We Got Too Nerdy About Commerce (Woops)
Welcome to Wednesday (and Christmas Eve), futurists.
Our offices may be closed today and tomorrow, but we couldn’t resist sharing some of our favorite moments (and yours) from this past year to revisit as you sip your eggnog and enjoy Yuletide festivities.
For this special edition of The Senses, we’ve curated some of our top insights of the year. But we did it our way.
Forget the "Best Of" lists and traffic rankings! This is our annual collection of the Future Commerce Superlatives: the essays, articles, and insights that didn't just report on the year, but actively shaped how we think about the future of brand, retail, and culture.
The Best (and Worst) of 2025 →
The Medium is Still the Message
You’ve likely spent the last quarter toiling with A/B tests, personalized campaigns, and curated merchandising to optimize your Q4 sales results.
But here’s a reality most marketers overlook: the medium itself is rewiring your audience's brains.
Andrew McLuhan, grandson of Marshall, confirms that AI isn't just another channel for your content; it's reshaping human cognition, behavior, and desire in ways that make your carefully crafted messages increasingly irrelevant.
Don’t get blindsided by the next great media transition.
👁️ Explore the medium and the message.
LORE is Your Answer to Finding Meaning in Work
Stories help us make sense of the world and ourselves by tethering us to purpose, identity, and community. When brands tap into those deeper myths, they can do far more than drive conversions…they can create long-term resonance. That’s why executives like Joseph Maxwell of SwiftOtter, Melissa Minkow of CI&T, and Brandon Smithwrick, formerly of Kickstarter and Ralph Lauren, love LORE.
📚 See what top industry influencers have to say.
‘Autonomy’ is Officially the Word of 2026
After years entrenched in the Attention Economy, Phillip believes two new words will drive insurmountable disruption: autonomy and sovereignty.
In this episode, he and Brian examine how self-determination is reshaping commerce, media, and politics. Consumers are setting the terms of engagement, and systems built on passive compliance risk erosion. Earning trust, providing consent, and putting the customer in control are the new rules of engagement.
A Holiday Tearjerker. Last year, we debuted FC Radio Theater, dramatized readings of original fiction from our Archetypes and Muses journals. These are not podcasts so much as short radio dramas, stories about commerce as it’s actually lived: grief inside a Costco aisle (Dissociating at Costco, by Brian Lange), dependency and fragility in a backyard garden when the wrong Amazon part arrives (The Wrong Part, by Brian Lange), and a near future where deceased loved ones persist as digital assistants, told from the interior life of the system itself (A Day in the Life of Nana Alexa, by Erin DaCruz).
Taken together, the series explores retail, technology, and memory at moments of care, loss, and reliance, where convenience stops being abstract and becomes personal. It’s our most intimate, meaningful work. It’s meant to be listened to rather than skimmed. Headphones recommended. Listen on Spotify →
.svg)
