Postcards from the Future

To spark imagination and open up a futures mindset in a low-pressure, engaging way. Helps participants begin to explore possible futures from a personal perspective. 

1. Invite participants to imagine they are living in a future. This might be 5, 10, or even 20 years from now. The exact time horizon can be adjusted to fit your workshop.
2. Ask them to write a postcard to someone in the present day, describing a moment from their day in this future. Encourage sensory details: what they see, hear, do, or feel. If time allows, offer time to design the postcards - adding an image, a collage, colours etc.
3. If helpful, you can prompt with a few questions: Where are you? What’s different? What’s surprising?
4. After writing, invite participants to share their postcards in pairs or small groups.
5. Optionally, gather a few examples with the whole group to notice themes, surprises, or patterns. Use these to segue into your workshop.

Facilitation tips

• Providing a focal point for the exercise to help guide participants in their thinking. Is your purpose to envision a business future, innovate by getting ideas from possible futures, explore risks and opportunities, imagine sustainable futures? As with most facilitation, the initial positioning is key.
• Communicate that there’s no “right” future to imagine. Allow participants to be optimistic, critical, playful, or reflective. This ensures a diversity of perspectives.
• Consider assigning personas to prompt insights for a specific group of people.
• Some may focus on big shifts; others on personal experiences. Both are valid and valuable.
• You can vary the tone by adjusting the prompt: “Imagine a desirable future…” or “a future where one big challenge has been solved…”

This method is widely used in futures and design workshops as a light, narrative entry point into thinking about change over time.