A look into the future….
Wristbands that use your heartbeat to unlock your wallet, car and home; artificial limbs restoring sense of touch; injected bandages that can stop bleeding within 15 seconds, 3D printed homes and wireleslly charged busses make their way on to Britain’s roads, were just some of the top tech and innovation stories David Dowsett of ABC Local radio Wide Bay and I chatted about in this weeks regular segment.
Have a listen to the segment now and click on any of the links above to be transported over to Eye Spy for the full article. For a regular serve of what’s new and trending in tech and innovation – and join me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to find out about the future as soon as I do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why is asking better questions about the future more valuable than making better predictions?
Predictions about the future are almost always wrong in their specifics — the timing, the sequence, and the magnitude of change consistently deviate from forecasts. But the questions that a good foresight process generates remain valuable precisely because they shift attention toward the right domains of uncertainty and preparation. An organisation that asked ‘what would we do if digital channels became the primary customer contact point?’ in 2005 was better prepared than one that predicted the specific timing, regardless of whether the prediction was accurate.
Q: What are the questions every leader should be asking about their organisation’s Immediate Futures™?
The Immediate Futures™ questions that most consistently reveal strategic blind spots include: What is already changing in our customers’ or stakeholders’ behaviour that our business model assumes is not changing? Which of our core assumptions about competitive advantage were formed in a different operating environment and may no longer hold? What would our most capable competitor do if they were starting today without our legacy infrastructure and processes? And where are the signals of change appearing in our adjacent sectors that have not yet arrived in ours?
Q: How does the practice of asking better strategic questions change an organisation’s culture over time?
Organisations that practise regular strategic questioning — building structured time for examining assumptions, reviewing signals, and exploring scenarios — develop a different relationship with uncertainty over time. Rather than treating uncertainty as a threat to be managed by doubling down on current strategy, they develop the capacity to treat it as information that improves decision quality. This cultural shift is gradual but significant: it changes what information leaders pay attention to, what gets discussed in planning sessions, and ultimately what gets invested in.
Q: How can I book Morris Misel for a strategic foresight or futures thinking keynote?
Reach the team at morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
Wristbands that use your heartbeat to unlock your wallet, car and home; artificial limbs restoring sense of touch; injected bandages that can stop bleeding within 15 seconds, 3D printed homes and wireleslly charged busses make their way on to Britain’s roads, were just some of th.
The window between a signal arriving and it demanding a response is shortening. A look into the future. is already shaping strategy conversations in forward-looking organisations. Treating it as a future concern rather than a present one builds a preparedness gap that will have to be closed under pressure.
The most important question is not whether A look into the future. will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
