Evergreen’s line is discipline for anyone who designs journeys: no strategy without vision means your flows and acceptance criteria are downstream artifacts, not substitutes for naming the future.
When Blockbuster and Bell Labs show up in the same episode, the point is not nostalgia—it is proof that alignment and convened imagination beat harder measurement of yesterday.
This cluster pairs the episode (video + transcript) with the UXM essay on vendor bake-offs and future-solving; Avi Goldfarb’s complements frame and Jennifer Pahlka’s seam-friction story sit nearby as organizational counterweights.
No Strategy Without Vision
Josh Tyson and Robb Wilson with Brian Evergreen on vision before tools, why RFP logic fails for exploration, future-solving versus problem-solving, Blockbuster and Bell Labs parables, friction without a north star, and adoption as a misleading proxy.
Real AI Strategy Isn’t a Vendor Bake-Off
Companion essay on vision-first agentic strategy, why feature matrices mislead, and how to make the map of necessary truths visible before the bake-off begins.
Future-solving is the design-native move: prototype the story people can feel in a room before you let procurement narrow the field to three logos.