News from me: two media updates

Greetings from a very harried May.

There’s a lot going on here – too much, really.  I finished my spring class and am now redesigning and reorganizing fall seminars.  In other tabs, I’m working on the new book.  Producing the Future Trends Forum. Traveling a lot (typing this from an Amtrak heading south south-west) and doing many virtual sessions for clients. Blogging and newslettering.  Making videos. And also caring for my poor wife.

Two *more* things happened, which I’d like to share here.

First, the Future Trends Forum just passed a big milestone.  After publishing last Thursday’s excellent session about the information environment of young people, we now have four hundred (400) YouTube recordings in our YouTube archive.

That’s not 400 little Tiktoks, by the way. Nearly every one of those recordings is about one hour of discussion, conversation, argument, connection: solid, extensive, content.

I know 400 is just an integer, but it strikes me – as the Forum’s creator, producer, host, interlocutor, fund-raiser, and cat-herder – as an indicator of a huge amount of live video work involving tens of thousands of people and a galaxy of ideas. It sometimes dizzies me to think we started in February 2016, and how far back in the past that is from May 2024.  We’ve been doing these weekly sessions ever since.

I am so grateful to everyone who has made the Forum succeed: the hundreds of great and brave guests. The more than 10,000 participants. The excellent Wessom Radomsky. Our supporters, like NYSERNet.  And Steve Gottlieb plus his whole Shindig crew.  My heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Second, I’ve joined a new podcast.  Sofanauts is about technology, science fiction, and the future, and it’s a lot of fun.  The host is Tony C. Smith, creator of the famous Starship Sofa science fiction podcast, the first podcast to ever win a Hugo award (in 2007).

In every show Tony and I go through a mix of science news stories and science fiction, looking for signs of the future.  I bring in my futures work to tease out implications and possibilities.  Yet it’s not an academic podcast.  Instead, Tony is a delight, a genial host making for a rollicking, wild conversation each time.

Please give us a listen, and feel free to suggest stories (fiction or non) for us to consider.

That’s all for now.  Back to tracking this train, finishing a Substack, writing a chapter, and planning tomorrow morning’s panel…