The Tactile Future. Why Continuing Education Must Make Visions Tangible
We talk endlessly about the future. About digitalization, transformation, artificial intelligence, sustainability. These words are everywhere – in strategy papers, in mission statements, in political speeches. Yet if we’re honest, much of it remains abstract. It sounds like wide horizons, but in everyday life we reach into thin air.
This is where a new trend word comes in: Future Tactility. I use it to describe the ability not just to design the future, but to feel it. Future Tactility means: the vision gains materiality. It becomes a prototype, an experiment, an experience. Something not only imagined, but grasped.
“The prototype gives strategy its Future Tactility.”
The Problem: Abstraction in Learning
In continuing education, we often face a paradox. Learners hear about future skills, lifelong learning, or digital transformation. But what does that actually mean for their daily practice?
Competence frameworks remain trapped in tables.
Roadmaps show milestones, but not the first step.
Trend reports inspire, but also overwhelm.
The result is an abstraction jam: everyone knows change is needed, yet it remains unclear what the future feels like, smells like, sounds like, tastes like. Without this sensory experience, learning stays flat theory.
Future Tactility as Solution: Learning Through Prototypes
Future Tactility means designing learning so that people can try out the future on a small scale. It works when abstract visions are translated into tangible experiences.
Prototyping in learning: a quick attempt that makes an idea graspable. Imperfect, but concrete.
Simulation & role play: rehearsing futures to feel their emotional resonance.
Micro-projects: small initiatives that show how a trend lands in everyday practice.
AI-powered scenarios: machines as sparring partners to make tomorrow visible.
This creates a learning space where the future is not only thought, but lived.
Examples from Practice
Nursing education: Instead of talking about “digitalization in healthcare,” trainees build a prototype of an AI-assisted duty roster. Suddenly, opportunities and limits become visible – as well as how work itself changes.
Adult learning: A simulation on urban development lets participants design a sustainable neighborhood. Within hours, they debate mobility, energy, community – and experience what the “future of the city” feels like.
Companies: In a “Future Sprint,” teams develop a mini-prototype for a strategic challenge in three days. Whether app mockup, service blueprint, or analog intervention – the vision lands on the table, not in the cloud.
These cases show: Future Tactility is doable. It doesn’t need million-dollar labs, but the courage to experiment.
Why Tactility Matters
The term “haptics” comes from perception psychology and refers to the sense of touch. The metaphor of Future Tactility carries a deep insight:
People learn better when they can touch, move, and try things out.
Abstract concepts like “transformation” only become meaningful through concrete experience.
Tangibility creates motivation: once I feel it, I want to keep learning.
Learning with Future Tactility goes beyond cognition. It engages body, emotion, and action.
A New Paradigm for Learning
We need education that doesn’t just transmit knowledge, but makes the future experiential. That means:
Break visions down: from “AI in education” to “Try a prompt yourself.”
Foster experimentation: better ten rough prototypes than one perfect concept that never gets tested.
Create resonance spaces: where learners experience, debate, and reflect together.
Ensure transfer: what works haptically in the learning space can grow in practice.
This turns education from a review of the past into a pre-experience of the future.
Conclusion: Grasping the Future
“Future Tactility” could become a guiding concept for the education landscape. It reminds us that the future must not only be imagined, but also touched.
The world is full of megatrends, uncertainties, transformations. As a counterweight, we need educational formats that concretize visions – above all, make them feelable.
Or put differently: The future does not belong to those who describe it best.It belongs to those who make it tangible.
