What can we do to design a better future? While we have more opportunities to think about the future, many people still have a vague notion that “something needs to be done” about the world to come.

“Futures Design” is a method to guide and consult companies through these challenging times. In this article, we sat down with Nicolas, one of the co-founders of Bespoke which was acquired in June 2022 by Danish design company Manyone, to learn about Futures Design and its potential.

Today builds up to be the future

──Please tell us about Bespoke and what went into launching it.

Nicolas: Our work with bespoke brings together case studies and design-driven thinking from different countries around the key concept of “designing the future”; we help companies create a “future strategy” tailored to them. Simply put, we help companies think and create the future amidst a changing society, economy, and environment. I am one of the co-founders of Bespoke and have been the director of foresight for about 9 years now since it first launched.

We’re driving a more democratic way of thinking about future issues while getting a diverse range of people involved. It’s something we call “Collective Futuring.” We don’t call ourselves “futurists,” but rather “facilitators of spaces where we can collectively explore the future.” We help clients incorporate that future-oriented thinking in the new experiences, products, and services they offer and help them create a better context or climate around them.

In summer of 2022, Bespoke merged with Manyone, a strategy-design hybrid firm. Manyone has top-flight designers and strategists in Denmark and around the world, which lets us offer not just strategic planning, but also help clients implement ideas into concrete products and services.

──How do you personally approach Future Design?

Nicolas: I start by helping people and organizations better understand the situation on the ground today.

We often tell them, “the future doesn’t exist.” We don’t attempt to predict the future as such. Instead, we want to help our client paint future “landscapes”, and get a better understanding of the main forces shaping our world. We help tease out their future potential not as futurists, but as facilitators.

──Would you say there are a lot of companies that haven’t fully taken stock of the issues today?

Nicolas: It’s not just about their current context as a company, but also about looking to other future relationships that may emerge with industries that seem totally unrelated. So one of our initiatives is helping anticipate these trends.

Let me give you an example from history. 1860s in New York – there was a conference with futurists and scientists of the time, discussing what will be the future of New York. They saw the population growth curve and calculated the amount of horses required to transport all these people; and they could see that it was going to be impossible to live in the city, because horse droppings on the streets was a major problem in most bigger cities then. But of course, they didn’t see that at the same time, there were people around the world working on a new kind of horse, which replaced very quickly and lasting for 1000s of years as a transportation medium, cars.  

Something similar happened a few decades ago with Blockbuster, the famous American video rental franchise. The way people consume content changed little by little as the internet and devices evolved, but Blockbuster wasn’t able to shift to online streaming early on, leaving them far behind their competitors. Streaming services are the norm now, but up until recently, it was something we couldn’t even imagine existing. But it didn’t just suddenly happen overnight, either.

The future isn’t somewhere far unknown. It comes out of the subtle buildup of day-to-day events and thinking, new ideas, and actions taken in that direction. Understanding this is the first step to creating the future.

──Now that you mention it, everything comes down to that steady buildup over time.

Nicolas: We always tell our clients that there are multiple possible futures. If you look at transportation methods today, there are some countries exploring autonomous driving technology, while others still use horses. It’s not about having unified and global means of transport everywhere. The present exists as one of many various choices people faced in the past. So in that sense, the future ahead of us is not just one. The future has untold possibilities. After all, something may emerge tomorrow that is poised to change the world.

And everyone wants to do their part to make the future better. The economic crisis, the ecological crisis, the health crisis , the environmental crisis…these are really tough times we face. The essence of Future Design is helping people tackle those problems and supporting them in visualizing what a better future might be, or what choice to make at this particular moment in time.

──So what sorts of proposals do you actually make to clients?

We approach the process through three discrete steps: Foresight, Scenarios, and Response, and bring these together into one pipeline.

We start by understanding where the client finds themselves and what the future may hold. In the next step, we consider concretely their vision, user experiences, and their products and services, and think about what they can do now to reflect these upcoming changes in their business today. We often incorporate design research techniques to deeply engage with the subject and involve the client in its process.

Besides technology, we also take stock of the environment, economy, politics, and other factors. A few years ago we developed our own strategic foresight software called Horizon, a proprietary platform that helps think about these elements in an integrated way. This tool helps you visualize a wide range of information and makes it easier to understand how various changes affect a specific context. We use it to foster discussions with clients.

──What sorts of companies do you work with?

Nicolas: We really work with all sorts of clients.

On a project with a major supermarket chain in Europe, we explored what meaningful communication for the future would look like. We researched and studied what communication methods are trending among young people and how these can be used to connect consumers and brands.

We also work with a major technology company exploring future ways of working and collaborating in a changing hybrid working context. The project involves exploring what ways of working and remote collaboration may exist in the future. Remote work is on the rise, so we discuss how the offices of the future need to look like and what kind of products – in this case technological solutions – can emerge in this landscape. 

We sometimes work with Japanese companies too. With Pola Orbis, we explored future landscapes for the beauty industry.

So we give a more concrete shape to future innovation through various surveys and projects. This can then be applied to all kinds of downstream actions like product development, branding, and digital innovation.

Changes in design under COVID-19

──There have been so many changes over the last few years that it seems like it would be difficult to predict the future. Would you agree?

Nicolas: The answer is yes and no. The future is always scary for us, too. We have a tendency to be afraid of the future and have images of a future that is scary and unknown. All the movies from the 90s are about asteroids hitting the Earth and we always have this kind of doomsday scenario. 

It’s not a new thing that us humans are afraid of the future. Everyone was afraid of nuclear bombs after the Cold War.  We have so much access to information and content today, we are just constantly bombarded with news all the time. What’s happening now feels more pressing for us, because this is our time in a way. It feels bigger for us and we are more worried because you see it and it’s more tangible.   In the old days, countries were less connected, so there was a vague but distant notion that some event unrelated to you may come home to roost.

Still, I wouldn’t say that things are increasingly more complex or chaotic than before. Rather, the speed at which information travels is faster, so people have to process it at a much faster rate.

──Companies today must be a bit troubled about all these outcomes they can’t predict ahead of time.

Nicolas: They are. In just three years from 2019, when COVID started, things have changed dramatically. So even thinking about the near-term seems fraught with uncertainty. You might predict one outcome for next year, but it could end up being totally different. This year was full of unexpected events, too.

But what really struck me is that humans are surprisingly adaptable. We heard the news of war and infectious diseases seemingly on a daily basis, yet everyday life still continued. People have to go on with their lives and do things right.

──Would you say these changes have complicated the way you work?

Not in particular, no. What I will say is that, while the nature of the work we’re doing hasn’t changed, we are now in much more constant communication. Companies that used to do one big project biannually have now switched over to doing smaller projects on a quarterly basis. My take on this is that they are incorporating this possibility of unforeseen changes in their planning now, so the timelines are shorter.

──That’s a good point. The way things are today, it’s more relevant to make small changes and reflect on them as you go, rather than setting huge milestones.

If you take a large and complex issue like climate change and look at it in increments of 10 years from now, 5 years from now, 2 years from now, or next month, you start to get an idea of what we can start doing next month. It always goes back to breaking it apart into smaller pieces that you can start acting on.

How to avoid repeating the past

──So over the course of Futures Design, the history and the past come up often.

Nicolas: Looking back on the past is extremely important. We tend to repeat cycles.  Many civilizations ended because they overused resources and they didn’t take care of the natural systems.  There are people who starve to death due to lack of rain or water. This leads to conflict on different scales. . This same thing has happened over and over again throughout history.

Taking that in the context of modern day war, it was surprising to be reminded again that these sorts of things happen any time in the modern day. People should have been taking various steps for their future, but now securing their own survival is the top priority.

──It’s quite complicated, isn’t it? You really get the sense that history is repeating itself.

Nicolas: Another thing you see repeating itself is a fear of technology. There are things the origins of which are unknown to people, like metaverse and such. People in the past had a fear of new things, too. When the television came out, people said it was the worst invention ever because people would stop reading. But if you go further back, people worried that we would stop talking and the language would disappear when books and the printing technology came out. There has always been new things that we can’t understand, but humans have always made them their own.

For example, I find beauty in handwritten poetry. You use a paper which is technology, pencils and ink you use to write a poem is also high technology. And to say the least,  language itself is a very complex  technology we invented. 

So technology does eventually become natural. The metaverse and other new ideas may seem sudden, but more people may consider them to be indispensable to their lives.

──Are there future concepts that clients don’t agree with?

Nicolas: Of course. Some clients tell us that the proposal goes against  their business, but in other cases, we have to be frank with them and say, “If you don’t explore how to use these changes today, you might jeopardize your business in the future.” Usually though, many clients come to us because they are curious, they want to know, and they are also provoking people within the companies. , So in most cases they are on board with the idea.

Plus, many companies are seriously exploring how to bring about positive changes. The people working there want to do something good for society. And that’s why they come to us for advice.

──Some companies advocating environmental issues and the SDGs seem to be doing it merely for their own branding or marketing purposes. What’s your take on this?

Nicolas: That may be happening to some extent, but I think the key is raising awareness and focusing on education. Even if it was for branding purposes, learning, and helping others learn, is always essential if we are to make the future brighter.

──Thanks for this talk today! It certainly gave us a new perspective in thinking about the future. We hope to see you next time in Japan!

Related links:

Manyone