Episode 092 of the Near Future Laboratory Podcast anticipates our 2024 Imagine Harder Summit & Workshop on The Future of Work.
As we approach an era where the traditional notions of work are rapidly evolving, it’s time to explore and experiment with more groundbreaking ideas. The Near Future Laboratory is excited to introduce the Detroit Imagines Harder event—a unique opportunity to dig deep into the future of work through the lens of design fiction. This event, taking place from October 16th to 18th in Detroit, offers not just theoretical discussions but tangible, immersive experiences that promise to challenge and inspire attendees.
The event is billed as a trailer for the Near Future Laboratory’s upcoming Design Fiction Workshop and Summit, emphasizing a hands-on approach to exploring the future of work. Held in person in Detroit—not virtually—this workshop aims to bring participants face-to-face with innovative ideas and create an environment where creativity and forward-thinking are central.
With just a few seats left, this could be your best opportunity to get involved in a Near Future Laboratory project and gain practical experience with design fiction. If you’re interested, head over to DetroitImaginesHarder.com to reserve your seat.
A recent podcast episode from Near Future Laboratory featured an engaging discussion between Lorraine and Chester about the themes of the event. They delved into the idea that the entire concept of work might need a reboot—a fresh start that goes beyond merely predicting which jobs will be in demand in the next few years.
Their conversation revealed that Detroit Imagines Harder isn’t merely about anticipating future job trends. It’s about reexamining the foundational aspects of how we work, create value, and find meaning in our professional lives. The focus is on creating artifacts from plausible yet fictional futures—like discovering an employee handbook from a reimagined workplace.
Design fiction is a fascinating and powerful tool used to envision and critique potential futures. As Lorraine explains:
“Imagine you stumble across this employee handbook, but it’s not from any company you recognize. It’s from a future where the way we think about work has totally changed.”
This approach makes the abstract tangible, allowing participants to visualize and engage with potential futures. Chester sees this as creating something real that moves beyond hypothetical discussions.
One of the fascinating aspects of Detroit Imagines Harder is its ability to challenge our preconceived notions about work. Lorraine and Chester discuss how the event encourages us to ask big questions, such as:
Their dialogue makes it clear that this event is a deep dive into not just what jobs might be available in the future, but how we can fundamentally rethink the nature of work itself. It’s about envisioning a future where work is less about “What do I get?” and more about “What am I contributing?”
An important technique employed by the organizers is the creation of artifacts like the future employee handbook. These tools serve as concrete manifestations of our collective imagination, encouraging us to reimagine the entire system of work. By designing pieces of a future employee handbook, participants aren’t just theorizing—they’re actively participating in creating the future.
The impact of such events can be significant. As with the TBD Catalog—a previous design fiction project by the same organizers—fictional products and ideas can inspire real-world innovations and changes. This kind of exercise isn’t just an intellectual game; it has the potential to drive real and positive changes in how we work.
For those intrigued by the conversation between Lorraine and Chester, and the ideas sparked by Detroit Imagines Harder, this event offers a unique opportunity to dive deep into the future of work. Even if you can’t make it to Detroit, the value lies in asking yourself these transformative questions.
If you were designing a page for a future employee handbook, what would be on it?
The future of work isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we create—one idea, one conversation, one redesigned employee handbook at a time.
So, let’s start designing the futures of work we want to inhabit. Take a look at DetroitImaginesHarder.com to learn more and become a part of this revolutionary event.
Transcript of Episode 092
[00:00:00] Julian: This is episode 92 of the Near Future Laboratory podcast, and it’s a bit of a trailer for our upcoming Design Fiction Workshop and Summit on the Future of Work, which you can join. It’s going to be held October 16th to 18th in real life, not virtual, not on Zoom. It’ll be in Detroit. There are just a couple of seats left.
[00:00:21] Julian: This may be your best way to get involved in a Near Future Laboratory project and get some hands on experience with design fiction. So, head on over to Detroit. imaginesharder. com, reserve your seat for our Design Fiction Workshop on the future of work. But check this out, Lorraine and Chester, yeah, they had a bit of a discussion about this on the GPU over in the basement.
[00:00:45] Julian: Let’s listen in.
[00:00:48] Lorraine: Ever get that feeling like the whole idea of work could use a bit of a refresh?
[00:00:52] Chester: Yeah, definitely. Like a total system reboot, maybe.
[00:00:55] Lorraine: Exactly. And it sounds like that’s what caught your eye about this Detroit imagines harder thing.
[00:01:00] Chester: Yeah, for sure. It’s like, they’re really trying to look at the future of.
[00:01:05] Chester: Work differently instead of just you know, telling us which jobs are gonna be hot in five years or whatever,
[00:01:12] Lorraine: right? It’s a much deeper dive. They’re not just looking at jobs They’re asking about the future of work itself. Like how will we even create value and meaning in the future?
[00:01:21] Chester: Which is a huge question when you actually stop and think about it.
[00:01:24] Chester: It’s not just about, you know, climbing the corporate ladder anymore.
[00:01:27] Lorraine: Absolutely. And one of the things that really struck me about this event is that they’re using this approach called, uh, design fiction.
[00:01:34] Chester: Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that.
[00:01:35] Lorraine: Have you heard about that before?
[00:01:37] Chester: Vaguely. Yeah, is it like, is it like flying cars and stuff?
[00:01:40] Lorraine: That’s kind of what I pictured at first, haha, but it’s actually way more interesting than that.
[00:01:44] Chester: Okay, good, because that’s not really my scene.
[00:01:46] Lorraine: No, me neither. It’s much more grounded. It’s less about, like, predicting the future. It’s more about, like, creating these sort of artifacts from a fictional but plausible future.
[00:01:56] Chester: Interesting. I don’t quite follow.
[00:01:58] Lorraine: Okay, so, like, imagine you stumble across this employee handbook, right? But it’s not from any company you recognize.
[00:02:06] Chester: Okay.
[00:02:06] Lorraine: It’s from this future where the way we think about work has totally changed.
[00:02:11] Chester: Oh, I see. So it’s like a glimpse into a parallel universe almost.
[00:02:14] Lorraine: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:15] Lorraine: It’s like instead of just talking about these abstract ideas, they’re giving you something tangible, something real.
[00:02:20] Chester: That’s cool. I like that. It makes it feel more attainable. You know, like it’s not just pie in the sky thinking,
[00:02:25] Lorraine: right? It makes you feel like, okay, maybe this is actually possible. So by creating these artifacts, like an employee handbook from the future, Detroit imagines harder is encouraging us to think beyond our current assumptions about work.
[00:02:39] Lorraine: They’re prompting us to ask what else is possible.
[00:02:42] Chester: What I find really interesting is their choice of artifact. Like, Why an employee handbook?
[00:02:47] Lorraine: Yeah, I could pause.
[00:02:48] Chester: Something we often just take for granted. Yeah. But it actually reveals a lot about a company’s values and how they view their employees.
[00:02:54] Lorraine: It’s like the rule book for how they think about work.
[00:02:56] Chester: Exactly. So by reimagining the employee handbook, they’re essentially asking us to reimagine the entire system.
[00:03:02] Lorraine: Ooh, that’s a good place to pause it. So they’re really trying to shake things up and get us thinking differently about the future of work. And they posed some really interesting questions in this event description.
[00:03:13] Lorraine: Like, one that really jumped out to me was, What if the idea of an employee is like, totally outdated?
[00:03:21] Chester: Yeah, what would that even look like, right?
[00:03:22] Lorraine: Right, like, what even is work without employees?
[00:03:25] Chester: It makes you question the whole traditional employer employee relationship. Like, what if instead of being defined by the company we work for, we were defined more by the projects we choose to contribute to?
[00:03:37] Chester: Or like the skills we bring to those projects.
[00:03:39] Lorraine: It’s like we become these independent agents, almost.
[00:03:42] Chester: Right.
[00:03:42] Lorraine: Creating our own career paths based on what we’re passionate about.
[00:03:46] Chester: Exactly. And that actually ties into another really thought provoking question they ask, which is, How does value get exchanged in this kind of future?
[00:03:54] Chester: Because if it’s not a traditional paycheck, then what is it? How do you measure the worth of those contributions?
[00:04:00] Lorraine: Yeah, that’s a really good question. It’s interesting that they use the word circulates when they’re talking about value. It’s not just this like linear work equals money kind of transaction.
[00:04:10] Lorraine: It
[00:04:10] Chester: suggests something much more multifaceted. Yeah,
[00:04:12] Lorraine: like a network or maybe even an ecosystem of value.
[00:04:15] Chester: Exactly, like imagine your contributions being Acknowledged and valued not just by one boss, but by a whole network of collaborators.
[00:04:23] Lorraine: Oh, that’s interesting. And the currency in the system could be anything from like, you know, shared ownership in a project, to access to new knowledge, to even just the satisfaction of seeing your work have a real world impact.
[00:04:35] Chester: Right, because ultimately, Work can be about so much more than just earning a paycheck.
[00:04:41] Lorraine: It’s like that feeling you get when you collaborate on something you’re really passionate about. Exactly. There’s this sense of shared purpose and accomplishment that you just don’t get from like clocking in and clocking out every day.
[00:04:52] Chester: Absolutely. And I think that’s what Detroit Imagines Harder is getting at. They want us to imagine a future where work is less about, What do I get? And more about, What am I contributing?
[00:05:04] Lorraine: Like,
[00:05:05] Chester: how can we create something valuable together?
[00:05:07] Lorraine: Right. And it’s not about pretending that everything will be perfect in this future of work either.
[00:05:11] Lorraine: They actually caution against falling into those Utopian or dystopian traps, like it’s not going to be all rainbows and unicorns.
[00:05:19] Chester: Definitely not. It’s not going to be some robot controlled nightmare either, though.
[00:05:22] Lorraine: It’s going to be messy. It’s going to be complex. There will be challenges, but there will also be incredible opportunity.
[00:05:29] Chester: Absolutely.
[00:05:29] Lorraine: Which is why it’s so important to have these kinds of conversations, to explore the full spectrum of possibilities and really challenge our assumptions about what the future of work could be. See, it’s easy to get caught up in all the big picture. picture stuff, but how do we actually make these ideas about the future of work a reality?
[00:05:46] Lorraine: How do we bring it down to earth?
[00:05:47] Chester: Well, and that’s what I think is so clever about this Detroit imagines harder event, like using the employee handbook as this vehicle.
[00:05:56] Lorraine: It’s such a concrete thing,
[00:05:58] Chester: right? It is. It’s something we can all. Like visualize and relate to. So instead of just these abstract ideas, they’re saying, okay, if we’re really going to reimagine work, what would that actually look like in practice?
[00:06:08] Lorraine: Right. Like, what are the actual structures and systems that would support this new way of working?
[00:06:13] Chester: Exactly. And by having people actually create pieces of this future employee handbook. They’re not just theorizing, they’re actually engaging in the design process.
[00:06:24] Lorraine: It reminds me of that TBD catalog we talked about earlier.
[00:06:27] Lorraine: Wasn’t that a form of design fiction, too?
[00:06:29] Chester: It was, yeah. And it was actually created by the same people who are organizing Detroit Imagines Harder.
[00:06:35] Lorraine: Oh, wow, really? Small world.
[00:06:37] Chester: Yeah, so they’ve got a good track record with this kind of thing. TBD catalog actually went on to, you know, Inspire real products and services.
[00:06:46] Lorraine: Oh yeah, that’s right. Some of those fictional products actually became a reality.
[00:06:50] Chester: Exactly. So this isn’t just some like pie in the sky exercise. It can lead to real innovation and tangible change.
[00:06:57] Lorraine: That’s really cool. It makes you wonder what kind of ripple effects might come out of this Detroit imagines harder event.
[00:07:03] Lorraine: What might they inspire?
[00:07:04] Chester: Who knows, but I bet it’ll be interesting.
[00:07:07] Lorraine: Definitely. And you know, it really highlights something important for everyone listening.
[00:07:10] Chester: What’s that?
[00:07:11] Lorraine: Even if you never make it to Detroit for this event, the real value is in asking yourself these questions. Like, what would a future of work that truly excites you look like?
[00:07:22] Lorraine: What would need to be different?
[00:07:24] Chester: Ooh, I like that. What would need to be different?
[00:07:26] Lorraine: Yeah. And maybe even take it a step further. If you were designing your own page for a future employee handbook, what would be on it? What would make you excited to be a part of that
[00:07:38] Chester: world
[00:07:38] Lorraine: of work?
[00:07:39] Chester: It’s a great question to think about.
[00:07:41] Chester: Because in the end, the future of work isn’t something that just happens to us. It’s something we create. One idea, one conversation, one redesigned employee handbook at a time.
[00:07:53] Lorraine: I love that. So for anyone listening who’s intrigued by Detroit imagines harder, we’ll be sure to link to their website in the show notes.
[00:08:00] Lorraine: And who knows, maybe we’ll get to see some of your own visions for the future of work out there in the world someday.
[00:08:05] Chester: That would be awesome. This has been a really thought provoking conversation. Thanks for having me.
[00:08:10] Lorraine: Oh, it’s been my pleasure. And thanks to all of you for listening until next time. Keep those questions coming and keep driving deep.
[00:08:17] Julian: Okay. That was Chester and Lorraine. Thanks for listening. That was episode 92 of the near future laboratory podcast. Don’t forget. Come to Detroit. Detroit. imaginesharder. com. I hope to see you there. I’m Julian, and I’m out!
