The future has come and gone, and you missed it. While you were looking for Star Trek or Star Wars or wishing on a star, everything changed. Worldwide pandemics. Financial crashes. Cybercrime. Add whatever drives your own anxiety to the list. The future isn’t what it used to be. Our boundaries used to protect us. Nation states. Institutions. Traditions. They were stable and reliable. But not anymore. There is a new reality and a new world of work.  What does it all mean? What do we do now?

There is no data on the future. The biggest barrier to moving forward is getting stuck in the planning cycle. You know, the meeting about the meeting. The report about the report. Seeing the future first is hard because it starts with thinking differently about the present.

Professor Jeff DeGraff has been at the forefront of some of the most significant and subtle changes and innovations of the past thirty years. Called the “Dean of Innovation” because of his influence on the field, he has advised hundreds of Fortune 500 companies how to look beyond the obvious—technology, science, and the usual utopian and dystopian prattle.

His talk is about using a creative mindset to spot incongruities and anomalies that are happening today, and how they can help you recognize emerging opportunities and act upon them.

Jeff DeGraff is Clinical Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the co-founder of the Innovatrium Institute for Innovation, a Haworth partnership. Jeff is a well-known speaker with a mission of democratizing innovation, making it possible for everyone, everywhere to make innovation happen. He has consulted with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, including Proctor and Gamble, Coca-Cola, Google, Prudential, and Mercedes-Benz, just to name a few. His research and practice interests focus on how leaders develop successful innovation cultures, competencies, and communities. Jeff is an author of several books and hundreds of articles published in places like Inc., Wired, and Fortune. Dr. DeGraff is one of the original 25 LinkedIn Influencers and created the first innovation channel on Big Think. His national Public TV program Innovation You, introduced his ideas across America. His NPR program, The Next Idea, encouraged and empowered individuals to innovate in their every-day life. He is the author of several books, including bestseller The Innovation Code, co-authored with his wife, Staney DeGraff. Their new book, The Creative Mindset: Six Steps to Empowering Innovation will be published in September 2020. His simultaneously creative and pragmatic approach to creating scalable and sustainable innovation ecosystems has led clients and colleagues to dub him the “Dean of Innovation.”

Haworth Connect: New World of Work with Jeff DeGraff