Presented at FITC Toronto 2016 See details at www.fitc.ca There are no facts about the future, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start designing it. By combining foresight and strategic innovation — through the creation of immersive experiences that simulate (and stimulate thinking about) disruptive future scenarios — we can encounter and explore the world of tomorrow right here in the world of today. The president and resident futurist of The Mission Business — a Toronto design consultancy — will explore how effective strategic planning relies as much on playful storytelling and good UX as on Project, PowerPoint and DOCX. Objective This talk will introduce the domains of design fiction and experiential futures, and will unpack how experience design and strategic innovation can generate new value inside an organization. Target Audience Management (Teams), Entrepreneurs, Investors Five Things Audience Members Will Learn • What the guy on stage is talking about when he says things like Design Fiction and Tangible Futures. • What happens at The Mission Business Inc.? How is the company “bringing the future to life?” • Strategic planning as a process of highlighting knowledge — both known and unknown — and imagining how new ideas could be put into reality to generate new value. • The key to unlocking new value in strategic planning is creating an immersive, engaging, and interactive environment. A place where people feel compelled to take risks, think imaginatively, and be bold. • New methods that are emerging at the intersection of design and foresight to create participatory future scenarios that engage many sets of stakeholders in powerful new ways.

2. “The future cannot be
predicted, but futures
can be invented.”
-Dennis Gabor
(and Abraham Lincoln, and Alan Kay, or was it Peter Drucker…)

3. “How do you get to the Future?
Be First and be Lonely.”
-Ginni Rometty

4. “It is our future in
which we will find
our greatness.”
-Pierre Trudeau

5. “The future is a fever,
where it’s hot…
but I’m always cold.”
-Kidstreet

6. “The future is already
here, it’s just not very
evenly distributed.”
-William Gibson

7. “Your favourite quote
about the future here!”
-Witty FITC Participant
@trevver @themissionbiz

8. Trevor Haldenby
trevor@themission.biz
@trevver
The Mission Business
www.themission.biz
@themissionbiz

9. The Future is a Story.

15. Public Domain: Department of Defense Trinity nuclear test, July 1945

16. Public Domain: Department of Defense Gravitational Experiment, August 1967

17. NASA Ames Research Center

18. by Ray Kurzweil, Attribution 1.0 Generic (CC BY 1.0)

21. The Future comes from Stories.

23. Photo by pauliki (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

38. Immersive and Interactive Alternate Reality Games

39. Futurists need to design new stories.

40. Photo by Robert Olsen
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Fractal by Romero Schmidtke
(CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

41. Trends
Drivers of Change

42. Social
Technological
Economic
Environmental
Political

43. Jessica’s five-year-old daughter Chan is in the other
room, screaming in broken Mandarin at the Paint-Like-Me
app on her tablet as it struggles to customize thousands
of open-content art history lessons into one just right
for her. NuLook picks up on the tantrum, briefly confused
by the presence of another language, and instantly
switches the interface on Jessica’s phone into a swirl of
Chinese characters. Jessica sighs. These new tools of
design may be inclusive, but they can be frustrating as
hell when your kid is a different kind of artistic genius
(in a different language) every three months. And this is
only the beginning. In an era of open- source education,
Chan’s curricula and diploma are as likely to be
influenced by her family members, future global
competitors, and Global Happiness Index score as by grades
on her final exams...
Written Scenarios
What might happen in the future?

44. Science Fiction Prototyping — Brian David Johnson

45. Situation Lab

46. Rob Shirkey

50. By Nathan Shedroff, CCA MBA Program
Licensed under Creative Commons

51. THE TIME MACHINE

53. at

66. Explore the ByoLogyc: Shadowfall Interactive Infographic:
www.byologyc.com/shadowfall

67. “The Mission Business gave us a view
not only into what we want from our
new technologies, but why we want it.
It’s one thing to read a science fiction short story about the
future or a comic book based on science fact that explores the
human implications of science, but it’s very much another
sensation when someone hands you a science fiction prototype
and asks you to put it in your mouth.
Nouveau vu is that feeling you get
when your brain meets the future.”
Brian David Johnson, Intel’s Futurist
reviewing TMB’s Shadowfall for Computer Magazine

68. By Nathan Shedroff, CCA MBA Program
Licensed under Creative Commons

71. Download Trevor’s book for free online:
Bringing the Future to Life
http://goo.gl/ChRDZU

72. Trevor Haldenby
trevor@themission.biz
@trevver
The Mission Business
www.themission.biz
@themissionbiz