Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company2
FOLLOW NI LE
medium.com/nilehq
Thinking, tools and blogs
instagram.com/nilehq
Inside the studio
twitter.com/nilehq
Interesting things & chat
nilehq.com

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
WHO’S IN THE
(ZOOM) ROOM?
3
Share where you’re calling from in the chat!

Neil Collman
Practice Director, Nile
@skuft
@nilesays
4
H E L L O

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company5
WE ARE A STRATEG IC
DE SIGN COMPA NY
THINKER S, EDUCATORS AND MAKERS

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
TODAY IS A
PREDICTION-FREE ZONE
6

Confidential | Nile | Forward Thinking Design7
“T HERE A RE NO
FUTURE FACTS”
Wendell Bell
The Foundations of Futures Studies

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design8
But we might talk about some of the weird and
wonderful things signalling what’s to come…

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
POLL TIME
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How are you feeling about the future?

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
LET’S DIG IN TO THAT
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bit.ly/future-feeling

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design11
IF WE C AN’T PRE DICT
ANY THI NG, WHY BOTHER
THIN KING ABOUT THE
FUTUR E AT ALL?

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
“In the medical field, inoculating yourself prevents you
from falling ill. In futures thinking, if you've considered a
whole range of possibilities, you're kind of inoculating
yourself. If one of these possibilities comes about, you're
better prepared.”
MARIN A GORBIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTUR E
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Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company13
SO I T’S ABOUT BEING PREPARED
FOR WHAT MIGHT COME NEXT
(EVE N I F WE DON’T LIKE IT)…
What if low-touch fashion becomes the norm?
What if COVID returns seasonally?
What if travel halves in scale, forever?
What if Zoom moves into home office refurb?
…AND ACT IVELY MOVING TOWARDS
THE F UT UR E YOU WANT TO CREATE

Nile | Service Design Network Academy14
OR, A.K .A…
FORE SIG HT
A structured way to think about the future that
stimulates action in the present
– INSTITUTE FOR THE F UTURE

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
POLL TIME
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So… how experienced are you in using
Futures and Foresight?

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design16
TODAY I S ALL ABOUT
LOWERI NG THE BARRIER
FOR DE SI GNERS AND
DESI GN TEAMS TO THINK
ABOUT THE FUTU RE

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company17
BEING A ‘PROPE R' FUTURIST IS HARD
• New language, academic “hinterland” and mindset
• It’s an imperfect process!
• You get out what you put in
• It’s tough alongside the “day job”
• Clients like the idea of it, but don’t like buying it!
• Building new relationships outside your “bubble” is essential
• The value is in the collective interaction

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design18
SO WE’ RE GOING TO
SIMPLI F Y IT
FOUR S IMP L E
HABITS
YO U CAN STAR T
US ING TODAY

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company19
SO YOU CA N…
1
2
3
Broaden perspectives
Get your teams and clients to
think differently.
Get beyond the obvious
Identify your own future insights.
Build a collective view
Almost all the value of the process is
the collective journey.
4
5
Understand the wider system
Find unexpected connections.
If you’re really lucky, build it into
your service design
The holy grail!

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design20
HABI T ONE
SCAN THE
HORIZON
CHALLENGE
THE
STATUS QUO
HABIT TWO
TELL A
HUMAN
STORY
HA BIT T HREE
TRANSLATE
THE IMPACT
HA BIT FOUR

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
HABIT ONE
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SCAN THE HORIZON
The future’s already here, it’s just not
evenly distributed. Monitor your feeds as a team,
share centrally, and ask “so what?”
Because you want to sense change early, and
build ongoing literacy to better join the dots.

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company22
KEY CON CE P T: SI GNALS O F CHANG E
A real example of local disruption with the potential to
scale: a possible future that’s here today.
What: Health protection fashion
So what? Low touch fashion encroaching
into other categories? Sportswear? Social
distancing Black Tie? Low touch fashion
stigmas?
Source: https://www.newchic.com/
theme-protect-t-334002/

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design23
So what? We’ll need to reinvent
radical new ways to structure work
and life to protect our health,
companies will need to step up
So what? “Presence hacking” will
become so commonplace that faith
in the authenticity of virtual
interactions is undermined
So what? New creative
solutions will pop up that
address unmet needs created by
new work contexts.
AFEWMOREEXAMPLES

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
• Check news feeds, social media, scientific journals, newsletters, the world around you
• Capture, steal or save content that you believe is useful
• Use the STEEP framework to try and build up a broad view of signals
• Make sure it’s surprising!
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SCANTHEHORIZON
WH EN WH AT
HOW
WH Y
Every day Monitor your feeds as a
team, share centrally, and
ask “so what?”
Sense change early, and
build ongoing literacy
so you can better join
the dots
HABITONE

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
LE T’ S PRACT ICE SIGNALS GATHERING
WHAT SU R PRISING SIGNAL S OF CH ANGE HAVE
YO U SEEN RECENTLY?
25
BREAKOUT TIME
1. Discuss with your group in breakout
2. Nominate a writer
3. Report back in the chat when we’re back in the main room

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company26
IMPORTANT: S IG NALS AREN’T TRENDS.
LOW TOUCH FASHION I S A TREND, THE
SIGNAL IS T HE S PECIFIC EXAMPLE .

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
Key sources to track for signals:
• Hashtags on social (e.g. #foresight #wfh)
• Radio phone-ins – the unfiltered public…
• News feeds: Mainstream Media - not just the UK!
(e.g. South China Morning Post)
• Academic journals and papers (Nature magazine,
Scientific American, Google Scholar)
• The world around you: an overheard conversation or
a chance observation
• Foresight thought-leaders: Amy Webb, IFTF,
Flamingo, Arup, Scott Smith, MIT
• Patent applications, artists, rogue agents…
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RESOU RCES A ND TO O LS
At Nile, we use a dedicated Slack channel
for signal collection and curation.

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
HABIT TWO
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CHALLE NG E THE
STATUS QUO
As a team, explore the implications of the change
you’re seeing in the present.
Because signals are useless unless you’re weaving
them into different plausible futures.

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
Most of the time we think of
the future as a straight line
from A to B, but it’s rarely
the case.
Most important shifts are a
left turn, often unexpected.
Explore alternative
possibilities for the future,
(including things we might
not like).
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KEY CON CE P T: MULTI PLE FUTURES
Voros via Dunne and Raby, via Revell

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
• Establish a standing monthly meeting in the team diary. Get together for an hour or so.
• Run through the signals, and ask ‘what if’ and ‘if this, then…?’
• Explore desirable and undesirable outcomes. Challenge each other to be ridiculous
• Capture and document source material and speculative futures
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CHALLENGETHESTATUSQUO
HABITTWO
WH EN WH AT
HOW
WH Y
At least once a month As a group, explore the
implications of the
change you’re seeing in
the present
Begin to understand
different plausible
futures

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design31
EXAMPL E: REMOTE WO RKI NG
It can be as simple as
moving your thinking
from…
DEFAULT THI NKI N G:
Most patterns “return to
normal”, but there’s a bit more
remote working than before.
A MO RE D ISRU PT IV E FU TU RE:
Massive leaps in remote collaboration
technology means working remotely
not only sticks permanently, but is
completely transformed.
We kit overhaul our homes with Zoom/
IKEA “multimodal” living innovations
and curate digital professional personas.
To “what if”…

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
A commonly used foresight
tool that helps map 1st, 2nd
and 3rd order implications of
an anticipated shift.
Useful (COVID-19 specific)
resource and example (Scott
Smith):
https://medium.com/phase-
change/mapping-impacts-
and-
implications-74e737312191
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RESOU RCES A ND TO O LS:
FUTURE S WH EE L

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
LET’S CHA LLENG E THE STATU S QUO
WHAT ARE THE PO S SIB LE I MPLI CATI O NS O F
SOME OF THE SI G NA LS WE’V E SEEN?
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BREAKOUT TIME
1. In your breakout rooms, pick a key shift you want to explore
2. Build a future wheel on your relevant breakout board
3. Near the end, jot down some key takeaways
bit.ly/future-wheel

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
HABIT THREE
34
TELL A HUMAN STORY
Build a relatable story about the future for the
people who might use this service.
Because without people, how can you really
understand the impact of a possible future?

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
Most discourse about
the future is in the
abstract and designed
to grab eyeballs.
But by humanising it
we can build empathy
with our stakeholders
and future users.
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KEY CON CE P T

-
Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
• Describe a future world your actors might inhabit, and how they might respond to it
• This requires a bit of practice and skill - designers should bring their abilities, perspective
and empathy to bear on this aspect of the process.
• This doesn’t have to be a movie screenplay. Or even a short film; an outline of a situation
will be a great start.
36
TELLAHUMANSTORY
HABITTHREE
WH EN WH AT
HOW
WH Y
As required, in context -
when you’re developing a
specific strategy for your
service
Build a relatable story
about the future for the
people who might use this
service
Understand the human
impact of a specific
possible future

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
EX AMPL ES
An agile way to
come up with
stories is to create
a mini “artefact
from the future”
37
Or with more time
you can create
future personas…
Imagine a day in the life 2025: an ambitious fitness
entrepreneur in a hyper-local world, buying multi-
mode business space insurance from Zoom insurance
inc with her finance AI.

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
KEY TOOL : A R T E FACT
FROM T HE FU T U RE
Create your own
rapid variations of
future stories with
Institute For The
Future’s Artifact
From the Future
tool.
38

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
HABIT FOUR
39
TRANSL ATE THE IMPACT
Identify the impact of different futures on the
things you care about.
Because this is when you gain insights about
the future that you can act on now.

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
You’re not looking for
revolutionary ideas
that no-one has come
up with before
(although that is nice).
Almost all of the value
is in the translation of
futures for your
specific problem.
40
KEY CON CE P T

-
Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design41
TRANSLATETHEIMPACT
HABITFOUR
WH EN WH AT
HOW
WH Y
• Identify the impact areas you’re most interested in – could be stakeholders, departments,
products or strategies
• Ask: ‘what would future this mean for…’
• Decide whether to “act or track”
At key decision points in a
project, and for a team
Identify the impact of
different futures on the
things you care about
Gain practical insights
about the future that you
can act on now

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
EX AMPL E: S PORTS RE TAI LE R
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Imagine a day in the life 2025: an ambitious fitness
entrepreneur in a hyper-local world, buying multi-
mode business space insurance from Zoom insurance
inc with her finance AI.
The impact it might have:
New opportunity to accessorise
mixed living/work space.
The shift we’re seeing:
Customers significantly change
their physical space and behaviours
at home to work smarter.

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
Map impacts for
your projects using
Institute For The
Future's “Cross
Impact Matrix”
template.
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KEY TOOL :
IMPACT MAT RIX

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company44
LET’S ZOOM O UT
THINGS TO
REMEM BER
• Start small, build habits!
• Make it a team sport
• Accept the imperfect process
• Embrace the ridiculous!
1
2
3
4

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company45
QUESTIONS
AD D THEM TO TH E BOARD
BELOW & USE YO UR 5 VOTES
(You’ve got 2 mins!)
👉 bit.ly/pragmaticfuture 👈

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design
SELECTED RESOURCES
FORESIGHT P RACTICE
AND MIND FOOD: B O O KS
The Signals are Talking & The Big
Nine by Amy Webb
Anything by Noah Yuval Harari
Scott Smith (Changeist), book
release later this year (How to
Future)
FORESIGHT COMPANIES
& ORGS
Nile
Institute For The Future
Future Today Institute
SIG NAL MONITORING &
TRE ND RESEARCH
Email updates
MIT newsletters (The Download/
The Airlock & more…)
Exponential View
Institute For The Future
Science Journals/Papers
Nature
Scientific American
Google Scholar
News (fairly UK centric!)
BBC
Financial Times
The Economist
The Guardian
NY Times
South China Morning Post
Research tools
Strategic Intelligence (World
Economic Forum)
46

Confidential | Nile | The Strategic Design Company47
QUES TION S?
F O LLOW ME ON
LI NKEDIN
FOLLOW
NILE
linkedin.com/in/neilcollman
medium.com/nilehq
Thinking, tools and blogs
instagram.com/nilehq
Inside the studio
twitter.com/nilehq
Interesting things & chat
nilehq.com

Confidential | Nile | Service, Business and Experience Design48
GET IN TOUCH, WE’D LOVE TO
HEAR FROM YOU
HQ 13-15 Circus Lane
Edinburgh, EH3 6SU
+44 (0) 131 220 5671
www.nilehq.com @NileSays