Alida Draudt, Experience Design Strategist/Futurist at Capital One, gave a really interesting talk on designing futures.

Our “present” leads to many different futures: the possible futures (all potential options), the probably futures (most likely to happen) and the preferred futures (desired futures).

Future sounds indefinite, but we can design it — but how do we navigate futures?

Process:

• Create a baseline today
• Consider all the possible futures
• Consider a preferable future
• Backcast on implications (what I prefer 15 years from now, therefore, what I need to do 10 yrs from now, 5 yrs, 1 yr etc)
• Work toward the preferable one.

I love the quote from James Dator: “any useful statement about the future should at first appear to be ridiculous”.