To my left, a business strategist and industrial designer heatedly debate the financial and social benefits of a “hand-me-down, doodle-me-up” backpack program to enable creative reuse in key lifestage moments across childhood. At the other end of the table, a designer prototypes an underground music genre using sound libraries sampled from hybrid species. This moment is so very weird, so very thoughtful, and so very much where dreaming up new and disruptive ideas begins.
When IDEO speculates about the future, we often start by gathering around a table and giving ourselves the creative oxygen and open space to explore the questions of tomorrow—What will we need to thrive in the climate era? How can we humanize technology?—with…