to adapt. And that's evo-devo. The mix adaptation is always a mix of creation and protection, unpredictable, predictable. We have to do all three of those. And then the last thing that really helps us understand that pyramid is there's three actors. There's three actors in all complex systems. There's individuals, there's groups, and there's networks or ecosystems. So individuals are the primary creative engines in a society. They're constantly experimenting, they're hugely diverse.
Conversation with Kara Cunzeman
SPEAKER_07This theme of wisdom versus pure knowledge came up again. When I spoke with Kara Kunzman, her work at aerospace.org building the foresight organization there really opened my eyes. How critical it is for organizations, especially those involved with national security, to develop a robust foresight capability. What struck me most was her urgency about this need and the need for an office of foresight with the United States government. Here's what she shared.
SPEAKER_11We're actually becoming, I think, even more short-term and reactionary. So we recognizing this situation, the three of us said, you know what, we're gonna write a case statement. Nobody has ever put together a true case statement for why foresight is actually necessary if the United States wants to continue to lead, wants to continue to bring prosperity and freedom to its people, and wants to uplift, honestly, the world. If we want to lead, we're gonna have leadership and we're gonna have inspirational ideas about where our future is going. And we're not really putting the work in right now. And so this is what led us to stand up, want to uh push for an office in the highest levels of federal government that integrates all these perspectives and then helps drive an interagency progress on a national future strategy.
Conversation with Rohit Bhargava
SPEAKER_05So now you're taking a nine month old story along with a three-month-old story and projecting forward like what does this mean for the future? And to me, like that gave me unique insights that no one else had because I was just operating with different information.
SPEAKER_07In another
Conversation with Dr. Jake Sotiriadis
SPEAKER_07conversation, I spoke with Dr. Jake Sateriatis. He really highlighted the crucial intersection between futures thinking and national security. What struck me the most about Jake's perspective was his emphasis on foresight as a fundamental component of maintaining democratic values. Someone, as someone who's worked extensively in defense futures, his insights carry a particular weight. Check out this.
SPEAKER_10I think it's important to ground oneself in some deep expertise because then you're able to overlay the foresight methodology to really get after some wicked problems. I think with the national security space right now, where foresight really helps us iterate is this realization of the complexity of the world that we're living in today. And it's not just the fact that we have this US-China competition, that we have new ideological models, that we have this technological breakthrough which is going to transform how wars are fought in the future, surveillance, all of these kinds of issues. So I think against that backdrop, the linear way of thinking of just let's just go from point A to point B to point C and then reevaluate, it just we're gonna come up short.
Conversation with Dr. Ja-Nae Duane
SPEAKER_07So going all the way back to the beginning of the show when it launched, my first guest was Dr. Janae Duane. She brought a fascinating perspective to institutional change, particularly in education. What I found most compelling about our conversation was her understanding of how systems resist change. And her work at Brown University gives a unique vantage point of this challenge.
SPEAKER_01If you don't have a core group that is really looking to disrupt the entire system and to see what is that next big thing, and how can we in in many ways, how can we kill what we have now and create something completely new, then you're just going to get the same, you're perpetuating the same system that you have.
Conversation with Guillermo Sohnlein
SPEAKER_07One of our most expansive conversations this year was with Guillermo Sonline. What I love about Guillermo's work, and I've known him for almost 25 years, is how he combines practical entrepreneurship with a grand vision. While everyone else is talking about Mars, he was looking at Venus as humanity's next potential home. His comparison to the Apollo era really stuck with me.
SPEAKER_06And it's not just SpaceX with Starship, because as you were saying earlier, if SpaceX can prove that Starship can work, then that will inspire competition and more companies will try building heavy launch vehicles like that. I know the Chinese are developing at least three or four kind of Starship clones right now. So I think it's going to be a big shift for humanity over the next 10 years. I think over the next 10 years will probably be as big of a shift as it was maybe in the 60s with the Apollo program. So up until a year ago, I would always say Starship is the one thing that got me excited.
Conversation with Phil Balagtas
SPEAKER_07What particularly resonated with me was his emphasis on making futures tangible through speculative design. Anyone who wants to connect, design wants to have people touch, taste, and feel the future. It fundamentally changed how I think about design's role and futures work. Listen to this.
SPEAKER_08I also try to make the case that futures work doesn't have to be this specialized thing that you only do 10 years out in the future, that it's actually the methodologies and tools are things that could be used for very near future as well. And yeah, I think that anybody can really, one, they're probably already doing it, they don't know it, or they're just doing something that they didn't realize there was a tool for it or a methodology around it. But I think that anyone can make use of this process for whether it's thinking about very high-level 10-year strategy, five-year strategy, or product roadmap, or even just near-term, like there's so many trends and uh and patterns in the world that are constantly changing very quickly. And you can get ahead of these things if you're really just doing the work. All you have to do is have a process and try to try to have some sort of like understanding of how to analyze signals and patterns in the world. And just by having that knowledge, you are that much smarter or more adept than your competition might be, if that's what you're
Conversation with Christian Muhlroth
SPEAKER_08for our last clip.
SPEAKER_07I want to talk about my conversation with Christian Mulrof about innovation systems, was equally enlightening. His insights about integrating foresights into organizational systems really resonated with me. What struck me most was his practical approach to integrating foresight into organizational processes. His work at Itonics shows how technology can support rather than replace human foresight capabilities. Listen to what he had to say.
SPEAKER_04Having a vision is great. Yeah, but if you don't do anything, you'll never make it work. And I I think there is many visionaries out there. I don't think it's um sure. I mean, you you read from all the business books, oh, you know, this guy has been a great, you know, visionary. This girl has been fantastic on this one. Yeah, I I think people have lots of visions. Uh no matter if they're big or small, if they're in private or professional life, that's fine. So having a vision is great. Being able to communicate it is even better. But if you don't do anything, uh you'll actually never make it work. For us, for me, a vision is clear, it's set. Turning it into action is crucial.
SPEAKER_07Looking
Conversation Wrap Up
SPEAKER_07back at these conversations, a clear pattern emerges. The future isn't just about predicting what's next, it's about actively shaping it through informed intentional action. Each of these thought leaders in their own way is working to build bridges between where we are and where we need to be. As we close out 2024, these discussions remind us that futures thinking isn't just an academic exercise. It's a vital tool for navigating a rapidly changing world. Whether we're exploring corporate strategy, space exploration,
Looking Ahead to 2025
SPEAKER_07national security, or education, success comes from combining rigorous analysis with imaginative thinking and practical action. As we look ahead to 2025, I'm excited to share some news about the expansion of Think Forward. First, I'm thrilled to announce that my co-author, Dr. Janae Duane, and I have a new book coming out. We'll be sharing more details about that in the new year. But that's just the beginning. Think Forward is evolving. We're expanding beyond this podcast to create a richer, more interactive experience for our community of future thinkers. You'll find us on YouTube in Rumble, where we'll be offering video versions of our conversations, past and future, in-depth training on our futures, methods and topics, live streams where we can directly engage with you, and many documentaries exploring emerging trends and signals. If you haven't already, head over to YouTube slash at ThinkForward Show and subscribe. You'll want to be there as we roll out these new features. 2025 promises to be a pivotal year for futures thinking, and we're committed to bringing you not just great conversations, but practical tools and insights to help you navigate what's ahead. We've got some other surprises in store, but we'll reveal that
Conclusion and See You in 2025!
SPEAKER_07in the new year. Thank you again for being part of the Think Forward community in 2024. From all of us here at Think Forward, have a great holiday and keep thinking forward. We'll see you in 2025.
SPEAKER_00Thanks 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.
