Future Design Inquiries. February 2024

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.

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).

Why do we feel good about our local communities but bad about our country?

A recent Bloomberg poll found that twice as many people think their local economy is on the right track than think the national economy is on the right track. It got me thinking – what else do people feel good about locally, but bad about nationally? It turns out the answer is, a lot:

• Most people believe their own lives are on the right track, but are very concerned about the direction of the country.
• Americans view their local government officials more favorably than Members of Congress.
• Americans trust local news more than national news. 

There are exceptions – like from a report enso did a few years back showing that more people feel belonging in America than in their own communities. But by and large, right now, Americans feel better about the local state of things than the national. How could this be? How is it that the positive feelings people feel about what’s immediately around them don’t extend to the nation at large? We could argue our national leaders are falling short, or that feelings about the country have to do with things outside of daily life, like foreign policy. But more likely, I think the answer lies with the press. As we and others have noted before, the press paints a picture that is bleak and pessimistic more times than not. And that outlook shapes the way people view the world, so much so that too often they don’t give other people or places the benefit of the doubt. It’s another reason to fight the doomerist narrative dominating culture. And maybe to think: if so many people feel good about the local, how can we harness that for change and rewrite the national story? (HS)

A light in the dark tunnels of content creation?

Enso partner Brian Hardwick posted this interview with Medium’s CEO in one of our Slack channels and I was struck with how Medium seems to have achieved the impossible: a profitable content/media company that is so successfully moderated that the most read pieces are about real issues, authored by, in his words, “people who actually know what they’re talking about” (last year’s top story was Obama writing about Israel/Gaza). He says he’s not competing with journalism – yet Medium is producing content that is arguably better and more informative than a lot of journalism out there (I’m very pro-journalism, but the business incentives are misaligned right now and it’s showing up in the content). Perhaps Medium isn’t the content unicorn it claims to be (I recognize this interviewee is biased). But it begs the question: in a world with so much misinformation and misunderstanding, how can we share our views and our stories at scale in a genuinely productive way? (HS)

Could more possibility journalism reframe the way we see the world?

Speaking of….what is the productive role of journalism? Historically, it has been to inform citizens so that they can better engage with their communities and their world. Yet, we know media doesn’t just inform – it shapes the way people think, often using harmful psychological tactics (algorithms, sensationalism, negativity bias). In other words, it’s hurting people – not to mention, most outlets aren’t making any money. Daniel Pink at the Washington Post has a new project called Why Not? where he’ll research and then write about bold, innovative, positive ideas for society, with a goal of generating productive debate and raising our ambitions for what’s possible. He calls it Possibility Journalism and it made me think that maybe this is a piece of the elusive media puzzle. What if every sensationalistic doom-tilting piece were replaced with the opposite – an equally sensationalistic yet progress-tilting piece? I’m not condoning sensationalistic journalism in either direction. But as a thought exercise – how might an onslaught of ‘Why Not?’ news change the way we think about the world? (HS)

Is the doomerist narrative a self-fulfilling prophecy (and could the reverse be true)?

Along those same lines, the data backs up our theory that progress-oriented content (and culture, and language) can actually lead to real prosperity. In a new study, researchers showed that in history, progress-oriented writing (and culture, and language) actually triggered economic development. Data also shows that - unsurprisingly - the western world has turned from a culture of progress to a culture of worry. Which means that we’re at risk, as the title of the piece suggests, of actually talking ourselves into a real decline. (HS)

What happens when an AI gets elected?

Nations, like most groups of humans, rely on shared narratives that bind people in common purpose. Elections are typically where that narrative gets restored, or adjusted, essentially revisiting the question, ‘who are we now, and where should we head next?’. In Pakistan’s recent elections, there were most of the problematic signs of a not-democratic process, from military interference, to voter intimidation, to censorship and more. But one particularly fascinating, and seemingly momentous element, was Imran Khan’s supporters deploying AI to create and deliver speeches using his likeness. This was an innovative way of reclaiming his voice while imprisoned, but when an AI is writing and delivering speeches, at what point is the AI effectively the candidate? Writing hyper-targeted campaign messages, delivering more speeches than any flesh and blood human could ever do, creating policy platforms … where will we draw the cultural norms around acceptable political influence, and what power would we have to enforce those norms anyway? Given all the themes above, we’re asking, how can humans tell better, more emotionally compelling, more optimistic, forward-looking stories of our common purpose? (SB)

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

• @artbutmakeitsports takes sports shots and compares them to classic artwork (no AI involved). Read more about his project here. 

• This piece by Jillian Hess on Eminem’s boxes of notes
• A dragon fossil discovered during the year of the dragon
• This map of the world by Greg Beauchamp

• Joyful venns — we are fans of all things venn diagram; even more so when each component is quite distant and the overlap is not obvious. These are some nice ones.
• WalletHub’s annual Happiest Cities index, which they determine using 29 metrics across four categories, drawn from positive psychology research. The most interesting part, though, is reading about these cities and what makes them so happy – Fremont, CA (#1) has the lowest separation and divorce rate in the country, residents in Overland Park, KS (#2) get more sleep, people in San Jose, CA (#3) live longer.
• Eight secrets to a fulfilled life — this is old, but Oliver Burkeman (author of Four Thousand Weeks) summarized his long-running column on how to live well.

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. The future of exploration: With human spaceflight becoming a possibility for some (and eventually, many), what does the new Space Age mean for humanity? 
2. Great internet no matter what: Enabling everyone, no matter their circumstances or geography, to experience the magic of being able to connect.
3. The future of communities: Community used to mean proximity, yet today the geographic barriers to forming community are lower. So why do so many people feel alone? And how can we change that? 
4. 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.

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