Design and Innovation as Co-creating and Co-becoming with the Future

Our world has changed radically over the last several decades. Almost every domain of our lives is affected by disruptions in technology—our economy, culture, and education, as well as social lives. We are living in an environment that is characterized by high levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (“VUCA world”). These changes bring about completely new challenges on an individual, an organizational, and a global level. Whereas classical approaches to design and innovation are based on the assumption that we can “solve” these challenges by applying techniques and methods of “problem solving,” of (social) collaboration, co-creation, or co-design, this paper challenges this “classical” understanding of “together” and “co-.”

We will develop and take a closer look at three forms of “together” and “co-,” investigating the relationship between the designer/innovator, his or her material and environment, and the involved stakeholders and their being embedded in ecosystems, as well as the future he or she is designing for: (a) being/working together and collaborating with others (socio-epistemic dimension); (b) being together, interacting and corresponding with the material/world (co-becoming dimension); and (c) being together and co-developing with the future as “learning from the future as it emerges.”

It will be shown how these forms of together are related to design and innovation, and we will develop implications concerning new skills and mind-sets.