What's Next Is Now by Frederik Pferdt

WHAT'S NEXT IS NOW by Frederik Pferdt, Google’s first Chief Innovation Evangelist, describes “How to Live Future Ready.” Pferdt, who taught at Stanford for a decade, outlines five key points: make your future happen; your mindset is critical; learn to expect the unexpected; pursue better (progress, not perfection); and check in with yourself regularly (i.e, what future do I want to create?).  After briefly introducing about a dozen “future ready” people (mostly colleagues from Google), Pferdt stresses values like optimism, openness, curiosity, experimentation, and empathy and offers exercises to practice and develop those habits. His “work is entirely focused on the future -- how to see potential and solve challenges in situations we haven't yet encountered.” This is an inspirational text and might make more sense to read as a team, reinforcing each other and re-emphasizing the hard work of shifting mindsets so as to adhere to the “belief that change is constructive, not a threat.” What fun, for example, to explore and play together with Google’s Arts and Culture resources. WHAT'S NEXT IS NOW is a 2024 Next Big Idea Club selection.  Pferdt’s emphasis on “future ready” made me think about the ALA program with that title from a few years ago.