Mind candy are prompts to help you to keep up to date, develop strategic responses to trends and train your change muscle, making you more resilient and agile for the future. Subscribe to my all mindcandies here https://scenarioprompts.substack.com/
Strategy development
If you need help with developing these prompts to help you with your business strategy (or career), you can book a free appointment here. If you want me to speak at your event, contact me at ron@ronimmink.com. If you want to shoot the breeze and talk about books, strategy, leadership, innovation and future trends, you can book a call here https://calendly.com/ron-immink.
How to use the prompts
Become a trend watcher yourself. Use these prompts to explore their relevance, assess opportunities and threats, and analyse timelines and impacts on your organisation. Consider multiple possible futures across varying time horizons—1, 3, 5, and 10 years. Plan accordingly.
Scenario prompts 14 March 2025
Todays prompts are gaol setting, venture studios, robots, turning skin cells directly into neurons, gene editing mosquitos, dark citizen development, a micro microcontroller, VR headsets for inmates, unlimited energy, hydrogel based sensors, the AI sensory void and negative impact as a business risk (lots of canaries in the coal mine).
How many canaries are you exposed to?
The Death of Goals
https://fortelabs.com/blog/the-death-of-goals/
Goal-setting works perfectly fine for modest pursuits. The problem arises when we try to scale up this modest strategy to greater achievements – those that involve true ambition, novel invention, innovative breakthroughs, or pushing the frontier.
Why Most Venture Studios Fail (And How You Can Succeed)
https://innov8rs.co/news/why-most-venture-studios-fail-and-how-you-can-succeed/
Unlike incubators or accelerators, venture studios build companies from the ground up, often in collaboration with corporations.
These robots learn how to move by watching themselves
https://superinnovators.com/2025/03/these-robots-learn-how-to-move-by-watching-themselves/
Scientists developed robots that autonomously adapt to damage by analysing their own movements through simple video.
MIT engineers turn skin cells directly into neurons for cell therapy
https://news.mit.edu/2025/mit-engineers-turn-skin-cells-into-neurons-for-cell-therapy-0313
This approach could enable the generation of large quantities of motor neurons, which could potentially be used to treat patients with spinal cord injuries or diseases that impair mobility.
Gene drive modified mosquitoes offer new tool for malaria elimination efforts
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/261995/gene-drive-modified-mosquitoes-offer-tool/
Researchers have developed genetic technology which renders a mosquito unable to transmit the malaria parasite and has a gene drive that ensures that future generations are also resistant to the parasite.
Man Installed “Kill Switch” So That If He Was Ever Fired, All Hell Would Break Loose
https://futurism.com/davis-lu-kill-switch-eaton-corp
Dark citizen development. Why culture is everything,
US firm creates ‘world’s smallest’ microcontroller that operates in extreme temperatures
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/us-world-smallest-microcontroller
It is roughly the size of a black pepper flake. It could be used for a range of medical wearables, as well as personal electronics.
What Are the Ethics of Strapping VR Headsets on Inmates in Solitary Confinement?
https://futurism.com/prisons-vr-headsets-solitary-confinement
Prison officials in California are now offering some people held in solitary confinement an escape via virtual reality.
The Secret to Unlimited Energy Is Beneath Our Feet—And the World’s Deepest Hole Will Unlock It
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a64075571/deepest-hole-geothermal-energy/
Scientists now know how to drill deep enough to tap into an energy supply that would power the world for more than 20 million years if we capture just 0.1 percent of it.
Stretchy Spinal Sensors: New Hydrogel Tech Could Transform Neural Monitoring
Scientists have developed a flexible, conductive hydrogel that may significantly advance how researchers monitor spinal cord activity during movement, potentially transforming future approaches to spinal injury research and treatment.
What AI’s sensory void tells us about thinking on “the road to meaning”
https://bigthink.com/the-future/ai-cognition-and-the-road-to-meaning/
Current text-based LLMs lack sensory experiences and iconic representations, potentially limiting their ability to ground language in real-world meaning.
Anti-aging zealot Bryan Johnson wants to start ‘foodome sequencing’
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/anti-aging-zealot-bryan-johnson-wants-to-start-foodome-sequencing/
Bryan Johnson, the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement, wants to start testing as much food as possible to hold brands accountable for unsafe food practices. Another canary in the coal mine. Same will apply to climate, work practices, etc.
