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Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future from the Stanford d.school
A powerful guide to why even the most well-intentioned innovations go haywire, and the surprising ways we can change course to create a more positive future, by two celebrated experts working at the intersection of design, technology, and learning at Stanford University’s acclaimed d.school.
In Assembling Tomorrow, authors Scott Doorley and Carissa Carter explore the intangible forces that prevent us from anticipating just how fantastically technology can get out of control, and what might be in store for us if we don’t start using new tools and tactics. Despite our best intentions, our most transformative innovations tend to have consequences we can’t always predict. From the effects of social media to the uncertainty of AI and the consequences of climate change, the outcomes of our creations ripple across our lives. Time and again, our seemingly ceaseless capacity to create rubs up against our limited capacity to understand our impact.
Assembling Tomorrow explores how to use readily accessible tools to both mend the mistakes of our past and shape our future for the better. We live in an era of “runaway design,” where innovations tangle with our lives in unpredictable ways. This book explores the off-kilter feelings of today and follows up with actionables to alter your perspective and help you find opportunities in these turbulent times.
Mixed throughout are histories of the future, short pieces of speculative fiction that imagine the future as if it has already happened and consider the past with a critical yet hopeful eye so that all of us—as designers of our own futures—can create a better world for generations to come.
In Assembling Tomorrow, authors Scott Doorley and Carissa Carter explore the intangible forces that prevent us from anticipating just how fantastically technology can get out of control, and what might be in store for us if we don’t start using new tools and tactics. Despite our best intentions, our most transformative innovations tend to have consequences we can’t always predict. From the effects of social media to the uncertainty of AI and the consequences of climate change, the outcomes of our creations ripple across our lives. Time and again, our seemingly ceaseless capacity to create rubs up against our limited capacity to understand our impact.
Assembling Tomorrow explores how to use readily accessible tools to both mend the mistakes of our past and shape our future for the better. We live in an era of “runaway design,” where innovations tangle with our lives in unpredictable ways. This book explores the off-kilter feelings of today and follows up with actionables to alter your perspective and help you find opportunities in these turbulent times.
Mixed throughout are histories of the future, short pieces of speculative fiction that imagine the future as if it has already happened and consider the past with a critical yet hopeful eye so that all of us—as designers of our own futures—can create a better world for generations to come.
- GenresDesign
320 pages, Hardcover
Published June 18, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 3, 2024
I have some very mixed feelings. When it was good, it was VERY good. When it was bad, it was VERY bad. Environmental impact was used as an example so many times that it started to hinder my ability to see other applications, which undermines the very purpose of the book. The narrative sections from the future seemed like a great idea, but the first one was so overwhelmingly emotional it felt more like manipulation and less like helpful examples or illustrations. In the end, I think there are very good ideas and thinking patterns, but you have to be willing to wade through a lot of unhelpful material to find them.
April 6, 2024
This is one of the books that is quite difficult to name as for its purpose. It is multifacet because of the way it made me feel and think after reading it. For me this was the way to reflect after each chapter and imagine the way future will be in terms of society, technology, business, objects we use and things we are used to. The journey throughout this book brings you examples from the past and ignited your imagination of what can possibly happen in the future. The emotions after reading are like using an imaginary timemachine that allows your fantasy to travel free.
Don't forget! Come back to your Review on the pub date, 18 Jun 2024, to post
Don't forget! Come back to your Review on the pub date, 18 Jun 2024, to post
April 29, 2024
This is a book that changes the way you look at... well, everything. I really enjoyed the mix of speculative scifi stories and actionables that I can try in my own life. Some of the takeaways I had were that it's OK to bring my feelings to work -- they can be a source of innovation and creativity; playing make believe isn't just for kids and may just save the world; that designers and the questions they ask need to be part of our plan for the future. This is a brilliant book -- beautifully designed with original illustrations.
July 12, 2024
I suppose I was looking for a more scientific approach to why seemingly good ideas often end up causing more problems than they solve. Instead, I read page after page of vague, philosophical musings that didn't teach me anything, didn't explain anything, and didn't resolve anything. The interspersed stories were...odd. This might have made a decent magazine article, but it was obviously padded with extraneous stories, drawings, and filler material. A disappointment.
June 27, 2024
Remarkably light on content. I'm surprised Stanford's name is in the title, but maybe they don't have any control over that.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews