The future really belongs to those brands that are able to weave together the past, the present and the future into a seamless and inspirational hero's journey.

The modern metaphor of seamless

The mathematics of metaphor are fairly simple: x = y. For example, in Shakespearean terms, ‘Juliet is the sun'. Now, we all know that she is not literally the sun, but that she has the sun's characteristics; attributes such as ‘warm', ‘glowing', ‘bright' and ‘beautiful' are bestowed upon Juliet by virtue of the metaphor. But while this mathematics may seem simple, our use of metaphor has a powerful influence on how we think about our lives. And, as I expand on later in this book, text (ideas) and textiles (fabrics) have always been closely linked, both literally and metaphorically.

For example, interestingly in the English language, we can both weave stories and tell lies by reference to textiles. As noted by the English Language and Usage website (in their analysis of the metaphor ‘Thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns'), expressions like ‘loom of language', ‘weave a story/spell', ‘thread of discourse' and ‘warp and woof' indicate textile–story associations, while ‘fabricate evidence', ‘spin a yarn', ‘tissue of lies', ‘pull the wool over your eyes', and ‘out of whole cloth' indicate that textile metaphors are morally neutral and can be used for authentic tales as well as the invention of false anecdotes to serve the interests of the raconteur. Metaphors can be a useful mental shortcut, by explaining x in reference to y, and, given our age-old connection to textiles — their production, their constituent parts, their art and science, and characteristics — the traditions of textiles are still highly relevant in a modern context, in the expression of ideas about the future, and in gaining buy-in to something as intangible and abstract as strategy.

Even a word such as ‘context', used in storytelling, news, debates, dialogue and therapy, is an example of the intermeshing of text and textiles. Context comes from the Latin root of ‘con' (together) + ‘texere', thus denoting ‘together to weave', meaning the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood. ‘Pretext' is another such intermeshing. This again comes from a Latin root — ‘prae' (before) + texere, indicating ‘before to weave' and meaning a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason. ‘Subtext' is a third example, and means an underlying and often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation. And the idea of ‘subtle' nuances in a conversation comes from the ‘sub-tela', from Latin ‘subtilis' (thin, fine, precise) or a ‘thread passing under the warp'.

These links between text and textiles lead us to the topic for this book (everything is connected). While the idea of ‘seamless' has both a literal and a metaphorical meaning, its origins, of course, lie in textiles. According to Merriam-Webster, the literal meaning of the word seamless is ‘having no seams'; its metaphorical meaning is ‘having no awkward transitions, interruptions, or indications of disparity'. More simply, Merriam-Webster defines seamless as ‘moving from one thing to another easily and without any interruptions or problems' and as ‘perfect and having no flaws or errors'.

Again according to Merriam-Webster, its synonyms include: absolute, faultless, flawless, ideal, immaculate, impeccable, indefectible, irreproachable, letter-perfect, picture-book, picture-perfect, perfect, unblemished. Its antonyms include: amiss, bad, censurable, defective, faulty, flawed, imperfect and reproachable.

Let's expand on this idea of seamlessness, and why I believe it to be the elixir of our business and personal futures.

The mythical origins of seamlessness

While we will ultimately investigate seamlessness for its modern application, the profundity of the term takes us back in history, and is relevant to its future application as the ‘Holy Grail' of design. The idea of seamlessness in textiles, in fact, does hold religious and spiritual connotations. The ‘Seamless Robe of Jesus' (or Holy Robe) is the garment said to have been worn by Jesus during or shortly before his crucifixion. According to the Gospel of John, the soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots when deciding who would keep the garment, rather than dividing it, precisely because it was woven in one piece, without seams, providing a mythical association to the technique of circular knitting that may have made Jesus' garment and imbues it with a supernatural quality. (See John 19:23–24 for the full details.) According to Wikipedia, and depending on which brand of Christianity you choose to listen to, the robe can today be found preserved in Trier (Germany), Argenteuil (France), or Sankt Petersburg and Moscow (Russia). The idea of the ‘seamless garment' has since been mythically and morally adopted by Christians in the ‘seamless garment philosophy', which holds that issues such as abortion, capital punishment, militarism, euthanasia, social injustice and economic injustice all require a consistent line of moral reasoning which value the sacredness of human life. The Roman Catholic pacifist Eileen Eagan, for example, said that ‘the protection of life is a seamless garment. You can't protect some life and not others.' Seamlessness in other words, runs deep.

Its literal, textile roots come from the technique of circular knitting. This is a form of knitting that creates a seamless tube and so ensures less friction on the body (which the seams may otherwise have caused on our delicate skin — I, for one, moisturise often). Seamless items are imbued with a sense of high quality, and deep empathy with their wearers. While this can certainly be done by hand-knitting, the process of circular, seamless production can also be done by machine. Let me illustrate this with an example from a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, in 2014.

I was in Tokyo to work with our long-time client, Fuji Xerox, at their flagship event for their Premier Partners in Asia Pacific. Beyond the opportunity of working with the Fuji Xerox Chairman, Tadahito Yamamoto, I was also looking forward to exploring Tokyo by foot, and in particular I had my sartorial eye set on the Loopwheeler store in Sendagaya. The irony of this attraction is that as a futurist, I am well versed in the idea that change, adaptation and agility are key to brands' survival in a fast-evolving landscape. However, it's exactly the extreme reluctance of Loopwheeler to adapt and modernise (along with Merz b. Schwanen in the Swabian Alps of Germany, it is one of the only two remaining factories producing authentic loopwheel terry cloth) which makes the brand so sustainable.

Originally, I had come across this brand in Monocle magazine's 52nd edition. While reading the 2012 article ‘Reinvent the Wheel — Wakayama' by Kenji Hall, I fell in love with the collaboration between man and machine that results in the supercomfy Loopwheeler sweatshirts. Loopwheeling equipment is always based on a tubular knit (or tube body) construction, which means that the resulting garment (usually a t-shirt or a sweatshirt) is made of a single piece of seamless fabric. In other words, the fabric is knitted around a tube and comes out without side seams, as one tubular shape. Loopwheeler takes this approach a step further — trust the Japanese to positively geek out about the process — and takes their customer empathy to the next level.

The vintage machines used by Loopwheeler are from a bygone era of industrialisation. But this doesn't render them irrelevant. On the contrary. While Hall points out in his article that ‘the machines are a throwback to an analogue era, almost driven to extinction by technological progress', the evident inefficiency of the 1920s machinery (they produce just one metre of cloth an hour, or enough for eight sweatshirts a day) is counterbalanced by founder Satoshi Suzuki's ‘focus on craftsmanship and quality', which has ‘won Loopwheeler a small, cult-like following that spans the globe' — evidenced by my pilgrimage to Suzuki's Sendagaya shopfront.

Suzuki became interested in manufacturing techniques, and how they impact on durability and softness in garments, while at university. During his visits to factories, he learned that loopwheeling machines don't stretch the textile threads taut like modern manufacturing equipment, which means that the resulting fabric can better withstand wear and tear. The machines (which according to Hall resemble large caterpillars) spin twenty-four times a minute — slower than vinyl on a record player — and, rather than the fabric being pulled down by a machine, gravity is the only force that pulls the circular tube of fabric gently down the loopwheeling machine. And as the proud owner of two Loopwheeler garments — a cardigan and a t-shirt, bought on two separate business visits to Tokyo in 2014 and 2015 — I can attest to their comfort, quality and fit. As a tangent, given the tales of cotton dust in their factory, I must also linguistically alert you that the metaphor of ‘cottoning on to an idea' has textile roots and, according to some linguists, describes the attachment of cotton to machinery, while others say it describes the comfortable attachment to its wearer. Either way, the comfortable intimacy between customer and garment is something that has become part and parcel of the cultural weave at Loopwheeler. And the quest for this seamless intimacy is what this book is all about.

The idea that I described in my last book, Digilogue: How to win the digital minds and analogue hearts of tomorrow's customer — of the coming together of the different worlds of the analogue and the digital — evolves in the transformational context of Seamless. Today, and into the foreseeable future, heroes, hero brands, and mentors must nudge, guide and move themselves and their clients between an ordinary world — often the analogue — and an extraordinary, magical world, the digital. Whether we can design transitions that are seamless, effortless and frictionless is a decisive factor for the future of technology and the success of business leaders. And as the British science fiction author Arthur C Clarke pointed out in his third law: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. That seamless fusion — that Holy Grail of magical indistinguishability — is what this book is about.

Australian brand Telstra seem to have cottoned on to this idea of seamlessness. In their 2016 magical brand ad, they refer to Clarke's aforesaid technology law, in positioning how technology can bring people together in a magical, extraordinary world, across the tyranny of distance and the ordinary world, via virtual reality headsets, drones and videoconferencing bedtime stories. Challenged to wander in the magic of wonder, the viewer is asked to suspend belief for a moment, and enter the magical world of Telstra-enabled connectivity, where the walls between science fiction and fact have broken down. Whether Telstra is that enabler remains to be seen, but suffice to say that we are now standing on the precipice of technological magic, and we are being challenged by history and philosophy as to whether we are prepared to take a leap of faith.

We stand at the gates of another technology revolution, shaped by artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine communications, the Internet of Things, predictive customer service, learning machines, and the fusion of biology with technology, automation and roboticisation. These advanced technologies will either wreak havoc on the world as we used to know it, or enable us to transform and evolve at much greater speeds than ever known to humans. The lines between science fiction and reality are blurring thanks to augmented and virtual realities. These technologies, in their inherent magical advancement, can enable and empower heroes in a futuristic fashion on their journeys into tomorrow. And when the art of empathetic human design converges seamlessly with the science of technology, we may be able to guide, inspire and lead our partners, clients and loved ones between ordinary, analogue worlds, and special, extraordinary, digital worlds. This seamless interplay between the two worlds is the magical elixir for great brands and leaders of tomorrow. And this is the quest that lies behind this book.

Embracing the frictive hero's journey

After setting out on what has become a three-year quest to explore the idea of seamlessness, and in my sense-making efforts and reflections on the trials and tribulations of guiding digital adaptation and human transformation in an age of digital disruption, I began to see certain patterns. Phases began to emerge. Shapes started taking shape. And structures started to surface. My journey started to echo the adventures, space odysseys and myths that I had grown up with. In my odyssey as a futurephile to expand minds and inspire a change of heart, I could see analogues with the mythical greats of my childhood. I saw how the heroes and mentors of my youth — Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Han Solo, Frodo, Gandalf, Willow, Madmartigan, Raziel — had all set out on similar adventures into the future. And the phases of my journey started looking eerily similar.

As early as the 1940s, Joseph Campbell codified the structure — the monomyth — of some of the great tales of human imagination, religion and myth. Later on this structure became known as Joseph Campbell's ‘hero's journey'. The Wizard of Oz, Frozen, Cinderella, Finding Nemo, Harry Potter, Moby Dick, and Catcher in the Rye are all tales that follow this structure of the hero's journey — that is, of adaptation and transformation, moving between the ordinary worlds of status quo and special, or extraordinary, worlds of future possibilities.

The twelve steps identified by Campbell that form the hero's journey consist of inner journeys and outer journeys (which lead to character transformation), and switches between ordinary worlds and extraordinary worlds. As laid out by website Movie Outline (in the article ‘The Hero's Journey — Mythic Structure of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth') the twelve steps of the inner and outer journeys are as follows:

1. Inner: ordinary world, status quo; outer: limited awareness of a problem.

2. Inner: call to adventure; outer: increased awareness.

3. Inner: refusal of the call; outer: reluctance to change.

4. Inner: meeting with the mentor; outer: overcoming reluctance.

5. Inner: crossing the threshold; outer: committing to change.

6. Inner: tests, allies and enemies; outer: experimenting with first change.

7. Inner: approach the inmost cave; outer: preparing for a big change.

8. Inner: ordeal; outer: attempting a big change.

9. Inner: reward (seizing the sword); outer: consequences of the attempt (improvements and setbacks).

10. Inner: road back; outer: rededication to change.

11. Inner: resurrection; outer: final attempt at big change.

12 Inner: return with the elixir; outer: final mastery of the problem.

This cycle is also shown in figure I.1.

Now, while I haven't literally had to fight off Death Stars, partner up with Wookies and slay garbage snakes in my quest for seamlessness, I have witnessed how change, transformation and adaptation follow similar patterns, challenges and rhythms, exhibiting similar cadences to the hero's journeys I was glued to as a child. Again, I realised the quest I was on, and the quest I was hoping to inspire others to embark on, was the seamless journey between the ordinary — in this case, analogue — world and special, extraordinary — digital — worlds. Just please don't assume that I was the hero in the story that you are about to immerse yourself in. (More on this later.)

As a futurist and strategist, I get to invite people into something that isn't yet; to ask the question, ‘What if?', and to imagine distant adventures and metamorphosis. ‘What is' gets contrasted with ‘what could be'. And I encourage the people I meet to embark on their own hero's journeys and odysseys into the unknown, just like I have been doing over the last few years. Perhaps not surprisingly, given Digilogue was partly inspired by the enduring human love for analogue watches and horology, this book maps the structure of the hero's journey onto an analogue clock face, using the twelve steps to explore the journey to the destination of the planet of ‘Seamlessness', moving from 1 o'clock to midnight (at which stage I hope this book doesn't turn into a Cinderellan pumpkin). We will also see, however, that digital adaptation and human transformation cannot be truncated quite as neatly as a two-hour Hollywood epic, and that moments of friction can derail adventures, even for some of my biggest heroes. And we will explore the uncertainties of what might happen in situations where the journey takes you off-path and where ‘good' doesn't necessarily destroy ‘evil'. The inherent tension and friction of making each paradigm shift will also be discussed and highlighted, with the ambition that you will be able to curate your own hero's journey away from this friction and toward seamlessness — that magical place where successful leaders and brands of the future reside.

To concretise this methodology of the hero's journey, let's take an executive summary look at how it played out for Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies:

1. Ordinary world: Frodo and his best friend, Sam, and his two cousins Merry and Pippin live happily in a small village in the Shire.

2. Call to adventure: Gandalf calls upon Frodo to set out on a quest to destroy ‘the one ring to rule them all'.

3. Refusal of the call: Frodo is initially reluctant to leave his cosy life in the Shire, but changes his mind when he realises that his and his friends' lives will always be at risk as long as the ring exists.

4. Meeting with the mentor: Frodo meets again with Gandalf and then with the rest of the Fellowship, a group of trusted allies of Gandalf's who have sworn to help Frodo in his odyssey to destroy the ring. The Fellowship consists of Frodo's hobbit companions; two men, Aragorn and Boromir; Gandalf; the dwarf Gimli; and the elf Legolas.

5. Crossing the threshold: With the aid of the Fellowship, Frodo begins his quest — his long journey to the volcano Mount Doom, the only place where the ring can be destroyed.

6. Tests, allies and enemies: Frodo encounters many obstacles, allies and enemies on his odyssey. He journeys over the mountain pass, barely escapes the wrath of Balrog, becomes allies with the elves, is almost captured by the forces of Saruman, is attacked by Gollum and nearly eaten by a carnivorous spider (Shelob).

7. Approach the inmost cave: As he moves through stage 6, Frodo also has to separate from the Fellowship, alone with Sam, to continue his long journey to the fires of Mount Doom. The Fellowship meanwhile cannot continue with Frodo, because they must help defeat the forces of Sauron that are growing more powerful with each passing day. Frodo and Sam use Gollum as a guide to travel the secret back paths to reach the entrance of Mount Doom.

8. Ordeal: Frodo must achieve his goal of reaching Mount Doom to destroy the ring, while the Fellowship and its allies must defeat Sauron's forces contemporaneously.

9. Reward (seizing the sword): Frodo destroys the ring in Mount Doom, while the Fellowship and its allies overcome the forces of Sauron.

10. The road back: Frodo falls unconscious from exhaustion and Sam and Frodo are rescued by Gandalf and his eagles.

11. Resurrection: Several weeks after losing consciousness Frodo awakens in time to witness Aragon's marriage to his long-time love Arwen, and Aragon's ascent to the throne. Simultaneously all the members of the Fellowship (with exception of Gandalf) are knighted by Aragon.

12. Return with the elixir: Frodo returns to the Shire enervated by his epic journey and the Fellowship of the Ring (and eventually, Frodo journeys to the Undying Lands to live peacefully for the rest of eternity).

Sorry if I ruined the ending for you. However, even if you now know the structure behind this epic, and feel like you have just seen the process behind the magician JRR Tolkien's tricks, these tricks are hardly his alone. This type of mythical structure is deeply embedded and in rapport with our subconscious souls, and has always been part and parcel of that most fundamental of human skills — the art of storytelling. Indeed, throughout this book, I use the hero's journey contained within another epic — Star Wars IV: A New Hope — to more fully illustrate this type of narrative arc, and the similarities contained within the story arc of my own, closer to home, hero. Through this journey, you will learn how to design and guide your partners, clients and collaborators in quests that lead to true adaptation and transformation.

For as long as stories have been told, the most engaging and connected of human stories are those of transformation, change and adaptation — which is perhaps why I, as a futurist and science fiction geek, was so strongly drawn to support my hero on their transformational journey, so that they could one day return home with the elixir to their business problems. (And good story also holds something back. We'll get to this hero in chapter 1.)

The narrative arc that I have just described stands in stark contrast to the idea of seamlessness. If you think of Frodo's journey, for example, nothing about it was seamless. Rather, the whole experience was filled with seams, friction, obstacles and paradigm shifts. Moving from one stage to another was neither easy nor without interruptions or problems, and Frodo and his fellowship didn't perform perfectly and certainly not without any flaws or errors. Few of us do. However a dream, a destination, a vision, a strategy was always part of these epic journeys. And, at the end, there was a sense of relief, of calm, of a beautiful life, of peace, of perfection.

So I want to uphold ‘seamless' as a kind of ‘end of the rainbow' state — a utopia, Holy Grail, and paradisiacal, mythical place. It is a special world that we can all imagine. Because it is brands, leaders and organisations that are able to design journeys — customer journeys, talent quests, change projects and transformational odysseys — empathetically and in such a way as to guide their stakeholders from a status quo of living an ordinary, boring life in the Shire, through a special world of dragons, demons and disruptions, to return fully transformed, that will excel in our near-horizon future.

The hero's journey is one of both inner and outer transformation, and of movement between ordinary worlds and special worlds. And again, the transitions between inner and outer transformation, and between different worlds, can be either frictive or seamless (see figure I.2).

And this moves us to the second of Arthur C Clarke's laws — that ‘The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible'. This book is designed to take you into the magical world that is the future — of current im-possibilities. Please let me co-design an extraordinary one with you. And as I say to my clients and friends, you better start preparing for the future today, because it is where you will spend the rest of your life.

With this in mind, fellow futurephile hero, join me on a space odyssey, sign-posted by the following twelve steps, equally the chapters in this book:

1. Ordinary world/status quo

2. Call to adventure

3. Refusal of the call

4. Meeting with the mentor

5. Crossing the threshold

6. Tests, allies and enemies

7. Approaching the inmost cave

8. Ordeal

9. Reward (seizing the sword)

10. Road back

11. Resurrection

12. Return with the elixir

Butterflies, bow ties and infinity

One more point before we get started: you may recognise in the cover of the book both the ancient symbol of infinity and the horizontal ‘8'. This symbolises that the hero's journey is, of course, a constant multi-cyclical one. You take this journey with any challenge you meet in business or in your personal life, complete it (hopefully), or get up and dust yourself off and go again. You'll also recognise this iconography of the horizontal 8 (infinity sign) hidden in the bow tie. The word for ‘bow tie' in French is papillon, which is the same as the French word for ‘butterfly' (and in fashionable Italy, farfalla has the same double meaning). In other words, ‘butterfly' — the symbol of metamorphosis and transformation — transfers similar attributes to its distant shape-sharing wearable cousin the bow tie. Shape, models and iconography are central to this book and, as we all know from the great brands of the world, analogues, allegory and hidden meanings are all around us, playing with our subconscious minds.

The horizontal 8 symbol of infinity, in turn, comes from the mathematical infinity symbol (sometimes called the ‘lemniscate') which is credited to John Wallis, who in turn was inspired by a variant of the Roman numeral for 1000 (originally ). In modern mysticism the infinity symbol has become fused with the variation of the ‘ouroboros', an ancient image of a snake eating its own tail, representing life reborn. The infinity symbol can be drawn in one continuous movement, with the loops potentially signifying the balance of opposites — male and female, day and night, dark and light, and who knows? Maybe analogue and digital (see figure I.3). The convergent point may symbolise union and two things becoming one. With all these layers of meaning, the symbol stands for wholeness, integration and completion.

But we can draw out the connections between these symbols even further. The term ‘lemniscate', used in algebraic geometry, comes from the Latin lēmniscātus, which means ‘decorated with ribbons', which in turn may have originated on the ancient Greek island of Lemnos, where ribbons were worn as decorations, much as sartorial men (and, of course, some women) wear bow ties, another form of ribbons.

You see, even the etymological heritage of the infinity symbol and the meanings attached to butterflies and bow ties are mythically intertwined, seamlessly and infinitely. Who knows? Maybe there is only one story, a monomyth behind this. And the seamless symbol of the hero's journey is aptly the infinity sign, endless, enduring and transformative as it, as well as the butterfly and the bow tie. And within this, the convergent point — the point where the infinity symbol crosses itself, where the ‘wings' of the butterfly and the bow tie come together (see figure I.4, overleaf) — becomes the seamless interplay between ordinary and extraordinary worlds, and in our case the dynamics between the analogue and the digital in the context of digital adaptation and human transformation.

So, with this talk of hero's journeys, seamlessness, infinity signs, butterflies and bow ties, I invite you to move from your ordinary world, the status quo, and to enter an extraordinary place — your future.