Who needs what you got — and what have they got in trade?
Join us for The Future of Jobs where we'll be exploring a near future where what counts as a job somehow looks different than it does today. Who's to say what that might be? Blacksmiths are in high demand, as are master welders, agricultural engineers, and folks adept at training athlete models for simulated sports (yes..models meaning LLMs).
The future of jobs/work/value creation is already a strange, shifting terrain, and imagining into that through Design Fiction is exactly the kind of thing that makes General Seminar such fun and by “fun” I mean an important valuable platform for imagining into actionable intelligent opportunities.
We'll have our usual break-out sessions where you and your fellow attendees will use worksheets, and group discussion to time-travel and explore how “work” may evolve in a possible future full of..well, all the things you can and cannot imagine.
You will generate fictional-yet-feels-real artifacts like a classified “help wanted!” ad that represents what it means to create value in some possible future — value that is meaningful on both sides of the value exchange ledger.
🔑 Key Takeaways 🔑
Might we enter an episteme in which organizations of human value creation think about value creation far beyond instrumental or productivity. (No More OKRs/KPIs! 📊🧨)
How Does It Work?
General Seminar offers an alternative to conventional one-way learning experiences like podcasts, TED Talks, or Masterclasses. This is a hands-on seminar where we are all actively engaged in collaborative sense-making by imagining into and creatively conjuring artifacts that represent the futures indicated by the topic. This is followed by sharing and discussions where you will be able to consider how today's emergent themes and cultural idioms may become tomorrow's normal-ordinary-everyday. The goal of General Seminar is to collectively imagine potential futures and derive actionable insights. This is a unique forum for creative stimulation and lateral thinking. General Seminar will invigorates your imagination, leveraging the remarkable efficacy of the imagination to turn ideas into tangible artifacts.
Run of Show
General Seminar is a 90-minute webinar-structured event designed to maximize engagement and insight. Conducted online (and live, in-person on special occasions!)
Participants receive a worksheet and access to the online edition of the Near Future Laboratory's Work Kit of Design Fiction
❥ Reception (5 minutes): Participants are welcomed and introduced to the topic.
❥ Design Fiction Breakout (25 minutes): Using the provided Worksheet, groups of 2-3 participants jump in the Near Future Laboratory's time machine and travel to the near future to engage in creative exploration, world building by 'finding' and imagining the kinds of artifacts one might stumble across in a possible near future world.
❥ Seminar (40 minutes): Facilitated group discussion to delve deeply into the topic.
❥ Wrap-Up (10 minutes): Summary and conclusions.
This immersive, collaborative format distinguishes General Seminar as a space for actionable creativity and innovative thought.