# Transcript: Featured Session: Multiplayer Futures: Co-Creating a Vision of SXSW 2030 (live!)

**Date:** March 13, 2026 · 10:00 PM  
**Session:** [Featured Session: Multiplayer Futures: Co-Creating a Vision of SXSW 2030 (live!)](/sessions/2026-03-13/pp1149972-featured-session-multiplayer-futures-co-creating-a-vision-of-sxsw-2030-live)

## Summary

Henry Coutinho-Mason leads an interactive session where the audience co-creates a vision for SXSW 2030 using creative futures thinking tools. Drawing from his books including 'The Future Normal,' he argues that meaningful futures emerge when people are given agency to imagine collectively rather than having plans broadcast from the top down.

## Topics

`futures thinking` · `co-creation` · `sxsw 2030` · `imagination` · `organizational design` · `creative tools` · `participatory foresight`

## Key Takeaways

1. The only future we will have is the one we are able to imagine — and most people don't practice imagination systematically.
2. Future planning should be multiplayer, not top-down: organizations create better futures when they give everyone agency to participate in visioning.
3. Creative technologies can unleash imagination and help people do more meaningful, purpose-driven work.

## Full Transcript

Henry Coutinho-Mason opens by challenging how organizations typically think about the future — plans made by a few at the top and broadcast down for execution. He's spent fifteen years obsessing over how to build organizations that create better futures, authoring books including 'The Future Normal' with co-author Rohit Bhargava.

The core thesis is that the only future we'll have is the one we can imagine, yet most people don't practice imagining. He argues that using new technologies and creative tools, we can help people do meaningful work, feel purpose, and gain agency to care about shaping what comes next.

Rather than lecturing for 45 minutes, the session takes an interactive approach. Attendees receive pen and paper to participate in a co-creation exercise, experiencing what collective futures-thinking feels like rather than just hearing about it.

The exercise walks participants through envisioning what SXSW could look like in 2030 — what technologies, formats, and cultural shifts might shape the event. The multiplayer approach demonstrates that diverse perspectives generate richer, more surprising possibilities than any individual or small team could produce.

The session concludes with insights about applying this multiplayer futures approach beyond SXSW — in organizations, communities, and movements — where giving people the tools and permission to imagine transforms passive audiences into active co-creators of change.

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*Source: stt · Language: en · Model: claude-opus-4-6*

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