By Phil Balagtas
438 pages, softcover, $49.99
Published by O’Reilly Media
oreilly.com

What do you think about your future in the next one, five or ten years? The question can trigger both imagination and anxiety—or a dive into strategy from design leader Phil Balagtas. Using futures thinking methodology, he helps organizations open their minds to alternate possibilities and helps them avoid obstacles that could affect longevity. He’s a strategist who cautions against goals becoming too focused on tech or competitors and encourages policy, culture and environmental concerns. Making Futures Work is a guide and workshop manual that details how this process has led to more adaptable choices for industries such as Apple, Disney and Lufthansa.

Balagtas is the founder of the Design Futures Initiative and a principal of HABITAT, a consulting firm based in Barcelona. For more than 20 years, he has designed innovative digital products and services. Making Futures Work presents all stages of the futures thinking process and discusses conflicts such as company skeptics and roadblocks. Balagtas also reaches out to other designers interested in expanding their roles in the futures process. Commending their impact on culture and the environment, he encourages them to start setting policy.

The attention to design lifts Making Futures Work from a strategic process guide to a publication with enough graphics, photography and illustration to entertain. Of special note: Syd Mead’s images that merge fantasy and science and Arthur Radebaugh’s comic strip Closer Than We Think. Radebaugh’s futurist drawings from the late 1950s express a sweet optimism of technology faithfully aiding us in our future world. —Ruth Hagopian ca