#Mindcandy are scenario prompts to help companies formulate strategy. Also see https://www.ronimmink.com/strategy-development/.
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How to use the prompts
Use these prompts to explore their relevance, assess opportunities and threats, and analyse timelines and impacts on your organisation. Consider multiple possible futures across 1, 3, 5, and 10 years time horizons.
Scenario prompts 30 April 2025
Todays prompts pollution, Chongqing, middle management, proactive foresight, smart cribs, enforced wood, postage stamp-sized artificial leaf and robotics in China.
Look East
We’re Exposed to Chemicals and Pollution Daily. Now, Scientists Are Linking It All to Our Health.
The emerging field of ‘exposomics’ combines large environmental datasets and genetic data to reveal the causes of chronic disease.
Chongqing, the world’s largest city – in pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/apr/27/chongqing-the-worlds-largest-city-in-pictures
The largest city in the world is as big as Austria, but few people have ever heard of it. The megacity of 34 million people in central of China is the emblem of the fastest urban revolution on the planet.
What’s the Future of Middle Management?
https://hbr.org/2025/04/whats-the-future-of-middle-management
Predictions about the demise of middle management aren’t new. But with the rise of AI and a trend toward flatter organizations, could these predictions soon come true?
Proactive Foresight: The Skill That Makes You Indispensable
Proactive Foresight is the critical structural skill that solves problems before they have names. It’s not prediction. It’s pattern recognition. Strategic anticipation.
Cradlewise: The smart crib that caught Sam Altman’s eye
https://e27.co/cradlewise-the-smart-crib-that-caught-sam-altmans-eye-20250428/
Cradlewise is a smart crib powered by AI that proactively soothes babies back to sleep using gentle bouncing and sound
Scientists engineer steel-like wood with iron for stronger, greener construction
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/scientists-strengthen-wood-cell-walls-with-iron
The idea is to chemically modify lignocellulose to enhance its inherent characteristics for different applications. Wood and many plants contain lignocellulose. With a whopping 181.5 billion tons of wood produced on an annual basis, it’s an abundant and renewable resource just waiting to be unlocked.
Postage stamp-sized artificial leaf converts CO2 into fuel using sunlight
https://interestingengineering.com/science/artificial-leaf-converts-co-into-fuel
The team brought science one step closer to replicating the incredible productivity of natural photosynthesis, but with the added potential for industrial-scale application.
The Geography of PRC Robotics: Charting China’s Robotic Future
In 2023, Chinese factories installed 276,000+ new industrial robots, accounting for about 51% of global demand. Read https://www.ronimmink.com/disruption-from-the-east/
