Trends & Signals
Design
Explore the latest insights, thought leadership, and research from FCAT®
A Conversation with Julian Bleecker: Author of The Manual of Design Fiction
May 5, 2025
Engineer and author Julian Bleecker joined FCAT to offer his perspective on how the design field is changing as we enter a new era of emerging technologies. FCAT’s Will Reed spoke with Bleecker to discuss how artists, technologists, and everyday...
Humanity-Centered Design: An Interview with Don Norman
February 14, 2023
FCAT had the pleasure of welcoming Don Norman, author of Design for a Better World, for a speaking event where he presented an eye-opening diagnosis of how human behavior has led to numerous societal crises from collapsing social structures to...
Behind the Scenes: The Intersection of Art and Technology
February 1, 2022
FCAT’s Luke Paxton and Kseniya Galper are responsible for the unique artwork accompanying this year’s Priorities Report, created using digital and physical techniques. The results of their collaboration will be included in a set of limited edition...
I Guess We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Art, NFTs, Gaming & the Blockchain Experience
February 1, 2022
I’d never heard of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – digital proof of ownership enabled by the blockchain – until 2021. Like many, I came to them through mass media, through the likes of Kevin Roose of the New York Times auctioning off his column as an...
Social Connection from Any?where
December 14, 2021
We need to talk about social… How many people did you talk to today? (Extent of social activity) Did it make you feel better or worse, closer or more dista
Teaching a Robot to Read
August 18, 2021
Over the last several years one of the FCAT AI teams - code named “RoboReader” - has been working on processing documents and taking needed information from unstructured text and transforming it into structured data that can be used by the business....
The Future of Work
July 29, 2021
The Future of Work was brought into sharp focus during the Covid-19 pandemic, as workers worldwide found themselves suddenly in the greatest work-from-home experiment in modern times. This crisis has shifted values, behaviours, and attitudes across...
Building Trust in AI Systems
January 28, 2021
Bias in data used by AI algorithms is drawing increasing attention. The internet is full of examples of AI systems bias: recruiting algorithms trained on data that favored male candidates, facial recognition software unable to appropriately identify...
Learning about Leadership by Talking About Art
September 21, 2020
I was struggling to facilitate my first Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) session when it hit me — this was "another growth opportunity." Specifically, it was an opportunity to rethink what it means to be a leader in our hyper-connected, ambiguous,...