Why Futurebetter?
How we see the future matters.
We ask the hard questions about the many ways in which the future might play out. We believe better is possible - if we can develop our shared curiosity and imagination
Our story
Futurebetter is born from 25 years of experience working with some of the world's most influential and innovative organisations. Helping them create new products and services. Helping them tell their stories of change.
Why us?
We are a strategic marketing consultancy working with organisations who want to tell a better story.
We use research and participative leadership methodologies to shape stories of change.
We work with all kinds of organisations from start-ups to social enterprises, innovation labs and sustainability leaders.
Why now?
We are at a time of unprecedented environmental and social challenge. In order to continue to thrive, we need nothing less than system change.
Stories are the oil in the system.
We need better ones. We think you agree.
Our Offer
Strategic Storytelling
We have 25+ years of helping organisations tell a new story and tell it better. In partnership with you and your stakeholders we can transform how you communicate who you are and what you are about.
Vision. Purpose. Mission. Brand. These are vital plot points. And then we find ways to make your story sing. Our agile creative network can bring your new story to life through video content, web design and visual assets.
Futurestory Mapping
Our collaborative methodology helps you get to grips with what the future might bring for the sector you are engaged with. We examine the trends and drivers that impact your business. With a wide range of stakeholders in the room we debate and create possible scenarios - or stories - of how the near-term future might be. The result is shared foundations for effective strategic choices. What futurestory are you working towards?
Innovation Workshops
We can help you create and foster a culture of innovation within your organisation or network. We design and facilitate workshop processes that can unlock ideas and creative problem solving even in intractable and complex systems. We are trained in Human Centred Design Thinking (LUMA) and Participatory Leadership methodologies. (Art of Hosting). Taking seriously the art of letting people explore their most difficult questions and knowing how to nurture what emerges.
Insight Gathering
Successful organisations continually challenge themselves to listen - and listen again - to their stakeholders. We use a range of research techniques to get you closer to the people whose perspectives matter. Whether it's your stakeholders, service users, employees, or investors, we know how to ask the critical questions and crucially, how to extract the insight that can drive your innovation and shape your story.
Recent work
In an age of artificial intelligence, the health of our shared sources of information is more important than ever. And one of the world's most critical sources of online information is Wikipedia. Over six months, Futurebetter worked with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, to design a research-led collaborative process, using Sohail Inayatullah's Futures Triangle as a structure for investigation. We carried out global research inside and outside the organisation, helping the Wikimedia Foundation shape a new storyline that can resonate across the organisation and help engage multiple stakeholders, from policymakers to everyday users and future editors. The new storyline is a call to participation for everyone at a time where truth is at stake – because the more humans who take part, the better our knowledge becomes.
"Alice had just the right mix of things for this project: keenness to work collaboratively and transparently, ability to adapt, deep and unique expertise, curiosity and a sense of humour. Working with 30 senior leaders across 11 time zones, she guided us to a story that works for over 600 global staff members. We share core beliefs and values, which made the relationship that developed a safe and sacred space. Alice is a highly principled person with a well-developed and trusted gut sense about how to tell a good story. This is underpinned by sharp interviewing and research skills. It was a pleasure working with her and converting her to a Wikimedian in the process!" Corli De Kock, Brand Strategist, Wikimedia Foundation
Brand & website review and strategic development for this leading edge socio-technical institute seeking to transform working lives. We carried out stakeholder and leadership interviews, ran creative workshops to identify new expression of the brand vision and mission and new storylines that can help build the case for the critical work that IFOW does, to inform their new website
Strategic storytelling and copy editing for a variety of research projects as part of The Design Council's Design For Planet mission - to help sharpen the narrative around the role design thinking can play in helping British businesses innovate and respond to the challenges and opportunities produced by Net Zero.
Design innovation and PPIE engagement work with Kingston Hospital NHS Trust to improve the experience of patients living with Multiple Sclerosis, using patients as the source of design thinking and problem solving.
A 'naming and framing' project for a major new cardiac disease databank. We used PPIE (public engagement) research to explore attitudes to data privacy and issues around data consent to develop a memorable name for the initiative and the core framing (i.e. storyline) that would make the project easy to talk about - so as many people as possible could have the opportunity to give informed consent.