Welcome to WhatWorks

When I was a kid, I thought by the year 2024, we’d have flying cars, a Dick Tracy-style watch, and shoes that laced themselves (thanks to Back to the Future). We got two of those three things! I can talk to my Apple Watch and use it to communicate with friends. Nike went ahead and made those shoes a reality, but we’re still working on flying cars.

What I didn’t consider as a kid was what I’d be doing for a living and I don’t recall having any strong recommendations from folks other than the typical professions parents want their kids to go into. I was never one of those kids who wanted to be a doctor, pilot, or some other practical profession. While all those professions still exist, so many jobs are new today - and some no longer exist. Additionally, the way we work and live has changed a lot in the past 30-some years. Much of that change has been due to the increasing mobility due to advances in technology, and those advancements are speeding up. That’s why I’ve felt compelled to create this newsletter as a way to explore. Let’s dive in.

What Is WhatWorks?

First and foremost, WhatWorks is a vehicle for exploring potential futures. There’s never been more confusion around work, life, place, and how these things will continue to evolve. I have always found that the best way to find a solution is to follow my curiosity and explore the subject.

I’ve been a workplace practitioner for 16 years, and in that time, I’ve witnessed an incredible amount of change in our field. I was learning and growing throughout that time, but the pace of change consistently increased, and much of our work was focused on 5- and 10-year outcomes. My daily work as a head of insights is looking at the past, present, and near future to understand what will practically move us forward and enable us to take action. However, if we aspire to understand the world fully and have a more significant impact we must also look at potential distant futures for a complete picture. So that’s what I’ll be doing here.

Why Now?

We are living in a time of extreme change. Whether it’s a pandemic, climate change, artificial intelligence, or spatial computing, it seems like things are changing every week. The pace of these changes will continue to accelerate. I think now more than ever, we must seek a full understanding of what is possible to drive us toward a more positive future and outcome for those we love.

What we’ll explore

I want to start asking and researching possibilities. That will include things like: What jobs might be available in the year 2040? Will we work from something similar to offices? Will climate change and rising temperatures affect where we’re able to live? What technology will we use in our daily lives? Is there a potential future in which devices have become so small that they are seamlessly integrated into our world? Will we reach a point where we can work to enjoy life instead of living to work?

The Case For A Bright Future

I am very cognizant of the fact that things can often be both incredible and bleak at the same moment. Presently, there is conflict in multiple countries, people have died, and fundamental freedoms are threatened. However, people are also born, we can develop vaccines to treat conditions at unprecedented speed, disease survival rates increase, and people yearn for a bright future.

I believe that we can drive ourselves towards a positive outcome by exploring potential futures and understanding what might come. Pardon me for being an optimist, but I’ll also attempt to be a bit pragmatic as well.

Let’s explore.