Reimagining the Future of Value and Value Exchange
Context
The growing trend of implementing alternative currencies within national economic and financial systems has led us to contemplate the future of value, value exchange, and new financial systems. With a focus on sustainability, emerging technologies, and future customer needs, we were tasked with considering how alternative currencies might be integrated into the Canadian market by 2031, using speculative scenarios and artifacts supported by current trends and signals.
Client: Scotiabank
Type: Strategic Foresight, Service Design
Collaborators: Shreya Chopra, Thomas Kim, Shabad Singh
Duration: 3 months
Type: Strategic Foresight, Service Design
Collaborators: Shreya Chopra, Thomas Kim, Shabad Singh
Duration: 3 months
Approach
Each team member was involved in the entire design process, from research to conception and final delivery. I was responsible for incorporating a sustainability perspective into the research and foresight design, as well as engaging the team in systems thinking during ideation and synthesis. I took on the task of mapping and highlighting the touchpoints within the possible future experiences, while considering the broader paradigm of shifting values and behavioral changes. I was also responsible for crafting a compelling story for our deliverable and aligning the team's vision to effectively communicate the value of our work to our stakeholders.
Outcome
We designed two possible polarizing worlds and the potential new financial products and services that emerge within each world. Each world has a shifted Canadian value system and speculated artifacts that would emerge as a result of new customer needs. The two speculated worlds are distinct in their economic system, growth model, and philosophical approach. The limitations and opportunities of each world opened doors to new models of value exchange, such as tokenization, the utilization of data tracking for sustainable initiatives, and alternative asset storage and distribution.
BB Token
BB Oracles
BB NFT
Challenges:
The project was completed during the pandemic period, within a short timeline. It taught the team how to maintain productivity while working remotely and deliver high-quality content within demanding deadlines. We collaborated effectively to manage our time and efficiently allocated tasks, ensuring we addressed all the project's key aspects.
Key learnings:
Collaborating with a real client and a design team allowed me to apply my academic knowledge to practical field experiences. I gained insights into the shifts in how value is perceived, both in terms of global and local trends, and learned to align these with emerging technologies and sustainability. Additionally, I acquired a deeper understanding of working with stakeholders and design practitioners.
Impact:
The final report was presented to the broader design organization at Scotia Digital Factory in August 2021 and received acclaim for its innovative content. In early 2023, this work was referenced as an exemplary mental model in the development of the Scotiabank Sustainability Playbook.
Design Process
Discover
Signals & Trends Research
We conducted research on signals in the fields of technology, sustainability, and social interdependencies related to alternative currencies. Our objective was to investigate the ecosystems surrounding alternative values and discover indicators for potential changes.
The deep dive into signals and trend scanning provided the fundamental framework for constructing future scenarios. It allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of how current events interconnect with and how they might potentially influence future scenarios in terms of impact and scale.
The research was synthesized into four major trends focused on data, digital adoption, community bonding, and sustainable consumption.
Define
Worlds Building
We created four potential futures using various strategic foresight tools. These worlds shaped the external environments and ecosystems in which values and value exchanges might evolve and transform over the next ten years.
Exploring various potential futures allowed us to speculate on potential points of friction and opportunities related to emerging mental models and value exchanges. Additionally, it also directly informed the design of personas and speculative artifacts.
A focus on the probable and the plausible
We focused on the probable world of Sustainable Conscious Economy and the plausible world of Protectionist Value System because they exhibit contrasting value systems in their economies, philosophies, and growth models. The constraints within these worlds provided us with promising opportunities for design explorations.
The design of these worlds directly informed the brainstorming sessions for future personas, artifacts, and services, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the worlds of 2031.
Persona Building
To gain insights into the individuals living in the future, we created two personas for each world to help us empathize with their needs and desires. These personas were primarily based on desk research and synthesis.
Creating personas enables us to further empathize with the users and facilitated the development of speculative scenarios within their respective worlds, addressing the emergence of new financial needs that required innovative solutions.
Persona Building
Persona Building
Develop
Concepts & Scenario Building
To bring new services to life, we built artifacts and scenarios to gain a better understand of the opportunities that arise and to design for the new customer needs. The scenarios were grounded in signals and trends related to financial behaviours.
The concepts and scenarios allowed us to develop a deeper understanding of the customer's needs and values, enabling us to design with a customer-centric lens.
Scotia Token Initial Concept
Scotia Oracles Initial Concept
Scotia NFT Initial Concept
Scenario Building
Scenario Building
Service Blueprinting
We created service blueprint to depict the end-to-end, front-to-back processes of the experiences. Each blueprint helped us understand the necessary supporting system to bring the experience to life.
These blueprints were extremely useful in presenting our ideas to stakeholders, assisting them in understanding the flow of the experience and how our artifacts contribute to creating a seamless user experience.
BB Token Service Blueprint
BB NFT Service Blueprint
Deliver
The bank of 2031
We designed a decentralized bank system in 2031, facilitated through our speculative artifacts, to provide a comprehensive overview of the new financial system. These artifacts have been evaluated using an impact effort metric to guide implementation and value proposition decisions.
These deliverables allowed us to effectively communicate the impact of our work to stakeholders, clarify the value proposition of our designs, and outline the best course of action for implementation.
