It’s a lot.
So…how are you coping these days?
Here at Dot Connector Studio, we’ve been dealing with the grating uncertainty of these times by trying to have a little fun with it. Rather than drowning in dystopias, we’ve increasingly been working with our clients and colleagues to imagine brighter possibilities and uncover unexpected solutions.
This month, I started a gig as the futurist in residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. With the foundation’s Pioneering Ideas team, I’ll be exploring what’s next for work, food, evidence, and social interaction—all in service of increasing health equity across the U.S.
Being a futurist involves keeping an eye on a wide range of disparate signals to sense emerging trends. To get a taste of the many topics we are tracking, check out the new “Fun With Futures” section below. Plus, see what else the Dot Connector team’s been working on, and our latest reads.
As always, we’re interested to hear what you’re up to! Drop me a line.
Onwards,
Jessica

What we’re up to
- Apply by March 4 for a grant we worked with the Internet Society Foundation to design. The recipient will help tell the stories of how four innovative teams are seeking to increase Internet access around the world.
- ICYMI: Immerse tackles what it takes to make the metaverse in its latest issue.
- We just wrapped our pilot New/s incubator with the Guild of Future Architects. Here’s what we’re learning about the future of regenerative journalism.
- Associate Mark Glaser worked with the Knight Foundation to launch a newsletter called News @ Knight. Subscribe here!
- With our support, West Virginia University launched its first Academic Innovation Summit.
- The research we did with 8 Bridges Workshop for the NEA continues to ripple out—don’t miss this March 22 webinar, Supporting Art & Technology.
- More and more universities are adopting our Making a New Reality toolkit. If you’re interested, let us know!

Are you following #DCS_Reads?
We’re keeping an eye on debates in art, tech, philanthropy and more. Follow along each week with the #DCS_Reads tag on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and feel free to use the same tag to share articles you think we’d enjoy.
Here’s what we’ve been reading lately:
- For Noema Magazine, Nils Gilman spoke with philosopher and political theorist Achille Mbembe about how we move forward during a planetary crisis.
- JUST JOKING! Deepfakes, Satire and the Politics of Synthetic Media, tackles the many concerns with deepfakes as they grow stronger in a world of disinformation.
- Could the metaverse be more divisive than social media? Louis Rosenberg, of Unanimous AI, explores how augmented reality and the metaverse pose an insidious threat to society and even reality itself.

Fun With Futures
This month we’re exploring:
- Situation Lab’s The Thing from the Future game
- The precipitous rise of trans sci fi
- From high-tech toilets to self-filling tubs: bathrooms of the future
- Artnet identifies some of the earliest developments and key movements across 5000 years of AI art
- Andrea Bonoir P.h.D. explains the psychological benefits of hope
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