Hope Actually
What’s top of mind right now? More than just a metric for brand awareness, consider this our semi-regular space for free-flowing curiosity and thinking in public. Maybe it sparks an idea or two in you too. So without further ado, here’s what’s top of mind…
Lately I’ve been thinking about Hope. Depending on who you talk to, it’s a word with many meanings: a pointless misuse of energy, definitely not a strategy or an axe, a way of life and an essential means of enacting change.
I believe it’s an essential…like carbs. And like all carbs: best consumed in moderation. Too much and we’re entering a cozy lil’ ignorance-is-bliss snoozeathon, or too little and we’re - as anyone who’s gone full Keto can attest - weak, ravenous and brain fog bleak. But the right amount of carb-loading? Bring on the marathon, baby.
Because designing change is a marathon. Take the following for example, written not on last weeks LinkedIn but back in 1966 a mere 59 years ago:
“We have now entered an era in which the pace of change is accelerating rapidly. At the same time, the scale of impending change is increasing. Therefore, the risks and opportunities that confront us justify expanded efforts to lead, rather than be led by, the course of events. There are numerous evidences, some alarming, of the growing disparity between society’s propensity to generate forces of change and its ability to control those forces.”
Who’s in need of a little Hope?
At times it feels as though we live in a world branded by the “Hope is not a strategy” soundbite. Zesty sure, but why slam it at the time when we’re in dire need of a little hope. Could that be the strategy worth interrogating?
Alternatively, just look at folks like Mamdani, the recent D66 Dutch win and Catherine Connolly’s Presedential win in Ireland all campaigning - and in early cases, winning - on optimism and hope for the future. Hell, even the much-referenced Barr Balamuth citing Superman’s kindness is punk and the recent uptick in irony-sincerity cycle content, pose the question if it might just be a-ok to care afterall.
“Hope does not deny the evil, but it is a response to it.”
I’m not going to claim that the great progressive turnaround is just on the horizon if only we’d believe it hard enough, but that projecting - and acting upon - hopeful, optimistic visions for a better future might actually be the strategy to win with.
Hope’s back on the menu, boys! And that’s exactly what the nouvôt Futures Playbook gets into, giving greater detail to a practical mindset shift for the year ahead.
The official face of Hope and also…because it’s nearly Love Actually season
Hope is all around us
Everywhere I go, there you are: call it the miracle of confirmation bias or simply serendipitous signals, in any case maybe Hope really is, all around us.
Here’s three things bringing the hope lately:
Pinterest’s big bet against social features pays off making it “an oasis away from toxicity” as CEO Bill Ready notes “There’s a good business in positivity…We can do well by doing good, and it really is about short-term versus long-term.”
Yancey Strickler’s latest manifesto Groupcore and Dark Forest Operating System from metalabel actively diverge from the Copium of internet lore, and instead forge a new alternative to what’s going on around us: “We said it before and we’ll say it again: As individuals our powers are limited. In groups we become stronger.”
It already feels like last year given the rate of info sharing but only two weeks ago, Grace Wales Bonner was announced Artistic Director of Menswear at Hermès, becoming the first Black woman to lead design at a major European luxury house. Finally! An appointment away from the usual virality-seeking bois to a “demonstrably influential — and commercially sharp” woman. To steal Steve Salter’s words: ‘There is Hope’.
Feeling less Hopeful?
If that didn’t help out even a little bit, try this on for size instead - a quick exercise from the world of Futures Thinking to get out of the apathetic funk and into good old-fashioned, action taking:
Step 1: Think of a specific topic in terms of its future i.e. The future of My Community, The Future of This Country, The Future of Democracy, The Future of Fashion, The Future of Social Media etc. etc. you get the idea.
Got your future?
Step 2: Now look at the quadrant to the right and have a think on how you feel about said future? Do you think things are getting better or worse? Be honest. It’s not about adjusting feelings, but objective honesty. Place your finger along the horizontal axis.
Step 3: Now to the vertical axis…how powerful do you feel to influence change and improve things for the future? Again, think objectively here. Now place another finger along the vertical line.
Step 4: Now bring your fingers together and voila! that’s the quadrant for you i.e. you put your first finger all the way to the left, and second all the way to the bottom? Ok, you’re in the bottom left of the quadrant! And so on…
Its one thing to know precisely how you feel about a future, and an entirely other thing to figure out how to proceed but luckily thats where we come in. Because fortunately, there are skills and steps we can take depending on each quadrant. Here’s the gist:
Forecasting & Research: So you feel that things are getting better (phew!) but you’ve no power to drive that forward? Basic forecasting skills can help you here - think of it as simply researching for signals of change that you personally can get involved with and most crucially, are interested in. Then you can move to simulation…
Simulation & Imagination: Ok, here you feel like it’s all going to shit and you have no way of influencing things for the better? Simulation station! Time to get imaginative and think of 100 different ways the future might play out. Keep it short and simple but push those boundaries - promise you’ll find realistic reasons for hope in there.
Collaboration & Fun: Youve got the power AND things are getting objectively better, jackpot! Time to link up with others and invite discussions and actually fun workshops that ensure different perspectives are in the mix and that optimism isn’t actually covered with blind spots. Doing this also helps you figure out the hard-to-predict long-term consequences, and less likely to make it all worse.
Action & Urgent Optimism: It’s getting worse and you DO have power to influence change? Exciting times. Some might call this skill “urgent optimism”, or “beacons of change” but I’d also brand is as simple old Sales. Draw out a course of action and socialise the shit out of it. Get others involved and excited too.
Where do we go without Hope?
Given its essential (carb-like) nature, I’d warrant not very far. No marathons. In fact, the lack of hope is what gives way to doomerism and apathy and so, to avoid ending on a bum note, let’s close it out with the following from Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark:
“Causes and effects assume history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension. Sometimes one person inspires a movement, or her words do decades later; sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement and millions do; sometimes those millions are stirred by the same outrage or the same ideal and change comes upon us like a change of weather.
All that these transformations have in common is that they begin in the imagination, in hope.
To hope is to gamble. It’s to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty are better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.”
Maybe hope actually, is all around.
I know what you’re thinking…Hope’s great. Action’s better.
So let’s make that happen. See how futures thinking, strategy, and play come together to design better futures.