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Mike Milley
Principal Futurist
Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America
Mike has been an enthusiastic catalyst for change for 25 years, answering the question "What’s next?" for some of the world’s most innovative brands.
He is a forward-thinking strategist who led Foresight teams at BMW, Samsung, and Nike prior to becoming Principal Futurist at Mercedes-Benz. By anticipating changes in U.S. society, technology, mobility, and luxury, Mike helps complex organizations stay ahead of the curve. He plays a pivotal role in bridging diverse teams and functions, translating foresight into actionable strategies for product, service, and experience innovation. Additionally, Mike champions the evolution of Foresight practices, fosters collaborative relationships, and mentors junior team members, driving continuous growth and adaptation within organizations.
Scott Smith
Managing Director
Changeist
Scott Smith is founder and managing partner of Changeist, an independent research and strategic consulting practice. He is a respected professional futurist with over 25 years experience leading development and management of foresight, innovation and strategic design for major global brands, governments, foundations, cultural institutions and global NGOs including SWIFT, UNICEF, UNDP, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, The Royal Society, Nesta, and the Dubai Future Foundation. He has also led engagements with some of the largest and most respected global financial, retail, telecoms, technology and media brands, such as the BBC, The New York Times Company, ASOS, AXA, Samsung, and Comcast. He is the author of How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange and co-author of Future Cultures: How to Build a Future-Ready Organization Through Leadership.
Why Attend?
What do I get?
Aside from a network of new professional connections within an emerging domain that leverages human insight, imagination, ingenuity, and intelligence, every attendee receives complete take-away package, including presentations, annotated audio recordings, and a post-Seminar review and analysis
What was covered?
Super Seminar Season 02 / Episode 01 hosted by Near Future Laboratory looked into Futures & Foresight practices, an existentially vital form of sense-making. Translating trends, analytic research, ethnographic studies, desk analysis, these practices are in wide use amongst forward-thinking R&D and Innovation teams looking to anticipate and prepare for the contingencies of kinetic, complicated, conflicted and chaotic domains.
(If you were an attendee at SuperSeminar S02/E01, you have access to the entire seminar 120 minute recording. Contact Julian if you did not receive your instructions for access.)
Scott presented on the work of his futures consultancy Changeist, including projects with government, citizens, artists, and companies, and their process of framing questions, collecting insights, exploring mappings, and storytelling. The group discussed:
- Bringing in outsider perspectives
- Translating insights for clients
- Identifying trends amidst crises
- Easing skeptics into new ideas, and
- The value of diverse locations, multiple perspectives, ways of using storyboards, and examples of kinds and forms of collaboration that have been found to be useful in practice.
Concerns were raised that crises may limit proactive futuring, but the importance of integrating practices into decision-making was emphasized.
Mike focussed his presentation on how he conducts foresight as a way to anticipate shifting consumer needs and ensure the cultural relevance of Mercedes-Benz over different time horizons. He discussed studying changes in society, technology, mobility, and luxury trends to understand evolving consumer values and preferences. The presentation was followed by a discussion where Mike explained his focus on behavioral and cultural impacts more than scientific factors, his process of dialoguing with stakeholders to provide strategic foresight, use of diverse workshop formats, identification of weak signals through conversations with thought leaders, and how foresight success is measured by its influence on decisions and strategic direction rather than short-term metrics. Key themes were applying foresight to address sustainability issues and ensuring the long-term impact of futures work in large organizations.
This was a discussion with experienced practitioners as they help you understand how commercial organizations, public institutions, and governments use futures-oriented tools and practices to help prepare for change, manage the kinetics of challenging market dynamics; make sense of emerging trends; assess the implications of Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political dimensions and domains.
What are these tools for making sense of the future? How are they used to make the future sensical? How do you translate foresight into vision, inspiration and innovation? Who is able to help do this kind of future-facing speculation and what does it take to introduce the practice into your organization?
SuperSeminar gives you the opportunity to not only learn from experienced practitioners, but engage in a discussion, create professional connections, and learn how you can develop the kinds of skills and the mindset to adopt unique insights into change.
Produced by Julian Bleecker founder of Near Future Laboratory
Learn how to get reimbursed for this professional learning & development package!What's the format?
Come prepared for a meaningful, rich discussion. We believe discussion and conversation, in a world where we often find ourselves on the receiving end of a firehose of ideas, is dramatically undervalued.
SuperSeminar is not your usual online presentation platform. We've inverted the model.
No more long presentations followed by 0 minutes for deep discussion, engagement, and Q&A.
In SuperSeminar, our presenters offer a tight 15-20 minute evocation, sharing brief insights on the topic from their experience. Then, much like a graduate seminar or salon, we #discuss the topic, offering attendees a unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the presenters and other attendees.