Future Design Inquiries. December 2023

Designing the future

Futures happen by default or by design. Here are some things we think push past the default.

Hello from your friends at enso, a future design company, and happy last month of 2023.

For anyone new here, we’re sharing the things that make us think, bring us joy or shift our perspective. And we welcome your reactions, additions, and suggestions – reach out news@enso.co.

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What we’re reflecting on

These nuggets curated by enso partners Hanna Siegel (HS) and Sebastian Buck (SB).

Action Builds Hope. 

This month, world leaders gathered in Dubai for the UN’s COP28 Climate Conference, where nations chart the path forward on global emissions reduction. It’s become clear that fear and dread about the climate is hindering our progress. Where is the hope? It’s in actionists all over the world, making progress now – saving the planet, growing communities and inspiring others to join the fight. Action builds hope, hope builds action.

If only we had as many stories of healing as we do of division.

It’s an unsurprising sign of the times that a story about a tiny town overcoming its divisions and starting to heal merits a spread in the New York Times, but it’s a heartening read nonetheless. It’s a familiar story of people operating from fear, stoked by the one-two punch of COVID-19 and the Trump era of extreme political discord. But the part where the guy who tipped off Sean Hannity about a particular incident, triggering bomb threats to town hall, actually apologizes publicly? That’s a little less familiar. The story highlights the difficult truth about deep divisions: there really is no way to scale belonging – the work to heal takes real time and effort. For all the admirable studies, initiatives, NGOs and campaigns trying to reknit our social fabric, this might be one thing we need to do one town at a time, as we work towards an era when compassionate human behavior isn’t national news. (HS)

A new way to see each other.

We may be past the worst of COVID-19, but the desire for deeper connection that it surfaced seems stronger than ever. Wendy McNaughton is an artist, graphic journalist and social worker, perhaps the perfect person to think about how to bridge this gap. In this short audio essay, A Deceptively Simple Way to Rebuild Trust in Scary Times, she takes us with her as she conducts an experiment, asking people to sit across from one another and draw each other, for 60 seconds. “The premise of my work is that drawing is looking, and looking is loving,” she says. Listening to people react to their experiences is a joy – and a reminder that 60 seconds is enough time to change someone’s mindset. “When we are making eye contact with people, we are seeing them,” she says. “We are saying you exist, I exist…that’s an opening for a connection and that’s what communities are based on.” (HS)

Can we realistically reimagine work as play – and be more productive in the process?

At enso, we’ve been thinking about work wellbeing for awhile now, so Boston College research professor Peter Gray’s piece, When Work is Play piqued my interest. Gray makes the case that when work is play, it can be humanizing and when it is the opposite (toil is his word of choice), it can be dehumanizing. So he writes about the characteristics that can make work closer to play than to toil. There are some useful insights that anyone can deploy, with the obvious caveat that it’s much easier in some jobs/economic circumstances than others. But it made me think about the role that our society has played in conditioning us to think about work and play as opposites. The word ‘work’ connotes grinding away over long hours, doing something difficult (even though it can be fulfilling or meaningful as well). Meanwhile ‘play’ connotes fun, but typically not productive or even meaningful fun. Yet research shows that play can actually increase productivity among teams, and that people learn best from experiences that are joyful. As we continue to reimagine how work fits into our lives, perhaps it’s worth thinking about what our society might look like if we reframed some work as play, and some play as work. (HS)

Do you trust your initial intuition or your considered judgment?

If you’re familiar with Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, you know he separates ‘system 1’ thinking (fast, intuitive) from ‘system 2’ thinking (slower, deliberative). Often system 1 works well (‘I’ll have a bite of cake!’), but sometimes system 2 needs to kick in to correct impetuous decisions that system 1 wants to make (‘I’ll have the whole cake!’).  System 2 might be more appropriate for deciding whether to buy a house, post hate speech, or choose who to vote for. But some new research suggests about 20% of people don’t correct obvious system 1 errors, even after their system 2 has clearly found the error. They trust their initial intuition more than their considered judgment. Which helps me understand why obviously flawed politicians seem to evade system 2 logic, long after they are proven as incompetent liars. I read Rory Stewart’s excellent How Not To Be A Politician this month, and it’s a horrifying tale of a political system completely oriented to the soundbite and devoid of substantive expertise. I heard Logan Roy throughout: “You are not serious people.” (SB)

Building a Climate Economy

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in the climate transition is the availability of finance for renewables in the Global South; it costs a lot more to borrow money for an African solar field than it would a US solar field because of perceived risk. A lot of organizations are trying to solve this challenge, many of them around COP28. One new effort is Alterra, a $30bn fund, $5bn of which is specifically dedicated to risk mitigation capital — ie, by taking a higher risk burden on a project, other risk-averse funding can flow more freely. Through this mechanism, the stated goal is to mobilize an additional $250bn by 2030. (SB)

In order to move forward, don’t forget to look back.

Nostalgia sometimes gets a bad rep – looking backward intuitively seems like it’s counter to moving forward. Yet Clay Routledge makes the case that nostalgia can actually be an engine of progress and cites studies showing that engaging in nostalgic reflection motivates people to pursue life goals, counters loneliness, inspires a goal-oriented mindset, and boosts optimism, creativity and open-mindedness. That’s a pretty useful tool in the toolbox. And a good reminder as we close out 2023 – as you think about the future, take a minute to relish in the past. (HS)

11 things that made us think, gasp, share and laugh:

• News you can use (?): enso friend and collaborator Aaron Small gives a fun rundown of curse words/phrases from his family’s ancestral languages in his excellent newsletter Man on the Mend.
• Comedian Nate Bargatze is hilarious as George Washington outlining his dream for America on SNL. (Sidenote: Nate’s Netflix specials are excellent).
• Artist Austin Kleon created a gratitude zine with exercises to help you feel thankful as he advocates for a perpetual Thanksgiving (mindset).
• What might progress look like in 2024? Andreesen Horowitz asked their experts across a variety of fields for the big ideas they’re looking at most. From democratizing miracle drugs to 21st century public safety to all things AI, it’s an interesting set of perspectives on the future. 

• The story of how Sweden celebrates one of their biggest holidays – Lucia Day – where Swedes all over bring light to December 13th, the darkest day of the year.
• Part of sustainability is about making things people love, not just tolerate for a time. To highlight this challenge, Thomas Heatherwick’s studio has created a report on ‘boring buildings’. “We have spent 100 years making buildings that few people love.”
• An oldie but a goodie: Harvard Professor Clayton M. Christensen’s 2010 essay “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

• Nature’s Best Science Images of 2023 including this photo of Hawaii’s most active volcano, Kīlauea, erupting in June.
• The strangely meditative “visual connection engine” river (keep the sound on – it’s oddly satisfying).

• Jim Denevan’s “Self Similar” is a *giant* mandala comprised of 448 pyramids in the desert outside Abu Dhabi. (Image by Sebastian)
• Everything that Reuben Wu does. Including this. “This sense of wonder and temporality are what inspire me and drive me to create. Connection to me is the foundation of spirituality; it’s the reason why friendships and communities thrive in our society.”

What we’re working on

enso is a small, senior team so that we can work on just a few initiatives at a time. This allows us to go deep on some of the biggest challenges/ opportunities. Recently, we’ve been working on a few main missions with our partners:

1. Climate actionism: Actionists all over the world are building solutions for a healthier planet and a better future. 
2. The future of exploration: According to Pew, 69% of Americans believe it is important that the US continue to explore space and 6% think that people will build colonies on other planets by 2073. But what's possible, and how many of us can be included in the journeys?
3. Internet everywhere: Enabling those working, traveling and living in remote areas to connect to the world.
4. The future of Small Businesses: How can we still find and support the talents and entrepreneurialism in our own communities?
5. Design The Future book: Distilling wisdom from those actively designing and creating the future, from a wide variety of fields. We hope to complete this in 2024.

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See you next time.

enso • 115 W California Blvd #9101 Pasadena, CA 91105