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Future of XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:06:24 - 00:00:36:10
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this very special episode of Future of XYZ. It's very special because it is our 150th episode overall. I'm really proud of this, and I'm also really excited to speak with our guest, Nick Foster. Nick, welcome to a Future of XYZ.
00:00:36:12 - 00:00:48:16
Speaker 2
It's very nice to be here. And I was saying, to the listeners, I was saying beforehand how much of an achievement 150 is because there are a lot of people starting podcasts, and not many get to double figures. So congratulations, it’s a big achievement.
00:00:48:18 - 00:01:09:16
Speaker 1
Thank you, I appreciate it. It's, as I said, it's a labor of love. and it's really exciting because we get to speak with, you know, design leaders like yourself. And, prior to being part of iF Design and the Surround podcast network. We also spoke with politicians and academics and all sorts of people. So I, I it's been a learning journey for me as well.
00:01:09:18 - 00:01:33:05
Speaker 1
And what we're talking about with you today is kind of exciting. It's a it's a bit meta, I guess, in the context of Future of XYZ and 149 prior episodes, talking about the future of various topics, because we're talking about the future of thinking about the future. And that is, kind of a weird topic, probably for some people.
00:01:33:07 - 00:01:41:17
Speaker 1
Before I give you your proper introductions, which you have, why don't we define that topic in the context of your expertise and, today's conversation?
00:01:41:19 - 00:01:59:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, we'll definitely get into it, I think, and it might even evolve as we talk, but, yeah, what I'm interested in is not necessarily making predictions or extending projections into the future or making any kind of bets. I'm interested in the ways in which we think about the future. When we close our eyes, what comes to mind when we think about the future?
00:01:59:09 - 00:02:11:11
Speaker 2
And where does that stuff come from and why? And who created it? And how might it be strong and how might it be weak? So I'm interested in sort of talking in and around that space today and, yeah, that's the subject of my book, so.
00:02:11:13 - 00:02:35:16
Speaker 1
Well, yeah. Let's, I mean, so you are UK raised as some people will ascertain from your accent. You're a trained industrial designer. You studied at the Royal College of Arts, which, is one of the most prestigious design schools in the world. You became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2018. You have also been awarded the title of Royal Designer for Industry.
00:02:35:16 - 00:02:46:13
Speaker 1
I think you go Nick Foster, RDI now, which is the highest accolade for a British designer in the field of industrial design. So congratulations on that.
00:02:46:15 - 00:03:07:23
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. It's actually in all design. So we've got everybody from, architects and graphic designers, interior designers, garden designers now. And actually part of the interesting thing when so I'm on the, the faculty obviously on the committee as well. And every year when we look for nominations for royal designers, we have that sort of conversation of what does actually constitute design in this contemporary landscape.
00:03:07:23 - 00:03:20:11
Speaker 2
So it's actually quite a good primer to have that conversation and say, what do we mean by design? But yeah, it's a very it's a lovely accolade. It's limited to 200 living individuals at any one time. So I feel like I'm in rare air. let's say.
00:03:20:13 - 00:03:46:09
Speaker 1
That's definitely rarefied air. I would say, we'll talk a little bit about kind of your own, career trajectory at some of the world's largest tech companies. But your most recent full time gig, if you will, was as head of design at Google X up until a couple of years ago. And there you were, leading a team of designers, researchers and prototype developers, etc. kind of thinking about nascent technologies.
00:03:46:11 - 00:04:11:20
Speaker 1
And around that same time, Fortune magazine described you as one of the world's foremost, leaders in speculative design. I, I know you mentioned it, and you describec yourself as a futures designer, but you're also a very, very recently published author. Just a few weeks ago, your book “Could Should Might Don't” came out. And the subtitle on that is “How we think about the future”.
00:04:11:22 - 00:04:19:05
Speaker 1
So that's why we're talking about future of thinking about the future. Nick, why did you write this particular book?
00:04:19:07 - 00:04:39:08
Speaker 2
It's a very good question, and one that I ask myself frequently. Well, yeah, I mean, I've been in and around. I'm a designer, a designer by training. I've been fortunate to work for some really large and really interesting companies. And in those companies, I've held roles that are sort of overtly looking beyond the horizon, looking at deeper futures than perhaps most people do.
00:04:39:10 - 00:05:06:07
Speaker 2
Typically in and around, like you said, evolving emerging technologies. And when I was at Google X, that's sort of the very extreme version of that. So really looking at things like brain control, computer interfaces, robotics, stratospheric internet balloons, even we worked on, you know, nuclear fusion projects and things like that. So really thinking long term about the kinds of things we might make and why and how we might do them, and whether they're interesting or whether they're risky or all of those things.
00:05:06:09 - 00:05:31:00
Speaker 2
And being in and around those worlds for such a long time and, yes, around designers, but also around scientists and engineers and, investors and and marketing people, business people, business leaders, all that sort of group of people had a lot of conversations about the future. And what I've sort of realized, without wanting to sound too critical, is I don't think this is something any of us are particularly good at.
00:05:31:02 - 00:05:50:04
Speaker 2
And what I mean by good, is sort of rigor rigorous. And I think that that's something that gradually started to stand out in my experiences. And I got to that point in my career where I was fortunate enough to take a break. I just wanted to start jotting down some thoughts to try and get my my sort of head in gear again
00:05:50:04 - 00:06:07:21
Speaker 2
after just being in the work for so long and started to have that sort of internal conversation about what how do we think about the future? How how is it seemingly so underpowered and under resourced and non rigorous? And why do people make the same sorts of mistakes all the time, regardless of their background? So I started to write things down.
00:06:07:21 - 00:06:16:14
Speaker 2
It evolved and evolved and evolved and got a bit unwieldy. And so it sort of turned into a book. And fast forward a year and a half or so, maybe two actually, at this point.
00:06:16:14 - 00:06:34:18
Speaker 2
It's been a really fun experience. And I've always found writing to be a means to make sense of the world for myself. So it's actually quite nice to share some of those things with people, outside of my own skull and, and sort of start that conversation about when we think about the future, what happens and what happens in our heads.
00:06:34:18 - 00:06:37:05
Speaker 2
And, you know, how can we maybe improve that a bit?
00:06:37:07 - 00:06:58:13
Speaker 1
Well, it's interesting in the in the testimonials, if you will. I forget what they call them in official publishing speak. But at the front of the book, Questlove, who is, musician, obviously the co-founder of the Roots, but also filmmaker and cultural curator, says that your book helps provide a meaningful framework for considering the big questions of, quote unquote, “Where are we going?
00:06:58:13 - 00:07:14:19
Speaker 1
Who will be we be when we get there, and what we need to know that we don't know enough to answer them now”. What do you think we actually don't know enough about? Because you've basically just said even in your career, that's kind of the sense you had. What what is it that we don't know enough about?
00:07:14:21 - 00:07:37:05
Speaker 2
I think I mean, Questlove has his own opinions and his own take on the book and good for him. And I'm very proud to have his name on the cover. I think one thing maybe to address is that when I started to write this book, I was very conscious, maybe this is just my own sort of emotional hang ups, but I really didn't want to build a manifesto and say what I think the future should contain, or you know, what technologies we should invest in.
00:07:37:11 - 00:07:53:17
Speaker 2
I also didn't want to write any sort of predictions of this is where I think the future's going. I also didn't want to write a book that was like a method or a framework or something to scrawl on a whiteboard to sort of, you know, as millions of consultants do every day. So those are all the things I didn't want to do, because I sort of think we have enough of that.
00:07:53:23 - 00:08:09:24
Speaker 2
But there's a lot of those books you go on to Amazon or anywhere and search for those books, and they're everywhere and there's tons of them. So if people like that way of working, great. What I actually wanted to do was just dig down a bit deeper and try and create some sort of framework is fine, but I prefer taxonomy.
00:08:09:24 - 00:08:30:20
Speaker 2
Just like when we think about the future, do we fall into particular lockstep in a certain way of thinking? And I think we do. I think there are four main ways that we think about the future. Now, obviously, we all jump about between these things. Some of us have our preferences for ways of thinking about the future. Some of us sort of only do those things, but maybe stray a bit so the edges are blurry, like every diagram.
00:08:30:20 - 00:09:04:24
Speaker 2
It's just a simplification, not a rule. Maybe it's the four corners of the map, let's say, as opposed to these are four channels that you fall into. But I think they're broadly defined as those four words could, should, might and don't. And I find myself falling into those patterns at any one time. I think everybody does, whether they're a practitioner and a creator of futures visions or more importantly, a consumer of them, or somebody just chatting down a pub to their friends about the future. They'll find themselves in one of these four sort of patterns of conversation or ways of thinking. And I think once we've become aware of that taxonomy, and once we're able
00:09:04:24 - 00:09:33:05
Speaker 2
to break down the future into at least four more manageable chunks, then we might start to have a bit more of a critical conversation about it. And I think what we all realize is, yeah, I do find myself doing one of those more than the other, actually. And perhaps what I mean by rigor is if we could spread ourselves a bit more broadly across all four, I think our stories about the future will become more rounded and more involving and more more sort of actionable and understandable and bring more people into the conversation that we want to have with them.
00:09:33:07 - 00:09:57:05
Speaker 1
So, I mean, there's there's lots to unpack there. yeah, sure. We're always a really short interview. I think one of the things I mean, just talking about your career, we talked about the Google X work already, but prior to that, you know, you've kind of been in these industrial design leader, future forward tech companies, whether it be Apple or Google or Nokia or Sony or Dyson.
00:09:57:07 - 00:10:08:09
Speaker 1
What did you learn? I mean, I guess that's kind of the thing about these, you say these four like taxonomy, okay. But like in these design roles, what did you learn about thinking about the future?
00:10:08:11 - 00:10:29:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. And again, I think the main thing that I learned is that even working with very, very well, well-educated, well focused people, when you're talking about something near a term, everybody wants an awful lot of rigor. Everybody wants to really dive into the details and just flinging out an idea in a meeting is not okay. You have to have deeper thought.
00:10:29:00 - 00:11:02:08
Speaker 2
You have to have deeper responsibility. You need to have some data around it. You need to have some real detail. But as soon as the conversation stretches that little bit further and obviously further is a comparative adjective, and we can talk about what that means. And it's it's different in every industry, of course, but if you start to talk about the future with somebody, even a very well-educated person with a PhD or a Pulitzer Prize, you'll find things like The Jetsons or The Matrix or start to come up in conversation, which feels like it's really shooting low of the mark that we should expect from these kinds of conversations.
00:11:02:10 - 00:11:18:21
Speaker 2
Likewise, you see people, you know, there's a lot of people who work in futures work or foresight or strategy or whatever you want to call it, who who use data a lot and unpick the world through data and try to create sort of models of the world. And that's interesting and that's great. And it's taken us to some really interesting places.
00:11:18:23 - 00:11:55:07
Speaker 2
But again, when the solid line converts to a dotted line, it ceases to be data and it becomes a story. And you'll find people leaning on those dotted lines are sort of synthetic facts as opposed to what they are, which is stories or opinions or hunches or guesses. And so I think there's a lot of tolerance for a lack of rigor when we're talking about the future across the board, from designers and creative people through to more sort of investors, financiers, venture people, business leaders, strategists, everybody has sort of a really visible weakness when it comes to talking about the future, that I think we really need to start addressing.
00:11:55:07 - 00:12:10:02
Speaker 2
And we could get into why a little bit maybe. But I think right now is a really good time to have that conversation about this is a skill that we all play in, but none of us really develop into a, you know, a rigorous, you know, well-developed ability.
00:12:10:04 - 00:12:37:18
Speaker 1
It's so interesting because I've, for the last ten years or so, considered myself a futurist long before this futurism kind of job description was everywhere. And and I still do. I think it's interesting. I mean, the strategists, as you just said, there are lots of kind of like synonyms. But, I guess to your point just now, I mean, as humans, we're always kind of like anticipating and looking ahead, whether that's near term or far term
00:12:37:20 - 00:12:50:11
Speaker 1
is in that sense, do you consider that we're all a futurist because we're always thinking about the future? Is this like a profession that is and should be limited to a handful?
00:12:50:13 - 00:13:09:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. I write about this at length in the book, actually. Yeah. There's a big chapter called The Reluctant Futurist. So I don't refer to myself as a futurist for lots and lots of reasons that could fill up way more than half an hour. But but let me just try and hit some of the high notes. I think it's because on the one hand, I think it doesn't feel like a real job.
00:13:10:01 - 00:13:30:16
Speaker 2
Like maybe it's my working class roots showing, but it feels like sort of a symptom of overprivileged consultant culture. And, and I think when you put it against welder or doctor or farmer or something, it doesn't feel like a real job. So I feel a bit silly saying it out loud. But also I think society hasn't made sense of it as a role.
00:13:30:18 - 00:13:53:16
Speaker 2
And I think that's honestly, and this is where I do get a bit critical. I think it's because the output of futurists is subpar, and I sort of don't want to be in that gang, really, because I think there's a lot of futurists who are sort of, they're peddling manifestos or they're peddling opinions or they're peddling ideas and not being sort of rigorous and detail oriented and honest about the levels of uncertainty that are in their work.
00:13:53:18 - 00:14:18:07
Speaker 2
And, and it's sort of it sort of finds its way onto conference stages and into strategy decks. And, and it sort of doesn't really lead anywhere. And I think, I think with the growth of futurists that we've seen and the sort of adoption of futurists into large organizations, there's definitely been an uptick in an interest. But I think there's a bit of dubious ness starting to emerge amongst the consumers of this stuff.
00:14:18:09 - 00:14:41:00
Speaker 2
For sure. Yeah, secondly, I think I've been fortunate enough to give talks on stages and sort of under that banner of being a futurist or whatever, and the audience is really important to me. And I think they they're expecting something when I walk on stage, they expect these huge numerals projected behind me about, you know, some figure that's going to be amazing or some robotics uptick or something.
00:14:41:04 - 00:15:05:16
Speaker 2
And they're sort of sitting there patiently in their rows waiting for it. And I think that sets up a sort of power dynamic that makes me uncomfortable. And the reason why I wrote this book as a sort of layperson's book, rather than a practitions book or a business book, it's a book for everybody. Because I think if the audience starts to get more confident and is allowed to be more critical of the futures that they're told and sold, then that work will have to improve.
00:15:05:18 - 00:15:21:06
Speaker 2
It will have to. And they won't tolerate this sort of loosey goosey futures work that I know you see a lot of and I certainly see a lot of. And so I think what I'm really hoping to do is maybe with the book, without wanting to sound strident, sort of empower the audience to put their hand up and say, what do you mean, tell me more?
00:15:21:06 - 00:15:43:04
Speaker 2
I don't get it like that seems like a lie or I, I don't understand what you're saying, because at the moment I think people sort of sit back and nod and it all sounds really high falutin and and complicated and amazing, but I don't really know where to engage with it. So yeah, it's a long, sort of strident answer, but I think, I think giving people the tools to say, hang on a second, this feels really biased.
00:15:43:04 - 00:15:48:13
Speaker 2
Oh, hang on a second. Tell me more. I don't get it. Like, I would love for that conversation to develop some more.
00:15:48:15 - 00:16:18:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, the word rigor just keeps coming up. And I think in the world right now, you know, that, frankly, is changing faster than ever, and where interdependencies between nations and economies and cultures and resources and ecosystem stuff is, is more at the fore in, you know, September 2025 than we've ever seen. and yet there's this constant bombardment now through futurists or from data centers or from consultants or from the media or from our leaders.
00:16:18:14 - 00:16:50:10
Speaker 1
You know, across the board these competing visions and interpretations, both of truth. But also, if you're using today's facts to imagine a future, then there that dotted line can get thrown off kilter real fast. It's already, as you said, a dotted line at best. You know, and then you're starting from a place that is, I guess I would say, like more competitive and less grounded in fact, in some ways.
00:16:50:12 - 00:17:05:21
Speaker 1
So, like, what are the dangers right now to us as human beings, of either becoming complacent or checking out or of actually just misinterpreting today's cues? And where does that lead us?
00:17:05:23 - 00:17:35:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, this, I'm not a big science fiction person at all, but William Gibson does have a really lovely quote that I'll butcher now about, it's very difficult to form detailed visions of the future because the present is too volatile. And he uses the phrase “we have insufficient now to stand on” which I really I mean, I really love it as a way of thinking, because the amount of change that our generation, let's say I'm putting myself and you in the same one there, let's let's assume, apologies.
00:17:35:02 - 00:17:52:18
Speaker 2
But that the amount of change that's happened is staggering. And yet my father is still alive in the UK, and he was born before vinyl albums existed and exists in a world after ChatGPT exists. And that amount of that, that's just sort of a technology change, but societal change. Gay marriage is now legal in about 40 countries.
00:17:52:22 - 00:17:57:21
Speaker 2
We've had a black president in the United States of America. You know, there's so much change.
00:17:57:21 - 00:17:58:07
Speaker 1
So much and so fast.
00:17:58:07 - 00:18:27:15
Speaker 2
Happening, so, so fast everywhere. There is an argument to say that, like structured thinking about the future is harder and harder and less and less useful. I disagree with that because I think actually what we're all doing today is we're all living within the consequences of insufficient foresight and thinking about the future from our predecessors, all those grainy people in those blurry black and white photographs who accidentally started things in motion that we're now sort of fixing, living with, trying to work around, trying to solve.
00:18:27:17 - 00:18:50:00
Speaker 2
We're doing the same thing now for the next generation. And I think being able to start to think more rigorously about what we're putting in motion, the implications, the externalities, the second and third order implications. Thinking about uncertainty and bringing that into our work alongside sort of strident terms like solution and prediction and projection, bringing sort of we don't really know
00:18:50:00 - 00:19:08:23
Speaker 2
so let's be careful. Bringing some of that into the thinking, too, is what I mean by rigor. And that's a word that I hold real close to my heart, is just, can we do a little bit more right now? Whatever it is, a little bit more? Just to make sure that we've got a little bit more of an idea about the future, even if it's an idea of what we don't know.
00:19:09:04 - 00:19:10:18
Speaker 2
Like that's important.
00:19:10:20 - 00:19:27:23
Speaker 1
I think it's really interesting. I mean, I've, I've always held these roles that are kind of change agent roles, you know, roles that don't exist whatever. And I, it took me 20 years to figure it out. But like, you know, there's this great Benjamin Franklin attributed quote, like the only thing search in life, you know, besides death and taxes is is change.
00:19:28:00 - 00:19:51:21
Speaker 1
And you know what? I came to find out and it did take me 20 years of pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. It's like people say they want change, but actually no one does. And so in a world where everything is changing, I find that people hold on tighter and tighter to what they believe, rather than interrogating what they don't know.
00:19:51:21 - 00:20:15:05
Speaker 1
And I think that what you don't know, to your point, is actually where the interest is like and trying to fill in that information. On our South by Southwest, you know, pitch for, for next year, you know, you said, you know, put more information in your brain. And I am a big believer that the more information we have, the more certain we can deduce what the right next step is.
00:20:15:05 - 00:20:30:14
Speaker 1
For instance, and it doesn't need to be far out. What's your take on, kind of, I guess we'll call it the messy middle, you know? We’ll, we'll think about Scott Belsky, who founded, you know, Behance and is now one of the leaders over at Adobe who wrote that book, “The Messy Middle,” and it really hit me hard.
00:20:30:14 - 00:20:46:14
Speaker 1
It's like we look as humans, all these high points or low points, but mostly the high and actually the majority of life lives in this kind of strata of the mundane. Every day. And our lives are very short. So that also has something to do with the future, right?
00:20:46:16 - 00:21:11:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, my if I do have an internal manifesto of any sort, it's what I call the future mundane, and it's a way of thinking about the future as an extension of the present and an ordinary, quotidian, everyday lived in experience. Because when we think about the future is very tempting to be pulled towards the extreme spikes or the ends of the bell curve either have huge, amazing whiz bang wow, eye widening, transformational horror
00:21:11:24 - 00:21:30:06
Speaker 2
terrifying, like dystopian futures. It's sort of tempting to be drawn towards those things. And our media, both entertainment media and news media does a good job of helping to pull us towards those extremes. And the truth of it is the lived experience for the majority of us, which is why the Bell Curve is a shape of a bell is somewhere in the middle.
00:21:30:08 - 00:21:49:08
Speaker 2
You know, we'll have things that will gradually change in our lives, will be meaningfully different like we talked about earlier, but they'll still be clothes pegs and coat hangers and doorknobs and shoes that need cleaning and whatever else. Like we need to think about the future as that ordinary median place. And it's really tempting and really it's really tempting not to do that.
00:21:49:08 - 00:22:10:08
Speaker 2
And it's really difficult to do that, especially in corporate environments where you're trying to sort of advertise or sell your idea or make a pitch to an investor. It's tempting to sort of lean more heavily towards the ends. And actually, I think when I travel, one of the things I love to do is go to a convenience store, like a local liquor store, a convenience store, and just walk around.
00:22:10:10 - 00:22:38:12
Speaker 2
And I think you get a real sense for the shape of a culture and the shape of a society from a place like that, that you sort of don't really get from museums and galleries where you see what the what the kings and queens used to wear the extremes. So I really love throwing my chest towards if somebody says, hey, we've got this amazing new technology and or this amazing thing in the test bed or in the lab that can do all these things, it's important to think about the extremes and what huge transformation could happen.
00:22:38:12 - 00:22:56:10
Speaker 2
I think it's also important to think of it in Derek's backpack on the bus, going to his shift. And as soon as you start to do that, what I find is the conversation suddenly gets grounded and the questions get richer and the conversations get deeper and the implications become more tangible and more visible. And people go, oh yeah, I do actually have an Uncle Derek.
00:22:56:10 - 00:23:15:18
Speaker 2
And it's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. So yeah, I love to think about the ordinary, the everyday, the lived experience of change. And I'm, you know, I'm most familiar with technological change, but all of it. What does it mean for a bar mitzvah in the middle of, you know, Delaware somewhere? What does it mean for, you know, a holiday in Spain for a family of four?
00:23:15:19 - 00:23:30:21
Speaker 2
Like, what does it mean? And so I often refer to that as trying to find the grain in a technology, trying to find the direction it wants to go and what changes it will bring in the world. And then start to really play that out in as much detail and as much mundanity as I can muster.
00:23:30:23 - 00:24:00:17
Speaker 1
I it's so interesting because, over the course of the last ten years, I've given a lot of talks, and the two primary ones are like values, you know, values based leadership, values based brand building. But also my favorite is like the calculated risk taking. And in both of them, I kind of go through like, you know, we have to point out contextually how short a time human beings have actually been on this little planet, and how short of time, really, in the history of the universe, this planet has been here.
00:24:00:21 - 00:24:23:07
Speaker 1
I think that contextualization is always grounding. But basically, since the end of the Ice age and modern man, you know, you think about innovation that radically changed human existence and ultimately also the planet and all those other things. But I mean, the first is fire, right? Like you could suddenly like, have hunter gatherer cultures and things where you could actually stay put and like, have divisions of labor.
00:24:23:09 - 00:24:57:18
Speaker 1
You have the printing press, for instance, right? You have airplanes, even the wheel back even before that, you know, and then you start thinking forward and the rate of change, the microchip, you know, when that happened and now, you know, don't even talk about the internet. And then you talk about emerging tech like AI, you know, machine learning and the I mean, obviously there's the singularity and all the things that we won't get into, but this is what that talk does is go, it gets faster and faster and faster and faster and faster, and it's almost like humans have this craving for constant innovation.
00:24:57:18 - 00:25:08:08
Speaker 1
And I'm wondering, do you think that's true? And along the way, what do we get right? And I think you've already alluded to what we get wrong. But what are the implications of that?
00:25:08:10 - 00:25:26:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, the first part of your question is interesting is that I think as a as a species, we're not very good. Our understanding of time is very, very poor, and the passage of time. And in, in the researching for this book too, you might know these figures, but to me they were interesting. So our oceans have had sharks for longer than Saturn has had rings
00:25:26:19 - 00:25:48:01
Speaker 2
is one thing which just, you know, that's a big thing. And also Ciabatta bread was invented after the color television. Like these. these are things like, I don't know, when we think about the past, our ability to sort of contextualize along a time axis is very poor. Now, more to the point of your question, Kurzweil is obviously quite famous for his conversations about exponentiality.
00:25:48:03 - 00:26:15:04
Speaker 2
And I think innovation in particular is very accretive. So once one group of people have developed a four cylinder engine, the next generation can start from that benchmark and then start to look at turbochargers and gearboxes. And and then the next generation can build on that. So it naturally gains this sort of momentum. I think we're at a sort of weird inflection point with society where a combination of us all being able to share everything with each other.
00:26:15:06 - 00:26:38:08
Speaker 2
So 8 billion stories every second of the day has made us more aware, perhaps, of the implications of change. And because change is happening so rapidly at such scale, we can see with our own eyes the change around us. And I think this is, I wouldn't say a pushback, but certainly an awareness of like, we're able to make big shifts on this little rock quite quickly now and quite significantly.
00:26:38:10 - 00:27:00:17
Speaker 2
And people are starting to say, well, hang on a second. I think it might only be at that point at the moment. You know, obviously everyone's at different phase of realization, but I think people are starting to realize we have an ability to really open the spigots on change on this planet and a level of sort of responsibility and a culture of, well and then what is starting to creep in?
00:27:00:19 - 00:27:23:07
Speaker 2
Not in every company, certainly not in every country. But it definitely feels like we're, you know, the futurism that I grew up with in the 80s was just boldly strident modernist, let's move to the future. I grew up, space Lego was my toy. I grew up around back to the future. All the gadget pictures, even the A-Team had like little gadgets in it and everything was tech, tech, tech.
00:27:23:07 - 00:27:29:19
Speaker 2
Grow, grow, grow faster, bigger, more combined with the growth of sort of the growth of conservative governments and.
00:27:29:21 - 00:27:30:00
Speaker 1
And capitalism.
00:27:30:06 - 00:27:52:24
Speaker 2
Investment, and capitalism, and the growth of sort of the financial classes and all of that. So the future when I was a kid was that place. If you start to talk to younger people now and there's a whole spectrum of ways we could cut this, but there seem to be one of the first generations of children or younger people, let's say, who are looking to the future and maybe not so confident about what they see or not so happy.
00:27:53:01 - 00:28:10:03
Speaker 2
And there's this, this phrase that I've got in the book, ambient, adolescent, apocalypticism, which is a term not coined by me. It's very alliterative, which makes it hard to say, but it is that feeling that I think anyone that's been around and we can define what younger people means, but certainly around younger people like under age 20.
00:28:10:03 - 00:28:29:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, you're around them and they're looking to the future and they're starting to be a bit more unsure, bit fearful, bit anxious about what they see because their ability to project forward is is not taking them to places that are interesting to them or they want to see. So I do think we may have we may have done the exponential bit.
00:28:29:09 - 00:28:36:14
Speaker 2
And the question about is, do we want to go steeper or do we want to start, you know, maybe it's a world which is less about more and more, about less perhaps.
00:28:36:18 - 00:28:42:15
Speaker 1
I mean, I think and it should be from a sustainability perspective. I just have to say, since, you know, July 24th,
00:28:42:15 - 00:28:53:21
Speaker 1
know, was was Earth Overshoot Day, which means we used 100% of the resource of this planet. You know, by July 24th, it's the first time since that's been tracked in 1980 that that's happened in July.
00:28:53:21 - 00:29:08:19
Speaker 1
Like, that means we're using 1.8% or 180%, 1.8 of the Earth each year. Like this is not sustainable. So I certainly hope that the future looks at less is more. Nick, I want to do a quick exercise, it's kind of fun.
00:29:08:21 - 00:29:10:16
Speaker 2
Okay. Is it fun? I'll be the judge of that.
00:29:10:17 - 00:29:27:23
Speaker 1
I think it’s fun. Yeah, you can be the judge afterwards, okay. It's a quick round, so it's like, what is the role of blank? And I'll give you the blanks in thinking about the future. Okay. Number one, I think, is the big hairy elephant culture. And you can define culture however you choose to.
00:29:28:00 - 00:29:32:17
Speaker 2
Culture. Yeah. there are many ways to define how quick do you want these things? You want one word.
00:29:32:19 - 00:29:35:08
Speaker 1
Like like no more than 15 seconds.
00:29:35:10 - 00:29:57:24
Speaker 2
Okay. I would say, this is the way I'll take the answer. Science fiction has driven popular culture around the future to a point where it's now driving the boardroom. And I think that that needs to be pushed back against. And it is not okay for us to try and make the things we saw in the movies, because the people making the movies weren't trying to make the future, they were trying to make entertainment.
00:29:58:01 - 00:29:58:20
Speaker 2
I'll leave it at that.
00:29:59:01 - 00:30:09:23
Speaker 1
My God, I think we could end the interview. That's awesome. Okay. Next one. What is the role of business and the growth mandate of free market capitalism in thinking about the future?
00:30:10:00 - 00:30:35:04
Speaker 2
Good Lord, these are really like these are like cracker questions, aren't they? What do I think of that? Again, I'm a designer. I've been privileged to be around sort of people like you're describing, and seen the way they work. I think a level of uncertainty is important to bring into their work in the future. I think they play a huge role, and numbers win every argument, and people who play in that space are good with numbers.
00:30:35:06 - 00:30:46:12
Speaker 2
And I think a little bit less certainty, a little bit more humility about where all of those dotted lines might be pointing would be a useful change in that world.
00:30:46:14 - 00:31:01:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. I'd also like to see like realistic projections, you know, those those are helpful. We can't do quarterly growth every year. Those things. Okay. What is the role, it's a big one, especially for you, what is the role of technology in thinking about the future?
00:31:01:10 - 00:31:32:01
Speaker 2
I mean, at the moment it has it has the wheel. Corporations are huge, powerful. They're able to deploy their products, particularly software products at massive scale to huge numbers of users. They need to understand that power perhaps more than they do in a way that is more responsible. And perhaps they do. I think that's changing. But I would love to see, a level of responsibility permeate through the whole of those organizations and not just have a team who go and police it in every other department.
00:31:32:01 - 00:31:42:16
Speaker 2
I would like to see those that level of concern, responsibility and, and questioning, mindsets across the whole of those businesses, not siloed.
00:31:42:18 - 00:31:46:15
Speaker 1
I appreciate that. Okay. We have three more. You're halfway through.
00:31:46:17 - 00:31:48:07
Speaker 2
Oh no. Here we go.
00:31:48:09 - 00:31:53:03
Speaker 1
What is the role of algorithms in thinking about the future?
00:31:53:05 - 00:32:16:13
Speaker 2
What is the role of algorithms? I think we live in an increasingly algorithmic world. So they're sort of part of everything we do anyway, whether we know it or not. And Georgina Voss has written a really great book about this, the idea of the hyper object as well, everything just being so interconnected with each other. I think being able to unpick decisions still is still a necessity that I want to see.
00:32:16:15 - 00:32:38:06
Speaker 2
And I think we're sort of gradually moving away with that, where algorithmic algorithmic systems are interacting with algorithmic systems, and it's becoming harder and harder for regular humans to unpack their reasoning. I think that could be a critical flaw in where we're pointing in the future, just from a sort of agency perspective as a species, like it would be nice to know why the air conditioning is now three degrees cooler than it was yesterday.
00:32:38:08 - 00:32:41:11
Speaker 2
Be nice to unpick why that's happened.
00:32:41:13 - 00:32:50:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay, second to last one. What is the role of mental health in thinking about the future?
00:32:50:07 - 00:33:17:00
Speaker 2
What is the role of mental health? Yeah, well, I talked about it a little bit earlier. In, in a couple of ways, the feeling of sort of wooziness that everybody gets whenever they turn on the news and sees the change come full force at them, that that insufficient now to stand on. I think people do feel very unstable at the moment and uncertain about things like their own jobs, really important things to their lives about the future, health care, about where they're headed.
00:33:17:02 - 00:33:35:19
Speaker 2
I also think that we have a responsibility to deploy nascent technologies in a, well-reasoned and responsible way to our young people. You know, a lot of these things are conceived as adult products and thrown at children. And I think we need to have a think about what that's doing more than perhaps most people are.
00:33:35:21 - 00:33:45:10
Speaker 1
And the very last one of this, what is the role of the planet of the planet Earth in thinking about the future?
00:33:45:12 - 00:34:03:09
Speaker 2
I mean, the planet doesn't have a role. It will exist after we're long gone. I think we have a role to the planet if we want to, if if, if we can all agree on one thing, the sustainment, the sustainability of our species on this planet. And you could argue that some people don't even agree on that.
00:34:03:09 - 00:34:24:16
Speaker 2
But if we do agree on that, I think it's undeniable that we need to think about what we're doing a bit more. Like I said, the planet shouldn't have a role. It shouldn't have to change what it's doing to suit us. I think we should we should understand that what we're doing is, is changing it. And yeah, I, I think, yeah, planet Earth will be here long after we've gone.
00:34:24:18 - 00:34:31:06
Speaker 1
I fully, I fully ascribe to that, belief. Okay.
00:34:31:07 - 00:34:38:22
Speaker 2
That was, that was stressful. That was stressful, Lisa, like. I’m sorry. I'm on the clock. It was fun.
00:34:38:24 - 00:34:56:04
Speaker 1
I strive for fun here in thinking about the future of the future, Nick. So, before I ask you the last question, of this 150th episode, is there anything that I didn't ask you about vis-a-vis thinking about the future, of thinking about the future that you want to share?
00:34:56:06 - 00:35:13:10
Speaker 2
Well, no. I think you've done a fantastic job. You're obviously 150 podcasts deep, so you know what you're doing? No, I think I think all I'm trying to do here, I just want to really reiterate, when you write a book like this with a major publisher, there's a there's a desire for it to sort of be pigeonholed into one spot, like it's a business book.
00:35:13:10 - 00:35:36:08
Speaker 2
It's a design book. It's a critical thinking book. And it's sort of all of those, but none of them. What I really, really hope is that people that don't fall into one of those three buckets and don't create the future or feel like they do, even if they're just a consumer of stuff that comes through their TVs, through their newspapers every day, just to give them the ability to say, hang on, I'm involved in this, this is part of my life, too.
00:35:36:08 - 00:35:56:03
Speaker 2
I want to have a structure that I can put my hand up and ask those questions and push back a little bit. I think that's the only way the work will get to my eyes better, which I mean more deep, more rigorous, more well-rounded, more actionable. So yeah, I really hope that people see this book as a a book anyone can pick up from, you know, find it on a bus somewhere and pick it up and read it.
00:35:56:03 - 00:36:13:16
Speaker 2
It should be accessible to everybody. And that's that's the way I've written it. I've tried to skirt all of the desire I have to sound smart or do a sort of PhD and write something that's just approachable, because I think it's part of all of our lives. You know, there are twice as many humans on Earth as when I was born.
00:36:13:18 - 00:36:16:08
Speaker 2
There’s a lot of people to talk to about this.
00:36:16:10 - 00:36:38:05
Speaker 1
And who need to be thinking about it more rigorously and realistically. Okay. Last question. As I ask every guest, there are only two questions that are guaranteed the first and the last. And then the last question, the question is what is your greatest hope for the future of thinking about the future? If we imagine 25 years from now, so that would be 2050.
00:36:38:07 - 00:37:05:07
Speaker 2
I think my hope would be it is something that everybody feels empowered to do, able to do, has the skills to do, and that it's integrated into almost every decision that that involves anyone else being able to think rigorously about the future with depth and detail and nuance and uncertainty. I think that's going to be a critical skill, and it would be lovely to see preschoolers being trained in thinking about the future, beyond drawing spaceships and thinking about robots.
00:37:05:07 - 00:37:14:17
Speaker 2
I think having classes in the future is a really important, interesting step that, I'm actually talking to some folks about. So let's see.
00:37:14:19 - 00:37:38:02
Speaker 1
I love that. Nick Foster, world designer for industry, thank you so much for joining us on Future of XYZ. For everyone watching and listening, you can find his book, “Could Should Might Don't: How we think about the future,” anywhere you get your favorite books and you can watch Future of XYZ anywhere you get your favorite podcast or on YouTube.
00:37:38:04 - 00:37:42:13
Speaker 1
Thank you again, Nick, for joining me on this episode. It's been a pleasure.
00:37:42:15 - 00:37:45:22
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. Likewise, it's been fun. And congratulations once again.
00:37:45:24 - 00:38:03:08
Speaker 1
Thank you. We'll talk to you guys all again with our 151st episode in two weeks time. Be sure to leave a five star review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you find Future of XYZ. Help people find us and find Nick. And, spread the word. Thanks everyone.