Decoding Tomorrow:
Futurism and Foresights Today

I'm writing this from a place with no road access, where solar and wind energy keep the lights on and the water tank determines how long I can shower. Getting here requires a boat. My sons and I chop wood, monitor battery levels, and plan around the rhythms of nature more than the pings of notifications.

This morning, like every school morning, we checked the wind, tides, swell, and weather to determine when we needed to leave. Not "when does school start?" but "what do the conditions require?"

It's not everyone's cup of tea, living remotely in a national park. But it's perfect for me and my boys.

Here's the paradox: I spend my days advising organizations on the bleeding edge of AI and digital transformation, yet I live semi-off-grid in a place that forces me to be present, analog, and deeply connected to natural systems. I talk about the future from a cabin that requires boat access (or a challenging and long bush walk).

And somehow, this contradiction is exactly what makes the work clearer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

I'd add: it's also the test of a first-rate life (I'm biased).

Paradox. Embrace it. 

The Disconnection Advantage

There's something clarifying about living semi-off-grid while working with organizations at the bleeding edge of technological adoption. When you're physically removed from the constant hum of connectivity, you stop confusing "urgent" with "important." You stop mistaking "new" for "necessary."

You see the forest.

The question I hear most often – from sports organizations to financial institutions, from healthcare leaders to mining executives – is always some version of the same thing: How do we stay human as everything becomes digital?

And here's what living in a cabin accessible only by boat has taught me: the future isn't about choosing between nature and technology, analog and digital, human and machine. It's about integration.

What the Cabin Knows About Boardrooms

My home forces trade-offs. Limited power means prioritizing what truly matters. No road access means planning ahead, thinking systemically. Living with my sons here means balancing work demands with being present for what can't be rescheduled – childhood.

These aren't quaint lifestyle choices. They're strategic constraints that sharpen thinking.

The same principles that help me manage life off-grid apply to organizations navigating transformation: clarity about what matters, intentionality about where energy goes, systems thinking about how everything connects.

The Helsinki Paradox

Here's what crystallized it for me: standing in my Avalon Beach  studio, appearing as a hologram in Helsinki for OP Finance Group's Innovation Week. I could deliver value to a client on the other side of the world without the carbon footprint of another long-haul flight - only a few months after delivering my 2nd Renaissance keynote for another client at Reaktor in the same city (Helsinki, Finland) - in analogue, physical reality. I could be global and local simultaneously. I could work and still make school pickup.

This isn't about technology being clever. It's about technology enabling choice.

And that's the paradox we're all navigating, whether you're running a sports franchise, a bank, a hospital, or a household: How do you stay connected to what matters while operating in an increasingly digital world?

The Digilogue Life

I call this tension "Digilogue" (as per my eponymous book) – the deliberate balance between digital efficiency and analog depth, between global connectivity and local rootedness, between professional ambition and personal presence.

You don't have to choose between impact and intentionality. Between reaching broadly and being present locally. Between building the future and living deliberately in the present.

But you do have to be conscious about it.

*OP Innovation Week, Futurist As a Hologram, Helsinki, September 2025

Three Paradoxes Worth Embracing

Here's what might help you navigate your own tensions:

1. Disconnection Creates Better Connection The paradox: stepping back creates capacity to lean in more meaningfully. My semi-daily boat ride to "civilization" isn't absence from work – it's preparation for better work. Strategic disconnection isn't indulgence; it's necessity. Where can you build in space that actually creates capacity rather than depleting it?

2. Constraints Unlock Creativity Limited power from solar and wind means I can't run every device simultaneously. This constraint forces prioritization that most people avoid until a crisis demands it. What if you treated your attention, your time, your energy as genuinely limited resources? Not as scarcity to overcome, but as reality to work with? What would you choose?

3. Technology Enables Humanity (When Used Intentionally) The hologram let me be in Helsinki and home for dinner. Renewable energy lets me live off-grid while staying connected. AI can handle repetitive cognitive tasks so you can focus on relationships and judgment. The question isn't "technology or humanity?" It's "which technology, in service of what humanity?"

A Note of Gratitude

This work – exploring how we stay human in an increasingly digital world – only matters if it's useful to you.

To the organizations willing to wrestle with these questions rather than defaulting to either techno-optimism or nostalgic resistance, thank you. The work you've trusted me with this year – from helping the Brisbane Broncos think toward 2032, to speaking twice in Helsinki (once in person at the Bloom conference, once as that hologram), to conversations spanning real estate to retail, banking to sports – has sharpened my own thinking immeasurably.

To the readers who challenge assumptions, share your own paradoxes, and apply these ideas in your contexts – you're why these conversations matter.

The future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we build together, one intentional choice at a time.

Looking Ahead

The organizations that will thrive in 2026 and beyond aren't those that chase every technological trend or retreat from change entirely. They're the ones that get intentional about integration – using AI to amplify human capability, not replace human judgment. Building efficiency without sacrificing meaning. Moving fast while staying grounded.

That requires holding contradictions without collapsing into simplicity. It requires, as Fitzgerald suggested, a first-rate intelligence.

Or maybe just the willingness to keep questioning which future we're actually building.

From my semi-off-grid home to wherever you're reading this,

Anders

P.S. – What paradox are you navigating right now? Between growth and sustainability? Speed and quality? Innovation and stability? The best insights often emerge from the tensions we're willing to name. Hit reply if you'd like to think out loud.

Work With Me

In 2025, I've worked with organizations like Zoom, Woolworths, ServiceNow, WOBI, PwC, commercetools, oOh! Media, NCR Atleos, CoreNet Global, Mercedes-Benz, ALDI, and Westpac - from Miami to Singapore, Sydney to Helsinki, Amsterdam to Los Angeles, and Chennai to beyond. I have also been serving as the Futurist-in-Residence at the Brisbane Broncos, helping their leadership team and board decode tomorrow and prepare for 2032 (and proudly observing us winning the 2025 NRL premiership).

Now accepting 2026 keynote bookings and scenario planning engagements. Reach out today to enquire about availability. 

Whether you need a keynote that reframes how your team thinks about CX success, or a strategic foresight session to map your 2030 landscape, let's build your innovation roadmap together.

Anders Sörman-Nilsson

Futurist