NEXT23 theme: Let’s get physical

By Martin Recke

The digital revolution is entering a new phase. It will lead to a fusion of digital and physical, and a rewrite of how the world works.

The parallel worlds of publishing

By Martin Recke

The book publishing industry is a parallel world in its own right. How fitting to publish a book about Parallelwelten.

The parallel worlds of culture

By Martin Recke

Digital cultures are fundamentally different not only from mass culture of the 20th century, but also from each other. They'll probably develop a new kind of public sphere.

The digital is inescapably political: it’s time to accept that

By Adam Tinworth

The digital evangelists of the 1990s saw cyberspace as a haven safe from the politics of the “real” world. They could not have been more wrong — and we're still paying for their mistake.

The right things to do

By Martin Recke

Doing the right things implies that we know what the right things are. Overwhelming complexity makes this a challenge.

Embrace complexity as your guide through the digital darkness

By Adam Tinworth

Digital has not — and cannot — lead us to an utopia. So, how do we navigate the darkness of the interconnected world?

Big Questions

By Martin Recke

We shouldn't be afraid to ask big questions and work on answers. So what's beyond our universe?

The digital revolution that’s coming from Africa

By Adam Tinworth

Different cultures, different demographics - and a different infrastructure base mean that Afirca could be the next great powerhouse of digital innovation.

The Digital Parallel Worlds of different generations

By Adam Tinworth

The world can be divided in two, right? Those of us who had to learn digital, and those who have known it their whole lives? Wrong. The truth is much more complex…

Light and Darkness

By Martin Recke

Is a New Dark Age upon us, as James Bridle insists? There is a certain dialectic of enlightenment at work that persists into the digital age.

VR has made us blind to the true potential of spatial computing

By Adam Tinworth

We’ve been brainwashed by the movies of the 80s and 90s to think that spatial computing will be delivered via glasses. It’s time to open our eyes to this technology’s true potential.

The paperless office isn’t an ideal: it’s a nightmare

By Adam Tinworth

The paperless office hasn't arrived yet, despite decades promising that it's just round the corner. We should be glad of that. It would be terrible.

Why innovation fails

By Adam Tinworth

It sometimes feels like business dances to the drumbeat of innovation — but the vast majority of innovation projects fail. Why is that?

Time to get moving on mobility — for the planet’s sake

By Adam Tinworth

We need to solve our mobility problems, both for our quality of life, and to combat the climate crisis. But achieving frugal mobility involves some serious complexity…

Why scientism will destroy your company’s ability to innovate

By Adam Tinworth

Our ability to quantify and measure nearly everything has grown exponentially. But that doesn't mean that the scientific methods is the best way to run product teams.

Don’t let nostalgia strangle the Creative Age

By Adam Tinworth

The Industrial Age is done – and robots have taken the factory floor. Let's not wax nostalgic for a bygone age, but push forwards accepting the new partnership between human and digital technology.

Relax. Digital is efficient — so we don’t need to be

By Adam Tinworth

Are we so in love with digital that we try to emulate it? Silicon is made for efficiency — humanity isn't. Let's stop trying to be what we're not.

Solving the challenge of digital overwhelm: attention management

By Adam Tinworth

Transformational technology has always triggered change in multiple parallel fields. But, before now, we weren't constantly exposed to information about it. How do we focus when there's more change that we can track?

Quantum Realms: why predicting the next major innovation is so hard

By Adam Tinworth

Quantum computing is potentially the next great wave of innovation - but it's in the pre-product, pre-consumer stage, so it's hard to understand. But what other science could end up upending how we live?

The Two Faces of Corporate Innovation

By Adam Tinworth

Digital innovation is a corporate virtue of the 21st century, and all businesses are innovative all the time - if you believe their PR. So why is so little actually changing?

Innovation is fragmented, not monolithic. The next change will surprise us.

By Adam Tinworth

The world wasn't watching as the web was born. Many people laughed at the iPhone, a product from a company not long off life-support. True innovation happens in fragmented worlds away from the mainstream.

Global tribalism: can we adapt to it?

By Adam Tinworth

Tribalism is fundamental to humanity - we always gather in communities. But the internet has allowed us to bothe connect globally, while isolating ourselves locally. Therein lies the danger.

Lessons from parallel digital worlds

By Adam Tinworth

The digital world is not a homogenous whole, but a series of parallel states, twisting ideas into new forms as they pass between them. And Instagram is becoming a very western version of a Chinese idea…