Nike and Boeing Are Paying Sci-Fi Writers To Predict Their Futures (medium.com) 58
Brian Merchant, writing for Medium : In 2017, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the professional services firm that advises 440 of the Fortune 500 companies, published a blueprint for using science fiction to explore business innovation. The same year, the Harvard Business Review argued that "business leaders need to read more science fiction" in order to stay ahead of the curve. "We're already seeing science fiction become reality today," said Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt in 2012. "Think back to Star Trek, or my favorite, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- much of what those writers imagined is now possible," he said, ticking off auto-translation, voice recognition, and electronic books. Jeff Bezos' product design team built the Kindle to spec from Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age. (Stephenson himself is the chief future at the multibillion-dollar-valued Magic Leap.) Josh Wolfe, a managing partner at Lux Capital, is pouring millions of dollars into companies building what he explicitly describes as "the sci-fi future." "I'm looking for things that feel like they were once written about in science fiction," he told Fortune. "The gap between 'sci-fi,' -- that which was once imagined -- and 'sci-fact,' that which becomes manifest and real, is shrinking."
A number of companies, along with a loose constellation of designers, marketers, and consultants, have formed to expedite the messy creative visualization process that used to take decades. For a fee, they'll prototype a possible future for a client, replete with characters who live in it, at as deep a level as a company can afford. They aim to do what science fiction has always done -- build rich speculative worlds, describe that world's bounty and perils, and, finally, envision how that future might fall to pieces. Alternatively referred to as sci-fi prototyping, futurecasting, or worldbuilding, the goal of these companies is generally the same: help clients create forward-looking fiction to generate ideas and IP for progress or profit. Each of the biggest practitioners believe they have their own formulas for helping clients negotiate the future. And corporations like Ford, Nike, Intel, and Hershey's, it turns out, are willing to pay hefty sums for their own in-house Minority Reports.
A number of companies, along with a loose constellation of designers, marketers, and consultants, have formed to expedite the messy creative visualization process that used to take decades. For a fee, they'll prototype a possible future for a client, replete with characters who live in it, at as deep a level as a company can afford. They aim to do what science fiction has always done -- build rich speculative worlds, describe that world's bounty and perils, and, finally, envision how that future might fall to pieces. Alternatively referred to as sci-fi prototyping, futurecasting, or worldbuilding, the goal of these companies is generally the same: help clients create forward-looking fiction to generate ideas and IP for progress or profit. Each of the biggest practitioners believe they have their own formulas for helping clients negotiate the future. And corporations like Ford, Nike, Intel, and Hershey's, it turns out, are willing to pay hefty sums for their own in-house Minority Reports.
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Potatoes already made it in Star Wars.
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They said Nike and Boeing. Not Nike and SpaceX.
Boeing would be about getting your tennis shoes stuck under the airline seat in front of you.
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Really? (Score:2)
I predict that companies that find out what customers want right now and figure out how to deliver that to them at the greatest cost will have profitable futures. I'm less certain about those that waste money on things like this. I foresee the departure of the
Re: Really? (Score:2)
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I predict that companies that find out what customers want right now and figure out how to deliver that to them at the greatest cost will have profitable futures.
The companies that will have a more profitable future are the ones that can find out what customers will want in X years, where X is the number of years it takes to get the product to market. If you wait until you can see what people are buying, you run the risk of not being able to catch up.
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Over the long run, it's probably better to take a wait and see approach and get good and building things at lower cost. In a lot of way
Why not futurists (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a bit of a difference between Sci-Fi writers and Futurists.
The biggest problem Science Fiction is the Fiction part. For every technology that came into use, there is a dozen that never made it, even if it is considered possible nowadays.
For TV and Movies one of the biggest things they love to show is the holographic or transparent display. This makes for good visuals, because you can see people working on the technology without the technology blocking their faces. But in real life, your text will be hard to read and often distracting with everything happening behind it. Think of setting you Term settings in Linux/OS X to be 100% transparent (I normally keep it below 10%). It may look interesting for a while but shortly it is more of a problem then it helps, with windows with text behind it. or with a color that matches your text color....
Futurists on the other hand are not interested in the story, but thinking of the natural progression of such products and just giving the possibilities on what may be expected. Low Energy Aircraft, means cheaper operations, which means more leg room, because you don't need to cram people in the plane to make a flight profitable. Or shoes that fit better on different types of feet, that are easier to put on and off while maintaining the perfect fit.
A sci-fi writer will take these ideas and just have a comfortable flight in an electric aircraft, or able to bolt on comfortable shoes. While their plot is more interested in something else.
Re: Why not futurists (Score:2)
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The Canadian army commissioned a couple books [kschroeder.com] on simulated future military engagements (free for reading).
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Seemingly against the tide (Score:2)
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I think what you're decrying is the Sci-Fi banner got applied to anything with future/space/magic/etc in it, and so the Genre title means little compared to what it USED to mean, which was hardcore reality-extrapolated fiction. But you can still find good stuff if you know who/what to look for, just.. .not on network television, of course.
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I couldn't agree with this more. I write hard and semi-hard (at least plausible) speculative fiction. But I only self-publish, since most houses mostly all just want Marvel-esque adventure stories, filed with superhero and/or gaming-protagonist tropes. That is, if they're interested at all - and there are economic reasons why they shouldn't.
Real Science Fiction inherently appeals to only a small segment of the market already (i.e. intelligent people). This is why "Rick and Morty" struggles, while "Big Bang
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1) There are thousands of different people posting as AC, so how will he know when he is replying to one of our posts?
2) I don't believe you are actually the original AC, since his post was quite interesting and articulate
3) You are a very bad person
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Look this is all about manipulation and control, any 'futurist', those who find long term probability outcomes over time for large data sets endlessly fun and interesting, will know exactly that and well, yeah kind of fuck off, I know what you want to do, so well, cost more money than it will ever be worth to you ie give me your company and I will tell you how to run it properly ;). In other words, want to be shallow minded dickbrains, don't expect my deep thoughts to serve your idiot ego and genitals.
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It's probably because just about anything written about in the past sci-fi novels is now possible. Those little worm drones in Dune that could climb walls, relay video and sound as well as inject poison? That's doable. Tiny little drones with cameras? Done. Tricorder with multispectral scanner? Done. Touchscreens? Done. Full dome displays? Done. VR headsets? Done. Swarms of microbots? Done.
Video-on-Demand by cable? Done. Talking car? Done. Remote surveillance of your home by pocket videoscreen? Done.
If we l
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Nike for one isn't interested in tech progression. They're interested selling stuff.
The basic change between the 1960's and now is that in the 1960's no one wore athletic shoes outside the gym. In the gym they bought whatever brand shoes the local shoe store or five and dime stocked. By and large brand names weren't a thing except for the very rich, and they did not buy off the rack.
As for Boeing in the 1960s only upper middle class and above flew. Most people going to Europe still went by ocean liner. For
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Kerblam! (Score:2)
+Oh, that's already been done.
Fred Hoyle talked of geoengineering in A for Andromeda, back in the 1950s, a bit more potent than the sort being discussed these days.
Carl Sagan's Contact discussed self-describing engineering schematics. You need know nothing but mathematics. Self-describing data formats exist, but not to that degree.
Terry Nation discussed automatically self-healing systems. Perhaps some form of Von Neumann Universal Constructor. Only Zen knows for sure.
He also described the Tarriel Cell, a re
wings (Score:3)
Boeing's future includes flying wing airliners or at least blended wing body airliners. Fuel efficiency will eventually demand it.
Not Surprising (Score:1)
It's hardly surprising to see them hoping to mine ideas from other sources as
Because ... (Score:2)
General Motors hired Kim Stanley Robinson (Score:2)
His recommendation: spend whatever it takes to reach the stars. Then upon encountering the very first problem there, immediately give up.
Nike and Boeing (Score:1)
Nike: Bankrupt. People will stop wearing shoes when personal robots carry you everywhere. Step on the low robot platform and it will move around for you.
Boeing: Bankrupt. People will stop flying on commercial airlines as soon as automated mini aircraft are commissionable.
Do you think they will pay me for that? Probably not. I need to write a more rosy story to poke their egos for them to believe it.
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Reread that: If you’re right, if people stop wearing shoes because something is transporting them around, who’s going to design/build/maintain/profit from those transporters? New Nike?
Who’s going to do the same for the mini aircraft, New Boeing?
If you think new environments/techs are going to displace the old and so this is a worthless exercise, you missed the point.
Bankruptcy Liquidation Acquistion by another corp (Score:2)
Or one of the many other forms of corporate death. Nothing lasts forever.
Nike's wet dream (Score:1)
A future where the only people who wear their overpriced crap are spoiled liberal SJW millenials who kneel during anthems, hate police and love communism.
Nike's leadership can take their sweatshop-made junk and shove it right up their arses. SWOOSH!!!
Story with a marathon on the moon (Score:2)
I can't remember the novel it came from, but there was a sci-fi book where there's a flashback about one of the main characters when he ran a marathon on the moon. It was a neat account of overcoming the challenges of running in a specialized suit that could handle the challenges of air processing, temperature, sharp regolith, etc. for running on the moon. I imagined it with various logos from current sporting goods companies. It puts a different twist on Nike's "Lunar Flyknit" shoes.
I think it might hav
the coming Shoe Event Horizon . . . (Score:2)
TFS refers to both the Nike shoe company and the book- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Well, right there Nike can save a small fortune by simply reading that book. It predicts the future of the shoe industry as revealed by our favorite SciFi writer:
"The Shoe Event Horizon is an economic theory that draws a correlation between the level of economic (and emotional) depression of a society and the number of shoe shops the society has.
The theory is summarized as such: as a society sinks into depression, the p
So, what the US gov't started doing years ago? (Score:2)
Niven and Pournelle were on it. Raygun started doing it.
https://www.newamerica.org/wee... [newamerica.org]
And there's an sf think tank...
Now, on the other hand, the folks here who here who think they know what sf is are ignorant idiots. SF is FICTION. It's written to tell a story. One of the classic definitions of what sf is is the literature of "what if?"
SF authors are not writing to Predict The Future, they're writing to tell a good story. Can some things in those stories create enthusiasm for science and engineering? We
No mention of Kodak? (Score:2)
Any well-established business will violently dismiss anything truly useful that comes out of such a creative exercise.
Nothing to see here.