Brian David Johnson Books

Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction

FAQs on booking Brian David Johnson

Brian David Johnson Speaking Topics

• Developing a Vision of the Future

  What do you take into account when planning the future?

  The answer is both intriguing and demonstrates a really iterative process. Johnson tells of the start of his research in the social sciences, working with cultural anthropologists, ethnographers, social scientists to understand the current state of the culture and try to figure out where it's going. Next Johnson looks at the hardware and works with computer scientists. The tech data is meshed with the social sciences data to answer a simple question: how can we apply this technology to capture people's imaginations and make their lives better? Johnson then looks at general social trends to develop a "vision of the future" that his team can work to build.

  Johnson also spends time out on the road talking to people in various professional industries and tries to focus not only on customers, but also a broader collection of companies and businesses. They talk about more than just the future of computers, they talk about the future of computation and where they see the world going.

  Johnson asks: What do we need to do today? In 2015? In 2020? And let it evolve our thinking, which actually makes a vision for 2020 much more realistic

• The Tomorrow Project

  "Conversation is when people simply talk; not take a test on the air with Q and A. It's when something said spontaneously prompts a thought and a reply in someone else. When several people's talk moves around a subject, changes directions and produces spontaneous and entertaining comments and unexpected insights, and takes surprising turns." (Times Books, 2010)

  The Tomorrow Project is how Johnson takes his research out into the world and gets people talking about the future. Johnson focuses on engaging in conversations with scientists, the public and even entertainers. He's spoken with synthetic biologists, security experts, and even Will.i.am. They're long conversations, which he shares to hopefully spark a broader conversation about the future we all want to live in.

• How Our Decisions Determine The Future

  Let's get one thing straight: the future is not set. The future is not some fixed point just over the horizon that we are all helplessly hurtling towards. No. We are not powerless. The future is not written. The future is made every day by the actions of people. Because of this Johnson has always believed that everyone should be an active participant in the future. If we are all making it and we are all going to live in it then why not do something about it individually.

  The way you change the future is to change people's narrative. Change the story people have imagined the future will be. Change that and you change the future. Everything else is far too complicated and out of a single person's control • but just change the story we tell ourselves about the future and you change the future itself.

  Johnson discusses the importance of everyone being an active participant in the future and how the future is created every day by the actions of people.

• The Future of Fear

  "Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself"

  All fear is, in essence, fear of the future. We are afraid of the things that have not yet happened. 50 percent of the questions Johnson is asked about the future have to do with fear: something that someone is worried about. Yet, very few innovations have come out of being fearful. The problem with fear is that fear sells and it even has policy implications. But when talking about fear it is not usually a technology question; it's a cultural conversation where Johnson has to analyze a human experience. Johnson is working to determine what people are afraid of and attack it.

  We know that security is important, and it's only going to get more important. So as we look 10 to 15 years out, what Johnson wants to do is to think: What do we really need to be afraid of? When we talk about what it means to live in a safe and secure world, there's a lot of misinformation and a lack of information out there. Because of that, people are creating bogeymen. We're creating these irrational things, and that's very dangerous-especially when we're making decisions, whether it's hardware design or something else. We need to take a fact-based approach to what we should be afraid of and what shouldn't we be afraid of. And the stuff that we shouldn't be afraid of, we need to push that aside. The stuff we should be afraid of, we really need to dig into.

  We need to change how we think about technology in the future. We need to give people different stories that aren't so negative. So that people can ask themselves how do they really want to use technology? We need different visions for the future, new stories. All of these computers and technology are things that we create as humans and as it gets smarter and as it gets faster than we need to be very clear about what we want that device to do. We shouldn't be afraid to have it address the really hard problems. We shouldn't be afraid to challenge ourselves, to go at things like preparing for the future. We can go at things like education and shift around any fear and actually do something with it.

• Science Fiction Prototyping

  A science fiction author, Johnson uses his work in his futurecasting process. Science fiction is the playground of the imagination. If you are interested in science or fascinated with the future then science fiction is where you explore new ideas and let your dreams and nightmares duke it out on the safety of the page or screen. But what if we could use science fiction to do more than that? What if we could use science fiction based on science fact to not only imagine our future but develop new technologies and products? What if we could use stories, movies and comics as a kind of tool to explore the real world implications and uses of future technologies today?

  Johnson teaches his audience how to use fiction as a way to imagine our future in a whole new way. If we write science fiction based on science fact, it allows us to explore the human, cultural and ethical implications of technology. It enables us to 'prototype' our ideas. Even the futures that we don't want are good fodder for this. Think about the combination of authoritarianism through constant surveillance, linguistics, changing history books • all of those awful things can be encapsulated by 'Big Brother.' George Orwell's 1984 gave us a symbol of a future we didn't want to see, and it's part of the culture now.

  A talk filled with history, real world examples and conversations with experts, Science Fiction Prototyping will give you the tools you need to begin designing the future with science fiction.

Brian David Johnson Speaker Videos

• IET President Danielle George interviews Brian David Johnson ...

  

  Nov 25, 2020 ... The future is Brian David Johnson's business. He is a professor of practice at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in ...
  In Conversation with Futurist Brian David Johnson - YouTube

  

  May 23, 2019 ... Brian David Johnson is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and a Futurist and ...
• Dark Future Precedents | Brian David Johnson | TEDxHollywood ...

  

  Nov 15, 2016 ... This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. About TEDx, x = independently organized event In ...
  Dean's Distinguished Lecture - Brian David Johnson, Futurist at Intel ...

  

  Nov 26, 2014 ... The official YouTube page of the Oregon State University College of Business. The OSU COB delivers business education with a focus on ...
• The Tomorrow Project and Futurism at Intel