In this video, I'll show you how to use the second deck of cards in the Toolkit for Transformation. This is the Innovations for the Future Deck, and let me show you an example of an Innovation for the Future card. This card describes a new kind of bank called Fitness Bank. Fitness Bank is a division of Georgia's Newton Federal Bank that focuses solely on Fitness Savings Accounts. The earned interest rates on these accounts are based on customers' meeting their daily step goals. The higher their step goals, the higher the earned interest. A step tracker is used to monitor steps. The Fitness Bank marries lifestyle and financial goals, encouraging customers to improve their health while building wealth. Each of the innovation cards asked you to imagine what the world might be like if this small example of innovation became commonplace and widespread. For example, as you see here, what does the world look like if other healthy lifestyle behaviors generate income? That's the fun thing to think about, and actually, if I had a Fitness Bank account, I would have a very high savings rate today, over 10,000 steps, gotta look into that. [LAUGH] Now, the Innovation for the Future Deck is my favorite deck of cards. I mean, who doesn't love a good signal of change? So let's take a look at another example of a card from this deck. This card describes a new kind of money. When COVID-19 shut businesses down in Tenino, Washington, causing the local economy to collapse, the town decided to print its own currency as wooden dollars. Building on this Depression Era strategy, it distributed the dollars to local families in need, who could then use them for buying goods and services, supporting the local economy. Printing its own dollars on wood, instead of handing out $300 checks to families, keeps the money local, assuring that local businesses as well as families benefit, and creates a sustainable circular economy. What does the world look like if local currencies scale up to reinvest in local economies across the country? Let's look at one more, this card describes a signal of change and innovation for the future of education. New Jersey has become the first United States state to require that kindergarten through 12th grade schools include climate change science in their curricula. Climate change lessons are to be incorporated in seven subject areas. Science, social studies, technology, health and physical education, visual and performing arts, world languages, and 21st-century life. The state hopes that the new curriculum will prepare the next generation of Americans with an understanding of climate change, as well as the knowledge and will to combat it. What does the world look like if climate change curricula are scaled up in K-12 classrooms across all 50 states, what about the world? As you can see, each card in this deck gives you an example of a real-world experiment, a new business or project or policy. Some idea that's being tried right now to disrupt the historical patterns from the past that contributed to the severity of the pandemic, and that will contribute to future risks and crises. So each of these cards is a signal of change. It's a clue to how the future could be different, a clue to how we might want to actively make the future different. Just like the first deck, each of the innovation cards is also tagged and color-coded to one of the deeper diseases. This can help you match Innovations for the Future with Patterns from the Past. So you can find examples from this deck that are linked to whatever you chose from deck number one, whatever patterns you put on your top three Patterns from the Past list what can you do with this Innovations deck? Well, once you've got your group of 2, or 10, or 20, or 200 together, then you can start to play, like this. Once you've got your group together, your conversation goal is to answer this question. What's happening in the world right now that is exciting, and gives you hope for the future? That's a good question, I like that question. Here's how the game play works. First, put at least 10 cards into play. You can deal them randomly, or have people quickly pick their own, just whatever jumps out at them. Now that you've got some cards in play, talk about them. Here's some recommended questions to ask about each innovation. You may recognize these as the questions to ask about any signal of change, when you want to analyze it. What kind of change does this innovation represent, from what-to-what? What do you think the world would be like if this innovation were common and widespread? Is this a world you'd like to live in? Now that your group has some practice discussing innovations for the future, it's time to collect some more. This is a chance for you to bring in some more examples of innovations that are specific to each person's interest, to their work, or to their community. So it's time to get ready for a signals of change scavenger hunt. Send everyone off for a few minutes to do a quick Web, news, social media or image search for more innovations for the future. Here are the search terms I suggest. Future of X, which would be any topic you're interested in, like future of restaurants, future of workplaces, future of hospitals, future of shoes. You can also try this, search for COVID-19 and words like solution, experiment, strategy, pilot, innovation, alongside with whatever your future topic is. For example, one of my favorite signal searches is COVID-19 gaming experiment. This is a search I've been using all year to find new signals of change. And there's always something new and interesting popping up, for example, take a look. Interesting, right, lots of good signals here. And in fact, I just did my own personal signal scavenger hunt. And I found something amazing that I had never seen before, let me show you. The search term I used was pandemic restaurants long-term strategy. And I found this story in the New York Times about restaurants finding a new revenue source, feeding the hungry. What began as an emergency measure in the pandemic's early days has turned into a long-term business plan that could help many kitchens keep running. And it turns out that restaurants who didn't have customers to create food for, they started working with nonprofits and foundations who normally provide meals to people who are food-insecure. And restaurants switched from serving their typical customers to creating meals for people being benefited by these organizations. And it's such a sustainable revenue source, they could count on it. It's a kind of order you can plan for and rely on, it's regular. Not at all like typical restaurant revenue, which can be really contingent, and you can never really plan or predict. So this is amazing, I mean, I'm just so excited to imagine that in the future, maybe half of restaurant business would be feeding the hungry, and not just people who come to the restaurant. So this is actually really easy, just to go out and find some innovations for the future. It can take as little as just five to ten minutes for everyone to go off and find one thing that they're excited about, to bring back to the group to share. And then it's time to bring it all home. Finally, as a group, discuss which innovations make you feel the most excited and hopeful for life after COVID-19. There's no need to come to a consensus. When everyone is excited about at least one innovation, that's a win. That's the basic Innovations for the Future game play. And I have to tell you, I get really fired up whenever I play with this deck. I mean, you can probably see it right now, I'm so excited. Nothing energizes me more than looking at all of the amazing, creative, daring ideas that people are actually out there, in the real world, trying right now to make our COVID-19 post-pandemic reality better. This just gives me so much energy and hope for the future. And there are lots of more suggestions in the full Toolkit for Transformation for different ways to play with this deck. So again, I encourage you to download the full toolkit and look through the guide. And you'll find other ways that you can energize people with these Innovations for the Future. One more tip, as you know, there's an index for each deck at the end of the toolkit. You can see the innovations index here. The index lists each card's idea and card number, and it's organized by the seven deeper diseases. So you can use this index to jump to a particular innovation card, or just quickly scan the list for ideas that jump out at you, and then go pull that card from the deck. So now you know how to use deck number two, Innovations for the Future. In the next video, we'll talk about how to play with deck number three, Actions for Transformation. [MUSIC]
