Futures Nights
Co-creating the emerging future through open conversations facilitated by MDes students
Main Organizer/Facilitator: Andrea Obradors·Puerto
Supporting Facilitators: Jessie Andrade, Sam Chase, Kira Henderson, Eugene Hoban, Bre Jacobs, Erika Rittenhouse
Join: Futures Nights LinkedIn Group
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About
CCAD’s Graduate Studies and the Master of Design program launched on September 2019 Futures Nights, a new series of open conversations in a space set aside for listening and sharing our personal experiences with today’s most relevant topics. Based on the understanding that conversation drives personal, business, and organizational life, Futures Nights gatherings are a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership.
Overview
During these 90min brief meetings we have been delving into topics such as Design Thinking in Healthcare, Cultural Sensitivity in the Workplace, Design in Government, Designing Change in Your Career, Fashion and Sustainability and, Humanizing Technology among a variety of other issues.
Formats
The main formats for the Futures Nights gatherings had been the Open Space technology and the World Café methodology. An Open Space gathering combines the level of synergy and excitement present in a good coffee break, with the substantive activity and results characteristic of a good meeting. The World Cafe methodology (TWC) is a powerful social technology tool for engaging people in conversations that matter, offering an effective antidote to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today's world.
Futures Nights was created to fill a gap left by all the elite design conferences and professional meetups aspiring to be recognized thought leadership events. What is missing is safe informal conversation by the rest of us who are still trying to make sense of the dynamic world we live in. When people feel free to exchange their questions and thoughts on relevant topics, they not only become more creatively engaged but also more authentic. Now, it turns out that thinking small is more scalable than thinking big. Our informal format has allowed Future's Nights to become a global community with conversations happening on the same day each month in the United States, Europe and Africa.
- Mike Compton
BFA and MDes Assistant Professor, CCAD
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