I’m coordinator of Semiofest’s series of informal online “sessions.” These events are intended not only to share best practices among, but to nurture collegiality and friendship within the global semio community.

Coming up on August 13 (at 2 pm UK time)…

FUTURING

Marketers abide by the iron law of relevance – their brands or products should NOT become irrelevant to consumers by becoming outdated. Conversely, marketers can lead consumers into the future or make disruptive moves. With these intentions in mind, marketers ask Semioticians and other culture researchers to give them a future forward view of culture and its potential impact on their category, brand or their consumer.

In this Session, a panel of four who have experience with various approaches to Futures Thinking will share their insights and draw out their experience of these approaches.

Get tickets (suggested donations only) at the link above.

Our sessionists:

• GEMMA JONES is an Amsterdam based researcher and strategist specializing in semiotics, cultural insight and futures thinking. Her work explores the connections between people and their bodies, habitats, communities and planet. She works with designers and communicators to create experiences and strategies with imagination, cultural resonance and bravery. In the decade following her masters in Culture and Creative Industries at Kings College, Gemma was an Associate Director at semiotics consultancy Space Doctors and has spent the past few years working as an independent consultant. She has worked on innovation, brand strategy, place making and design projects with organizations including Microsoft, United Nations, Uber, Diageo and HB Reavis. She guest lectures a course on critical research methods for design on MA Strategic Design HFG Schwabisch Gmund. She is a co-founder of the School of Critical Design, a forum for exploring and teaching experimental methods for design and business to address critical social and environmental issues.

• MALEX SALAMANQUES is a British – Venezuelan designer, semiotician & creative strategist centering her practice at the intersection of semiotics & cultural insight, design and speculative futures. Malex has been over 20 years practising and teaching design, and over a decade working in commercial semiotics. She has specialised in the intersection of design and semiotics, and pioneered Design Semiotics frameworks and methodologies specifically to help brands internationally and across a wide range of categories (including household, luxury, skin care, feminine and health care, food, confectionery and beverages) to optimise communications across touch-points and inform all aspects of creative execution, from visual and graphics identity development and NPD for products, experiences and services. More recently she has helped disruptive Latam business to conceptualise and develop meaningful brands and services that are changing the landscape in their categories including hospitality, food retail and health care. She is interested in exploring ways in which Critical and Speculative Design Practices can help to imagine alternative visions & narratives of decolonised futures for Latin America.

• TIM STOCK is obsessed with how subculture drives meaning in society which plays out in how he develops methodologies to get under the surface of how stories emerge in culture. He is the co-founder of scenarioDNA, a strategic foresight consultancy that leverages social science, anthropology, and machine learning to advise global clients on cultural trends with a systems-thinking approach to innovation. Tim is the co-inventor of a patented methodology of Culture Mapping that analyses patterns in culture using computational linguistics to visualize trend narratives and forecasts. Clients include BTF Media, Danone, IKEA, Nike, Hilton Worldwide, KEF Acoustics, and Honda. Tim is also an Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design where he teaches courses in trend analysis and design strategy. Tim is a frequent speaker on culture and innovation and has appeared in various publications such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, L’Uomo Vogue, USA Today and Quartz.

Session host: HAMSINI SHIVAKUMAR is a veteran of the research, communications and brand strategy space in India. In her 30+ year career, she has experience with Quantitative and Qualitative research. She was the head of Strategy Planning at JWT Mumbai before she started her own brand consultancy firm, Leapfrog Strategy Consulting in 2008. She has trained in the Scenario Planning Methodology, with GBN, the California based futures company. In the past 10 years, she has deepened her experience and knowledge as an applied Semiotician, also by co-founding Semiofest. She has tried a wide range of methods and approaches to foresight and culture change – Scenario Planning, Mega Trends, reading Cultural History to develop a framework for culture change which was presented at the Semiotics Congress at Buenos Aires and interrogating culture as a source of permission/prohibition for consumer behaviour. She has done foresight work for Clients such as Nokia, Pernod-Ricard, Renault, Baccarose and Godrej and includes some dimension of anticipatory thinking in her brand strategy work. She teaches applied semiotics at India’s top communications schools to master’s degree students.

SEMIOFEST SESSIONS: R/D/E | BINARIES | SEMIOTICS & UX | BODY SEMIOTICS | AI & SEMIOTICS | SEMIOTICS & CINEMA | FICTIONAL DECODERS | ON COLOUR | & more.

Also see these international semio series: COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | MAKING SENSE | COLOR CODEX | DECODER | CASE FILE