Introducing PRISM's Future of the World Project

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”? – Yogi Berra

Rarely have people spent so much time thinking about what the future holds as right now. At PRISM, we are inherently part of this group of people, and we are privileged to be able to work with some of the world’s largest companies and help them think through this very problem. In doing our work, we frequently get to interact with fascinating people that help us understand the world that we live in and how it’s changing. These conversations typically serve a specific purpose and help PRISM immensely by strengthening our knowledge and challenging our thinking, but most often, the insights and perspectives do not reach beyond these boundaries in the way they deserve.

We think that should change.

We have (hubristically) named part of our effort to make this happen the “Future of the World Project”. Through it, we will carry out interviews with some of our most interesting colleagues, collaborators, acquaintances, and friends and release them publicly on a regular basis. The conversations are structured, provocative, and, hopefully – to those who read them, too – fun. At root, each of them will be exploring the same question: Where is the world going?

“How is this different from any other podcast or article I could read?” we hear you ask. First – and most importantly – we think our guests have interesting and important things to add to the conversation, and we hope to bring those ideas to the fore. Second, we will try to focus on the less discussed parts of the “futuring” conversation – that is the “long-long-term”, underrated trends and counterintuitive insights, rather than just the baseline outlook. Finally, to make this a Future of the World Project rather than Future of the World Chats, we are maintaining a consistent thread across our conversations so that insights can be drawn across them. It is very difficult for any one perspective to provide a clear picture of where the entire world is going. Instead, what we will look to do is to generate more of a “data set” of thoughts from the smartest people in their fields, and in doing so over time build a compelling view of what everyone agrees on, where tension or uncertainty lies, and what the main pivot points will be in determining where the world is heading.

As a preview into what’s coming soon, over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing our conversations with:

• Johan Annell – Partner at Asia Perspective, with whom we discussed the future of China, the country’s changing business climate, and the last changes that COVID-19 has brought there.
• Elly Arcese – Head of Grants at ClientEarth, with whom we talked about the potential to combat climate change using the law, why she is optimistic about the ability to slow global warming by the middle of the century, and what other challenges exist out there that may stymie our efforts to effectively protect our environment.?
• Olivier Aries – Co-Founder and Talent Optimization Implementer at Thrive Collective, with whom we discussed the changing workplace, how to think about leadership, and how technology may impact work going forward.?
• Ian Brown – Tech policy expert and professor, with whom we discussed trends in tech policy regulation, the approaches to tackling market concentration, and the challenges that new technologies may confront us with.?
• Bart Edes – Professor of Practice at McGill and author, with whom we talked about international development, the case embracing cooperation with China, global trends that have been fostered by COVID-19, and a number of other topics.?
• Caio Franco – Director of Legal, Policy and Communications at Buser Brazil, with whom we discussed the future of technology in Latin America, the macro-trends in global democracy and what Latin America can teach us about them, and the opportunities that Latin America’s tech sector may be able to exploit.
• Kim Fulton – Employee Experience Expert at Kearney, with whom we talked about the future of the workforce, the impact and durability of COVID-19 trends on labor, and how businesses are thinking about changing their workforce to thrive in a world of labor scarcity.??
• Ryan Matthews – Futurist and author, with whom we discussed the practice of “futuring” itself, where US and global democracy stands, and the blind spots in our world that people aren’t thinking about correctly.

As with everything we do, we will be approaching each interview and this entire project with flexibility and a drive to be impactful.?

As this project moves forward, we welcome your feedback and advice.

— The PRISM Team