The Children's Book of the Future with Richard Watson

Welcome back to the Future of You! Season four kicks off with an insightful conversation with renowned futurist Richard Watson. 

This episode delves into the inspiration behind and creation of his latest work, "The Children's Book of the Future," a beautifully illustrated book designed to fill children with optimism and imagination about the future. 

Richard shares the creative process behind the book, the importance of optimism and the challenges of writing for young minds in a world often filled with gloom. Join us as we explore the optimistic visions of tomorrow and the role of futurism in shaping young minds.

Richard is an author, speaker and thinker! Find his work at nowandnext.com

Get your copy of The Children’s Book of the Future at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Childrens-Book-Future-Lavie-Tidhar/dp/0241647479

Tracey's book 'The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st Century Technology?' available in the UK (https://bit.ly/44ObTha) and US (https://bit.ly/3OlDxgk)

The Future of You was named Best Technology Podcast at the Independent Podcast Awards 2023.

Find Tracey at https://www.futuremade.group/abouttracey

Explore more on The Future of You at https://www.futuremade.group/the-future-of-you

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome back to the Future View. We've been away a while, but I'm pleased to say that Cassipul is now underway with this episode being the first of the new series. Regular listeners know that up until now I've been chatting with incredibly interesting guests from around the world in academia, politics, futurology, technology, sociology, and a whole lot more. And the topic has always been the effect of technology on assets itself. As I always say, we have three dimensions to itself: the psychology of itself, the biology of itself, and now the technology of itself. And it's this novel dimension that is the bit that we explore here. Well, in this data, it will have an even greater focus on AI, particularly as it's the technology that seems to be accelerating lots of the emergent world around identity, in education, in health, and even at work. So AI agents, longevity science, synthetic media and music, digital verification, and even weapons, personally targeted disruption. It's all on the agenda in forthcoming experience. But today, I talked with the brilliant which it is a very complex feature, well-known very spectacular creative aspect of the stuff that he's been publishing for years on nowinc. It's the author of six books that have all sorts of aspects of the future, including one about the scenario projects. And his latest book, which is in the Joe Night, is the beautifully written and illustrated The Children's Book of the Future, a very important tool to keep anxiety and make our youngest and brightest generation at bay and instead fill them with imagination and joy. So let's hear from Richard about why and how he wrote about the future for children.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

In other words, you know, you get kids to write the actual book and illustrate the actual book. But we settled on a book about the future for youngish children, youngish being about seven to ten, eleven. And Levi and I well, we disagree about where the idea came from exactly, or even when. I mean, I maintain it was a slightly boozy lunch at Sheiki's in London's Theatre Land, where he had a tower of seafood and got a little bit ill, and I had most of a bottle of wine and felt a bit woozy. Um he says we had the idea before that, and we used a lunch to refine it. But anyway, um we came up with the idea or refined the idea over lunch, and within about two weeks we had a book contract, which was pretty good, and it was relatively easy to write as well. And it was inspired to some extent by those books you got in the sort of 70s, 80s, the sort of books of how and why and the wonder book of the future and all those, us born up to a point. We felt there was a real need in the market for a book for kids that was sort of about universal optimism, positive futures, wonderful futures. You know, everything's gone a bit gloomy, particularly for younger kids. You know, they they got homeschooled, you know, had the pandemic, climate change, we've got various wars going on, all sorts of sort of bad news. And we felt that it was time for some good news. So get rid of all the negative stuff, don't even talk about that, and just focus on stuff that's fantastic now, and in particular stuff that's gonna be fantastic in the future. And the illustration brief, for example, was California in the 1970s, so it's sort of blue sky and sun, and I suppose harks back to the likes of Star Trek. I mean, most sci-fi has gone very dystopian, or you could argue has always been fairly dystopian, but there is the odd bit of utopian sci-fi, and we wanted to sort of tap into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask you about the aesthetic because it is a very, very beautiful book, and it is very well, it is very uplifting, even as an adult to read it, you know, it it is uplifting. So, but but why do you think we were so optimistic or we had an optimistic aesthetic in the 70s or 60s, 70s, but not now? What what is it?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Well, I don't know about Britain. I mean, America, I think, was obviously to do with their ascendancy uh or consolidation as a world power. Um, their economy was booming. We had, you know, the space mission landing on the moon, um, all that kind of stuff, and everything was was going terribly well. I mean, Britain wasn't wasn't quite the same, you know, even demographically, the US is different. I don't know why. I don't know. Beyond that, I just don't know. I mean, when was when was Britain last hugely optimistic? I mean, the 70s, that's not 70s, sorry, the 60s, I guess, was the was a time coming out of the bleakness of the 50s. Um, the 70s was sort of, you know, industrial strife to some extent. I mean, maybe the 80s, but not for everybody. It's not really in the in the British psyche to be sort of that sort of gung-ho optimistic, is it? That's more of an American thing. Although you also, I think, I mean, I've done enough workshops around the world where, you know, they're very optimistic in China, um, in India, and younger people that certainly younger people are very optimistic as well. I know plenty of very bright young things around London who think the future's absolutely brilliant, but there is definitely a slice of um the population out there that doesn't think that. I mean, I think anxiety was the children's word of the year in 22, I think it was, or it might have been 23, I think it was 2022. And just, you know, just look at the the statistics around health and depression and loneliness. And a lot of the blame here, I guess, could be pointed at social media, but not not entirely. Just trying to readdress that.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I love that. Actually, I was gonna ask you about whether you researched or not focus grouped it, but did you show it to some some kids as it was in development and what were their thoughts if you did?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Uh not really. I think LeVie showed it to his kid, and I sort of mentioned the contents to a couple of others, but not in any any kind of serious way at all. I say it was it was extraordinarily easy to write, it just sort of fell out of our heads in terms of the contents. I mean, we played around with the contents a little bit, and and you know, we took out stuff that, you know, I don't want to read about the future of war in this book or sorting out climate change. Let's just take it as a given that we've sorted that out or learnt to adapt, etc. I mean, kids have since seen it, so we we know what the reaction is, but no, at the time it was more or less just done as a brain download.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So, what what has the reaction been then with kids? What they said?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

People love it. I mean, it's again, it's that optimism, I think, is is tapping into as much with the parents as the kids, I have to say. The optimism, as you say, it's got this sort of, I mean the illustrator is is Spanish and she's absolutely nailed it in terms of that sort of optimistic, bright look. Um, and I've I've got quite a collection of of books for kids about the future from the in the past from the past, if you like. And they they don't even those, even the ones in the sort of 80s, which were a reasonably optimistic time, don't don't have that. It's just the colours. I think it's she's just nailed the colours.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I think it is the colours, but it's also the way she's drawn the kids in this. You know, there's that aesthetic at the moment to to draw humans and and kids and people without faces, like they're some sort of like weird, anonymous thing, and they've got a lot of character in them, these, haven't they? Even though it's kind of very global, very representative, they've got their own, you can see they've got personality, they're happy.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

You remind me, we've just they've just sold the rights to China, so there's a Chinese edition coming out. Um, and and that was always the intention to some extent. I mean, we we deliberately designed it to appeal universally and not just sort of white British kids or anything. So that's that sort of hit the mark a bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Did the Chinese ask for anything to be taken out?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Not that I'm aware of, but I don't think there's anything in there that they'd object to.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah. I I was asked to take out the hot a whole chapter than my book, so I didn't do it. So tell me, so we've got part one, the earth, then we've got life on land and sea, welcome to the solar system, and then the far future. Which is your favorite chapter?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Oh, I'd probably go far future. I mean, yeah, it starts sort of 50 years into the future or something. I mean, within the lifetime of an eight-year-old, 10-year-old, you get into that pretty easily, and then it then it gets quite sci-fi quite quickly. Probably from the second half, it gets very sci-fi. And you know, Levine writes science fiction, so that's hardly surprising. And I I I've had, I wouldn't say conflict in the past, but we've had fun disagreements because we went to a a workshop once looking at 2047 for the government. I found that quite easy, and he found it absolutely impossible because he's he's used to dealing sort of 200, 500 years into the future. He can't deal with 30, um, which was pretty funny. And again, it's we've bypassed some of the sort of problematic areas and gone straight into sort of you know trains on Mars and all the rest of it. So the imagination has sort of taken flight. I'm not sure I have a favorite as such. It's probably the space stuff, though, to be honest. I mean, I like the bit about aliens is good, the bit about robots is gonna be popular. I mean, it always is. I don't think we put dinosaurs in it, funnily enough, although we've got some creatures that we've sort of reintroduced from from thousands of years ago are back in there. So there's some pretty marvels of science and all that kind of stuff. And he was broadly responsible for doing the stories. I was broadly responsible for sort of doing the how and why and the sort of sciencey bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Um, it's gonna ask you how you work together on it, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

We jointly created the contents, bouncing it between us, agreed on that, then he wrote the what you call the vignettes, the little stories, and I would do the sort of did you know or fantastic fact or you know, the the science explanation box. The one thing that didn't make it, unfortunately, I had a section in there called future homework with each story, which so if you're talking about floating cities, there is instructions to how to build one in your bath. Although I'm I think we're gonna get it back online because of um teacher notes, or you can use it for sort of summer holiday, you know, avoid bored and build a build a future city in the bath. So I think we're gonna get it's all written, so we're gonna we're gonna sort of put that online.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It's very, very different, obviously, to what kids are doing on Roblox, where they are imagining and they are world-building and all of that, but obviously it's taking place in a in a different space that's not in their reality, where this book is actually in their reality, isn't it? And it's kind of shareable in a different way. Do you see the Yeah, it's quite old school.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I mean, it's old school, it's old school futures.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And do you think kids need to go back to a bit more old school, a bit more paper, a bit more literacy?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Don't get me started on that. Yes, always. I mean, I've always been I mean, it's not binary, I don't think anything's bad, but I I think the balance has tilted too much towards the digital and the virtual, and it's pretty clear to me with the research that's now around that that you know it's it's certainly with education, kill kids learn better on paper. And now that doesn't mean you can't use digital or screens, but it works in a different way. It's a fundamentally different technology paper than pixels. I mean, there's a little bit of nostalgia kicking in with the parents, I guess. And I've seen quite a lot of weak signals about um, in fact, there's a rather bizarrely, I was talking to somebody yesterday, there's a new Bugatti come out and it's all gone sort of analog. They've not got any screens in it, and it's normally aspirated petrol engine. It's quite bizarre, although I don't think that's a weak signal at all. But we are beginning to see some interesting developments. And also, you know, books never paper books never went away. I mean, there is an audio version of this book, and I think there's an e-version. I'm pretty certain there's an e-book as well. I mean, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? But um, again, it it sort of taps into that sort of paleo future type of aesthetic. So it it works particularly well on paper.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

What about Upgraded Aunt? She's a good one, she's a good character in it.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, oh, we had some fun. I mean, we we actually I'll tell you my favourite one. I was just thinking there about the glow-in-the-dark popcorn, um, Andy Floss. No, my the the f the one I I love, which was uh an idea of mine which Levy actually accepted, most of my ideas got thrown in the dustbin, but the one where there's the old robots home and and the old robots are looked after people. So you've completely flipped the the current situation, and you reminded me of that because of upgraded aunt with with you know robots and care rolls and all the rest of it. So we had we definitely had a bit of fun with it.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So where do you go after after this? You you've you mentioned a couple of other ideas or spin-offs. Are you gonna make this into I don't know, little show? Can you do something with Netflix? Where's it gonna go as a content series? Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Um well we we'd like to do volume two because we've got a lot a lot more ideas. There are people sniffing around T V land already, so we might there might be, I mean, it's a vague possibility, but there might possibly be an animated series. I mean, we've got the characters. I mean, the only thing that's sort of lacking in the book is we don't have characters flowing through the entire book. There's different characters in different futures, if you like. But that that could be sorted out pretty much. I quite like that though. I would personally quite like to do horrible futures. Um I would like, you know, AI runs a mock, you know, quantum computing is, you know, I can imagine we we could have quite a lot of fun in the sort of horrible histories kind of sense, but for much older children, the sort of cynical generation. But no, I think I think we could we could squeeze out two or three more of the positive ones, and it's crying out for animation to me. Little shorts, and again, you know, universal optimism and ease in different languages. There is an example of something from the 70s that was animated shorts that were all about the future, and I completely I think it was French, but yeah, it's it's a bit of a natural for that.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

You must have had quite a lot of fun actually looking back and researching all the ways in which we thought about the future from the past and the way it's presented. What do you think the biggest insights are from that?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

The big mistake they make, which everybody makes, is it's all linear. So you you take the present day and you project it forward, and that is usually a recipe for disaster. The Osborne book of the future from to about 1980. I really like that one because they gave you a, for example, with the future of cities, there was the utopian version and there was the dystopian version. They gave you two spreads, you know, green city and smoggy, filthy one. And I I really like that as a way of dealing with the future. There's a lovely book about it, it was sort of the year 2000, written from the perspective of 1970, which is spookily accurate, actually. I mean, they've got you know online shopping, electric delivery trucks, you know, working from home. It's all in there. The the funny mistake they make is that all of the fashion from the 70s is projected straight into 2000. So everyone's wearing afro's and there's got wearing jumpsuits, um, which is pretty funny. But yeah, it's it's that sort of linearity of of just assuming that you know TVs are going to get smaller and they'll be on your wrist. Well, they kind of are, but nobody's using them. They've got actually got bigger. So it's pretty hysterical. It's a it's a lovely thing to collect actually old books. And I've got, I mean, I've got the kids selection, old books about the future for kids, and then there's the you know, the general science fiction stuff about aspects of the future, going back to you know, going back more than a hundred years. So that's that's good to look at as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah, I like some of the films as well. I mean, they're not for kids, but um like the old ATT. Oh, I think I showed it actually when we were at a presentation together, the ATT film where back in the late 60s they're talking about the office of the future and you know, the tech the technology's not too bad, but as you say, it's like the social situation. There aren't any women in it, for example, there's no women in the office, and so it's like the social change gets missed, even though you can perhaps more clearly sort of forecast the technology. Do you think your book and the way in which you're approaching this is going to encourage more kids to be futurologists, even if it's not their career, just to think like futurologists. Yeah, I hope so.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I mean, I've had quite a lot of tea. I mean, I've done a few school talks now, including actually the best one was I went back to my primary school and it was explained to the kids that I was at the primary school 50 years ago. And the first quick hand shoots up, Mr. Watson, you're at this school 50 years ago, why are you still alive? Which was just classic. Oh my god. And I lied, I said it was exercise and diet. The teachers are always, oh, I didn't know you could do that. And I'm I'm sure that must, you know, by osmosis seep into kids' brains. I mean, I think at the moment there's a bit of a trend away, funnily enough, from futurism. I think it's interesting it's being rebranded as as foresight and anticipatory studies and all that sort of thing. I think it's also got incredibly difficult to do because it's got so sort of volatile, but I I think it's it's nice to suggest that there is something out there where you can you can do this kind of thing. I haven't had any really young kids talking about that, but I've I've had plenty of sort of late teenagers go, oh wow, how can I find out more about this? We're quite bad in the UK because I think in in Melbourne there's courses in Texas and Hawaii, there are courses. I don't I'm not I don't know about you, but I'm not aware of any courses in in future studies in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

There used to be some in Manchester, and there is one sort of strategic foresight within an MBA type leadership management thing in Edinburgh. So I think it gets wrapped up into sort of business administration or something else. There's I I don't think that there are any courses in the UK that have sort of imagination and creativity at the heart of futures. And I think that is a problem, but also speaks to the insight that you were talking about about the culture in the UK at the minute. But I think there are some solutions to that. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people with foresight and futures in their titles now, but they tend to be doing something that's a bit more like kind of forecasting or planning, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

You've reminded me actually that I mean the other thing about the old books about the future, and it's still true today, is that it's all right, this is what the future's gonna look like, with with hardly any dispute, doubt, or conversation. And then you get you get the odd one that's well, it might go this, it might go that, which is rare. And what we're we're trying to tap into is the idea that you know, this classic it is unwritten. You can have the future any flavor you like, it's up to you, and you can't control everything, but if you get involved, you know, you can actually create a future you like, and if the future shows up that you don't like, you can still change it. That's that's the sort of the for me anyway, that's the absolutely critical thought of think about what you want and then try and build it, which is a very positive message for kids.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, I could I couldn't agree more. Well, it's an amazing book. Is there anything else you would like to say about it? Any other messages around it? Obviously, we need to tell people where they can get it.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Well, you can get it from everywhere. Um, God bless Am. You know, it's uh it's it's everywhere. I mean, it's published by Dorland Kinders Lee, so it's it's uh Penguin Random House, so it's online, it's absolutely flipping everywhere. I mean, it's a bit early days yet, so it's I mean, I know they've got it at Forbidden Planet. Um, I've yet to go into a big water stone, but it's only I mean it's only been out about seven, ten days. But it's in theory, you could certainly order it from any good bookshop, including some bad ones. And um anywhere, anywhere online, I've yet to listen to the audio version. I'm intrigued to know what what that's gonna be like. I've I've got a feeling we've got an actress as the narrator.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Should be Judith Hannah, shouldn't it? Tomorrow as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yes, yeah, actually, she would be good. Yeah, say it's it's very, very early days, but I'm I'm hoping it's got pretty wide distribution. But it's you know, these days you can get get hold of pretty much anything. If any kids are listening or any parents of kids and they think we've missed something, you know, there is this possibility of a volume two, and send your suggestions in and we'll see what we can do.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Brilliant. I mean, I just think it's fantastic. Congratulations on it. Because A, it's a great idea, but B, it's been executed just uh perfectly and beautifully. And I'm sure once kids start getting their hands on it even more, there's going to be loads of suggestions. They'll want you to do loads of versions and uh and new scenarios.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Oh, you've reminded me what the other funny thing that happened with this school talk when they asked me why I was still alive. There's a little story in there about mining the asteroid. So I took a bit of meteorite along, as you do to a primary school, and um they were all sort of holding it, going, Whoa, it's so heavy. And then it it disappeared, and somebody had pocketed it. And the head teacher got everyone to stand up and say, Right, who's got Mr. Watson's meteorite? That was a highlight.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

There you are. Future punishments.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yes, there's no future of crime in this current version, but maybe maybe later.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I bet it was quite hard actually to keep out some of the more like you said, you know, we didn't want to do, you know, green, degrowth, war. I mean it was quite hard, wasn't it, to keep out some of that stuff because it's all so complex and interconnected.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah, and you know to some extent you're you know, you're telling a big fat lie in some instances because there is probably still going to be crime, and there is still probably gonna be problems with X, Y, and Z. I very much doubt war's gone away, but just you know, it's been well covered elsewhere. I mean, if I was gonna sort of add anything, we probably sort of beef up the future of schools in it in a future edition. You know, holidays would be right for a sort of positive futures thing. Um, how you can sort of spin that and that would sort of bump into climate change in a positive way, possibly. Animals.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Did you got animals in here?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

There are a few animals in it, but we could do a lot more with pets. Oh, there's so much more you could put in.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Yeah, well, it's a very noble lie, I think. So well done. Yeah. Thank you, Richard. Thanks for joining me. And um everybody go and get the book. It doesn't matter whether you're adult or child, actually. Um, it's for everyone, and it'll um I know reinvigorate you and refresh you thinking about it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Grandparents, grandparents buy this book for you as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Thank you for listening to The Future of You hosted by me, Tracy Follows. Be sure to check out the show notes for more info about the topics we covered today. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And if you know someone who would love this episode, please share it with them. For more on the future of identity in the digital world, visit futuremade.group slash the future view. To explore the future of everything else, head over to futuremade.group. The future of you podcast is produced by Big Ed Media.