Releasing the future from the shackles of the past

In this week’s podcast Guy Foster, Head of Research, talks to Dave Bujowski about the impact of COVID on the future for different markets. In doing so Dave draws on a case study and structure proposed by Clay Shirky a decade ago which seems to inform us about the future through a better understanding of how the past led us to the present. This approach argues against product markets as a series of fine-tuned innovations but rather a series of accumulated accidents. We question how can we understand the disruptions industries will face if without knowing what problem they were aiming to solve? Is that problem the same now? And what institutions protect the current way of doing things? How does COVID change that approach? And of course, which innovations does this approach suggest are here to stay?