Innovation & Counter Intuitiveness
The idea behind Innovation is to create something new, that has yet to be conceived. A lot of the times that requires Counterintuitive thinking and that can be a very difficult challenge because it needs to break the habits in our thinking styles. For me the essence of being a futurist is the essence of innovation, two concepts which cannot be separated.
Here’s a few counterintuitive thoughts just to help shift perspectives:
The cure for baldness is to slow down hair growth, not speed it up!
Nappies encourage young children to remain toilet Un-trained for longer (especially at night!)
The key to reduction in water consumption can be clearly tied to the length of your hair!
Email us should you want some more explanation or find out from others that have worked with Marcus Barber in a ‘Think Different’ session. There really is method in this counterintuitive approach 🙂
The MP3 file below captures part two of our chat looking at the Future of Sex. Picking up on the theme of new technology that popped up towards the end of our first discussion in week one, here we move onto haptics and holographics and the extension of that technology from beyond the bedroom and…
Read More >Who’s Been Sleeping In My House? is a new Australian series presented by archaeologist Adam Ford that looks at the stories behind some of our old homes. Adam is the man behind the recent ‘Ned Kelly’ dig among other great archaeology finds here in Australia and the UK. As a futurist I’m always interested in…
Read More >The Association of Professional Futures is holding its first Virtual Gathering, following the sun from Europe, across North America and finishing in the Australia pacific zone. It kicks off tomorrow and links to the program and registration (it’s only $45 for guests for a program featuring some of the worlds most prominent futurists) You…
Read More >I join Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin radio where we continue our discussion about the future of sex. We consider three main areas in this session – smart phone applications; remote relationships and the combination of haptics and holographics as one the emerging means by which we’ll maintain physical contact. You can download the…
Read More >In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on radio ABC Darwin we discuss the future of sex. This is the first of potentially three conversations where we look at the increasing reach of technology way beyond current online match making sites, the social pressures driving the use of technology as well as the use of technology…
Read More >There’s been a bit of discussion in recent months about a softening housing market around Australia but I wonder how much of it is more indicative of unrealistic expectations on behalf of sellers? In futures work we think in terms of Assumptions and Expectations and aim to test our understanding and so I offer this…
Read More >Unfortunately it looks like my main email address has been hijacked and has been used to send out a series of spam emails. I’d like to apologise to anyone who has received some junk email purporting to come from ‘desiredfutures’ with a series of html links asking you to go and have a look. You…
Read More >Given the amount of plastic swimming in our oceans and rivers and the volume littering our land, the NT Government is aiming to introduce compulsory returns legislation on soft-drink bottles (as happens in South Australia), something that has apparently raised the ire of bottler, Coca Cola. Although they’ve recently backed away from their initial statement…
Read More >Deciphering the hype from reality with regard to drug use can be a challenge for most of us. Professor David Nutt in the UK has given me permission to post a link to the paper he has co-authored with Ruth Weissenborn that looks at the reality of a comparison of harm caused by two common…
Read More >Vicki Kerrigan and I finished off our discussion about the Future of Clothing on ABC Darwin yesterday. We discussed invisibility style cloaks, singlets that monitor your heart rate and stress levels, runners that capture electricity to power your wearable electronics and a few philosophical questions regarding our ability to deal with stress. The file…
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