Creative Confidence Podcast How to Think Like a Futurist: Jennifer Lo
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Aug 27, 2025 Jennifer Lo, Senior Director of Design Futures at IDEO, shares her insights as a futurist and strategist. She discusses the importance of 'futuring' for leaders, emphasizing adaptability and creativity in navigating uncertainty. Listeners will learn how to spot trends, envision diverse potential futures, and cultivate a culture of curiosity within organizations. By using storytelling and practical tools, Jennifer inspires leaders to adopt a proactive mindset that prepares them for tomorrow's challenges and opportunities.
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Preparation Not Prediction
- Futuring is not about predicting a single outcome but about widening your view to prepare for many possibilities.
- The goal is to identify a preferred future and take actionable steps toward it.
Choose The Right Time Horizon
- Use a near-future horizon of about five to fifteen years for actionable futuring, with ten years as a useful center point.
- Adjust the horizon by industry speed: slower industries look farther, fast-moving ones shorter.
Lead With A Dual Mindset
- Leaders must balance deep knowledge of today with a forward-looking, flexible mindset to ride or shape change waves.
- Futuring supports both offensive opportunity capture and defensive nimbleness.
