Commn Oddities
Strategic foresight practice

Culture.
Futures.
Systems.

Culture- and planet-centric innovation & design research — culturally relevant, responsible, and future-ready.

Our practice → See the work
Why this matters

Going beyond the 'user' to their context — and studying how that evolves over time.

Most teams designing products, services, and experiences have mastered the user — and stopped there. But the user sits inside a culture that shapes what things mean, and moves through a future that keeps redrawing what's relevant. That's the gap where strong, user-validated work wins now, but fades in the near future.

The Gap

Human-centred design optimises for today's user. It rarely accounts for the cultural forces that shape meaning, or the emerging shifts that decide what stays relevant across markets and over time.

The Work

I bring cultural analysis and futures thinking into your research and strategy — feeding the brief before the first concept: decoding the codes that shape meaning, and mapping the shifts that shape what's next.

The Outcome

Design and strategy anchored in cultural relevance and emerging futures — so what you design stays meaningful across geographies and holds up over time.

Three lenses
01

Cultural Intelligence

Understanding the meaning frameworks your business is anchored in

Culture shapes what people value, how they read the world, and the mental models they bring to every choice. I work with local analysts and experts to decode the symbolic systems, cultural codes, and emerging subcultures beneath behaviour — so the products, services, and experiences you design rest on what people actually mean, not just what they do.

  • Cultural frameworks & codes
  • Deep ethnography & behavioural insights
  • Asia-Pacific cultural fluency
  • Design & experience guidelines
02

FutureSense

Design towards a preferred future for your organisation

Futures thinking keeps design from being reactive. Our work explores multiple possible futures, detects weak signals of change, and helps teams design for the world that's coming — not just extend today's assumptions.

  • Horizon scanning & signals
  • Scenario building
  • Speculative & design futures
  • Backcasting from preferred futures

In collaboration with Chris Hudson

03

Regenerative Systems

Creating a positive impact, going beyond 'zero'

Regenerative work accounts for the whole system, not isolated parts. We map the forces, relationships, and leverage points around a design challenge — so what you make holds up inside the wider system it lives in, rather than solving one part and breaking another. It's also where a regenerative sensibility lives: designing with the wider system's health in view.

  • Systems mapping
  • Leverage points and behaviour change
  • Transition & long-horizon framing
  • Regenerative & sustainability narratives
Selected work
The Future of Beauty × Tech
Futures & foresight · FutureSense

The Future of Beauty × Tech

Mapping emergent codes at the intersection of beauty and technology for a global skincare company — turned into innovation briefs.
The Future of Self-Care
Futures & foresight · FutureSense

The Future of Self-Care

Finding a global pharma company's next growth space in the rise of self-care — with the briefs to build it.
Mapping the Future of Urban Experiences
Placemaking & experience

Mapping the Future of Urban Experiences

A placemaking study for a global entertainment leader — decoding how people find cultural meaning in urban experiences across two Asian cities.

In the works
Futures & foresight

Case study

In progress — a scenarios & foresight programme.

In the works
Brand & meaning

Case study

In progress — a brand-futures narrative.

Ways of working

I'm collaborative, flexible, and I care about arrangements that genuinely work for both sides. I work through Common Oddities, with other industry partners, to assemble the right team for the project. I also work as a fractional strategic lead for boutique consultancies. Engagements usually take one of three shapes:

01

Project based

Focused, scoped research or strategy that feeds your design and innovation work — from a single cultural audit to a full landscape study.

Delivered with a network of cultural analysts & experts, across multiple cities

02

Capability building

Workshops and training that grow cultural and futures literacy inside your design, research, or innovation team.

Through Common Oddities & through FutureSense — a collaboration with Chris Hudson

03

Ongoing partnership

Retained advisory and fractional strategic leadership for organisations and boutique consultancies who want a steady strategic hand.

Current collaborations include Nation Insights

Get in touch

Let's talk.

Whether you have a design or research brief that needs cultural depth, an innovation pipeline that needs future signal, a team that wants to build cultural and futures capability, or a boutique consultancy ready to grow — I'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch →