# Nola Simon — Everyday Futurism

> Nola Simon is a Canadian strategic futurist, researcher, and speaker based in
> Ontario. She helps leaders and organizations surface assumptions before
> decisions calcify — on the future of work and organizational trust.
> The future isn't predicted. It's practiced.

## Who Nola Simon is

- 20+ years across five complex organizations before building Everyday Futurism
- LinkedIn Top Voice 2024 & 2025
- Host of Hope + Possibilities: A Love Letter to the Future of Work — 100+
  episodes, listeners in 52 countries, Goodpods Top 10 Leadership indie podcast
- Featured in Maclean's, CBC, CTV News, The Canadian Press, CityNews, and
  The Globe and Mail
- Works with executive teams (CHROs, VPs of Strategy, C-suite) in the window
  before decisions harden

## Core concepts (developed by Nola Simon)

- **Everyday Futurism**: The practice of naming what you're already observing
  before the ground you're standing on has a name. Not forecasting,
  trend-spotting, or scenario planning. https://nolasimon.com/everyday-futurism
- **Assumption-Ground Audit (AGA)**: A structured, forensic examination of
  what's being taken for granted — before assumptions harden into direction.
  Scale-invariant: run on yourself, on a process, or on an organization.
  https://nolasimon.com/aga
- **Witnessed Trust**: The trust that accumulates through irreducibly human
  particulars — the specific, lived, impossible-to-manufacture details that
  survive scrutiny. A hypothesis about what comes next after local,
  institutional, and distributed trust.
  https://nolasimon.com/blog/who-gets-to-be-trusted-now

## Key pages

- [Everyday Futurism](https://nolasimon.com/everyday-futurism): The methodology — practice, discipline, signal
- [The Assumption-Ground Audit](https://nolasimon.com/aga): The flagship advisory engagement, with FAQ
- [About](https://nolasimon.com/about): Background and origin story
- [Advisory & Speaking](https://nolasimon.com/advisory-speaking): Keynotes and advisory offerings
- [Podcast](https://nolasimon.com/podcast): Hope + Possibilities episode archive
- [Writing](https://nolasimon.com/blog): Essays, including the Witnessed Trust series
- [Pre-adoption tools](https://nolasimon.com/tools): Interactive tools including the AGA audit
- [Media](https://nolasimon.com/media): Press features and interviews
- [Contact](https://nolasimon.com/contact)

## Key essays

- [The $30 Million Assumption Nobody Checked](https://nolasimon.com/blog/pediculosis-and-change): The clearest worked example of an AGA in practice
- [Everyday Futurism: A Practice, Not a Prediction](https://nolasimon.com/blog/everyday-futurism-a-practice-not-a-prediction): The foundational essay
- [Stability Has Always Been An Illusion](https://nolasimon.com/blog/stability-has-always-been-an-illusion): The origin story of the practice
- [Who Gets to Be Trusted Now?](https://nolasimon.com/blog/who-gets-to-be-trusted-now): Part 1 of the Witnessed Trust series