Framing Worlds in Foom
Each instance of Foom takes place in a near-future setting designed to be meaningful and practical for the specific organizations that are participating. We create this context with worldbuilding elements conveyed primarily through a set of “headlines” that participants receive during each phase of play. These headlines act as anchor points or a “wireframe” for the unfolding scenario, while leaving room for teams to improvise additional details about what might be happening in the world.
The initial set of headlines introduces key topics and sets the tone. Additional, more specialized headlines then highlight domain-specific developments—such as cultural news for Users, tech updates for Developers, or grassroots movements for Activists. These targeted feeds ensure each team sees events that matter to their interests.
Beyond the main headlines, we also include smaller, often colorful elements—like ads, market data, or anecdotal snippets—designed to signal the passage of time or shifts in momentum. Since Foom doesn’t have a traditional clock, these cues help simulate the evolving pace of change.
Because headlines play such a pivotal role, we tailor them to reflect the “useful world” of each session. This happens through a mixture of issues and tensions we uncover through pre-session dialogue with the session sponsor, and our own reading of the future landscape. This “useful world” depends on understanding who’s taking part, and the range of strategic questions and pressure points they want to explore. In this way, learnings from Foom happen even before the lights go down in the session opening. As one recent sponsor put it, “Working with the team to imagine plausible tensions for the workshop is a really interesting way to examine the pressures on our teams.”
From this baseline, we calibrate the scope of issues—whether narrowly focused on a specific sector or broadly global—and adjust the level of detail or technical complexity to keep the simulation relevant, engaging, and actionable. This is something we understand well through our broader practice in experiential futures. By finding the right balance, we ensure decisions connect to the participants’ real concerns, while offering just enough future tension and possibility to challenge their strategic thinking.
Different worlds, different needs.
Some of the specific challenges we face include:
Different Teams, Different Worlds
The teams who join us in Foom range widely, from regional creative groups to national policy agencies. The headlines that fuel their stories have to reflect that variety—otherwise, we risk dulling the simulation’s edge. Consider some recent examples:
Creative industries in Melbourne/Victoria: In our recent sessions at FACT 2025 in Melbourne, the emphasis was on immediate creative disruptions—like AI-written film scripts or the rise of machine-generated music that squeezes out local artists. The top concern is how technology intersects with cultural life and livelihoods, and where policy can potentially be useful as a lever to find a balance between innovation and creativity. The right headlines can help bound that space.
Government stakeholders (e.g., at the state or national level in Australia, Singapore, UK): These teams often need a more expansive, big-picture approach. Headlines might highlight looming regulatory showdowns, strategic alliances with other regions, or questions around cross-border data governance. Even when local details matter, it’s equally important to address overarching national or geopolitical concerns.
Balancing Complexity and Clarity
A recurring challenge is how technical to make the headlines. Some groups thrive on the nitty-gritty details (where they’re keen to dive into the mechanics of AI), while others need the impacts in plain, human terms. We spend a lot of time refining the generation (via a trained GPT fed by real-world news, among other things) of layered headlines: short, eye-catching lines for quick reading, followed by “straps” or subtext that dig deeper into data, ethics, or policy specifics. This way, non-technical participants aren’t overwhelmed, and specialists can still grab hold of the finer points. This refinement continues throughout each session, with facilitators paying close attention to the fine points of debate and negotiation, listening for inflection points, which then inform the next wave of headlines cycling through the world.
Why It Matters
If you’ve read any of our earlier reflections on Foom, you know we care about immersion and social, emotional participation just as much as technical strategy—we aim to engage the executive brain as well as the emotional one. Headlines are a big part of that. A mismatch in scope or complexity—say, launching global regulatory crises at a state arts council—can break the flow. Conversely, presenting purely local-level concerns to a national policy body risks feeling trivial when they’re grappling with international legal frameworks. Getting it right means every participant feels the tension and possibility in the headlines—and leans into their roles and decisions fully.
Looking Ahead
We’re still experimenting. Every new session offers fresh insights on how to fine tune the scope of the news, how “in the weeds” the technical bits need to be, and how these differences spark more dynamic negotiations between teams. We’ll keep testing, tweaking, and occasionally overshooting the mark—but that’s part of the fun. If there’s one lesson we’ve learned so far, it’s that headlines crafted to match the heartbeat of a team’s real-world concerns unlock deeper creativity, sharper debate, and more memorable experiences.
