Using sci-fi for meaningful innovation

Using sci-fi for meaningful innovation


Reading time: 4 mins

In 2012, I founded SciFutures on little
more than a hunch that science fiction could be a powerful business tool. I had
no proof it would take off as it was the first business consultancy of its kind
anywhere in the world. When I told people my half-baked business idea, they
looked at me with a semi shocked, semi amazed expressions on their face. I
figured they thought I had 12-18 months at best and I’d be soon be looking for
a new job with cap in hand. They were right that it was a risky move. It entailed
me giving up a successful career as President of an innovative research company
(System One formerly BrainJuicer) and my family moving into a smaller home to
manage expenses as we figured out what we do to make money. 

However, what led me to the idea of SciFutures was a lifetime of deep and visceral connections with the future via stories from writers like Asimov, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card and Philip K. Dick. Seeing Star Wars with my father at seven years old and watching Star Trek made a huge impression on my developing mind and sparked something deep in my heart that inspired me to want to see those amazing science inspired futures come into being.  It eventually became clear to me what I needed to do to achieve that dream when I had an epiphany at a sci-fi creative writing class at UCLA. The epiphany was that if executives had the same deep gut connection as I and many sci-fi lovers have with the future, then surely the chances of those futures being created were far more likely. Perhaps we could use those same forces that moved me so deeply as a child to help remove the barriers to creating genuinely sci-fi like innovation at the world’s largest organizations?

All entrepreneurs have dreams and hopes of
what they may achieve but looking back over the past eight years, I am still amazed
at what science fiction has been able to achieve, not simply for our company
but for our clients and thanks to the 300 sci-fi writers who help us around the
globe. We have worked with some of the world’s largest organizations like Visa,
Coca-Cola, Hersheys, NATO and ABInBev. We have helped thousands of executives gain
insight and clarity by writing their personal sci-fi stories about their
organizations and as early as 2013, we sparked genuinely sci-fi like innovation
with companies like Lowe’s and the first ever home improvement simulator (the
Holoroom) from a story inspired by Star Trek’s Holodeck.

Today, our work is shaping the development
strategies of R&D companies whose products touch the lives of billions
around the word many times a day. I’d love to share some of these sci-fi like ideas
as they are truly amazing but strict NDA’s ensure they will not see the light
of day until they are part of the public domain and by then, they won’t feel as
sci-fi as they do today. They’ll seem very normal just like Skyping is normal
today but was sci-fi in the early 2000s.

Connection
with research

So what does sci-fi have to do with
research and planning for the future? We need science fiction more than ever to
help us prepare as best as we can for the tsunami of change that is coming our
way. Artificial Intelligence and Human Augmentation are two of many of the
technological developments that are going to radically shape our humanity. While
technologies like machine learning and gene editing provide us with remarkable
opportunities to elevate our species, like all powerful tools, they come with
significant risks to our humanity. And in a time where we need thoughtful action
more than ever, we must anticipate the unintended consequences and more
importantly, we must do it in a way that creates an emotional and visceral
connection so that we change meaningful behavior.  Our work attempts to do that.

We need science fiction more than ever to help us prepare as best as we can for the tsunami of change that is coming our way.

Science fiction works hard to grease the
wheels of change. We see it in our best work with our clients. We see 100 year
old companies suddenly using a new and more visionary language about the future
and taking for granted as normal, ideas that were truly provocative even as
early as 6 months before they were introduced. 
We see stories that tame complexity and make dry, technical, abstract
and intangible ideas real in a way that helps us feel the very human impact
deep down in our gut.  It works because the
stronger the emotional connection to the future, the more likely our clients
are to act. There is strong science to support this. The work of Daniel
Kahneman Thinking Fast Thinking Slow and of my previous employers at
System One have shown that the stronger an emotional connection is to a piece
of content, the more likely people are to act on those feelings. 

We take the prominent disruptive forces of
change that we work with on a day to day basis with our clients.  [These are mostly in the areas of Human
Augmentation, Immersive Realities (VR, AR etc.) and AI.] Then, using custom science
fiction stories, we create a deeper visceral connection with the opportunities they
raise, particularly how they could change the nature of our clients’ businesses
with the aim that they help all of us make better decisions that lead to positive
business impact and a better future for all stakeholders. What keeps me up
awake at night is that we may wake up in say 15 years from now in a dystopian
cage and regret that weren’t more thoughtful about these technologies and made
better decisions while the cement was still wet.  What gives me great hope is that those same
visceral and deep emotional connections with the future that I had as a boy in
1976 can be used to create positive futures.



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