Innovating Tomorrow: Exploring Futures and Emerging Technologies

Sociotechnical systems are designed to align technology, people, and processes to achieve meaningful outcomes, but even the best plans can fail when confronted with forces beyond the organization’s control. A well-documented example of this is Nokia’s decline in the smartphone market. In the early 2000s, Nokia had a strong sociotechnical plan centered on continuous hardware innovation, global supply chain efficiency, and a deeply ingrained organizational culture of engineering excellence (Miao et al., 2023). However, a combination of technological and cultural forces undermined its success. The rapid emergence of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android ecosystem represented a disruptive technological force that shifted consumer preferences from hardware features to software experience (Lamberg et al., 2019). At the same time, Nokia’s rigid internal culture resisted the agile, software-centric approach necessary to compete in this new environment (Ojansivu et al., 2022). Despite its early m...

  Introduction             Eastman Kodak once stood as a symbol of American innovation and corporate strength. Throughout the twentieth century, the company dominated global photography, controlling nearly 90 percent of the film market and earning steady profits from its integrated ecosystem of cameras, film, and processing chemicals. Its name became synonymous with memory itself. Yet by 2012, Kodak had filed for bankruptcy after years of decline (Lucas & Goh, 2009). While the popular explanation attributes Kodak’s downfall to digital technology, the deeper cause was strategic blindness. The company relied heavily on traditional forecasting models that extrapolated past sales trends and ignored structural change. Its leadership assumed that consumer habits, film demand, and photographic culture would evolve slowly and predictably. This misplaced confidence prevented Kodak from adapting to digital imaging and new business ...

Hayashi and Baranauskas (2013) present a sociotechnical plan that integrates emotional, cultural, and technical dimensions into educational technology design through their concept of Affectibility. The study was based on a qualitative project involving the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative at a public school in Campinas, Brazil. Using Organizational Semiotics (Stamper, 1993) and participatory design, the authors explored how educational technology could make sense to its users by reflecting the school’s social and cultural practices. The Semiotic Onion model provided a framework for understanding formal, informal, and technical layers of interaction, emphasizing that meaningful learning occurs when technology supports the lived experiences and emotions of its users. This approach moved beyond traditional usability and efficiency-based frameworks to a holistic, human-centered model that treats emotion as an essential part of learning. The sociotechnical plan was implemented throu...

Forecasting and prediction play a central role in business and innovation because they provide organizations with a structured way to anticipate future trends, prepare for uncertainty, and strategically position themselves in competitive markets. Forecasting typically involves quantitative methods, such as time-series analysis or regression, while predictions often stem from more qualitative insights, such as expert judgment or scenario planning (Goodwin & Wright, 2014). Both approaches help leaders make decisions, but predictions often carry the risk of being either visionary or overly optimistic, especially in rapidly evolving industries like technology. The challenge lies in accurately interpreting signals and aligning them with broader economic, technological, or societal forces. One infamous prediction that came true was Steve Jobs’s early forecast that mobile phones would become the primary device for accessing the internet (Frost, 2019). In 2007, when Apple launched the fi...

Organizations constantly face uncertainty about future trends, risks, and opportunities, and they rely on structured methods to prepare for what lies ahead. Two of the most widely used approaches are traditional forecasting, which projects likely outcomes based on historical data, and scenario planning, which develops multiple plausible futures to navigate uncertainty. Forecasting provides quantitative precision and short-term guidance, while scenario planning expands strategic thinking by exploring diverse possibilities. Together, these approaches give leaders a fuller picture of the future, balancing operational efficiency with long-term resilience (Makridakis et al., 2019; ICEF, 2021; Ogilvy, 2022). Scenario planning is a disciplined process that identifies key driving forces and critical uncertainties, then develops a small set of internally consistent narratives to challenge assumptions and expand strategic options (Wright & Cairns, 2011). Classic practice shows how scenario...