Principles for tangible futures

Tangible Futures, Part 3: Principles

These are principles I’m using to develop tangible futures now…

Tangible Futures are

  • Inspirational, touching us both intellectually and emotionally.
  • Pragmatic, optimistic in a realistic way.
  • Innovative, they are a vision of something that is a mystery now because, by definition, we haven’t invented it yet.
  • Strategic, describing something happening years in the future.
  • Custom, applied to a particular organization.
  • Storytelling, encapsulating the people, places, things, and relationships of a situation in the accessible format of a story.


Tangible Futures are not

  • Predictions
  • Strategic plans