Inspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future
Summary
Want to learn how to make the future you see in your mind come to life? Cut through red tape, flip limitations on their head and inspire meaningful progress in both the short and long-term by creating artifacts from the future. Artifacts from the future are designed objects or creative representations of everyday life at a different point in time, meant to persuade or challenge, develop champions and align resources. Learn how to create and share your own “preferred futures” as well as cautionary ones through artifact design with a civic design strategist, experiential designer and certified futurist.
Key Insights
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Artifacts of the future are immersive, visual tools that help people experience and evaluate potential futures rather than just imagining them verbally.
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Using AI to write essays is not just a threat but can be framed as a future pedagogical tool to teach skills like policy translation through AI.
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Signals are emerging trends on the horizon seen in niche groups that may become mainstream and can be used to build artifacts of the future.
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Creating low-fidelity prototypes, like a text message thread demo, can help governments get buy-in from stakeholders for complex systemic changes, as Gallimore did with Detroit's early childhood program.
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Artifacts of the future allow diverse groups to align around a shared vision or North Star by providing concrete, emotionally resonant experiences.
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Exploring risky or undesirable futures with artifacts helps reveal trade-offs and prepare for potential societal decisions, as shown by Toronto’s Wi-Fi free zones example.
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Backcasting from an artifact of the future helps identify what actions need to happen today to reach a desired or to avoid a risky future.
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Artifacts can target near-term futures (1-2 years) to accelerate governmental or civic decisions despite traditionally longer foresight horizons.
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Visual and AI tools like Midjourney or Jasper AI can quickly generate compelling design artifacts representing future scenarios, enhancing impact.
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Centering future designs on people and place before technology ensures relevance and human-centric innovation rather than technology-driven solutions.
Notable Quotes
"Evan actually spent less than 15 minutes on the essay, and instead of working on homework, he was writing a letter to his significant other back home in Detroit."
"What if I said that this was actually the assignment: to write an essay using AI, helping students become familiar with translating their policy intent through AI?"
"Signals are something that’s happening at the horizon, percolating at the fringes of society or in a narrow subset of the population."
"Artifacts of the future help us envision and grasp the change that we’re hoping to have—it’s not just bullet points or vision statements."
"We created a Wizard of Oz smoke and mirrors prototype—a simple text message thread between a parent and this service—just to get enough buy-in."
"Every parent we talked to had some variation of the question: this exists, can I use it right now? Where was this when I needed to apply?"
"The mayor wanted to shrink the neighborly bonds that the city was known for by investing in a 2030 living Monument of collaboration and community."
"In Toronto it’s now illegal to transmit a Wi-Fi signal in designated public spaces, with penalties for violations—a policy driven by people wanting to unplug from digital life."
"Backcast from preferred or risky futures to start thinking about what we need to do today to get there or avoid that outcome."
"If we’re really centering it on people and experiences, consider life before place, and place before technology."
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