Future Design Inquiries. January 2025

Hello from your friends at enso, a future design company. Futures happen by default or by design. Here are some things we think push past the default. And we welcome your reactions, additions, and suggestions – reach out news@enso.co.

For anyone new, we’re sharing the things that make us think, bring us joy or shift our perspective.

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Our hearts are with Los Angeles, the city that birthed Enso, and countless ideas that have rippled out into the world. As you know, the fires are not contained yet; our immediate team is safe so far, but one teammate and their family are still evacuated and we know so many people who have lost their homes. We are so grateful for all the firefighters and first responders, who once again, show the best of humanity. There are many ways to help, but if you want some pointers, this is a nice list.

What we’re reflecting on

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

Are people the new brands?

Ed Elson (Scott Galloway’s podcast co-host) says yes. He argues that in an era of widespread loneliness, what people are really craving is a friend. Which is why Joe Rogan, speaking conversationally from a garage, does better than any of CNN’s correspondents. It’s why, he says, Mr. Beast gets more viewers than any of the studio productions. And it’s why, he says, Trump (the ultimate person-as-brand) beat Kamala. But the best brands, and individuals, create movements that all kinds of people can be a part of, because the success they strive for is shared. And that’s where I think Elson’s argument falls a little short. It’s true that many of us are in dire need of more meaningful relationships. But those relationships are, by definition, based on authenticity, something that most of today’s people-brands (aka influencers) often lack. Their authenticity is usually both curated and limited. Brands, however, can often be key movement builders, in a way that individuals can’t (at least not on their own). The best brands are a reflection of a set of values, and those values are a vehicle to form a community, brought together by a product or a service. Elson is right that we all need friends. Perhaps influencers play a role in filling that void. But brands can serve a different purpose – they can be a big tent where people can gain a sense of belonging. Another, just as important, antidote to loneliness. (HS)

Write the ending first…

T.S. Eliot said, “The end is where we start from” and I’ve been thinking about this as we enter 2025. It’s a common writer’s trick (explained nicely by Nathan Baugh here) to start with the ending so you stay grounded in where you’re going. It’s also how we at enso think about future design – our projects often start with filling in the blank for ‘A future where…[X].’ We write the ending, so to speak, and then design the path to get there. I like it because I find it’s easy to start with big ambition, but just as easy to get cold feet as you’re designing the path to get there. When the ending (in our case, an ambitious future) is already written, it’s harder to pull back and limit ourselves. Which brings me to the new year. Instead of the usual reflections or resolutions, I’ve been thinking about what I want the ending to look like. How will I feel in December 2025? What will have happened? Who will I be? Maybe in writing the ending, I can better design the path forward. (HS)

But consider multiple futures

This is a time when many people forecast the future; inside companies, that’s often done with moderate optimism in extending what’s gone before. The FT’s Tim Harford writes compellingly on forecasts: ‘The test of a useful forecast is not whether it turns out to be accurate, but whether it turns out to prompt some sort of useful action in advance.’ He cites forecasts of the covid pandemic from 2019 — accurate, but not acted upon. So how can forecasts be more useful? Create future scenarios (which, by the way, is a core part of Enso’s process). Future scenarios don’t assume forecasting accuracy, they overtly acknowledge that the future is uncertain, and malleable. Three professors ran a forecasting tournament where people thought critically about multiple futures; the participants ended up with greater humility, and depolarization — in other words, the practice of ‘episodic future thinking’ made people wiser. “I would rather have two vivid, plausible, contradictory scenarios to consider than one … two compelling explorations of mutually exclusive futures? Now we are starting to move away from the sterile question “what will happen?” and towards the fertile question “what would we do if it did?”(SB)

Lead to win

When I was pregnant, the best piece of advice I got about parenthood was not to split tasks 50-50 with my partner. Figure out what you’re each good at, they said, and lean in. Because even if it’s not a completely even split, you’ll have less resentment, less burnout and a better marriage. They were right. I’m basically non-functional in the mornings and my husband can’t even put together a snack. So, he gets the kids up and off to school, and I make the meals. We play to our strengths, and everything works better. It turns out this advice applies to leaders too. But conventional wisdom says that leaders should be doing it all – the speaking engagements, the earnings calls, the high-level meetings, the core business strategy, and on and on. Instead, A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin say that great leaders should lean into those things that tap their comparative advantages, and delegate the rest. As CEO of P&G, Lafley was expected to attend all brand reviews and represent the company at outside events like the World Economic Forum. Yet these, he knew, weren’t his comparative strengths and he had excellent colleagues who could do those jobs just as well. (That’s right, he decided not to go to Davos). On the other hand, he had an expertise in translating consumer insights into commercial offerings. So he turned much of his time towards a campaign to make the organization more consumer-centric, largely by talking to all kinds of consumers and learning about their experiences. The approach, and its results, became legendary within the company. More proof that no one can do it all, but it’s where you choose to focus that matters, no matter your job title. (HS)

Pyramids to circles

Perhaps the most famous idea in psychology is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which he didn’t depict as a pyramid, but others did. Most people interpret it as a ladder of attainment, with self actualization at the top, and most people take that with the spirit of individualism (he didn’t). Despite veering from his original intention, the pyramid became the perfect emblem for western me-first culture since the ~1960s.  Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s Parting Prescription for America landed in a circle of community — the perfect emblem for the next chapter of culture, if only we can make it so. “Through my work over two terms as Surgeon General, I saw that the answer to ‘What’s missing?’ is simple, yet profound: community.” As we’ve advocated for a long time, companies have a big role to play here: as people gather less in churches and community centers, that yearning for connection is a huge opportunity. (SB)

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

• Pope Francis on the importance of humor
• Jerry Seinfeld: ‘coffee is the most important part of a human’s life’.
• The good news: America is getting healthier. The bad news: No one knows exactly why.
• Ian Bremmer’s big-picture take on the state of the world is clarifying for seeing the state-of-history (‘the anti-incumbent wave’) while we’re in the midst of the swirl.
• Cultural predictions? From the Financial Times? Yes, they’re great.
• High status, low quality. The ‘death spiral’ of luxury fashion seems to mimic the direction of a lot of culture, but beyond the commodification, real creativity is flourishing.
• Solving the problem of microplastics with… squid bones? A new sponge can soak up as much as 99.8 per cent of the particles from water samples.
• Preventing wildfires: Sardinia is trialing a network of sensors that ‘smell’ wildfires before they’re out of control.
• The remarkable adventures, achievements, deaths and disasters of Captain Cook’s final voyage, all brought vividly to life in Hampton Sides’ superb Wide Wide Sea.
• Rivian knows how to make charging stations.
• You may be listening to ‘fake artists’ on Spotify.

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. Enso’s futures: practicing what we preach, we spent time during our December offsite in Palm Springs considering the path ahead for enso. We discussed seven plausible futures, and aligned around elements drawn from three. While we spend most of our time ‘doing the work’, it feels great every so often to step back and look at the bigger picture. Or as Tiago said after we’d been hiking through a canyon for a while (another part of the offsite), ‘shall we stop a moment and enjoy the view?’.
2. Design The Future book: Distilling wisdom from those actively designing and creating the future, from a wide variety of fields.
3. A new enso website: We are a future design company that drives growth and positive impact that scales. We’ve been designing capitalism that works better for the last 12 years – learn about us, what we do and why we do it. 
4. Supporting one of the fastest-growing industries – e-commerce: Reimagining what it means to be a small business in a globalized, digital world. 
5. A brand to radiate optimism: We think restoring optimism in the world is essential. We're exploring building a product, content and community brand around this idea.
6. Radical leap stories around the world: Uncovering the stories of unlikely people creating and solving with technology. 
7. Engaging with the world’s talent leaders: How can we collaborate with leaders worldwide to build the future of work?

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