Originally published at Institute for the Future’s blog. “We are suffering from a bad attack of economic pessimism. …

It’s time to open the door to our post-pandemic lives. The Institute for the Future’s new online course will get you ready. Over the past year-plus, we’ve all felt locked up in one way or another. We’ve been living smaller lives. We’ve stayed inside. We’ve stayed apart. …

What will you do when the next “unthinkable” change happens? Play this game to find out. The First Five Minutes of the Future is a new future forecasting game developed by Institute for the Future’s Director of Game Research and Development, Jane McGonigal. …

By Kathi Vian, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future Time is not on our side. Once I thought the future was a safe place. I believed that by thinking ourselves into that safe place, by imagining possible, plausible alternative futures, we could guide ourselves to the kind of future we…

The year 2020 has shown that the words “unthinkable” and “unimaginable” no longer apply. From the pandemic to the global protests, everything is up for grabs, and we can grab for something better. That’s why the Institute for the Future has gathered together over 200 volunteers with foresight training from…

By Jane McGonigal, Ph.D., IFTF Director of Game Research and Development — Writing this from Italy, I am also writing to you from your own future. From our state of emergency, we have been watching the crisis unfold in the United States with a terrible sense of foreboding. Please stop waiting for others to tell you what to do; stop blaming the…

By Jane McGonigal, PhD An essay from After Shock: The World’s Foremost Futurists Reflect on 50 Years of Future Shock―and Look Ahead to the Next 50, edited by John Schroeter. Abundant World Institute, 2020. I teach a class at Stanford University’s continuing studies program called “How to Think Like a…

The challenge: creating a better future of work Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle (Aug 19, 2019)medium.com Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle (Aug 19, 2019), by Anmol Chaddha, Ph.D., who leads the Equitable Futures Lab (@IFTF_inequality) at the Institute for the Future. Many fear that artificial intelligence and robots will take over factory floors, warehouses and even white-collar offices, laying waste to millions of low-skill…