Futures Design – Keynote

“Futures design, and an active corporate foresight capability, are essential in a world-changing organization’s strategic planning capability. Simply put, those without perform more poorly and have a lower market valuation.”

Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist

Nikolas Badminton is a world-leading futurist keynote speaker that provides your audience with insights into how futures design processes will transform how your organization to strengthen strategic planning, create resilient roadmaps, and anticipate unforeseen risks.

He will teach you about why Futures Design is essential for your business, how to explore future horizons and shift your mindset, how to create a corporate foresight capability that unlocks more profit and value in your organization, and how you can empower executives to be curious about our futures.

In this futurist keynote he will discuss how to implement strategic corporate foresight, signals scanning, trends identification, scenario development, writing design and speculative fiction, creating experiential futures, and foresight methods that can be deployed in your organization.

In this futurist keynote he will teach you 3 essential lessons.

Lesson: Understand how Futures Design is essential for your business

Futures Design is the practice of how we come together to think critically about our world, ideas on achieving our goals as a responsible human race and the long-term developments we’d love to see. It’s also about a joint understanding of the histories that need to be considered in the particular contexts and megatrends that we are exploring – water-energy-food, agriculture, transportation and logistics, cities, education, defense, and other impactful areas of humanity. 

Nikolas will talk about how in Futures Design we are concerned with two things. Longer-term horizons – futures that are usually at least 10 years away, and Alternative futures – the ability to examine alternative future paths of development. 

Lesson: Explore future horizons and shift your mindset

Futures Design is ultimately the discipline of looking at horizons that lay ahead of our short term cycles of strategic planning – 10, 20, 30, and even 100+ years. It’s the ability to shift our mindsets from what is to WHAT IF…

‘What is’ focuses on the here and now and the very near future – I’d say 3 to 5 years. Something that organizations do fairly intuitively, and ‘What if…’ is an invitation to be curious and introduce wonder to our thinking about how the world could be.

Lesson: Create corporate foresight capabilities to unlock more profit and value in your organization

Future design can create increased profitability and growth. In 2019, researchers Rohrbeck and Kum undertook a pivotal study to understand the value of Futures Design and corporate foresight and found that, “companies that recognise that the future might change the very foundation of their business, that prepare for it and change their course of action accordingly, are 33 per cent more profitable than companies on average.  In addition, these vigilant companies have achieved a 200 per cent higher growth rate than the average company.” 

Mobilizing organizational capabilities that undertaken Futures Design, foresight, speculative and design fiction, and so many more tools enables you to strengthen strategic planning, anticipate unforeseen risks, future-proof your organization, and see unbridled opportunities in our futures.

Shift your mindset from what is to WHAT IF…

What if you create bolder visions of your futures, strengthen strategic planning capabilities, anticipate unforeseen risks, and understand the value it provides to the market, your customers, and your shareholders? What if you create an anticipatory organizational capability? And, what if you empower all employees to be curious about the futures that lay ahead of us in 10, 20 and 30+ years?

Next Level Futurist Keynotes

Nikolas delivers futures exploration, education and experience in the futurist keynotes he researches and delivers to you and your audience. He undertakes specific research, divines unique perspectives and shares future insights for your industry. The result is a collaborative and impactful futurist keynote that event attendees deeply connect with, and are changed by.

Let’s plan and incredible event experience together

Contact Nikolas Badminton to discuss your organization’s needs to understand Futures Design at a deeper level and to ignite your event with a world-renowned futurist speaker.

About Nikolas Badminton FRSA, Chief Futurist

Nikolas is the Chief Futurist for the FUTURIST THINK TANK (futurist.com), a Fellow of The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (The RSA), and works with trillion-dollar companies, central banks, governments, startups and those willing to challenge our poverty of imagination, awaken curiosity and create incredible futures.

He has worked with hundreds of world-leading companies, including NASA, Google, Microsoft, United Nations, United Way, Bayer, Corteva, Bank of Canada,  American Express, AT&T, Thales International, Rolls Royce, Heineken, Procter & Gamble, Government of Canada, UK Home Office, Government of Cayman Islands, IDEO, and many more.

Nikolas has been a mainstay in the media for the past decade talking about our futures. He’s appeared in the ‘Smart Drugs’ documentary, was an advisor to the ‘Age of AI’ series with Robert Downley Jr and appears in the upcoming series ‘The Secrets of Big Data’ on Discovery. He appears regularly on SIRIUSXM, and on CTV’s Future Friday. His essential research has also been featured by the BBC, VICE, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Techcrunch, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Forbes, Sputnik, Venturebeat, and Global News. He also produces and interviews incredible thinkers on the renowned Exponential Minds Podcast.

In Fall 2022 Nikolas’ new book on futures design, long term thinking, and strategic foresight will be released – ‘Facing Our Futures’. This essential book will provide executives and organizations with the foundations for futures design and the tools to imagine new futures, create bolder visions, anticipate unforeseen risks, and strengthen strategic planning. Nikolas’ thinking can also be seen in the opening chapter of ‘The Future Starts Now’. Both are published by Bloomsbury Business.