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Steve Fisher: Explorer and Democratizer of the Future
Steve Fisher loves the future and is a student of the past. It is through an understanding of history and the human condition that we can best explore what is to come. As a design futurist, multi-disciplinary maker, and executive advisor, Steve’s mission is to democratize futures thinking so that we can leverage these skills to build a better world for all. His strength lies in helping you become a more resilient and confident decision-maker by teaching you how to anticipate roadblocks and navigate change effectively.
Think Forward Show
Conversations with Futurist and Big Thinkers about what is on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist in today's world.
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Why Engage Steve?
Envision and Build New Worlds Together
Steve will work with your organization to imagine the worlds that it might inhabit and to be responsive to opportunities that arise.
We are at the dawn of a transformative era, where design and foresight will turn imaginative concepts into realms for innovation. The emergence of new coding languages and decentralized networks will revolutionize decision-making and interactions, paving the way for fairer trade and community-building beyond conventional limits. Our collective ingenuity and flexibility will forge a future where technology amplifies human potential, transforming dreams into reality in a more connected, equitable, and innovative world.
Explore Alternative Futures
Exploring the future without context can be abstract, distant, and difficult to envision, let alone navigate. Incorporating alternative futures into the present allows for experiencing them as tangible "what-if" scenarios on a 1:1 scale of reality. By using design thinking and techniques such as speculative design and design fiction, the exploration of future landscapes and trends can enable your organization to turn possibilities into practical solutions and catalyze real change.
Navigate AI and Web3
Hyperscale Your Innovation Efforts
Innovation is crucial for any organization, mirroring the ups and downs of a financial portfolio. By adopting futures thinking, your organization gains the foresight to anticipate trends and disruptions, enabling strategic investments in growth areas and ensuring you stay ahead of the competition. This approach not only positions you to seize new opportunities but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and resilience, essential for long-term success and adaptability in an uncertain world.
Make Futures Thinking Persuasive
Organizations relentlessly seek growth and prosperity but often become ensnared in short-term thinking, prioritizing immediate results and quarterly earnings over long-term strategies. By embracing futures and foresight as central to their strategy, they can extend their vision, exploring potential futures, spotting emerging trends, and preparing for possible disruptions. This broader outlook allows for the development of resilient strategies, ensuring organizations can navigate future uncertainties securing their position as leaders in an evolving landscape.
How do you leverage the future today?
The rate of change today is exponential. What do you focus on and how do you stay ahead? They are four key ways today to do that:
Here is some stuff I make and things I do...
Steve Fisher is the Chief Futurist of the Revolution Institute's Center for the Future (CFTF), curator of DesignFuturist.com and host of the Think Forward podcast, where he interviews bold and amazing thinkers, innovators, and leaders on the promise of futures thinking.
Steve is a pragmatic design futurist with over 25 years of experience using technology, strategic foresight, and futures thinking to help organizations and individuals envision and understand possible futures while building the path to get there. Steve has worked with government and private organizations of all sizes, all over the world, to spark curiosity, ignite imagination, and explore a better future for all.
Steve co-founded Revolution Factory, a global innovation company that removes barriers to solving complex problems, and The Revolution Institute, an organization collaboratively exploring complex problems and their potential solutions. Steve is also an experienced entrepreneur, filmmaker, and author with a dual MBA from Brown University and Instituto De Impresa. His master's thesis focused on smart cities, industrial IoT, augmented reality, and entrepreneurial innovation models.
As a spiritual follow-up to his bestselling book, “The Startup Equation,” his new book, "Designing the Future: How to Harness Tomorrow, Today" (coming in late 2023), gives organizations and individuals the "Operating System" for futures design, as well as the tools needed to explore the future, imagine what's possible, create a bold vision, build the path to get there, and navigate it successfully.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
The Center for the Future or CFTF (CFTF.ORG) is a global collective of thinkers, makers and pioneers working together to explore the future and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations around the world.
As a part of the Revolution Institute, the CFTF brings diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity.
Here is some stuff I make and things I do...
Working with Steve
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. True leadership also requires a willingness to change and evolve. Leaders can't remain stagnant. They must be willing to relinquish control, advance ideas when necessary, and step aside to allow others to succeed when the time comes.
My Story
All of my life, I have been one to dream of the infinite possibilities of the future: our potential as a human race, our ability to overcome sometimes impossible odds and to be resilient in times of uncertainty. To face these challenges and to meet the future that will eventually become our present with confidence is what it means to be a futurist. My journey into the future has been one of exploration, creation, and disruption.
The Wonder Years: Computers in the Basement, Alvin Toffler, D&D and Science Fiction
Growing up as a teenager in the 1980’s, movies like Blade Runner and The Terminator took the dystopian future to a whole new level. Juxtaposed were the reruns of Star Trek that I watched with my father. In one vein, it was a world that fell prey to the perils of technology, greed and humanity’s hubris. In the other was a world that through great trials of exploration humanity overcame its flaws to become the best of ourselves and eliminate poverty, hunger and greed. While I believe in the best of humanity, it is important to understand our flaws and the potential to go astray. I also dove into reading science fiction from Verne, Wells, Asimov, Clarke, Robinson, Heineken and Herbert. Quite the library I built, but the worlds I experienced were beyond what I previously imagined and showed me what world building was and how to communicate the future through fiction. It was also during this time that I saved up for my first computer, a Texas Instruments TI 99/4A. It was a clunky thing that recorded basic programs on a cassette tape recorder. I could hook it up to the TV and eventually got this radical thing called a floppy drive. It showed me the potential that technology could provide if one was trained well enough to wield it. As I wanted to learn more and more about technology and the personal computer boom, I traveled each weekend to the library (they didn’t have search engines back then). It was during these trips that I came across “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, a book written in the 1970’s that accurately predicted the technology revolution and many other things that would soon come to pass (e.g., Internet). Reading his bio was the first time that I learned of the term “Futurist.” I was fascinated by this and other books on the topic, where I learned of organizations like The Institute for the Future (IFTF) and the World Future Society (WFS). So wait, so one could look at the future and communicate what was possible to come? And this was a job? SO FREAKING COOL. As my teenage years continued, I was captivated by that epic of testosterone, speed and duty, “Top Gun.” Soon my interests were in playing guitar, training to be a fighter pilot and rebuilding a classic Mustang with my dad. And the world of futures thinking faded but was not forgotten.
As the decade changed, hair bands were replaced with grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and the rise of Generation X and our supposed slacker attitude came to be. It was hiding what authors Strauss and Howe identified as the Nomad generation. One that was the loner, the fixer and the quiet builder. We struggled to find purpose and our parents often ignored and neglected us while simultaneously lamenting our lack of direction. During that time in college, flying airplanes became my passion but not my profession. I worked for a bank and found that I still had quite a natural skill with technology, eventually becoming the leader on implementing this cool new tech called a local area network (LAN). Pretty soon I had a fast track career in technology while I finished my college education. I continued to read science fiction, but what really blew my mind was the book “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson. It was during this time that virtual reality technology became available and his futurescape were virtual worlds that became known as what he called “The Metaverse.” I renewed my interest in futures and foresight and revisited Toffler, but began to expand by learning about other ventures like the Global Business Network started by X, who was part of the Shell Oil team that took scenario planning to a whole new level. I used this in my work, as well as horizon scanning, and became really in tune with the cutting edge of technologies and how to anticipate what was coming to benefit my career and the companies I worked for. Little did I know that I was actually becoming a futurist. As my technology skills grew, so did my interest in how to hack into systems and understand their flaws. I became obsessed with what hackers started in the 1970’s and how systems could be used for good and bad. I experienced online communities like bulletin board systems (BBSs) and networked games like “Doom,” and the telecommunications act of 1993 (I know, sounds so dry) allowed for commercial entities to use the Internet for business purposes. While it seemed uneventful at the time, a guy in Switzerland created a way to publish and read large amounts of information and link to other pages through a protocol called HTTP (yeah, that thing in the left of the browser address). At the same time, a researcher in Chicago created a program that allowed people to view this information and make it easy for the non-technical person to use the Internet. This Mosaic Browser eventually became Netscape and its IPO sparked the Internet boom of the 1990’s. I was caught in this boom like many of my fellow Generation X slackers who built the modern day Internet. And so the entrepreneur years began. As my technology skills grew, so did my interest in how to hack into systems and understand their flaws. I became obsessed with what hackers started in the 1970’s and how systems could be used for good and bad. I experienced online communities like bulletin board systems (BBSs) and networked games like “Doom,” and the telecommunications act of 1993 (I know, sounds so dry) allowed for commercial entities to use the Internet for business purposes. While it seemed uneventful at the time, a guy in Switzerland created a way to publish and read large amounts of information and link to other pages through a protocol called HTTP (yeah, that thing in the left of the browser address). At the same time, a researcher in Chicago created a program that allowed people to view this information and make it easy for the non-technical person to use the Internet. This Mosaic Browser eventually became Netscape and its IPO sparked the Internet boom of the 1990’s. I was caught in this boom like many of my fellow Generation X slackers who built the modern day Internet. And so the entrepreneur years began.
The CyberPunk Years: Snow Crash, Hacking and the Dawn of the Internet
The Entrepreneur Years: Startups, Innovation and Flying Cars
The Internet boom was my first journey into true entrepreneurship. Building out an early predecessor to cloud hosting technology, Appsolve was an application service provider (ASP) that gave enterprises the ability to run applications anywhere. We also created websites and web-based applications to help those looking to capture this Prometheus fire for themselves and change the way business was done. As the subsequent bubble created many millionaires and many more broke people—compounded by the events of 9/11, business, life and this great startup journey coming to a halt—Appsolve found itself in quandary: Close, pivot or sell. We chose to close since there was nothing to sell or pivot to, but in the end I learned many valuable lessons that I would take to the next venture.
It was during this time that I found out about the emergence of a new type of aircraft called a very light jet (VLJ), which for about a million dollars could travel within a 1000 mile radius with a single pilot operator. Many talked about the “Air Taxi Revolution” and how it would enable access to thousands of airports and enable point-to-point travel. It brought to mind the flying cars that everyone spoke of for 100 years. My futurist instincts sparked a fire to envision a world where everyone had affordable access to a private jet and could change the way they travel. It converged with my passion for aviation, my skill at building and launching products, and the entrepreneurial fire I thought I had lost when Appsolve collapsed. Over most of the 2000’s. I raised funding, built a business and sold it in 2008 at the height of the housing bubble. As the great financial crisis collapsed the economy, the business that bought SlipStream went bankrupt and all of my stock in it was essentially wallpaper. Another entrepreneurial lesson learned: Innovation is great, but if you are too early you won’t disrupt anything. During this time I began to search deep into what I loved the most and it was design, innovation and strategic foresight. So I spent the last 15 years building futures design and innovation-focused organizations. I co-wrote “The Startup Equation” to create an evergreen framework to start, build and scale a business of any size. From the success of the book, I co-founded The Revolution Factory, a global innovation company that enables organizations to solve complex problems at whatever level they exist and build innovation capabilities into their portfolio. During this time, futures thinking started connecting with design methods such as speculative design, world building and design fiction to form the field of Design Futures. I began to formalize this into the Factory’s work and make these methods usable by organizations so that futures thinking and strategic foresight could be actionable.
Here I sit in the new decade with innovative businesses and revolutionary technologies hitting us at an unprecedented rate. The Revolution Factory needed a new way to create impact so I co-founded The Revolution Institute as an organization dedicated to exploring potential solutions to humanity's most complex problems.
In order to solve these problems, futures thinking must be democratized and integrated as a problem solving and strategic planning method the way design thinking was in the last decade. Too often it is used as a novelty and outputs are reports that are published and then put in a desk with no action, active use and updating. It doesn’t have to be this way. It can be a tool wielded by all organizations of all sizes. So within The Revolution Institute, I launched the Center for the Future to create the futures tools and methods that can powerfully transform the world.
In addition to my work in helping individuals and organizations leverage futures, I host the "Think Forward" podcast, which explores futures thinking, trends, and ideas. I am also the curator of DesignFuturist.com, where I share my perspectives and insights with fellow explorers of the future.
The Futurist Years: Democratizing the Future for All
Transform Possible Futures Into Action
Steve works as an innovation leader, futurist and advisor with organizations and governments across the world. He has entertained hundreds of thousands of people across his online shows, podcasts and in-person events with his insightful guidance and poignant wit. He continues to connect with millions through his documentary and media work. His commitment is to democratize futures thinking for leaders and organizations around the world, helping them understand their ability and duty to create a better future. He believes that by envisioning a better future we can impact billions of people around the world by creating the future we want to live in. Steve’s new book (coming in late 2025), "Designing the Future: How to Harness Tomorrow, Today." His "Futures Operating System" (FutureOS) uses his Spectrum Futures Framework (SFF) to provide executives, organizations, and future leaders with the foundation and application of futures design. This allows them to imagine possible futures, communicate bold visions, anticipate risks, and strengthen their organizations to navigate the future. Early elements of FutureOS can be seen in his bestselling book "The Startup Equation," which helps entrepreneurs leverage trends and scenarios to build confidence in their ventures. If you would like to learn more or discuss this, please reach out to us.
Rocket Fuel For Your Organization
Steve is the Chief Futurist of the Center for the Future (CFTF), a worldwide collective of thinkers, makers, and pioneers who collaborate to explore and share knowledge, insights, and tools with organizations. The CFTF operates under the Revolution Institute, a collaborative think tank and platform working to drive exponential impact and create a better future for all. Steve runs the Institute and the Center with Dr. Ja-Nae Duane and an incredible group of interdisciplinary experts. Our motto at the CFTF is, "Be Future Forward," and we bring diverse perspectives, experiences, and expertise in futures, design, behavioral science, anthropology, and engineering to projects that benefit the future of humanity. Steve also leads innovation at the Revolution Factory, where he helps organizations build innovation capabilities, portfolios and venture studios to power their economic engines.
Work With Steve and His Team
Steve Fisher is recognized as a leading futurist, author, advisor and coach who is democratizing the use of strategic foresight and design futures to help leaders and organizations make a lasting impact. Steve will help your organization build the tomorrow you envision starting today by challenging short-term thinking, exploring new ideas and models, and developing solutions that drive growth and strategic decision making. What to connect and learn more? Reach out to Steve and his team to discuss how your organization can benefit from developing future literacy, identifying signals and trends, and charting possible futures.