In this episode, Samuel Arbesman speaks with Nick Foster, a designer and futurist who has worked with numerous major companies imagining a variety of futures—from Nokia and Dyson to Google. Foster is also the author of the new book Could Should Might Don’t, which explores the many ways we do and can think about the future.

Arbesman and Foster discuss how Foster found his way into the world of futures thinking and the nature of futures design work within organizations. Their conversation covers Foster’s taxonomy of different kinds of futures design, the importance of cultivating better future-thinking practices, common mistakes in forecasting, and the limits of prediction itself. They also delve into his perspective on science fiction and his distinctive approach to futures work—what he calls the “future mundane,” a vision of the future as a lived-in, everyday world.