diconium Talks Futures: How we can shape our future today
By: Sarah Schulze Darup
Tags: Events, Future, Technology, Podcast, Futurology

New technologies emerge so fast that it becomes harder to predict what our future will look like. That’s why we explored possible features along with our guest at the 25 year anniversary of diconium. Our guest list included Pascal Finette, Joana Breidenbach, Dame Stephanie Shirley and many more.

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies by Gartner is one of the most prominent examples of future prediction. It shows the life stages of certain technologies and starts at conception until its way to widespread adoption. Such graphics offer a great overview, but they lack complexity. The future doesn’t just happen, it’s something we can actively shape and need to discuss in order to understand all dimensions.

At our 25-year anniversary, we tried exactly that. At Diconium talks futures we covered three main topics: mobility, e-commerce, and sustainability to look into the implications and possible scenarios for our future. Those topics are not only driving topics of our time but also interconnected as we explored during the sessions. We invited more than ten bright minds to join us celebrating and to share their beliefs, hopes and predictions for the future with us.

We also recorded one episode of our podcast REWRITE TECH to collect the highlights of the three-day event along with our hosts Geraldine de Bastion and Brad Richards.

How can we keep pace with the new challenges of mobility?

The first automobile was invented more than 100 years ago and relatively quickly cars became widely accessible. Today cars are omnipresent in almost every part of the world, but we’re in the midst of a paradigm shift. With the introduction of software into cars, the mobility landscape will drastically change and needs to redefine itself.

One of our first guests covering these topics was Christoph Hartung, Executive Vice President at Bosch Connected Mobility Solutions. He talked about how software will change how cars work and the increasing complexity. We’re still at a point, where the industry needs to learn how to deal with those new challenges as he outlines.

“A really trick part, that will challenge us in the future, is cybersecurity.” — Prof. Dr. Michael Resch

Adding to that, Prof. Dr. Michael Resch, DirectorHigh-Performance Computing Center, highlighted that the development of connected services requires a deeper understanding of cybersecurity. He elaborated on an example of remote flying and why such ideas are quickly discarded.

How can we innovate in the future?

When diconium started 25 years ago, among the first clients were Neckermann and Quelle, two German catalogue mail-order companies. Since then, retail has massively evolved. Nowadays, diconium builds complex webshops and the industry talks about things like contextual commerce.

But what is the next step for commerce? Being innovative is essential when you want to stay in business. It means that you must see business opportunities before your competitors do. According to Pascal Finette, co-founder of be radical consultancy, the key to that is to identify weak signals, which are the early parts of exponential growth as he explains during his session. When companies learn how to detect and understand those early signs, they are able to thrive.

“One of the major differentiations I make in the innovation field is between bullshit innovations and innovations that are meaningful. Bullshit innovations harm our society or environment or they don’t add anything new significantly.” — Joana Breidenbach

Still, companies shouldn’t innovate for the sake of innovation, says Joana Breidenbach, who is the co-founder of betterplace.org. She calls out “bullshit innovation” as meaningless strategies, but also gives concrete tips on how teams need to develop in order to make a real difference in the world.

How can we integrate sustainability as a core principle?

Innovation and future-building become even more complicated when we put sustainability into the mix. Building environmental-friendly solutions should be at the core of our work. We certainly need innovative ideas, but they shouldn’t be too innovative, argues Matthew Manos, who owns the design strategy practice verynice. People need to get used to new developments and sometimes middle ground innovations help. One good example are hybrid vehicles, which pave the way for electric mobility.

“If you wanna envision and realise a more sustainable future, don’t be too innovative” — Matthew Manos.

We had so many more great guests on our stage, that it becomes hard to pick a favourite. We summed up some of the most interesting statements our guests made in our podcast REWRITE TECH. You can find it on all major listening platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

You can also still request the recording of the three-day event on the diconium website.

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Learn more about REWRITE TECH.