Theo Edmonds
Expert in the future of creative work
Innovation has a human half. The arts know it best.
Theo translates what artists and creative industries know into the human side of innovation, helping leaders across machines, movements, music and moonshots decide what we want to become, and why.
Stages and partners from 30 years of work
Innovation Grief™: an invisible tax on innovation
AI is scaling capacity faster than we can build meaning and purpose.
Machine capacity. Tools, compute, AI.
Human creative advantage with investment. Meaning, discernment, creativity, wellbeing.
Human creative advantage without investment. Fear, frustration, fragmentation, flatness.
Innovation Grief™
The inability to imagine forward inside continuous, irreversible change.
The Culture Futurist · Free on Substack
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Essays from Theo on creativity, culture and what comes next. Join leaders, artists and change makers who read it first.
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Six Wonder Frontiers
Building technology is half the job. The other half is deciding what we want to become and why.
Innovation is more than the outer horizon of science and technology. Theo helps audiences and leaders go deep into the inner frontier of the human side so they don’t just keep up. They lead.
Work with Theo
Three ways to do the other half of the job.
Keynotes
For conferences, summits and all-hands. Your people leave with a shared language for change, and a map of where their creativity is at risk. Popular topics include: Innovation Grief™, Wonder Economy™, and Discovery Thinking™.
Executive sessions
Working sessions for executive teams navigating technological, organizational or cultural change.
Strategic advisory
Counsel for companies, entrepreneurial ecosystems, health systems, governments, industry groups and arts organizations building creativity into how they innovate.
Questions
Before you book
Is this a talk about AI?+
Theo is pro-tech and even more pro-human. As a Culture Futurist his focus is on how culture shapes technology. He focuses on what the arts and creative industries teach us about the human side of innovation. Blending storytelling and cultural anthropology with the science of creativity, Theo uncovers exciting new ways for companies and NGOs to innovate with artists and imagine forward, together, at this unique moment in human history.
Who is it for?+
Leaders and teams in business, health care, government, higher education and the arts.
Can it be tailored to our event?+
Yes. Each engagement is built around your audience and the frontiers that matter most to them.
America’s next golden age of human creativity and shared discovery.