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Who's Future Anyway?
One more notable thing from the LA Design Festival
After my keynote, a 15-year-old named Vikram came up to me, eager and earnest, full of questions about how to prepare himself for the world ahead.
We had a great chat — I would've stayed as long as he wanted — but instead, he surprised me by asking if he could interview me for his blog.
Of course I said yes, and the yes was not for me, it was for the enthusiasm that effervesced from him. Something rare was happening: a genuine curiosity about the future, a desire to engage with it actively rather than passively accepting whatever comes.
Moments like this remind me why I do what I do, whatever or however you might define it or characterize it.
The most rewarding projects aren't just the ones that play out in commercial contexts — they're the ones that help people, especially the young, learn how to create, imagine, and tap into that existentially vital capability we are born with, which is to envision possibilities that may not yet exist.
Prediction is one thing — a forecast, a trend line, a scenario — but bulking up the imagination to develop a capacity to see and sense possibility is something else entirely.
Futures thinking in its best mode is about cultivating the capacity to envision and create more habitable worlds.
I left that conversation inspired, reminding myself again that the young'ns - more nowadays than the c-suite — should have a seat at the center of futures practice — not as passive recipients of someone else's forecast, but as active participants in imagining what's possible.
Vikram's blog is here — I'd encourage you to check it out and send him your encouragement.
Radha Mistry and Ronni Kimm did epic work pulling off the 2025 LA Design Festival! ⇒
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