This week the Future Trends Forum turns nine years old

Greetings from weirdly snowy northern Virginia.  There are many things going on right now for this blog’s topic – that weird enrollment bounce, DOGE going after the Department of Education, a swarm of AI issues, some good and bad climate news – but today is one I set aside to celebrate an anniversary.

Well, partly the anniversary of my birth.  I turned 58 this week and will hopefully post on it. But the bigger deal is that the Future Trends Forum just turned nine years old.

Yes, we launched the program waaaaaaay back in 2016.  On February 11th, 2016, we held the first Forum session.  The guest was the excellent Audrey Watters and the topic concerned critical approaches to educational technology.  Several dozen people joined us.

The idea was to hold conversations about higher education’s future.  No formal presentations, no PowerPoint slides, no scripted interviews.  Instead we wanted to make a space for open, free-wheeling, and organic discussion.  The audience would play the central role, driving the show with people’s comments and questions.

Since then… I think it’s fair to say it’s been a success. The Forum has taken place almost every single week for nine years, well supported by the fine Shindig platform.  We have hosted literally hundreds of conversations covering a huge range of topics, from educational technology to presidential leadership, AI, COVID, antiracism, teaching, libraries, demographics, and copyright.  I have hosted sessions from across the United States and in multiple other countries. So many creators have joined us: writers, video makers, technology developers, founders.

I can share some stats.  The YouTube channel now has 432 recordings.  Our email list, which people can and do opt out of, now has over 9,100 members.  Audience persistence (the proportion of people who stay for the entire program) is over 90%.

On the qualitative side, though, I think is the real achievement. There are. sadly, a lot of sad or even terrible webinars out there. The COVID era made us more familiar with them and perhaps improved the quality of some, but the poor webinar problem persists.  The Forum has offered a different idea, extensively grounded in practice, of a live video experience which is actually interactive, where audience participation is the key. Guest after guest has told me how refreshing the experience was for them, how much they enjoyed the give and take of diverse questions and the organic flow of discussion.

We’ve also experimented with the form pretty consistently. We’ve tried out some things which worked, and became part of the Forum, and some things which didn’t. We’ve had mingle sessions, community meetings without guests, scenario exercises, and tutorials.  We’ve done in-person shows, combining the virtual audience with one of live human being in the same room.  Some sessions had a series of guests in a row, while others worked like panels.  Those experiments continue.

It’s a cliche now to use the word “community” to mean “any group of people without regard to their cohesion or actual identity,” but I think the Forum has developed into a serious community. In any given session you’ll see friends greet each other with cheer and familiarity, exchanging puns and long-running jokes, referencing ideas from prior sessions. People exchange professional news, too; some folks have gotten jobs, publishing gigs, and more through the Forum community. It’s been a delight to see, and to help, so many people develop and grow.

I want to express my thanks for additional people who made the Forum succeed.  Shindig’s founding CEO, Steve Gottlieb, has been a great supporter, interlocutor, and friend.  Hard-working Shindig staff helped a great deal, too, especially in the first few years.  Wesson Radomsky has done fine work in helping produce each episode.  Patreon supporters have helped us sustain the Forum financially and intellectually. Many schools, offices, governments, nonprofits, libraries, and friends have hosted me on some Thursday afternoons.

And there’s the Forum community.  So many of you have set aside an hour each Thursday to join us, to think together, to pose deep questions, and to share your ideas. So many have helped the Forum in a variety of ways: suggesting guests, coming up with format ideas, joining us in person. I can’t tell you how sweet it is to have a total stranger come up to me, grinning, saying how much they enjoy the Future Trends Forum.

Looking ahead, I have some ideas for how to take things forward to our tenth (!) year. I’d like to set up a store where people can buy books written by guests and some merchandise (I’d appreciate any advice on this, friends).  I’d love to bring the Forum to the other side of the world, time-zone wise, setting up a program centered in Asia (I’m open to collaborators). I’d also like to add some more technological features, from live transcription to a virtual/extended reality version.  And more.

I’ll close here.  Thank you all for your support.  The Future Trends Forum, like Soylent Green, is made of people – but for people.  I’m proud of how we’ve added to the conversations around higher education and offered a better way of doing webinars.

Here’s to next year, our first decade – and the next!

(photo by Will)