The Future Laboratory: Recent Episodes
The Future Laboratory
Our Critical Horizons podcast is a deep dive into the mind of a world-renowned thinker whose ideas challenge the status quo and shed light upon emerging behaviours that will drive seismic shifts for brands and consumers alike.
In our Back to the F**kture podcast we ask a future-thinker to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight and explore how trends were disrupted and what this has meant for the future.
Tune into our podcasts now.
In the latest episode of Back to the F**kture!, Merlin Hanbury-Tenison – Cornish conservationist, army veteran and founder of The Thousand Year Trust, Britain’s rainforest charity – shares his journey from a blast in Helmand to recovery in a Cornish rainforest, and reveals the need for a deeper, more symbiotic relationship with nature.
In the latest episode of Back to the F**kture!, Leila Fataar, founder of Platform13 and author of Culture-Led Brands, explores how culture-led branding – rooted in real people and real contexts, not marketing gimmicks – can help brands remain relevant in uncertain times.
In the latest episode of Back to the F**kture!, Dr Knatokie Ford explores how Augmented Futures – a fusion of science, storytelling and futurism – can empower under-represented teens to shape their own success.
In this conversation, we delve into our shared experience of imposter syndrome, the case for adding the A of ‘arts’ into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths), the year 2034 and the power of high vibrations.
Find out more about Dr Knatokie Ford’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram.
In the latest episode of Back to the F**kture! Jacynth Bassett, founder and CEO of global consultancy, community and campaign Ageism Is Never In Style, joins The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond to discuss reframing the anti-ageism narrative.
We’ve covered a lot about green cities and the rise of blue zone city districts on LS:N Global, but what if we have been too simplistic, judgemental and morally narrow in our approach and understanding that green is good and the concrete grey of the city is inevitably bad for our physical, spiritual and moral wellbeing? Professor Des Fitzgerald reminds me in our latest Back to the F**kture podcast that this could very possibly be the case.
In our latest Back to the F**kture podcast, Dr Susanne Etti talks carbon labelling and more collaborative and constructive ways to tackle the climate crisis through her role and work with sustainable travel group, Intrepid.
Dr Susanne Etti and I hit it off straight away. For one, she lives in Melbourne – my favourite maritime city and skinny white provider, no challengers – and for two, she pulls no punches when it comes to reminding the travel sector just how much it has contributed to the current climate crisis.
No issues there, except that Susanne, a biologist, and one of the BBC 100 Women (think Michelle Obama and global climate leader, Christiana Figueres) and one of National Georgraphic’s Travellers of the Year, works for Intrepid, a light foot, small group adventure travel business, and carries the title of global environmental impact manager. Both of these things make you hyper- aware that her observations about the sector come with much thought, careful knowledge, and a scientist’s understanding that to comprehend how and why we should change things, we need to truly appreciate what will happen, if we don’t. And Susanne, as you’ll discover in my latest Back to the F**kture podcast is pretty clear about the latter.
Climate boiling, instead of global warming. Wildfires, instead of campfires. Submerged coral reefs instead of above sea-water coral islands,. carbon passports instead of travel permits, trips that chase the shade, rather than follow the sun, climate refugees outnumbering economic migrants, and… Well that’s just it, the ‘and’ can be even more devastating, or it can be a turning point we can all contribute to, she tells me, especially if we begin to measure our carbon footprint, as travellers, agencies, hoteliers and corporations – and proactively take steps to reduce it.
According to the World Health Organization, good health isn’t ‘merely the absence of disease’, but ‘complete physical, mental and social wellbeing’.
Dr Tasha Golden, my latest guest on Back to the F**kture, concurs.
But – given the fact that she is a poet, songwriter, performer and storyteller, as well as a public health scientist – she takes this definition a step further.
For her, aiming for ‘complete wellbeing’ means thinking about what humans need not only to survive but to thrive, and this has always included the arts. And that’s the short version!
To explain and annotate the long one, she and her colleagues have collaborated on a hugely insightful field guide, called Arts on Prescription, which describes what arts on prescription is and why it matters, and provides the blueprint you need to follow.
In our latest Back to the F**kture podcast, Beyond Luxury author and innovator Carlota Rodben discusses the future of luxury and emotion with The Future Laboratory’s co-founder, Martin Raymond.
There are two great quotes at the beginning of Carlota Robden’s latest book, 'Beyond Luxury: The Promise of Emotion', which very much sum up luxury’s future, ‘what got us here, won’t get us there,’ and Gabrielle Chanel’s observation that ‘luxury is a necessity that begins when necessity ends.’
Both quotes remind me that luxury, like art, is wholly ephemeral (and thus vital!) and that current attempts to anchor luxury to the past (cue provenance, authenticity, rarity) are increasingly challenged by concepts and technologies that are of the future– Ai, VR, AR and cloud anything and everything.
Successful leaders are empathetic ones, according to author, leadership coach and strategic thinker Mimi Nicklin. They are also great perspective takers who understand the context of our decisions, as well as the moods and emotions that motivate us to make them.
If that sounds simple – it isn’t. In fact, as Nicklin identifies in her book, Softening the Edge, while CEOs think everything about the value of an MBA, they wouldn’t look twice at an MEA – a Masters of Empathy degree (my term). And yet the skills acquired here, if such a degree existed, would undoubtedly make their future happen, and profitably so.
For empathy, as she discusses in my latest Back to the F**kture podcast, isn’t just a nice-to-have softness or character trait, it’s a hard skill to master, and a tougher one to deploy; hence, her book that very much works like our mythical MEA.
‘Empathetic leaders,’ as she tells it, ‘see how others are seeing the world, understand why they are doing what they are doing, but crucially, they are doing it with them, feeling it with them, being it with them, so that they can understand ‘impact’ and consequence from their team’s perspective. That in itself unlocks a new kind of flourishing that no amount of top-down, old-style corporate leadership will ever succeed in doing.
Surprisingly – given the amount of talking that the said CEOs tend to do – listening lies at the heart of empathetic leadership, something she discovered early on in her career as strategic director, vice-president and creative officer in places as far afield as Hong Kong, Dubai, Cape Town, London and Singapore: listening, but doing it in an open, active and collaborative way.
Yes, even listening requires us to be proactive in our supposed inactiveness, otherwise, as she tells it, we simply nod and get on with the job as we would like to be done.
And empathy, like charity, begins at our home quarters, or in our new hybrid work states, where we practise it with our teams first, then our customers – and not the other way around. Nor is it a skill to be housed in our HR teams, but one that must be set as a core KPI for all teams regardless of rank. Otherwise, we risk contributing to what Barack Obama once referred to as an ‘empathy deficit’, which doesn’t sound all that bad until you hear Nicklin explain it.
‘In 2010, the University of Michigan released the findings of a study that tracked thousands of college students over 30 years and found that the current cohort were 40% less empathetic than their forebears.
‘More disturbingly,’ she continues, ‘during the same period the levels of students’ self-reported narcissism had reached equally challenging heights, according to research by Jean M Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.’
Simply put, as we unlearned how to walk in the footsteps of others – a key factor in developing our sense of community, cohesion, culture and common purpose – we were becoming more self-obsessed, more self-serving and less likely to be curious about, listen to, or support others in our networks.
And yet, when you identify the skills that are most likely to help us motivate teams, define vision, determine purpose and set future goals, the ones we have been pulling away from for all these years – curiosity, kindness, reciprocity, empathy and open active listening – are thevery work state skills that tomorrow’s CEOs need to inspire people and drive profit. ‘Despite this,’ she says, ‘we still define these as ‘soft’ skills – and ones that sit outside the remit of corporate talents to have – rather than expecting them to be core requirements for the future CEO to demonstrate or learn.’
As to how we do it, again being empathetic lies at the heart of everything: so, decision-making that is participatory and consensual; a vision that is agreed and shared; honesty that is encouraged and rewarded; curiosity that is cultivated and embraced; active open listening that is demonstrated and applauded.
And finally, crucially, the removal of metaphorical walls, or hierarchies, that inhibit conversation and facilitate siloed thinking. The latter, as Nicklin reminds us, ‘as always, leads back to a place of isolation, and self-serving decision-making – a trait that becomes more apparent as leaders think about themselves and how to serve their positioning, rather than serving or listening to others’. And listening is the key, the cornerstone to becoming that brave, new empathetic CEO – as in chief empathy officer.
Softening the Edge is published by The Dreamwork Collective and available from its online bookshop, or as a paperback, audiobook or downloadable from Amazon.
You can listen to Mimi Nicklin in conversation with The Future Laboratory co-founder and LS:N Global editor-in-chief Martin Raymond by clicking here, sitting back and listening to how to become a better leader.
As private membership clubs try to regain their privacy and mojo, on this week’s Back to the F**kture podcast The Future Laboratory’s co-founder Martin Raymond talks with hospitality entrepreneur Peter Cole about how they could go about doing it – and at scale.
The problem with most private members’ clubs is that they’ve become too public. While luxury itself has returned to being gated, exclusive, bespoke and more personalised as our Gilded Luxury macrotrend explores, members’ clubs, with few exceptions have become ubiquitous, inclusive, open and – depersonalised. You’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all. Same drinks, same DJ, same gong bath therapy in the gym, same Taylor Swift covers in the lift. Not quite what you signed up for!
But as Cole explains, this could just be the beginning of the Collectio journey. Naturally, he understands that property developers, faced with the on-going reality of TWAT days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the office), and global organisations that are keen to consider what community means in the new Work States landscape, could also avail of the service.
You can find out more about Peter Cole and the Collectio Group on the Back to the F**kture podcast
Life is fked – then you make it happen. And this epithet seems to embody the life of Australian author, broadcaster and entrepreneur, Sarah Wilson.
Not that her life has been fued –if anything, the opposite is very much the case - but that her journey through it is a constant reminder to us all that when the chips are down the only person who can save the game is you. With, of course, a little help from your friends – and in Sarah’s case we’re talking the Dalai Lama, Michelle Obama, and Beyonce – and yes, you can imagine who I was most impressed with – Beyonce.
In her latest book, 'This One Wild and Precious Life', we encounter many such friends and experts, a thousand of them to precise, and all helping Sarah - and us, as it turns out, to do one thing – make a meaningful life happen. Spiritually, physically, but crucially in terms of how we build up our resilience to the many slings and harrowing moments life itself can throw at us.
But harrowing in Sarah’s case doesn’t mean failure, in the Noughties she was at the top of her game, everybody’s game for that matter. She had been hallowed editor of Australian Cosmopolitan, went on to present Masterchef Australia, launched one of the best food-addict platforms ever, I Quit Sugar, wrote a best-selling book about depression, First We Make the Beast Beautiful, and then, in 2018, as the anxiety and depression she describes in her book took hold, she ‘sold her company, donated the proceeds to charity, packed a rucksack and set out on a three year global journey or reflection, discovery, resilience, and looking to nature,’ as a way to reboot and mend her soul.
Tune in to hear more from Sarah as she shares wisdom and insight on this episode.
It’s November 2019, and an associate of Scott Perugini Kelly suggests that he adds a World Health Organization pandemic preparedness paper to a brief he’s currently readying for the head of the department. But Kelly isn’t at all convinced, as he tells me on the latest Back to the Future podcast with Sally Washington. At the time, he muses, the subject seemed too fantastical, too far removed from the politics of the everyday.
Fast forward a few years and this strategic foresight director and his team monitor anomalous and extra-ordinary signals of change as a matter of course.
But for governments and ministers who have more immediate, everyday concerns to juggle with, these initiatives tend to sit in what one UK aide humorously described to me as Boris-in-tray content: something to be read when the former UK prime minister needed to be amused and castigate civil servants for wasting public money.
A few months later, the world – and Australia with its 19,265 Covid deaths – became a changed place.
And while Australian fatalities were a lot fewer in number due to the country’s stringent lockdown measures, they were still high enough for Kelly and Washington (in New Zealand, where the Covid response was lauded) to wonder how different these outcomes could have been if, as Kelly says, ‘we [had taken] a more long-term view on the future and how we might, by more proactive and strategic interventions, make it different’. Tune in now.
Design and experience strategy isn’t a top-down process for the privileged few, but a collaborative engagement along a narrative arc of surprise and transformation that changes audience and designer alike, according to The Experience Book authors Adam Scott and Dave Waddell interviewed by The Future Laboratory's co-founder Martin Raymond.
The age of experience, as learnt in the latest LS:N Global Back to the F**kture podcast, has been replaced by the age of transformation. Or rather, as The Experience Book authors Adam Scott and Dave Waddell explain, one has been subsumed into the other, so that when we speak of experience, we are really speaking about transformative moments that take us along an unexpected, and sometimes unknown and unknowable journey of change, challenge, and if we get it right, catharsis.
To be truly transformative in the audience sense, experience needs to begin with, and embrace, the audience it is targeting, says Waddell. ‘It needs to be a co-created and co-conceived journey that follows a narrative arc of exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action resolution and dénouement – but that arc needs to be set by the audience as much as by the design or experience strategist. In other words, a more collaborative, interactive and shared narrative approach than the one used by more traditional experience designers and strategists. Tune in now.
Reluctant futurists is the collective descriptor used by Henry Coutinho-Mason and Rohit Bhargava to describe their current career trajectory. Their preferred term is near futurists since their work is invariably about a quest to catalogue and understand the implications of the biggest innovations on our lives today and over the coming years.
The Future Laboratory’s co-founder and LS:N Global’s editor in chief Martin Raymond discusses all things normal (but not so everyday – yet!) with Future Normal authors Henry Coutinho-Mason and Rohit Bhargava in our latest Back to the F**kture podcast episode.
Tune in now and discover the future normal.
How can we use the power of everyday awe to prime innovation or create heightened levels of wellbeing? In his latest Back to The F**kture podcast episode with professor Dacher Keltner, The Future Laboratory’s co-founder, Martin Raymond, finds out.
They discuss what produces awe and the subjective qualities of it, from a leaf falling from a tree and children laughing in duets, to light shining in shadows on the ground.
Tune in now and discover how awe can be used to reset our brains in ways that improve wellbeing and make our emotions more robust and agile.
In the latest episode of the Back to the F**kture podcast, The Future Laboratory’s co-founder Martin Raymond chats with Rhona Ezuma, entrepreneurial founder of THIIIRD magazine, a multi-faceted platform that champions next-generation creatives from people of colour and Black, queer, trans and non-binary communities who are redefining our collective tomorrows through their work and lives.
Tune in to hear from Rhona as she discusses third-space moments, third-culture people and ‘intersecting stories where juxtaposing ideas and identifications can meet, collide and create new and exciting things that are less hierarchical, more emancipated’.
Retail experience isn’t just about UX tech, but about understanding how we blend all touchpoints we have with the customer into a single, seamless conversation, as Quinine’s founder Ian Johnston explains to Martin Raymond in his latest Back to the F**kture podcast.
Quinine Design’s Ian Johnston is a man with a mission – and it’s all about experience. Or should that read phygXperience, digUXperience, or plain old Experience 3.0 where experience isn’t just a noun or a verb, it’s a journey of many moving and inter-related parts?
Tune in to hear from The Future Laboratory co-founder and Back to the F**kture host Martin Raymond and guest Ian Johnston delve into all things experiential.
Author, feminist and founder of the sober-curious movement Ruby Warrington chats to Back to the F**kture’s Martin Raymond, co-founder of The Future Laboratory, about why women without children isn’t an alternative choice, but a mainstream reality, as 50% of women under 30 in the UK alone go without.
Ruby Warrington pulls no punches when she writes and speaks. Her determination, like her prose, hits you with the force of a full-on super-car collision. Her latest book is called Women Without Kids, easing people into a debate and a view of women who don’t have children.
Tune in to the podcast episode now to find out more.
In a world of fake news and hate-fuelled algorithms, entrepreneur Sue Fennessy discusses her new power-for-good platform, WeAre8, in the latest episode of Back To The F**kture with The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond.
While many of us blame the stupidity and biases of right-leaning social media users for spreading fake news, the founder of ‘no-hate’ app WeAre8, Sue Fennessy, has a different take on the matter. She blames it on how platforms like Facebook reward us for sharing.
Tune in to our new episode with Sue to find out more.
As we seek purpose at a time of continued global uncertainty, Your Brain on Art authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross join Martin Raymond on his Back To The F**kture podcast to discuss the science behind art, and the true power it has to heal and transform.
Martin has know Ivy Ross for many years in her role as jeweller, artist and vice-president of design for hardware products at Google, while Susan Magsamen’s work as a neuroscientist and founder of the International Arts and Mind Lab (IAM Lab) has always intrigued him as one of those burgeoning areas of science that sits at the heart of every question we ask about design, architecture and the arts generally – why do they affect us so viscerally, emotionally, spiritually, even physically?
In this episode, we discuss their research into, what they've dubbed as, the neuroarts movement. Tune in to learn more.
Scent is set to change the nature of health, wellbeing and self-care, according to Firmenich’s chief consumer and innovation officer Matteo Magnani, who speaks to The Future Laboratory’s co-founder Martin Raymond in this episode of the Back To The F**kture podcast.
Matteo Magnani and his team are exploring how we can potentially enrich our presence in the metaverse via scent, use fragrance in more programmable ways in our public spaces and retail outlets, or shift the value and presence of scent marketing itself away from using the Hollywood icon or wafting beach body model, to smelling the moment – of love pleasure, happiness, self-care – rather than showing it.
In this episode, we discuss all things sensorial, delving into the new ways for fragrance to be used and perceived. Tune in to learn more.
In this episode of our Back to the F**kture podcast, The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond talks to the award-winning technologist and space architect Melodie Yashar about how her work on future Mars habitats is providing Earth-bound communities affordable, sustainable, low-carbon homes – and beautiful ones at that.
Melodie Yashar, and her team at ICON, recently won Builder magazine Project of the Year award for a very modern, very beautiful, very curvilinear 2,045-square-feet house they’ve designed in Austin, Texas. In many ways it is the prototype for a range of 100 future-facing homes they are currently building and launching this year in Texas Hill Country.
In this episode, we discuss everything from the metric of imagination in space to pushing the boundaries of technology-driven spaces. Tune in to learn more.
In this episode of our Back to the F**kture podcast, The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond speaks with Dr Catherine Nakalembe, Africa programme director at NASA Harvest, scientist, remote sensing expert, a machine learning specialist, and winner of our Futures 100 Innovators Awards.
Catherine currently uses drones, satellite data and the latest AI technologies to map the impacts of everything from climate change to developing risk assessment strategies and finance packages that can drastically improve a community’s ability to insulate itself against floods and other adverse weather conditions.
When we delve deeper into her work, we discover how her work is foresight at its most effective and trend analysis at its most potent. Listen to this episode now to find out more.
Our Back to the F**kture podcast series, hosted by The Future Laboratory's co-founder Martin Raymond, asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Adrien Hobt and Dev Mishra from the PCH Innovations studio return to discuss the power and spirituality of science and technology in tackling issues of the climate crisis, wellbeing and diversity and inclusion.
PCH Innovations is a multi-disciplinary innovation strategy & technology development studio, translating radical insights & emerging phenomena into uniquely designed & engineered concepts, materials and high-fidelity prototypes.
Listen to this episode now to find out more.
In the sixth episode of season two of our Back to the F**kture podcast, Martin Raymond speaks with futurist, retail strategist and designer, Ibrahim Ibrahim, to discuss the emotional membership consumers can have with brands, the future of blended retail spaces and connecting online and offline data to shape tomorrow’s brands.
Ibrahim Ibrahim is managing director of Portland Design, a multi-disciplinary retail design practice based in London’s East End and has worked with some of the best brands, malls and multi-sector stores globally.
In this episode, we discuss how we can reframe bricks-and-mortar around the stories and needs of consumers. Listen to this episode now to find out more.
In the fifth episode of season two of our Back to the F**kture podcast, Martin Raymond speaks with innovation-seeker and author of The Serendipity Mindset, Dr. Christian Busch, about the importance of having an open and curious outlook.
Dr. Christian Busch is a globally renowned expert in innovation and serendipity and director of the CGA Global Economy Programme at New York University, also teaching at the London School of Economics.
In this episode, we discuss how opening our eyes to the unexpected and being open to connection can lead to valuable opportunities and solutions. Listen to this episode now to find out more.
In the fourth episode of season two of our Back to the F**kture podcast, Martin Raymond speaks with techno-optimist Bethany Koby-Hirschmann about the importance of a healthy relationship between children and technology.
Beth is the co-founder of Tech Will Save Us, and founder of FAM, the family inventions studio that’s already making waves in the world of health, wellbeing and the future happiness of families.
In this episode, we talk about re-assessing the role that families play in envisaging tomorrow, and how in turn they can use this optimistic understanding of technology and their relationship with it to make that future better, more inclusive and family-friendly. Listen now.
In this episode of our Back to the F**kture podcast, Martin Raymond speaks to Harry Jameson, performance coach and personal trainer to athletes, celebrities and professionals, and columnist at The Times.
Harry is also the founder of RAIN, a luxury CBD home and body balm range, and his latest company Pillar Wellbeing, which focuses on what he refers to as ‘the three guiding pillars of Synchronised Care and wellbeing – movement, nutrition and recovery'.
In this episode, we discuss how to get a better understanding of the mind, body, spirit and, most crucially, our energy. ‘At the moment, I believe we can use the tools and technologies we have to give the 65-year-old the energy of a 25-year-old,’ says Harry. Listen to this episode now to find out how.
In the second episode of season 2 of our Back to the F**kture podcast, we speak to Victoria Stoyanova, strategist by trade and connector at heart.
Victoria recently founded Institute of Belonging, a studio exploring the generative power of networks, designed to bring people together to experiment, play, learn and co-create.
In this episode, we discuss the power of networking. For Victoria, networking is all about the five Cs – community, collaboration, conversation, creativity and curation. ‘But it is also about collectivist thinking, and about being generous with your time, with making connections and leaning in’. Listen to this episode now.
Welcome back to the second series of our Back to the F**kture podcast, where we ask renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. In the first episode of series two, The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond speaks to Belgian forecaster Herman Konings.
Herman Konings is author of seven books, studied theoretical psychology at the University of Leuven, and in his own words, ‘loves the theatrics of psychology and tomorrow as much as he does its theoretics’.
In this episode, he explains why forecasting is as much about drama, storytelling and the great potential and many possibilities of the human condition as it is about data, spreadsheets, and the forward extrapolation of bald facts and sometimes blind conjecture. Tune in to series 2 episode 1 now.
In the final episode of season one of our Back to the F**kture podcast, The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond spoke with artist-curator, art director, editor and writer Georgina Johnson.
Georgina has previously worked with the V&A, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The Photographers’ Gallery, Now Gallery and Ace & Tate. She founded The Laundry Arts in 2017, a platform centred on counter-culture, and is the author of The Slow Grind, a collection of essays, think pieces and conversations gathering some of the most formidable voices across the cultural industries.
In this episode, she explains why brands need to step up, step in and understand the role that collectivism, consensus and accountability will play in their future. Tune in to episode 10 now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. In episode 9, Martin Raymond speaks to sociologist, columnist and author, Ana Andjelic to discuss how we should look to prioritise solid cultural growth.
Ana specialises in strategy and has worked for some of Fortune’s top 500 brands, she was recently appointed as chief brand officer at Banana Republic.
In this episode, she discusses why brands should function as communities rather than customer relationship entities; the role that culture, as well as commerce, plays in defining a brand’s ethos and how and why certain kinds of GMO (genetically modified) brands have become overgrown, monstrous and tasteless. Listen to episode 9 now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond speaks to Ozlem Tuskan, founder of the conscious female coaching and entrepreneur accelerator The Resilient. She has launched her own academy and private business coaching programme to help brands tackle future challenges and create winning brand strategies.
In this episode, Ozlem describes how she connects the hard skills of creating a future-fit brand value with the soft skills of conscious and resilient leadership to accelerate income and amplify impact. She also explains how resilience is about listening, learning and drawing your strength from the kinds of soft skills that many of us understand and appreciate – kindness, collaboration and creativity. Tune in to episode 8 now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond speaks to Ariane van de Ven, a French trend forecaster and cultural analyst. Ariane works with Fortune 500 companies, organisations and brands around the world to help them set up their first trends and forecasting departments and programmes.
In this episode, Ariane explains how forecasting is all about ‘connecting people to culture, to drive insight, fuel empathy, and above all seed innovation’. She also explains how she hones her global vision on innovation and trends through travelling the world and meeting with ‘super-smart people’. Listen to this episode now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond speaks to Bas Van de Poel, ex-creative director and visionary behind Ikea’s famed Space10 design and innovation lab.
Bas Van de Poel describes his new venture, Modem – co-founded with fellow designer and creative director Astin Le Clercq – as an office for design and innovation where the future is anticipated and imagined accordingly. But, as he tells Martin in this episode, it is also about inventing the future rather than predicting it. Or, as he puts it, ‘futures, plural, since any future solution involves multiple options and opportunities rather than a singular, binary approach’. Tune in and listen to this episode now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month we speak to Cat Tully, the founder of the School of International Futures. Cat has extensive experience as a practitioner, helping governments, civil society and businesses to be more strategic, more effective, and better prepared for the future.
For Cat Tully, decoding the future is all about decoding and managing risk. Yes, she reflects, this does sound a bit dry, but when you’re dealing with governments, NGOs or the future of citizens themselves, she explains to The Future Laboratory co-founder Martin Raymond, then you really have to get things right. Tune in to their conversation now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond caught up with long-time forecaster and entrepreneur Henry Coutinho-Mason, who has just left his job as managing director of TrendWatching.com to become director of content strategy with Brent Hoberman and his team at Founders Forum, Europe’s answer to SXSW minus the oat milk tents and banjo yoga classes on the side.
In this episode they talk about how Henry got into forecasting at TrendWatching, his move to Founders Forum and his next book The Future Normal, which looks at how humanity can thrive and what we need to do to make this happen. They also discuss where new and emerging trends are coming from, how you can better identify which innovators, disruptors or tech start-ups are most on-message in terms of the incoming zeitgeist, and consequently, which ones investors should be looking at and thinking about first. Listen to this episode now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond talks to Ryan Lanji a queer curator, dj, club organiser, archivist, influencer and all-round Instagram personality with his own show and a pretty massive following.
In this episode, we talk about Hungama, a mad, queer, glittering, wholly over the top Bollywood-meets-hip-hop, Hoxton-style living catwalk rave; his fabled Nailphilia show; his recently kick-started NDYglobal, a queer health and wellness initiative, and a new members online platform - curated by Ryan - to provide a much-needed platform for marginalised and unheard voices from our world. Tune in to this episode now.
Our Back to the F**kture series asks renowned thinkers to put foresight predictions under the hindsight spotlight. This month Martin Raymond talks to Stefan Liske and Adrien Hobt from the PCH Innovations studio about Changing Matter, their recently launched transformation catalogue.
PCH Innovations is a multi-disciplinary innovation strategy & technology development studio, translating radical insights & emerging phenomena into uniquely designed & engineered concepts, materials and high-fidelity prototypes.
In this episode, The Future Laboratory's co-founder Martin Raymond talks to world renowned academic Devon Powers about why so many forecasters failed to anticipate the global pandemic and what this means for the future of the industry.
Devon Powers is the associate professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at Temple University. She is the author of 3 books, the most recent of which is On Trend: The Business of Forecasting the Future. Her research explores branding, promotion, and how culture moves through the world. Powers' work has appeared in Journal of Consumer Culture, New Media & Society, Critical Studies in Media and Communication, and Popular Communication.
A true global nomad, Mike Walsh travels over 300 days a year worldwide, researching trends, collecting innovation case studies and presenting on the future of business. Walsh is also the author of three books. His latest book is The Algorithmic Leader: How to be smart when machines are smarter than you. What you’re about to listen to is a recording between Walsh and Martin Raymond, the co-founder of The Future Laboratory, in which they cover the future of leadership, human intuition vs algorithm analysis, digital biology, the rise of Chinese AI, and perhaps the most pressing question of all: what is the true potential of human intelligence in the twenty-first century?
The Future Laboratory's Critical Horizons podcast is a deep dive into the mind of a world-renowned thinker whose ideas challenge the status quo and shed light upon emerging behaviours that will drive seismic shifts for brands and consumers alike.
This episode's critical thinker is Douglas Rushkoff. Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, he is the author of 20 books, the most recent of which is Team Human, which is also a podcast series.
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