At Autodesk, our team focuses on strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is a practice of looking systematically at the future, understanding fragmented indicators that suggest possible futures, and developing a point of view about how to respond. We use imagination to envision how our customers will work in a future world (typically about ten years out) and backcasting to move from the future world to the present. As an alternative to backcasting, we can look at the state of the practice today and forecast how our customers' work will evolve over the next decade. Our team's focus is squarely on the future.
Darren Brooker is a story strategist at Autodesk. Storytelling is related to strategic foresight in that storytelling helps frame Autodesk's future direction. By co-developing strategic narratives, Darren and other members of our team help ensure that our employees are equipped to engage with our customers in a dialog that further develops a shared view of the future. The best way to reach a common understanding is to tell a story that both customers and employees can relate to. Stories provide the waypoints as our technology evolves. Many of you regularly see Darren's work as part of Autodesk University keynote presentations.
As part of pondering the future, Darren recently shared three articles about the future:
| June was hottest ever recorded on Earth, European satellite agency announces The Independent reports that experts say climate change contributed to record-breaking temperatures across Europe. |
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| Globalization is dead and we need to invent a new world order The Economist shares a book excerpt and interview with Michael O'Sullivan, author of The Levelling. O'Sullivan's premise is that the world is at a turning point similar to the fall of communism. He provides an analysis of the transition in world economics, finance, and power as the era of globalization ends and gives way to new power centers and institutions. |
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| At Work, Expertise Is Falling Out of Favor The Atlantic asks: "These days, it seems, just about all organizations are asking their employees to do more with less. Is that actually a good idea?" |
Thanks, Darren.
Our customers' future includes dealing with the effects of climate change, a multipolar world where alliances are formed (America, the European Union, and a China-centric Asia), and the impacts of automation. Our team considers how these will apply to designing and making. What are your thoughts on these topics?
Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., efficiency, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, return on investment). At Autodesk, we want our products and services to part of solutions to address the challenges of climate change, economic cooperation, and a changing way of working. In doing so, we will help provide the opportunity for better.
The future itself is alive in the lab.
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