Future Shock Canvas will help you imagine the future

The first tool in our new Venture Science Toolkit

Imagined by Midjourney

The purpose of the tool

When we imagine the future, we tend to think in linear steps.

The problem is the world doesn’t work this way. Change happens in a fractal pattern where billions of people and events react with each other to bounce the world into a new future.

This is a future our new businesses need to be ready to deliver for.

Incrementality is drags the momentum out of a new venture before we’ve begin. How do we always think against a backdrop of a world that changes faster than we can keep up?

We’ve started using a new canvas tool, Future Shock Canvas, to flow our thinking this way.

Using the Canvas

Download your own copy of the canvas here.

#1: Plant a seed

Consider demographic shifts, new scarcities, government policy changes, unexpected solutions that cause new problems, etc. Add these to the first column where there is space to imagine 3 different seeds.

e.g. Carbon tax placed on meat

#2: Extrapolate 5 years

Imagine some changes that might occur because of that initial seed.

e.g. Foodservice moves to plant-based alternatives.

#3: Extrapolate 10 years

How might the world respond to the scenarios at 5 years? How will people, companies, and governments make changes?

e.g. The farm gate price of soy goes up as the supply chain shifts from animal to human food.

#4: Summarise “The Pull”

Finally, summarise this trend as the title of a history book that someone might write 20 years later

e.g. “The decline of animal agriculture in the new carbon economy”.

We call this “The Pull” as it is a force that will drag our new company into existence.

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Download the Venture Science Toolkit here.