The purpose of this paper is to investigate the future of business events in the “phygital” age from the viewpoint of purposes and formats, delivering a generative tool for adoption. The approach is based on constructivist epistemology. The topic was approached from the viewpoint of foresight and Design Research, firstly by designing and performing three cycles of qualitative interviews with (a) thought leaders and senior industry experts (setting the drivers for matrix tool development), for a total of 10 respondents within a gender-balanced panel (50% female, 50% male), covering Western, Asian, Arab, and North American regions. A Machine Learning-enabled scan was performed for triangulation purposes. Secondly, a generative matrix tool was designed and tested by (b) senior to midweight Design Thinkers and (c) junior to midweight emerging talents, for a total of 22 respondents. Key findings pertain to current trends and future developments in business event design and management from a “phygital” perspective, transferred into a generative matrix tool.
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Deciding what kind of smart cities do we, as a society, want is not only a political question but also a matter of envisioning possible futures. The speculative narratives that designers produce to support their imagination are called "Design Fictions." We share SUBMERGED, a cross-platform project that combines game design, interactive narrative, and urban exploration with the objective of empowering citizens to produce their design fictions. Following a "Research through Design" practice, we describe our process for creating SUBMERGED, we synthesize some critical insights from our experience, and we urgently call for a dialogue between semioticians and design researchers on these topics.
