Institute For The Future

Investigating future of persuasion with Fogg Behavior Grid

Stanford professor BJ Fogg has recently developed a framework for classifying types of behavior change called, appropriately enough, the Fogg Behavior...

Smart dinner plate urges you to slow down

The best kind of feedback occurs in the context of the activity that you're seeking feedback about. That's how a control system works -- real-time...

God Bless You, Mr. Corporation?

The recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC has received more attention and soul-searching commentary about the nature of our...

Why Real-Time Video Matters to Health

On Wednesday, January 19, IFTF released the report The Future of Real-Time Video Communication. This report addressed the question: What is the...

Forget the carrot, I need the stickK (or do I?)

Quit smoking, lose weight, get in shape. Now that we are three weeks into 2010, how many of us need help sticking to our New Year's resolutions? ...

Shopping for Your Genome

I spent the last couple days at the Personalized Medicine World Conference and one of the most intriguing companies I encountered was a small startup...

Mining reality for persuasive feedback

Nadav Aharony, an MIT Media Lab graduate student, studies how that data that's passively collected by mobile devices can be used to predict the user's...

Using nature and gaming to persuade for productivity

Nathan Verrill, an interaction designer, applied gaming guru, and usability expert who among other things was a key figure in the development of our...

Is the Web drowning out your future self?

Every year The Edge organization asks a "world question" and Edge members answer it in short essays.  Question 2010 is: How is the Internet changing...

Why replacing hormones seems different from replacing ankles

Readers of the New York Times received an odd juxtaposition over the last couple days that can be roughly summed up as: A small but growing number of...

Brain health is on my mind

Even as I write this, the Health Horizons team is in the middle of participating in the SharpBrains Virtual Summit, which you can follow on Twitter at...

Persuasion, Coercion, and MLK

For many years now, serious academic researchers have been looking closely at the concept, technologies, and implications of persuasion. This Spring,...

Avatar maximization: a future skill?

If you use an avatar to communicate with others, you might want to consider how your avatar is priming others to respond to...

Future of Persuasion: Core research questions

Here are the core research questions we'll be asking over the next five months.  1. What are the new directions of change in persuasive tech?  In...

Future of Persuasion: Future As Persuasion

We're excited to begin collecting our thoughts--and yours, if you want to contribute--to the Future of Persuasion:Future as Persuasion project blog....

Applying Superstruct Design for an Augmented Reality Developers Camp

Recently a few colleagues and I organized an Augmented Reality Developers Camp - a perfect example of a "Superstruct" an idea introduced In 2008 by...

A Different Kind of Health Preview

At the Institute, we've spent a fair amount of time thinking about how visualization tools can help encourage people to improve their health by...

Leaders Make the Future Audiobook

Bob Johansen's book Leaders Make the Future is now available as an audiobook through audible.com. You can purchase the audiobook...

Biological Explanations of Everything

Miller McCune highlights a recent study suggesting that there may be some genetic basis for the intensity of a person's political...

Accepting Virtual House Calls

I usually try to avoid blogging about stories from the mainstream press, but this headline—"The Virtual Visit May Expand Access to Doctors"—in the New...

Gearing up for the Smart Brains Summit: An Interview with Michael Merzenich

Dr. Michael Merzenich, a pioneer in brain plasticity and co-founder of Posit Science, was a keynote speaker at our HC2020 Fall Conference.  He...

Designing for Self-Control

Via the Nudge Blog, I was reminded of a computer program called Self Control that allows a user to block his own access to email, Twitter and Facebook...

Designing the future of health care . . . or is it really about designing the future of health?

At IFTF, the Health Horizons Program is spending time looking at the latter and considering how design thinking may apply to the future of health. ...