Hitachi
How will changes in our world impact our inclination to trust?
Meet Hitachi
Hitachi is a highly diversified company that operates in eleven business segments with 300K employees. The project was sponsored by the Vision Design team at the Center for Social Innovation Tokyo, a team that sits independently within the Research & Development Group at Hitachi. Their role is to inspire R&D departments internally and also to increase opportunities for discussion with partners outside Hitachi.
Challenge
Method was commissioned by Hitachi’s Global Center for Social Innovation to explore the future of trust. The motivation was to understand trust within society today and how changes in our world will impact our inclination to trust in the future. Part of the challenge was to work with such an open-ended brief and tailor the best approach to deliver valuable outcomes to various business units in a large organisation. For the design team, the challenge was to communicate abstract concepts in a memorable and useful way to a diverse audience.
Achievements
We created a series of objects that future societies will use in hypothetical scenarios, which formed the output of the project. We proved the value of making and designing as a means of communicating abstract concepts. Our work has established a framework for rich future scenarios which Hitachi continues to explore in their ongoing speculative design work. Furthermore, the outcomes challenge and inspire the Research & Development teams to generate new and unexpected ideas.
Read more at www.Trust2030.com
Service
- Future Business Vision
Duration
3 Months
Capabilities
- Product Design
- Prototyping
- Research & Insights
- Speculative Design
Location
- London
- Tokyo
Insights through futurecasting
Hitachi started their own research around the future of trust and commissioned Method as a co-creation partner to lend a Western perspective to the topic. The process was collaborative, with the Method team guiding a structured methodology for moving from research to insights through to the creation of the speculative design.
Our process involved:
- Gathering Insights via trend research and talking to subject matter experts
- Creating future narratives based on hypothetical events to occur in 2030
- Creating a series of objects to support these narratives and exhibit them
Speculative Design
We envisioned three speculative societies and their three parallel future scenarios for the year 2030. Each with its own unique timeline shaped by a different hypothetical series of events. These events and the future outcomes they affect were based on insights gathered during a rigorous research phase in which the team interviewed subject matter experts globally, across a wide range of professions.
2030 Society One: Decentralized and Transparent
Does increased transparency of information lead to higher levels of trust in society?
A major data leak exposing a gross Human Rights violation by a public official forces the government to create a transparent, data-driven society. Information we used to think of as private is now shared openly by organizations and individuals alike. All areas of our lives are fully transparent: we can access health records online, research what is in our food and find out how much our colleagues earn. Citizens put trust in big institutions because they believe the full transparency movement keeps them accountable and makes products and services more predictable.
2030 Society Two:
Would you put all of your trust in one company in exchange for the convenience of fully personalized products and services?
A series of government data leaks shatters the trust citizens had once put into their elected leaders. Big businesses see an opportunity to provide people with the security they crave. Citizens decide to choose one corporation to take care of all their daily needs, from food to entertainment. In exchange for their personal data, consumers get to benefit from fully personalized products. Prices fall and services become more streamlined, making life for the average person more efficient. In this society, brand loyalty and trust is at an all-time high.
2030 Society Three: Distributed & Autonomous
Would you give up modern-day conveniences and take responsibility for all aspects of your life to guarantee your personal security?
Once a series of data leaks expose the shaky foundation on which the current government had been built, citizens quickly lose faith in all public institutions, including banks. A major financial crisis follows and forces people to reorganize society completely. Small communities begin to form who provide their own currency and power, allowing them to exist completely independently. By reverting to physical security systems, data hacks are no longer an issue. Self-reliance trumps trust in this society.
Physical artifacts facilitate meaningful discussions
The three speculative 2030 societies were brought to life through collections of objects that citizens would use on a day to day basis. Each object tells its own story about life in 2030, and in combination, they paint a richer vision of these future scenarios. By focusing on the objects, we were able to imply various facets of future scenarios whilst leaving some questions unanswered and open to debate.
The choice of objects themselves was strategic to create talking points relevant to Hitachi’s business units. This allows the client to instigate conversations across a wide range of industries, focusing on the future of trust within the energy sector or healthcare for example.
