April 28, 2025 • 48 mins
Catherine Roy, a designer turned strategic futurist at Thales, reveals that flying taxis and advanced air mobility face substantial social acceptance challenges beyond mere technological hurdles. Her research identified 62 criteria for social acceptability of air taxis, demonstrating the complexity of successfully introducing this transportation mode.
We touch upon many things in this episode including:
- How she transformed into a strategic futurist leading global design networks
- Research found 62 social acceptability criteria for advanced air mobility versus industry's focus on just 7-8
- Urban planners view flying vehicles as extending traffic problems into the air rather than solving mobility issues
- Capacity limitations make eVTOLs inefficient compared to mass transit (only 0-125 passengers/hour in 2040 projections)
- Entire infrastructure including vertiports and communication systems would need building from scratch
- Flying vehicles could increase social stratification between wealthy "skylanders" and ground-dwelling "flatlanders"
- Future climate priorities may overshadow investments in advanced air mobility infrastructure
- Innovation requires developing unique perspectives and courage to stand your ground against mainstream thinking
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Think Forward.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Show.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Let's explore the future together.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to the Think Forward Show.
I'm your host, steve Fisher,and today we're taking flight
into one of my favorite topicsthe future of aeromobility.
Joining me today is thebrilliant Catherine Reid.
She's a designer turnedstrategic futurist who's been
reshaping how we think abouttomorrow's skies, from flying
taxis to AI co-pilots.
Catherine's research into thesocial acceptability of advanced
(00:25):
air mobility has uncoveredfascinating insights about what
it will really take to get ourcollective wheels off the ground
.
Will we all be zipping aroundin personal aircraft by 2040?
Or is the dream of the flyingcars destined to remain
perpetually just a few yearsaway?
Like fusion power and myability to assemble IKEA
furniture from leftover parts?
Like fusion power and myability to assemble Ikea
(00:47):
furniture from leftover parts?
So buckle up as we navigate thetechnical challenges,
regulatory hurdles and humanfactors that will determine
whether our future involvestraffic jams or jet streams.
Welcome to episode 131 of theThink Forward Show the future of
flight with Catherine Reed.
Catherine, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Hey, hello, hey, hello.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So there'll be probably lots of laughing and
giggling, since we know eachother well, but many listening
to the podcast may not know whoyou are, so we always start with
the journey.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah are.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So we always start with the journey.
So, yeah, what's your journeyinto futures?
Work, design futures, uh, youknow kind of experiences with uh
tales.
Actually, it's a you knowwhat's the best pronunciation of
the I told you about it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, this is one of many conversations that we've
had, but uh, it's talus talus orthe way that, yeah.
The way that the French peoplepronounce it is Talis.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Talis.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Talis, yes, so let's talk about that.
So, yes, your journey.
So where did it all begin?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Where do I start?
Okay, yeah, so I'm a designer.
I've always been.
When I was young, I used todraw a lot and my favorite play
was to create houses that wouldhave been different house plans
(02:21):
and so on.
So I've always been a designerall my life.
I was trained as an industrialdesigner when it was not the
norm, and then I moved into, oralways was, a UX designer, but
then at that time that was noteasy to find jobs in UX, I would
(02:41):
say.
So I did a bunch of differentthings and started my own
company about when was that like?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
about when was it hard to find?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
uh, that was really hard to find at the at the
beginning of the 2000 uh, yeahfinding a job in design,
especially in digital productsand so on.
That was very, very tough to do,uh, so, so I did a bunch of
different things in marketing,communication and so on, and
then I moved into a little bitof ergonomics or human factors
(03:16):
at that time, what they used tocall it and I could not really
find something that I reallyliked.
So I decided to do my own, myown thing, and start my own
company.
And then I got um, alice wasone of my client, um, one of my
clients back in the days andthen they wanted to to build
(03:37):
their own design force in NorthAmerica.
And, uh, at that time I wastired of doing the same projects
over and over again, andprobably some freelancers could
relate that you get tired ofyour own business sometimes.
So it took me a while touncouple my identity to my
(03:58):
business and then I joined TALISin 2019.
And now it's been almost sixyears now, but then I contracted
before that for two yearsbefore.
So roughly six to eight yearsthat I've been with them.
You know it's quite a journey,because I'm an entrepreneur at
(04:20):
heart and it feels that, youknow, it's been a long time.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
You've been building out the strategic design
capacity in North America.
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's to be able to work with our different business
lines in the region and try towork with them on their
strategic design capacity andcapabilities in the region and
innovation.
Mostly Most of the productsthey're in France, so it's a
nice dance between what'shappening in the region and also
(04:55):
what's happening in France.
So what are the differentproduct lines doing?
How they can be more marketableor specific to the US market
and the Canadian market.
So this is what I'm doing and,on a global scale, I lead the
strategic design activities andnetwork for the Design Center
(05:18):
Network that was started 12years ago by Didier Boulet in
Paris.
So he built the first studioand then it got into now almost
14 design studios around theworld.
So we cover every region and wecover also different verticals
(05:43):
that Dallas has, differentverticals that Dallas has.
So, for example, aerospace,defense, identity security,
cybersecurity and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Do the different organizations in different parts
of the world, how do theyconnect with each other?
How do they work together?
Do they share certain resources?
Is there a shared mindset, likehow do they work together to
make it more efficient?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
yeah, so this is definitely a shared mindset.
Uh talus group is a group ofdifferent uh entities, so each
have their own verticals, theirown market, they have their own
products and so on.
And through the Design CenterNetwork we try to share the same
(06:35):
mindset, share the same toolsand methodologies, share best
practices, share knowledge ofwhat's happening within our own
projects, but then see also howpeople solve within their own
constraints or their own domain.
(06:56):
And sometimes we can havesynergies between design centers
.
So let's say that there's aspecific subject design center.
So let's say that there's aspecific subject.
So sometimes we're going tohave two design center
collaborating on that samesubject could be defense and
security, for example, so theyboth have a product or an
(07:18):
interest into that business.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Interesting Because it's.
Is there a set of processesthat everyone is really working
front Like?
Is there a set of like?
Do you have a design language?
Do you have a design system?
Right?
Is there certain things?
We're building that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, so we're building that, so this is
something that it's, that it'sincreasing.
So Talus is, uh, it's anengineering company and
technology company at heart.
So, of course, the, the, thedesign, um, uh elements and
aspects.
They started as grassrootsmovements, such as a design
(07:59):
centers within those entities,and then they grew organically
uh with again the same set oftools, the same mindset, uh a
location mindset and uh designthinking methodologies.
Uh, they also they also shareuh the same offer, uh the the,
(08:22):
the same uh way of focusing onhuman first uh, and this is
really, um, this is a reallyadded value to what talus is
doing, so, really technologyfocused.
And then we bring in the uh the, the human aspect, the design
aspect, uh the aspects, or again, the needs and the innovation
(08:48):
through the human experience.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Because humans the need, you know, because you're
obviously you're interactingwith physical objects, not just
digital, right, correct?
Yeah, so it's like how manypeople work in that space, but
it's a different set ofinteractions, things you need to
(09:18):
look at, and it's also moreexpensive to change something
physically in terms of theexperience, correct?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And then to go back to your first question, it was
about the same language and thesame tool, so this is something
that it's been increasinglyimportant in Site Talent.
So the same visual language,but also the same physical
language for physical productsand so on.
Same physical language forphysical products and so on.
(09:46):
So this is very instrumental inincreasing the design footprint
within the company.
I think, of companies like BMWright.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When you see a BMW, you get inside of a BMW.
You know it's a BMW.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yes, right, it's very different.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yes, it's a BMW.
It's very different.
There's distinct, there'saspects to it that are across
the entire design, the line ofdesign.
That's just one of manyexamples.
Right, the thing I was asfuturists how do you use that to
(10:24):
inform the work Like, do you?
Do you bring it in directly toexercises?
Do you have specific, like awork stream of futures work
signals to kind of bring in uhin to inform the work that you,
that you all do?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, well, the uh, the work specifically that I've
been doing for the past coupleof years is all about futures
work.
So it's really foresight workthat I'm doing.
I'm not necessarily designingon products per se.
So for the past four years I'dsay I've been extremely focused
on the environmental and socialand different impacts of the
(11:06):
like.
And then my outputs they'remostly related to strategic
opportunities or businessopportunities that we can
explore and then they becomedesign thinking projects that we
could look to see if there'ssomething interesting to build
(11:27):
from that.
One of the projects that I'vebeen doing that it got a lot
more concrete is about thefuture social acceptability of
the advanced air mobility, and Ithink this is one project that
you would find reallyinteresting for your aerospace,
of course.
(11:47):
So we were able for that one togo from the design not from the
design, but from the foresightperspective up to a concrete set
of tools for the industrywishing to implement AAM.
So AAM is Advanced Air MobilityProjects in a social context.
(12:12):
So this one went from theforesight perspective up to the
tool.
Some of them they just go tothe opportunity and sometimes we
go the other way around.
Let's say that we have atechnology that we want to build
.
So then we want to make surethat we know the right usage in
the future for that technologyto happen.
(12:36):
So, for example, it could be AIassistants inside cockpits, so
what it means for a pilot, forexample, to collaborate with an
assistant.
So how do we make sure that webuild that trust at that
specific time for particulardecision moment?
(12:58):
So this is how we're going touse foresight.
So we're going to set thecontext and they're going to be
in scenarios, and then we'regoing to bring the technology
into that context to make surethat they make sense.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, I was about to ask you, let's talk about flying
cars.
So my favorite subjects I know,I know.
Yeah, I had an air taxi company20 years ago.
That was way ahead of my time.
But you know, I've spent a lotof time on AAM and I almost feel
(13:36):
like the concept of flying carsis just like.
I don't say it will never come,but I think socially it's just
not.
You watch people drive on theroad and you imagine these
people in the air.
Well, obviously, it would haveto be controlled by a third part
a pilot.
It's interesting when you talkabout an assistant, like would
(13:59):
people get?
And those listening, thinkabout Uber, right, would you get
inside a car that didn't have adriver?
Would you get inside a planethat didn't have a, you know,
physical, a human, a pilot?
Um, it might be a little bitmore.
I I do think that in order toget there, like if you had
somebody on the ground that youcould talk to as your pilot, who
(14:20):
was guiding you, there was somesort of human interaction that
you can be remotely.
You know, that's fascinating inthat way.
Um, so you wrote an articlewhich I love zoom did you?
was that your title?
Their taxis zoom zoom, zoom,zoom, did you?
Uh?
Yeah, you talked about thesocietal implications.
(14:42):
Um, I've done some scenariowork in that, but I'd love to
hear there's a chicken and theegg factor.
So if you kind of deeply thinkabout it, if you're listening to
this and you think about likewhere would they land, where
would they pick up?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Do we need to build the infrastructure in order to
get it's like charging stationsright?
Like, do we need to build allthe charging stations to
successfully get people awayfrom range anxiety?
Do we need some sort ofmotivation factor to let them
feel trust that this would have,like, that they would actually
(15:18):
use it, because we could buildall this and nobody ever used it
?
Or it becomes something thatonly a certain.
It's a status thing, it's awealth thing.
It's like people having theirown helicopter or their own you
know private jet or aircraft.
So, yeah, let's just, let'sjust, let's dive into that.
Like the social acceptability,like chicken and egg, like what,
(15:39):
what did, what did?
What did you find in your work?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
So that was one of the most fascinating projects
that we've done for the client.
That's called the Consortium ofResearch and Innovation in
Aerospace in Quebec, so we didthe project for them.
So Consortium of Research andInnovation, they're all about
(16:04):
advancing research andinnovation, basically within
different partners and aerospacepartners, and one of the
elements that the board hasnoticed in the past was that the
aerospace companies they alwaystalk about their technology but
(16:25):
they never talk about how thattechnology is going to be
implemented.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I personally would like the airlines to just make
sure the headphone jacks work.
That would be great, like theTV screens and the headphones.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
That would be Just that.
Let's work on that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, let's just keep that working yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So they asked for the CREAN to look at, well, what
would be the enabling conditions, the social acceptability
conditions, for air taxisbasically to fly.
So air taxi here we have to bea little broader, so meaning
that it's aircrafts, most ofthem.
(17:13):
They're automated.
Sometimes they can be notnecessarily 100% automated.
They can be hybrid or halfhybrid and running on fuel.
Uh, they're mostly callede-vitals, so they are uh so they
, they, uh, they are uh,electrical, vertical landing and
(17:36):
take off.
So, basically, this is what itmeans is that they they take off
like helicopters, they haverotor crafts, they don't glide.
So that's one thing that isvery important and this is a
massive element in terms ofsecurity and safety.
And they are in the altitudethat it's in control and
(18:03):
non-control airspace, so meaningthat when they are above the
ground, most of them they'regoing to fly over cities, but
they are inside that cityairspace.
So this is a completely newsystem and, just like what you
were mentioning is that itbasically means that you're
(18:25):
going to send people to the moon.
It's the same effect, becausethe entire infrastructure it
doesn't exist.
The communication systems, theydon't exist yet.
How are you going to get tothat?
Vertiport this is what it'scalled it doesn't exist yet.
So all the infrastructure thatis needed for that system to
(18:49):
exist, it's not there yet.
So all the infrastructure thatit's needed for that system to
exist, it's not there yet.
And meanwhile, the industrythinks that in 2042, they expect
to have a complete system offlying eVTOLs, or flying
aircrafts going from points topoints that are going to be
(19:11):
fully autonomous, so that it'sabout 15 years from now.
What we found is that it mightnot be the case just because the
regulations are going to be soimportant, but then, just
because when you're a startup inthat space you need to have
(19:33):
that, you're going to be thefirst one breaking all the rules
.
So, basically, you're going totalk to the government to have
the regulations in your favor,you're going to have the city
now to have your infrastructureand so on.
You're going to have thecommunication set up.
(19:54):
So it's going to be a lot ofdifferent hurdles to get there
and meanwhile the city.
They're not prepared for thatmany of them.
So we're based on research inMontreal and Montreal this is
not part of the plan.
They don't see this type ofmobility as solving anything
(20:17):
that they need to solve in termsof, in terms of their needs.
So the industry, most of them.
When you look at how they seesocial acceptability, they come
up with seven to eight criterias, and the first one would be
noise.
It has to make zero noise.
(20:43):
Different social acceptabilitycriteria instead of seven 62.
62 criteria of socialacceptability.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
That's a long list.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well, they're divided into groups, For example,
governance, political criteria,and for us, the most important
criteria was the valueproposition.
(21:19):
For us, we were not able to seewhat was the clear value
proposition that the new meansof transportation has, and I
think that one thing that isreally important is that we use
Corinne Gendron, who's an expertin social acceptability, and we
(21:40):
use her definition, and herdefinition of social
acceptability is the publicassent project or public policy
resulting from the collectivejudgment that this decision is
superior to known alternatives,including the status quo.
So I think one of the mostimportant elements here in that
(22:01):
definition is including thestatus quo, meaning that you can
do nothing and that's good.
So here we really need to besolving a a problem that it's
known and that it's validatedand that users, uh, feel that
(22:21):
it's very important.
And for many of the projectsthat we're seeing at the moment,
they're not there, like theydon't have a real problem that
it's validated.
And in 15 years from now or 20years from now, when the
environment is going to bemassively impacted by the
(22:48):
environmental crises that wehave right now, well, this
priority is going to be comparedto other priorities that
governments and people have,like, for example, pension funds
, healthcare being adaptableclean water and investments in
(23:10):
urban air mobility or inadvanced air mobility and
building the entireinfrastructure.
Is that going to be on the topof the list of the other people
the politicians and so on, thepoliticians and so on or is it
(23:32):
going to be, well, just makingsure that we adapt to the
environmental crises right nowand making sure that we have
water and that we have food?
So I think we have to beextremely realistic when we plan
out that technology in thefuture and what it means in 15
to 20 years from now.
I'm not saying that thetechnology is not going to
happen.
This is not what I'm.
(23:52):
This is not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that we have to bereally careful what projects we
think that are valuable andwhere we want to invest our
money and resources.
Some of them, they absolutelymake sense and some of them,
let's say, in 15 years from now,when we have people who want to
ride, extremely wealthy peoplewith their Gucci bags on top of
(24:19):
their house, while people theyhave to make a lot of sacrifices
and, you know, not ride anairplane.
Well, how does it compare tothat use case?
And some of these use cases donot make sense in terms of the
(24:42):
future world that we're going tolive in.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
World that we're going to live in.
I've been seeing if I were tolook back and look forward, this
space, this flying car space,goes in like 20-year chunks.
So earlier, like in the 80s,you had the taller, taller, the
(25:14):
flying car car.
It was like moller mollerflying car, I think this red.
They could only get it tethered, it could never be controlled.
It was like and I just see the,you see these monstrosities of
like throwing wings on cars andmaking them like because it's
the paradigm of the now.
It's like trying to explainhaving mobile phones when
everything was pay phones.
It's like people can't get outof, it's like the paralysis of
the present.
(25:35):
And then that was just liketrying to get something, an
existing thing, to go up a car.
In the early 2000s, when I wasworking on stuff, it was around
uh, very light jets.
So it was a smaller, muchsmaller uh aircraft than like a
learjet or a citation, but itwas single pilot operator, which
(25:58):
was huge in terms of cost andit had a range of about a
thousand miles, but it was stillusing the existing general
aviation infrastructure.
Like you know, just there's5,500 of them in the United
States that can handle out of18,000 airports they can handle
that kind of craft versus the 50that handle the commercial
aircraft now and that's all huband spoke.
(26:21):
But that was kind of stayingwithin that kind of paradigm
With the eVTOL it's not there,but's you can have it, because
we also had the last mile issue.
If you get to this remoteairport, how do you get to your,
how do you get to where youultimately need to be, right, uh
, you know, now we have uber.
Didn't have that back then, sonow we have them to solve the
(26:41):
noise issue we still have.
We also have the trust issue wehave in I, my work and I worked
on uh studies for for Europe aswell as some other companies,
and we found three major usecases.
One was intercity travel, movingacross places.
(27:02):
That a good example of this isthe LA basin.
Trying to go from Santa Monicato Burbank is a mess.
Reach LA basin.
That, like trying to go fromlike Santa Monica to Burbank, is
like a mess, it's a nightmareso you might want.
Or Dallas Metroplex, like thesehuge kind of sprawled cities.
Then there's city to ex-suburb,which is like I live in Boston,
(27:23):
so like in the countryside,western Massachusetts.
There's no real trains to gethere.
It's a long trip, right,especially if you're trying to
get to an airport and you wantto leave Logan.
You could go from there and getto Logan.
So there's that.
And then there's the regionalcity to city.
So instead of me trying todrive to Bar Harbor, which is
six hours, trying to fly there,I'd have to go through, like
(27:45):
Cleveland, like I could just gotake an hour business trip and
go straight up.
So it had.
It has its business cases, butagain it's like who will lead
the way?
The noise issue, we have apropulsion issue, we have energy
issues.
We have a lot of things tosolve still, but it's one of
those things.
I think we're going tocontinually punch at it.
I think we're going to continue.
(28:06):
I think it's going to beanother cycle.
You know, like Punch at it, Ithink we're going to continue.
(28:30):
I think it's going to beanother cycle.
We've made things further thanthe last time, but we're still
not there.
I think you're probably lookingat 2050.
I think also societally, once wehave self-driving cars and
people can feel trust without adriver, then we might be able to
talk about aircraft, but rightnow, no way, no way.
Yeah, I mean, I just I don'tthink people have that trust for
it.
But I'm a pilot, so I have adifferent, biased perspective.
So, you know, I could take overthe control if I needed to, you
know, but not a lot of peoplecould do that, right.
And is it going to fly at 2,000feet over everybody you know?
Is it going to fly at 2 000feet over everybody you know?
(28:51):
Is it going to fly at a certainyou know airspace path?
Uh, that's yeah anyway.
Yeah, thought thoughts, youknow, reaction to that, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
so the thing is we asked the uh, urban planning and
also.
So transportation experts talkabout this and they do not see
this as a viable grain solutionto mobility problems.
They do not.
They just see this as anextension of the traffic problem
(29:23):
into the air.
So that's their point of view.
They do not see this as a goodsolution just because of the
capacity issue.
So, for example, most of theseeVTOLs, they're going to fly
three to four passengers.
Sometimes they're going to goup to 20.
Well, it's nowhere near thecapacity of a high-speed train.
(29:48):
It's never going to come to thecomparison.
So then these people are goingto say, well, let's talk about
the real problem.
And the real problem is the waythat we design our cities.
We have no village network, nodensity anymore, and let's talk
(30:11):
about the, the, the, thetransportation, the mass transit
options that we have for ourpeople.
Is it good, is it not?
Most of them?
They're not good.
In North America, when you talkto, when you talk about cities
that are newer, for example, losAngeles has a massive problem
(30:35):
and in terms of capacity, forthe way that we modeled Montreal
, in 2040, we arrived atcapacity between zero and 125
(30:56):
passengers per hour, so which isalmost nonexistent compared to
mass transit.
So metro, buses and so on.
So if you're trying to solvethat transit issue, I don't
think it's going to be withflying cars and it's impossible
(31:21):
that you're going to be able toreplace one highway lane.
If you replace an entirehighway, you would need more
than 6,000 eVTOL in the year atthe same time.
So it's just impossible thatit's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well, I think that you go ahead.
No, I was going to respond tothat.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
No, no, please.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, no, there's a couple of things with trains is
a lot of the infrastructurerequired?
There's no, no imminent domainin the air, so you can also go
three-dimensionally up and downin terms of grid and airspace.
Certain spaces we can't breakthrough or we would well, we'd
lose our license but theviolation or the possibility for
accidents I mean, just look atwhat happened in Washington DC
(32:25):
with the helicopter, the BlackHawk helicopter that was it had
a ceiling of 200 feet and itbroke that and it put itself
straight in line and that's along.
That's a whole other thing.
But you're right, I thinkthey're ill prepared.
Cities are ill prepared for it.
But when I think about the usesof the future, the scenario work
I've done, we, we came up withthis kind of almost like, if you
think of this show, ultracarbon, where, like the really
(32:48):
wealthy live like in the cloud,they live up, high up above the
cities and and though they inthere, that's a whole nother
show.
If you haven't seen it's amazingshow, but I call them
skylanders and flatlanders, likepeople that were living.
It's almost like you thinkabout the other movie is the
fifth element, like there's,there's people that live at
(33:10):
certain altitudes.
They never come down like they.
There's almost this physicalstratification you know, you
think of the Titanic, right, youhad third class on the bottom
of the ship, second class, firstclass, like there's almost like
a class structure physicallycould manifest in the design of
our cities.
If this stuff isn't, I think,planned properly and that was
(33:31):
not dystopian, but it was morelike this is how people would
think if they could afford itand they could go higher,
there'd be businesses, there'dbe things up there that they
would never have a need to godown right.
So that's another thing that'sinteresting.
It's like we talk about urbansprawl.
There's also urban sprawlupward with this that we haven't
(33:53):
really even considered yet.
We talk about the suburbansprawl and the growth, but
there's a high likelihood maybenot even in America, but cities
like in Malaysia or like Dubai,things that will just
continually rise.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
that's exactly that.
Uh, we, we, uh, we look atdifferent uh articles on that.
They, they talk about this.
They talk about people not evengoing to to the regular uh city
life.
They just hop on theirhelicopter or they hop in their
aircraft and then they gostraight home in the suburbs or
(34:35):
in the country so they never getinto contact with real issues.
So, for them, they don't evenhave the the aware of what
people, real people, live.
So that stratification of ofchances, but also of issues, and
(34:58):
uh, and that's why they, thesome people talk about this as a
threat for democracy, and I cansee that it's uh, it's uh, you
know, people not even sharingtheir, their, um, their fellow
people's concern and reality.
And we can already see thatwith the big tech billionaires
(35:23):
not even sharing the basicconcerns of real people on the
ground.
So that could only beexacerbated by different
technologies.
They have an impact for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, it's a topic that I'm sure we're going to
revisit a lot.
Your work, you lead the globalnetwork, kind of come back to
design itself itself.
But you have to have a cultureof innovation, right.
I mean, even if things likethis might they do help with the
strategic planning like, do youmake the investments or not?
(35:59):
Like how do you?
But let's talk about creativityand just forward thinking.
Like, how do you, how do youencourage that, how do you
foster that in in the war, inthe work and leading the work?
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Well, I think the first thing is that we have to
have people come together, andfor us it's to have them share
their thoughts and projects andto feel that they have a safe
space, also within the company,to be with like-minded people,
(36:38):
with designers and so on.
So I think also fostering thatplace is for them to not having
to battle the politics aroundinnovation and creativity,
politics around innovation andcreativity.
I think these days it's gettingmore and more difficult
sometimes to to, to work and tothat space when things are
(36:59):
getting more and moreoperational.
So you, so you have to, so youneed good people who are going
to play the political game sothat you can do the right
innovation work behind thescenes.
And when I talk to people inthe industry, they say that the
(37:26):
pendulum now it swings back toyou know things very operational
, very the day-to-day, uh, notso much future work.
Yet you, you, you as well yes,it's.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
A lot of designers have been laid off.
A lot of the design functionshave been cut away.
Yeah, I see, I see a retoolingand a realignment right now,
like people are trying to figureout is Gen AI going to take
away everything?
Is it going to solve things?
What is it really going to do?
(38:02):
Realistically, productively,right?
And then, how do I hire skillsets around that?
And that's where a lot of I'mtalking to a lot of designers
that they spent 20 years doingwireframes and UX skill sets
around that, and that's where alot of I'm talking to a lot of
designers that you know theyspent 20 years doing wireframes
and UX and but I can use toolsthat can give me a lot of it
already.
(38:23):
So the question becomes what isthe skill sets that people need
when they're creating?
I mean creativity, empathy, Imean but, but the but there's
the tool set itself that I thinkis being reworked, but also the
way that people approachideation, the way people
approach prototyping, creatingis also changing companies.
(38:49):
Now it's easy for them to justbuild things, maintain things,
do this, do what they kind ofpull back.
But what I think the advantageis with, like what the listeners
here, what we all do isinnovators and some are
futurists, some are, you know,aspiring some.
I think we're all futurists insome way.
(39:10):
I think it's a of like, how dowe get people into a different
mindset?
I think that's our skill.
Our skillset is also when itcomes to just designing
something.
We have to think in terms ofprobabilistic instead of just
straight out, like straightjourneys.
It used to be just a straight,step-by-step journey.
It's a lot of different ways.
(39:30):
You kind of, you know like,choose your own adventure as you
get to answer a problem andthat's the way people may
interact with it.
And I think you know that givesme to like, you know, kind of
the beginning of ourconversation, you were having
challenges getting into thespace, and most people do,
because it's like you have tobuild a portfolio, you have to
work.
You can't get a job withoutexperience.
(39:51):
You can't get experiencewithout a job.
Right, that's never going tochange.
But if you're talking todesigners, futurists, people
that are looking to create, whatwould you tell them now?
What should they be working onbuilding?
What should they be learning?
(40:12):
What should they be doing toget to get you know, to work in
their space?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, I think what's important is that we focus on
the basics and the focus on thethings that are never going to
change with, with the.
So, for example, you weretalking about wire framing and
so on.
For me, I see this as were westrategic enough doing that?
(40:39):
Did we build that skill set toinfluence with that, and have we
been able to uh steer thecompany or the uh the
organization in a direction thatmakes sense?
Or it was just uh for you know,for for getting food and bread
(41:04):
on the table?
So to me, that was that was notprobably the most impactful way
that we could have done, uh,done the work.
So then, I'm always trying tosee how we can be more impactful
and how we can make sure thatwe have our own voice, and to me
(41:25):
, this is not clear how peoplethey bring their own voice and
they are truly disruptive withwhat, with what they're doing.
Are they building their ownmindfulness?
Are they staying true to theirpoint of view?
Do they bring a point of viewon the table?
Or it's just that they'restealing point of views from
(41:46):
other people and then matchingthe different point of views
until it becomes one, andmatching the different point of
views till it become one, and soit feels to me that these days,
it's much more important todevelop your own style and your
(42:07):
own point of view and what istruly unique that you bring, and
for that so it's going to be,you know, communicating with
impact, being able to see whatpeople cannot see.
Ai is never going to be able tolook at.
You know, two different pointsthat are that do not have a lot
(42:32):
of how you say that that they'reextremely weak.
Like if you have two differentpoints that are extremely weak,
like that abductive thinking ofsaying, oh, I can put this one
plus this one together and thatmakes sense.
No, like, sometimes the AI isjust going to take the points
that have the most, is justgoing to take the points that
(42:54):
have the most.
They're most redundant, andthen they're going to repackage
something about this, and thenthey're going to, and then the
AI is going to make a conclusionout of it.
The thing is, how can you usethat and then be able to be
extremely disruptive to whatyou're proposing?
(43:16):
And what's hard now is that,because you're proposing
something that is very different, you're going to go against the
mainstream and against thecurrent flow and you're going to
have to be strong enough tohold it and be able to stay into
that discomfort, which I thinkthis is the most.
(43:37):
It's one of the hardest thingsfor people to do Stand their
ground, being able to see thatthis is a really good vision,
try to make it real and convinceother people and if you see
that it doesn't work, thatyou're still strong enough to
(44:00):
keep pushing as an innovatoragain and again, again, against
the current flow, and this is avery tough skill set.
No way I is going to be able todo that.
I don't think, and have a realhuman performance, you know.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
When you look back at things, you know the legacy
question I always like to ask ishow do you want your work life
things to be remembered?
I always like to ask is how doyou want it, how do you want
your work life, the things to beremembered, like the impact you
have on the world?
It's not that just yeah Wellyeah, so.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
So I think it's.
It's like I think I want peopleto to just to remember that,
remember that, yeah well,katherine marched the beat of
her own drums and she uh triedto move the needle just a little
bit, uh, and showed us that itwas possible to do it because
(45:09):
she has the strength to do it.
So, so it was almost like aguiding light for us to have
courage to do it.
So I think I don't know if mywork is going to be any better
than anyone else, but I hopepeople are going to remember the
(45:31):
courage and the strength thatit needs to be an innovator
these days For sure.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
That's wonderful.
So if people want to find you,where do they reach out to
connect with your smiling faceand your awesome personality,
which is great?
So where do people find you?
I'm on LinkedIn, which is great.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
So where do people find you?
I'm?
I'm on LinkedIn, happy.
If people want to drop a lineand uh and connect and uh for
virtual coffee, uh and a chat,and if they're around Quebec or
if I happen to be near a placearound the world, cause I travel
a lot, I would love to cash forcoffee.
So LinkedIn is a it's a goodplace for me.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It's a good place.
Well, just I want to say thanksfor being on the show today and
just it's been great having you.
We're going to have you onagain and have a great one.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Thank you, steve.
Thank you, steve, I'm going tosee you, I'm going to see you in
.
May for the Foresight Gatheringfor Houston folks.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yes, I look forward to it.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast.
You can find us on all themajor podcast platforms and at
wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as wellas on YouTube under Think
Forward Show.
See you next time.
Welcome to the Think Forward.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Show.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Let's explore the future together.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to the Think Forward Show.
I'm your host, steve Fisher,and today we're taking flight
into one of my favorite topicsthe future of aeromobility.
Joining me today is thebrilliant Catherine Reid.
She's a designer turnedstrategic futurist who's been
reshaping how we think abouttomorrow's skies, from flying
taxis to AI co-pilots.
Catherine's research into thesocial acceptability of advanced
(00:25):
air mobility has uncoveredfascinating insights about what
it will really take to get ourcollective wheels off the ground
.
Will we all be zipping aroundin personal aircraft by 2040?
Or is the dream of the flyingcars destined to remain
perpetually just a few yearsaway?
Like fusion power and myability to assemble IKEA
furniture from leftover parts?
Like fusion power and myability to assemble Ikea
(00:47):
furniture from leftover parts?
So buckle up as we navigate thetechnical challenges,
regulatory hurdles and humanfactors that will determine
whether our future involvestraffic jams or jet streams.
Welcome to episode 131 of theThink Forward Show the future of
flight with Catherine Reed.
Catherine, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Hey, hello, hey, hello.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So there'll be probably lots of laughing and
giggling, since we know eachother well, but many listening
to the podcast may not know whoyou are, so we always start with
the journey.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah are.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So we always start with the journey.
So, yeah, what's your journeyinto futures?
Work, design futures, uh, youknow kind of experiences with uh
tales.
Actually, it's a you knowwhat's the best pronunciation of
the I told you about it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, this is one of many conversations that we've
had, but uh, it's talus talus orthe way that, yeah.
The way that the French peoplepronounce it is Talis.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Talis.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Talis, yes, so let's talk about that.
So, yes, your journey.
So where did it all begin?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Where do I start?
Okay, yeah, so I'm a designer.
I've always been.
When I was young, I used todraw a lot and my favorite play
was to create houses that wouldhave been different house plans
(02:21):
and so on.
So I've always been a designerall my life.
I was trained as an industrialdesigner when it was not the
norm, and then I moved into, oralways was, a UX designer, but
then at that time that was noteasy to find jobs in UX, I would
(02:41):
say.
So I did a bunch of differentthings and started my own
company about when was that like?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
about when was it hard to find?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
uh, that was really hard to find at the at the
beginning of the 2000 uh, yeahfinding a job in design,
especially in digital productsand so on.
That was very, very tough to do,uh, so, so I did a bunch of
different things in marketing,communication and so on, and
then I moved into a little bitof ergonomics or human factors
(03:16):
at that time, what they used tocall it and I could not really
find something that I reallyliked.
So I decided to do my own, myown thing, and start my own
company.
And then I got um, alice wasone of my client, um, one of my
clients back in the days andthen they wanted to to build
(03:37):
their own design force in NorthAmerica.
And, uh, at that time I wastired of doing the same projects
over and over again, andprobably some freelancers could
relate that you get tired ofyour own business sometimes.
So it took me a while touncouple my identity to my
(03:58):
business and then I joined TALISin 2019.
And now it's been almost sixyears now, but then I contracted
before that for two yearsbefore.
So roughly six to eight yearsthat I've been with them.
You know it's quite a journey,because I'm an entrepreneur at
(04:20):
heart and it feels that, youknow, it's been a long time.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
You've been building out the strategic design
capacity in North America.
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's to be able to work with our different business
lines in the region and try towork with them on their
strategic design capacity andcapabilities in the region and
innovation.
Mostly Most of the productsthey're in France, so it's a
nice dance between what'shappening in the region and also
(04:55):
what's happening in France.
So what are the differentproduct lines doing?
How they can be more marketableor specific to the US market
and the Canadian market.
So this is what I'm doing and,on a global scale, I lead the
strategic design activities andnetwork for the Design Center
(05:18):
Network that was started 12years ago by Didier Boulet in
Paris.
So he built the first studioand then it got into now almost
14 design studios around theworld.
So we cover every region and wecover also different verticals
(05:43):
that Dallas has, differentverticals that Dallas has.
So, for example, aerospace,defense, identity security,
cybersecurity and so on.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Do the different organizations in different parts
of the world, how do theyconnect with each other?
How do they work together?
Do they share certain resources?
Is there a shared mindset, likehow do they work together to
make it more efficient?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
yeah, so this is definitely a shared mindset.
Uh talus group is a group ofdifferent uh entities, so each
have their own verticals, theirown market, they have their own
products and so on.
And through the Design CenterNetwork we try to share the same
(06:35):
mindset, share the same toolsand methodologies, share best
practices, share knowledge ofwhat's happening within our own
projects, but then see also howpeople solve within their own
constraints or their own domain.
(06:56):
And sometimes we can havesynergies between design centers
.
So let's say that there's aspecific subject design center.
So let's say that there's aspecific subject.
So sometimes we're going tohave two design center
collaborating on that samesubject could be defense and
security, for example, so theyboth have a product or an
(07:18):
interest into that business.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Interesting Because it's.
Is there a set of processesthat everyone is really working
front Like?
Is there a set of like?
Do you have a design language?
Do you have a design system?
Right?
Is there certain things?
We're building that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, so we're building that, so this is
something that it's, that it'sincreasing.
So Talus is, uh, it's anengineering company and
technology company at heart.
So, of course, the, the, thedesign, um, uh elements and
aspects.
They started as grassrootsmovements, such as a design
(07:59):
centers within those entities,and then they grew organically
uh with again the same set oftools, the same mindset, uh a
location mindset and uh designthinking methodologies.
Uh, they also they also shareuh the same offer, uh the the,
(08:22):
the same uh way of focusing onhuman first uh, and this is
really, um, this is a reallyadded value to what talus is
doing, so, really technologyfocused.
And then we bring in the uh the, the human aspect, the design
aspect, uh the aspects, or again, the needs and the innovation
(08:48):
through the human experience.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Because humans the need, you know, because you're
obviously you're interactingwith physical objects, not just
digital, right, correct?
Yeah, so it's like how manypeople work in that space, but
it's a different set ofinteractions, things you need to
(09:18):
look at, and it's also moreexpensive to change something
physically in terms of theexperience, correct?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And then to go back to your first question, it was
about the same language and thesame tool, so this is something
that it's been increasinglyimportant in Site Talent.
So the same visual language,but also the same physical
language for physical productsand so on.
Same physical language forphysical products and so on.
(09:46):
So this is very instrumental inincreasing the design footprint
within the company.
I think, of companies like BMWright.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When you see a BMW, you get inside of a BMW.
You know it's a BMW.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yes, right, it's very different.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yes, it's a BMW.
It's very different.
There's distinct, there'saspects to it that are across
the entire design, the line ofdesign.
That's just one of manyexamples.
Right, the thing I was asfuturists how do you use that to
(10:24):
inform the work Like, do you?
Do you bring it in directly toexercises?
Do you have specific, like awork stream of futures work
signals to kind of bring in uhin to inform the work that you,
that you all do?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, well, the uh, the work specifically that I've
been doing for the past coupleof years is all about futures
work.
So it's really foresight workthat I'm doing.
I'm not necessarily designingon products per se.
So for the past four years I'dsay I've been extremely focused
on the environmental and socialand different impacts of the
(11:06):
like.
And then my outputs they'remostly related to strategic
opportunities or businessopportunities that we can
explore and then they becomedesign thinking projects that we
could look to see if there'ssomething interesting to build
(11:27):
from that.
One of the projects that I'vebeen doing that it got a lot
more concrete is about thefuture social acceptability of
the advanced air mobility, and Ithink this is one project that
you would find reallyinteresting for your aerospace,
of course.
(11:47):
So we were able for that one togo from the design not from the
design, but from the foresightperspective up to a concrete set
of tools for the industrywishing to implement AAM.
So AAM is Advanced Air MobilityProjects in a social context.
(12:12):
So this one went from theforesight perspective up to the
tool.
Some of them they just go tothe opportunity and sometimes we
go the other way around.
Let's say that we have atechnology that we want to build
.
So then we want to make surethat we know the right usage in
the future for that technologyto happen.
(12:36):
So, for example, it could be AIassistants inside cockpits, so
what it means for a pilot, forexample, to collaborate with an
assistant.
So how do we make sure that webuild that trust at that
specific time for particulardecision moment?
(12:58):
So this is how we're going touse foresight.
So we're going to set thecontext and they're going to be
in scenarios, and then we'regoing to bring the technology
into that context to make surethat they make sense.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, I was about to ask you, let's talk about flying
cars.
So my favorite subjects I know,I know.
Yeah, I had an air taxi company20 years ago.
That was way ahead of my time.
But you know, I've spent a lotof time on AAM and I almost feel
(13:36):
like the concept of flying carsis just like.
I don't say it will never come,but I think socially it's just
not.
You watch people drive on theroad and you imagine these
people in the air.
Well, obviously, it would haveto be controlled by a third part
a pilot.
It's interesting when you talkabout an assistant, like would
(13:59):
people get?
And those listening, thinkabout Uber, right, would you get
inside a car that didn't have adriver?
Would you get inside a planethat didn't have a, you know,
physical, a human, a pilot?
Um, it might be a little bitmore.
I I do think that in order toget there, like if you had
somebody on the ground that youcould talk to as your pilot, who
(14:20):
was guiding you, there was somesort of human interaction that
you can be remotely.
You know, that's fascinating inthat way.
Um, so you wrote an articlewhich I love zoom did you?
was that your title?
Their taxis zoom zoom, zoom,zoom, did you?
Uh?
Yeah, you talked about thesocietal implications.
(14:42):
Um, I've done some scenariowork in that, but I'd love to
hear there's a chicken and theegg factor.
So if you kind of deeply thinkabout it, if you're listening to
this and you think about likewhere would they land, where
would they pick up?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Do we need to build the infrastructure in order to
get it's like charging stationsright?
Like, do we need to build allthe charging stations to
successfully get people awayfrom range anxiety?
Do we need some sort ofmotivation factor to let them
feel trust that this would have,like, that they would actually
(15:18):
use it, because we could buildall this and nobody ever used it
?
Or it becomes something thatonly a certain.
It's a status thing, it's awealth thing.
It's like people having theirown helicopter or their own you
know private jet or aircraft.
So, yeah, let's just, let'sjust, let's dive into that.
Like the social acceptability,like chicken and egg, like what,
(15:39):
what did, what did?
What did you find in your work?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
So that was one of the most fascinating projects
that we've done for the client.
That's called the Consortium ofResearch and Innovation in
Aerospace in Quebec, so we didthe project for them.
So Consortium of Research andInnovation, they're all about
(16:04):
advancing research andinnovation, basically within
different partners and aerospacepartners, and one of the
elements that the board hasnoticed in the past was that the
aerospace companies they alwaystalk about their technology but
(16:25):
they never talk about how thattechnology is going to be
implemented.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I personally would like the airlines to just make
sure the headphone jacks work.
That would be great, like theTV screens and the headphones.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
That would be Just that.
Let's work on that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, let's just keep that working yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So they asked for the CREAN to look at, well, what
would be the enabling conditions, the social acceptability
conditions, for air taxisbasically to fly.
So air taxi here we have to bea little broader, so meaning
that it's aircrafts, most ofthem.
(17:13):
They're automated.
Sometimes they can be notnecessarily 100% automated.
They can be hybrid or halfhybrid and running on fuel.
Uh, they're mostly callede-vitals, so they are uh so they
, they, uh, they are uh,electrical, vertical landing and
(17:36):
take off.
So, basically, this is what itmeans is that they they take off
like helicopters, they haverotor crafts, they don't glide.
So that's one thing that isvery important and this is a
massive element in terms ofsecurity and safety.
And they are in the altitudethat it's in control and
(18:03):
non-control airspace, so meaningthat when they are above the
ground, most of them they'regoing to fly over cities, but
they are inside that cityairspace.
So this is a completely newsystem and, just like what you
were mentioning is that itbasically means that you're
(18:25):
going to send people to the moon.
It's the same effect, becausethe entire infrastructure it
doesn't exist.
The communication systems, theydon't exist yet.
How are you going to get tothat?
Vertiport this is what it'scalled it doesn't exist yet.
So all the infrastructure thatis needed for that system to
(18:49):
exist, it's not there yet.
So all the infrastructure thatit's needed for that system to
exist, it's not there yet.
And meanwhile, the industrythinks that in 2042, they expect
to have a complete system offlying eVTOLs, or flying
aircrafts going from points topoints that are going to be
(19:11):
fully autonomous, so that it'sabout 15 years from now.
What we found is that it mightnot be the case just because the
regulations are going to be soimportant, but then, just
because when you're a startup inthat space you need to have
(19:33):
that, you're going to be thefirst one breaking all the rules
.
So, basically, you're going totalk to the government to have
the regulations in your favor,you're going to have the city
now to have your infrastructureand so on.
You're going to have thecommunication set up.
(19:54):
So it's going to be a lot ofdifferent hurdles to get there
and meanwhile the city.
They're not prepared for thatmany of them.
So we're based on research inMontreal and Montreal this is
not part of the plan.
They don't see this type ofmobility as solving anything
(20:17):
that they need to solve in termsof, in terms of their needs.
So the industry, most of them.
When you look at how they seesocial acceptability, they come
up with seven to eight criterias, and the first one would be
noise.
It has to make zero noise.
(20:43):
Different social acceptabilitycriteria instead of seven 62.
62 criteria of socialacceptability.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
That's a long list.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well, they're divided into groups, For example,
governance, political criteria,and for us, the most important
criteria was the valueproposition.
(21:19):
For us, we were not able to seewhat was the clear value
proposition that the new meansof transportation has, and I
think that one thing that isreally important is that we use
Corinne Gendron, who's an expertin social acceptability, and we
(21:40):
use her definition, and herdefinition of social
acceptability is the publicassent project or public policy
resulting from the collectivejudgment that this decision is
superior to known alternatives,including the status quo.
So I think one of the mostimportant elements here in that
(22:01):
definition is including thestatus quo, meaning that you can
do nothing and that's good.
So here we really need to besolving a a problem that it's
known and that it's validatedand that users, uh, feel that
(22:21):
it's very important.
And for many of the projectsthat we're seeing at the moment,
they're not there, like theydon't have a real problem that
it's validated.
And in 15 years from now or 20years from now, when the
environment is going to bemassively impacted by the
(22:48):
environmental crises that wehave right now, well, this
priority is going to be comparedto other priorities that
governments and people have,like, for example, pension funds
, healthcare being adaptableclean water and investments in
(23:10):
urban air mobility or inadvanced air mobility and
building the entireinfrastructure.
Is that going to be on the topof the list of the other people
the politicians and so on, thepoliticians and so on or is it
(23:32):
going to be, well, just makingsure that we adapt to the
environmental crises right nowand making sure that we have
water and that we have food?
So I think we have to beextremely realistic when we plan
out that technology in thefuture and what it means in 15
to 20 years from now.
I'm not saying that thetechnology is not going to
happen.
This is not what I'm.
(23:52):
This is not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that we have to bereally careful what projects we
think that are valuable andwhere we want to invest our
money and resources.
Some of them, they absolutelymake sense and some of them,
let's say, in 15 years from now,when we have people who want to
ride, extremely wealthy peoplewith their Gucci bags on top of
(24:19):
their house, while people theyhave to make a lot of sacrifices
and, you know, not ride anairplane.
Well, how does it compare tothat use case?
And some of these use cases donot make sense in terms of the
(24:42):
future world that we're going tolive in.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
World that we're going to live in.
I've been seeing if I were tolook back and look forward, this
space, this flying car space,goes in like 20-year chunks.
So earlier, like in the 80s,you had the taller, taller, the
(25:14):
flying car car.
It was like moller mollerflying car, I think this red.
They could only get it tethered, it could never be controlled.
It was like and I just see the,you see these monstrosities of
like throwing wings on cars andmaking them like because it's
the paradigm of the now.
It's like trying to explainhaving mobile phones when
everything was pay phones.
It's like people can't get outof, it's like the paralysis of
the present.
(25:35):
And then that was just liketrying to get something, an
existing thing, to go up a car.
In the early 2000s, when I wasworking on stuff, it was around
uh, very light jets.
So it was a smaller, muchsmaller uh aircraft than like a
learjet or a citation, but itwas single pilot operator, which
(25:58):
was huge in terms of cost andit had a range of about a
thousand miles, but it was stillusing the existing general
aviation infrastructure.
Like you know, just there's5,500 of them in the United
States that can handle out of18,000 airports they can handle
that kind of craft versus the 50that handle the commercial
aircraft now and that's all huband spoke.
(26:21):
But that was kind of stayingwithin that kind of paradigm
With the eVTOL it's not there,but's you can have it, because
we also had the last mile issue.
If you get to this remoteairport, how do you get to your,
how do you get to where youultimately need to be, right, uh
, you know, now we have uber.
Didn't have that back then, sonow we have them to solve the
(26:41):
noise issue we still have.
We also have the trust issue wehave in I, my work and I worked
on uh studies for for Europe aswell as some other companies,
and we found three major usecases.
One was intercity travel, movingacross places.
(27:02):
That a good example of this isthe LA basin.
Trying to go from Santa Monicato Burbank is a mess.
Reach LA basin.
That, like trying to go fromlike Santa Monica to Burbank, is
like a mess, it's a nightmareso you might want.
Or Dallas Metroplex, like thesehuge kind of sprawled cities.
Then there's city to ex-suburb,which is like I live in Boston,
(27:23):
so like in the countryside,western Massachusetts.
There's no real trains to gethere.
It's a long trip, right,especially if you're trying to
get to an airport and you wantto leave Logan.
You could go from there and getto Logan.
So there's that.
And then there's the regionalcity to city.
So instead of me trying todrive to Bar Harbor, which is
six hours, trying to fly there,I'd have to go through, like
(27:45):
Cleveland, like I could just gotake an hour business trip and
go straight up.
So it had.
It has its business cases, butagain it's like who will lead
the way?
The noise issue, we have apropulsion issue, we have energy
issues.
We have a lot of things tosolve still, but it's one of
those things.
I think we're going tocontinually punch at it.
I think we're going to continue.
(28:06):
I think it's going to beanother cycle.
You know, like Punch at it, Ithink we're going to continue.
(28:30):
I think it's going to beanother cycle.
We've made things further thanthe last time, but we're still
not there.
I think you're probably lookingat 2050.
I think also societally, once wehave self-driving cars and
people can feel trust without adriver, then we might be able to
talk about aircraft, but rightnow, no way, no way.
Yeah, I mean, I just I don'tthink people have that trust for
it.
But I'm a pilot, so I have adifferent, biased perspective.
So, you know, I could take overthe control if I needed to, you
know, but not a lot of peoplecould do that, right.
And is it going to fly at 2,000feet over everybody you know?
Is it going to fly at 2 000feet over everybody you know?
(28:51):
Is it going to fly at a certainyou know airspace path?
Uh, that's yeah anyway.
Yeah, thought thoughts, youknow, reaction to that, yeah,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
so the thing is we asked the uh, urban planning and
also.
So transportation experts talkabout this and they do not see
this as a viable grain solutionto mobility problems.
They do not.
They just see this as anextension of the traffic problem
(29:23):
into the air.
So that's their point of view.
They do not see this as a goodsolution just because of the
capacity issue.
So, for example, most of theseeVTOLs, they're going to fly
three to four passengers.
Sometimes they're going to goup to 20.
Well, it's nowhere near thecapacity of a high-speed train.
(29:48):
It's never going to come to thecomparison.
So then these people are goingto say, well, let's talk about
the real problem.
And the real problem is the waythat we design our cities.
We have no village network, nodensity anymore, and let's talk
(30:11):
about the, the, the, thetransportation, the mass transit
options that we have for ourpeople.
Is it good, is it not?
Most of them?
They're not good.
In North America, when you talkto, when you talk about cities
that are newer, for example, losAngeles has a massive problem
(30:35):
and in terms of capacity, forthe way that we modeled Montreal
, in 2040, we arrived atcapacity between zero and 125
(30:56):
passengers per hour, so which isalmost nonexistent compared to
mass transit.
So metro, buses and so on.
So if you're trying to solvethat transit issue, I don't
think it's going to be withflying cars and it's impossible
(31:21):
that you're going to be able toreplace one highway lane.
If you replace an entirehighway, you would need more
than 6,000 eVTOL in the year atthe same time.
So it's just impossible thatit's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well, I think that you go ahead.
No, I was going to respond tothat.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
No, no, please.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, no, there's a couple of things with trains is
a lot of the infrastructurerequired?
There's no, no imminent domainin the air, so you can also go
three-dimensionally up and downin terms of grid and airspace.
Certain spaces we can't breakthrough or we would well, we'd
lose our license but theviolation or the possibility for
accidents I mean, just look atwhat happened in Washington DC
(32:25):
with the helicopter, the BlackHawk helicopter that was it had
a ceiling of 200 feet and itbroke that and it put itself
straight in line and that's along.
That's a whole other thing.
But you're right, I thinkthey're ill prepared.
Cities are ill prepared for it.
But when I think about the usesof the future, the scenario work
I've done, we, we came up withthis kind of almost like, if you
think of this show, ultracarbon, where, like the really
(32:48):
wealthy live like in the cloud,they live up, high up above the
cities and and though they inthere, that's a whole nother
show.
If you haven't seen it's amazingshow, but I call them
skylanders and flatlanders, likepeople that were living.
It's almost like you thinkabout the other movie is the
fifth element, like there's,there's people that live at
(33:10):
certain altitudes.
They never come down like they.
There's almost this physicalstratification you know, you
think of the Titanic, right, youhad third class on the bottom
of the ship, second class, firstclass, like there's almost like
a class structure physicallycould manifest in the design of
our cities.
If this stuff isn't, I think,planned properly and that was
(33:31):
not dystopian, but it was morelike this is how people would
think if they could afford itand they could go higher,
there'd be businesses, there'dbe things up there that they
would never have a need to godown right.
So that's another thing that'sinteresting.
It's like we talk about urbansprawl.
There's also urban sprawlupward with this that we haven't
(33:53):
really even considered yet.
We talk about the suburbansprawl and the growth, but
there's a high likelihood maybenot even in America, but cities
like in Malaysia or like Dubai,things that will just
continually rise.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
that's exactly that.
Uh, we, we, uh, we look atdifferent uh articles on that.
They, they talk about this.
They talk about people not evengoing to to the regular uh city
life.
They just hop on theirhelicopter or they hop in their
aircraft and then they gostraight home in the suburbs or
(34:35):
in the country so they never getinto contact with real issues.
So, for them, they don't evenhave the the aware of what
people, real people, live.
So that stratification of ofchances, but also of issues, and
(34:58):
uh, and that's why they, thesome people talk about this as a
threat for democracy, and I cansee that it's uh, it's uh, you
know, people not even sharingtheir, their, um, their fellow
people's concern and reality.
And we can already see thatwith the big tech billionaires
(35:23):
not even sharing the basicconcerns of real people on the
ground.
So that could only beexacerbated by different
technologies.
They have an impact for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, it's a topic that I'm sure we're going to
revisit a lot.
Your work, you lead the globalnetwork, kind of come back to
design itself itself.
But you have to have a cultureof innovation, right.
I mean, even if things likethis might they do help with the
strategic planning like, do youmake the investments or not?
(35:59):
Like how do you?
But let's talk about creativityand just forward thinking.
Like, how do you, how do youencourage that, how do you
foster that in in the war, inthe work and leading the work?
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Well, I think the first thing is that we have to
have people come together, andfor us it's to have them share
their thoughts and projects andto feel that they have a safe
space, also within the company,to be with like-minded people,
(36:38):
with designers and so on.
So I think also fostering thatplace is for them to not having
to battle the politics aroundinnovation and creativity,
politics around innovation andcreativity.
I think these days it's gettingmore and more difficult
sometimes to to, to work and tothat space when things are
(36:59):
getting more and moreoperational.
So you, so you have to, so youneed good people who are going
to play the political game sothat you can do the right
innovation work behind thescenes.
And when I talk to people inthe industry, they say that the
(37:26):
pendulum now it swings back toyou know things very operational
, very the day-to-day, uh, notso much future work.
Yet you, you, you as well yes,it's.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
A lot of designers have been laid off.
A lot of the design functionshave been cut away.
Yeah, I see, I see a retoolingand a realignment right now,
like people are trying to figureout is Gen AI going to take
away everything?
Is it going to solve things?
What is it really going to do?
(38:02):
Realistically, productively,right?
And then, how do I hire skillsets around that?
And that's where a lot of I'mtalking to a lot of designers
that they spent 20 years doingwireframes and UX skill sets
around that, and that's where alot of I'm talking to a lot of
designers that you know theyspent 20 years doing wireframes
and UX and but I can use toolsthat can give me a lot of it
already.
(38:23):
So the question becomes what isthe skill sets that people need
when they're creating?
I mean creativity, empathy, Imean but, but the but there's
the tool set itself that I thinkis being reworked, but also the
way that people approachideation, the way people
approach prototyping, creatingis also changing companies.
(38:49):
Now it's easy for them to justbuild things, maintain things,
do this, do what they kind ofpull back.
But what I think the advantageis with, like what the listeners
here, what we all do isinnovators and some are
futurists, some are, you know,aspiring some.
I think we're all futurists insome way.
(39:10):
I think it's a of like, how dowe get people into a different
mindset?
I think that's our skill.
Our skillset is also when itcomes to just designing
something.
We have to think in terms ofprobabilistic instead of just
straight out, like straightjourneys.
It used to be just a straight,step-by-step journey.
It's a lot of different ways.
(39:30):
You kind of, you know like,choose your own adventure as you
get to answer a problem andthat's the way people may
interact with it.
And I think you know that givesme to like, you know, kind of
the beginning of ourconversation, you were having
challenges getting into thespace, and most people do,
because it's like you have tobuild a portfolio, you have to
work.
You can't get a job withoutexperience.
(39:51):
You can't get experiencewithout a job.
Right, that's never going tochange.
But if you're talking todesigners, futurists, people
that are looking to create, whatwould you tell them now?
What should they be working onbuilding?
What should they be learning?
(40:12):
What should they be doing toget to get you know, to work in
their space?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, I think what's important is that we focus on
the basics and the focus on thethings that are never going to
change with, with the.
So, for example, you weretalking about wire framing and
so on.
For me, I see this as were westrategic enough doing that?
(40:39):
Did we build that skill set toinfluence with that, and have we
been able to uh steer thecompany or the uh the
organization in a direction thatmakes sense?
Or it was just uh for you know,for for getting food and bread
(41:04):
on the table?
So to me, that was that was notprobably the most impactful way
that we could have done, uh,done the work.
So then, I'm always trying tosee how we can be more impactful
and how we can make sure thatwe have our own voice, and to me
(41:25):
, this is not clear how peoplethey bring their own voice and
they are truly disruptive withwhat, with what they're doing.
Are they building their ownmindfulness?
Are they staying true to theirpoint of view?
Do they bring a point of viewon the table?
Or it's just that they'restealing point of views from
(41:46):
other people and then matchingthe different point of views
until it becomes one, andmatching the different point of
views till it become one, and soit feels to me that these days,
it's much more important todevelop your own style and your
(42:07):
own point of view and what istruly unique that you bring, and
for that so it's going to be,you know, communicating with
impact, being able to see whatpeople cannot see.
Ai is never going to be able tolook at.
You know, two different pointsthat are that do not have a lot
(42:32):
of how you say that that they'reextremely weak.
Like if you have two differentpoints that are extremely weak,
like that abductive thinking ofsaying, oh, I can put this one
plus this one together and thatmakes sense.
No, like, sometimes the AI isjust going to take the points
that have the most, is justgoing to take the points that
(42:54):
have the most.
They're most redundant, andthen they're going to repackage
something about this, and thenthey're going to, and then the
AI is going to make a conclusionout of it.
The thing is, how can you usethat and then be able to be
extremely disruptive to whatyou're proposing?
(43:16):
And what's hard now is that,because you're proposing
something that is very different, you're going to go against the
mainstream and against thecurrent flow and you're going to
have to be strong enough tohold it and be able to stay into
that discomfort, which I thinkthis is the most.
(43:37):
It's one of the hardest thingsfor people to do Stand their
ground, being able to see thatthis is a really good vision,
try to make it real and convinceother people and if you see
that it doesn't work, thatyou're still strong enough to
(44:00):
keep pushing as an innovatoragain and again, again, against
the current flow, and this is avery tough skill set.
No way I is going to be able todo that.
I don't think, and have a realhuman performance, you know.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
When you look back at things, you know the legacy
question I always like to ask ishow do you want your work life
things to be remembered?
I always like to ask is how doyou want it, how do you want
your work life, the things to beremembered, like the impact you
have on the world?
It's not that just yeah Wellyeah, so.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
So I think it's.
It's like I think I want peopleto to just to remember that,
remember that, yeah well,katherine marched the beat of
her own drums and she uh triedto move the needle just a little
bit, uh, and showed us that itwas possible to do it because
(45:09):
she has the strength to do it.
So, so it was almost like aguiding light for us to have
courage to do it.
So I think I don't know if mywork is going to be any better
than anyone else, but I hopepeople are going to remember the
(45:31):
courage and the strength thatit needs to be an innovator
these days For sure.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
That's wonderful.
So if people want to find you,where do they reach out to
connect with your smiling faceand your awesome personality,
which is great?
So where do people find you?
I'm on LinkedIn, which is great.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
So where do people find you?
I'm?
I'm on LinkedIn, happy.
If people want to drop a lineand uh and connect and uh for
virtual coffee, uh and a chat,and if they're around Quebec or
if I happen to be near a placearound the world, cause I travel
a lot, I would love to cash forcoffee.
So LinkedIn is a it's a goodplace for me.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
It's a good place.
Well, just I want to say thanksfor being on the show today and
just it's been great having you.
We're going to have you onagain and have a great one.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Thank you, steve.
Thank you, steve, I'm going tosee you, I'm going to see you in
.
May for the Foresight Gatheringfor Houston folks.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yes, I look forward to it.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast.
You can find us on all themajor podcast platforms and at
wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as wellas on YouTube under Think
Forward Show.
See you next time.
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