“The only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing.”
–Peter Diamandis
Many of today’s biggest companies will no longer exist in 10 years. Why? Because rapidly emerging new technologies will make the problems they’ve spent their history solving obsolete.
Too often solutions are limited to ideas that can easily be shown to incrementally solve existing business goals. Crazy ideas, projects, or initiatives that don’t fit into the mold get rejected. While this keeps the company focused and efficient, it’s exactly what leads to disruption. Because world-changing ideas are crazy—until they are a massive breakthrough.
Thomas Edison was ridiculed in his quest to make an electric light bulb. The Apple Newton was a spectacular flop, until it evolved into the iPhone. Before these products changed the world, people asked, “Why would we ever want that?!” Today, we can’t imagine living without them.
Massive innovation comes not from solving what we know how to solve but from radical, crazy, forward-thinking ideas. And this is where science fiction can be a powerful innovation tool.
At Singularity University, we’ve developed a special brand of design thinking called Design for Exponentials (D4X) to help us build an exponential mindset and to develop world-changing innovation by constantly shifting perspective. One of the pillars of D4X is learning to project our thinking into the future. Through a methodology called science fiction design intelligence (SciFi D.I.), we leverage science fiction to look 10 to 15 years into the future to redefine what’s possible today.
To learn more, please visit: Singularity Hub
