Quotable quotes

Planned obsolescence is often discussed as a moral problem, and so it is. It does real damage, socially and ecologically. But it’s also something else: a future assumption baked into design.

Futures work asks people to question assumptions, imagine alternatives, and sit with uncertainty. None of that happens when participants are passive for too long.

Futures don’t become actionable because they’re clever. They become actionable because people recognise themselves in them.

When futures work fails, it’s tempting to blame the method. Maybe the scenarios were too abstract. Maybe the time horizon was wrong. Maybe the data wasn’t robust enough. Sometimes that’s true. But more often, what I’ve seen is something else: the futures work didn’t fail: the conversation around it did.

For a long time, I tried to decide whether I was an introvert or an extrovert. Having explored all the personality tests out there (for what they are worth: not much, I think, but that’s another topic), I think that I am probably a mix of the two. Like most people.

In futures and foresight, we often talk about scenarios, or multiple plausible futures, that offer structured uncertainty and a way to think beyond prediction. Scenarios are powerful. I use them often. And if memory serves, they are probably the most popular futures and foresight method that exists. But scenarios alone are not enough.

In futures work, hope is often misunderstood. It’s sometimes treated as optimism, a belief that things will turn out well. But in complex systems, that kind of hope rarely survives contact with reality.

Power in futures work doesn’t just show up in who sets the agenda. It shows up in who feels able to speak.

We often talk about futures work as if it happens in a room. But place is never neutral. When we work with place consciously, it becomes a co-facilitator.