In this week’s show, we’re joined by Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist at Futurist.com and author of Facing Our Futures: How Foresight, Futures Design and Strategy Creates Prosperity and Growth. We discuss what inspired Nik to become a futurist, what’s ahead for professional futurism, the backstory of Futurist.com, protopia and futures thinking towards 2100 and beyond.

This week Brian Solis joins Brett in the hosting chair as Srujana Kaddevarmuth from Walmart labs joins the Futurists to delve into the future of in store and online interactions for the retail giant. From future store design, warehouse robotics through to data science and AI, we cover the gamut of possibilities of 21st century commerce.

Julian Bleecker of the Near Future Laboratory has developed a novel way to forecast: he constructs prototypes, products and artifacts from future scenarios. Then he designs the marketing material, including ad campaigns and brochures and catalogs, to interrogate the wider impact on consumer society and human behavior. These techniques are set forth in Julian’s book, The Manual of Design Fiction: A Practical Guide to Exploring The Near Future.  https://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/

Advertising industry legend Rishad Tobaccowala shares his perspective on the future after 30+ years as head of strategy at globe-spanning agency Publicis. In the next phase of digital transformation, he envisions marketing and design encompassing every aspect of a business, from product to store to customer experience, because “everything else will be highly automated.” Check out this energetic dialog for insight about how organizations and markets will evolve.  You’ll also learn Rishad’s technique for forecasting long-term trends. Visit rishadtobaccowala.com , join his newsletter https://rishad.substack.com/ and follow him on Twitter @rishad.