Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Imagining Better Futures

Gold
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Share the love for this talk
Imagining Better Futures
Speakers: Devon Powers
Link:

Summary

Whenever we make changes, we affect the lives of people in the future -- and that responsibility can feel enormous. In this talk, Devon Powers will share some of her research into people who forecast the future for a living, revealing their strategies as well as their pitfalls. She will also discuss how you can engage in research with a sense of responsibility for tomorrow.

Key Insights

  • Technological innovation rarely solves social problems; it often replicates them in new spaces, as seen with harassment incidents in the metaverse.

  • Excessive optimism in futures thinking risks ignoring real challenges, whereas excessive pessimism leads to hopelessness.

  • Trend forecasting is both predictive and culture-producing, shaping how society imagines and pursues futures.

  • Many trend forecasters distance themselves from accountability by focusing on futures they and their clients will not personally inhabit.

  • Futures visions dominated by wealthy, white, cosmopolitan men tend to overlook systemic inequalities and sustain existing power structures.

  • Afrofuturism offers a critical framework that centers Black experiences, addressing history and ongoing struggles rather than erasing them in future imaginaries.

  • Globality in futures work requires deep, meaningful engagement with diverse cultures, not superficial collection of exotic ideas.

  • The obsession with cutting-edge technology in envisioning futures can distract from critical, everyday needs like clean water, food security, and freedom from violence.

  • Sober or tragic optimism allows for hope and progress while acknowledging struggle, unintended consequences, and complexity in the future.

  • Democratic futures require transparency in methods and accountability in outcomes, focusing on equity and inclusion for those the futures are imagined for.

Notable Quotes

"The metaverse has not summoned those angels; instead, it has brought in all the good and the bad from the real world."

"We can’t just think technology or innovation will solve our problems; we have to embrace and work with those problems."

"If I do a project today on 2025, you’re not going to be in that chair in 2025 and neither am I."

"Too often, futures imaginaries want to erase or align difference rather than reckon with it."

"Trend forecasting is a culture industry—it produces culture as much as it predicts it."

"Naming things like the 'vibe shift' is powerful in shaping the narratives around future developments."

"The future will be struggle; we need to face that forward, not deny it."

"Afrofuturism shows us the future must reckon with the past and center difference and diversity."

"Obsession with gadgetry and cool tech ignores the fact that most critical future changes are mundane and essential, like clean water."

"The future is not a toy. Accountability matters deeply in how we construct futures."

Ask the Rosenbot
Ashley Cortez
Shifting Toward Community-Led Innovation in Local Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Mike Oren
Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Doug Powell
DesignOps and the Next Frontier: Leading Through Unpredictable Change
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Prabhas Pokharel
Order and Chaos: New Ways of Collaborating on Synthesis and Storytelling
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
About the Rosenverse
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Feleesha Sterling
Building a Rapid Research Program
2023 • Enterprise Community
Bilan Hashi
The Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Nalini Kotamraju
Research After UX
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Asia Hoe
Partnering with Product: A Journey from Junior to Senior Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Michelle Morrison
Culture Design
2020 • DesignOps Community
Tanya Snook
Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding
2021 • Enterprise Community
Amber Knabl
Empowering innovation: The critical role of inclusive product development in the AI era
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Sam Proulx
Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Michele Marut
Research Repositories Reconsidered
2019 • DesignOps Community
Josh Clark
Sentient Design: New Postures for AI-Mediated Experiences (2nd of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Mark Boulton
Ops without Designers
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold

More Videos

Xenia Adjoubei

"The Researcher in Residence program invites members of affected communities to use our tools over a funded three-month period pro bono."

Xenia Adjoubei Sean Bruce

Empowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program

March 29, 2023

Tamara Kartoziia

"We are no longer just a collection of cars, we are a focused racing team ready to hit the track."

Tamara Kartoziia

Think global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months

November 20, 2025

Jay Bustamante

"Your role is to ensure that the right people are at the party — a multidisciplinary team."

Jay Bustamante

Navigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation

October 2, 2023

Nicole Aleong

"Destiny is the belief that a certain future outcome is predetermined regardless of the path."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Nick Lewis

"Clients often want flashy autoplay video even though it negatively impacts performance and sustainability."

Nick Lewis

Designing and building low-carbon websites independently

November 18, 2025

Vicky Teinaki

"We’ve enabled exposure hours for our entire teams, taking the heat off our recruiters."

Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim Parmee

Short Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers

December 6, 2022

Laura Weiss

"The presence of conflict is often an indication that something new is trying to emerge."

Laura Weiss

Turn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment

November 20, 2024

Joerg Beringer

"You get a lot of different research outputs in a matter of minutes from your scope input."

Joerg Beringer Thomas Geis

Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes

June 10, 2025

Shelby Switzer

"You can’t have a hackathon without free food."

Shelby Switzer

Making Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World

December 10, 2021