What if the future isn’t a blank canvas, but a tapestry woven from everything that came before?

Recent research by academic Anton Pichler and colleagues highlights a powerful truth: innovation is cumulative. Their work on technological cumulativeness shows that progress is rarely random – it builds on prior technologies.

“Innovation is heavily dependent on prior technologies. When models take into account the performance of the technologies an invention builds on, they become 20–28% more accurate. This suggests innovation is not random – it’s cumulative.” – Anton Pichler et al.

This reframes how we think about the future. Progress isn’t a series of isolated sparks – it’s a continuum. Every breakthrough stands on the shoulders of what came before.

Imagination: Humanity’s Superpower

This idea reminded me of some thinking that previously inspired me, from Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens:

“Fiction has allowed us to not merely imagine things but to do so flexibly.” —Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

Our ability to imagine enables us to cooperate at scale, create shared narratives, and turn ideas into reality. From ancient Dreamtime stories to modern visions of AI, imagination is the first step toward shaping the future. But imagination alone isn’t enough – innovation follows patterns, and understanding those patterns changes how we plan for progress.

Dreamtime and Shared Narratives

Consider Indigenous Australians and their belief in the Dreamtime. Dating back 65,000 years, it explained how the universe was created and how people should live and cooperate. This shared belief system allowed their society to flourish. Nothing original can be created until it is imagined. Each generation plays increasingly complex games built on accumulated knowledge.

From Da Vinci to Tesla: The Continuum of Progress

Take the automobile:

• 1478 – Leonardo da Vinci sketches a self-propelled cart.
• 1885 – Karl Benz invents the first combustion engine car.
• 1908 – Henry Ford brings cars to the masses with the Model T.
• Today – Tesla popularizes the electric vehicle.

Each leap forward began with imagination – and scaled through cooperation.

Imagine the Future: From Concept to Continuum

The idea of cumulative innovation doesn’t just apply across centuries – it can also be compressed into short time frames. Here’s how that plays out in practice in four simple steps we use here at Colony to drive innovation for our clients:

• Imagine the Future – Agency and client imagine alternative futures.
• Build a Prototype – We put our thinking to the test hypothetically to see if it can work.
• Commercialise – We take that thinking into the market.
• Sustain – We continually optimise and improve our model over time.

This is the essence of Futures Thinking—turning bold ideas into tangible, scalable realities.

The Second Dreamtime: Shaping the Future

As we enter the next era – the new world – I like to think of a Second Dreamtime. What future can we imagine? How can we use accumulated knowledge to tackle challenges like AI, autonomous vehicles, and sustainability? At Colony Group, we don’t just imagine the future – we prototype it. Using Futures Thinking and rapid experimentation, we help organizations turn uncertainty into opportunity and shape the next era of innovation.

Now more than ever, there’s talk of a dystopian future – the nightmare – but it’s up to us to create the future we want to inhabit. The question is: What will your Second Dreamtime look like?