How can design integrate with futures research?
You can divide futurist work into two spheres—activities related to “describing” possible, probable, and preferable futures, and activities related to helping organizations actually realize a particular future. The first sphere provides ways of thinking about what might be ahead of you, what you might want to aim toward and what you might want to stay away from. This fits easily with both strategic planning and design research. And its at this point that I think design can play a much bigger role that it does today; helping to visualize and explore these futures. A picture is worth a thousand words, but today, most futurists use words, rather than pictures, to describe their ideas.
