Exciting news! This month I’m co-hosting #futrchat  on the future of conferences. Below is information about the event, crossposted from The Association of Professional Futurists blog. Hope to meet you in the Twitterverse!

The University of Hawaii – Manoa is hosting an Emerging Futures Symposium on Friday, November 30th. The Association of Professional Futurists (APF) is livestreaming the event. Futures students from around the world will share twenty minute deep dives focused on topics ranging from “When China Accepts Alternative Futures” to “The Futures of Profanity”. Hawaii’s efforts to develop an innovative conference inspired the APF to host this month’s #futrchat on the future of conferences.

The future of conferences and continued learning

The APF’s ListServ regularly focuses on the future of education for primary to college students. But what about learning for the rest of your life? For those opting to learn outside of academia, conferences offer participants access to content experts and peer-to-peer networking. A transformed conference industry is emerging. For instance, the Pecha Kucha presentation methodology facilitates fast-paced events integrating a multitude of speakers and ideas. In addition, TED has built a business around free, accessible content from engaging thought leaders. A piece in December 2012 issue of Wired magazine notes that TED has shifted from a pure conference company into a media movement.

The future is beginning to infuse the conference industry, but for the majority of participants, conferences do not meet expectations. In 7 Ways Web Conferences Suck and How to Fix Them Robert Hoekman Jr hones in on traditional conference areas that need improvement such as a lack of speaker incentives. More recently, Eric Garland (@ericgarland) posted The Posh, Predictable World of Business Conferences and commented as follows:

“Nothing dramatic goes down at a conference, for the most part. There are no major polemics on stage. No shocking news is unveiled. The keynote does not provoke a response positive or negative in the attendees. The event coordinators hold their breath and hope nothing unplanned happens, and usually, it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, or wherever, people are free to unveil outrageous proposals, fight it out on comment streams, make common cause through private messages, learn, absorb, disagree, and generally participate in a vigorous intellectual process. It’s not that online communities are always this way, nor that live conferences are always stultifying — but million-dollar conferences are usually thought of as too precious to involve risk and adventure. They are like Hollywood — big budget and totally predictable”.

In another piece on the future of conferences, George Siemens notes,

I guess probably the best way of saying what will conferences look like in the future, it will be much more you and I creating them ourselves as participants, rather than someone creating them for us and telling us what to do. I think we will be the ones to create that for ourselves.”

Now for the logistical “stuff”…

It’s time to hear from you- futurists and conference goers – how will conferences in the future vary from what’s available in 2012?

Here is how #futrchat works. At the designated time (Thursday 29 November NYC EST 4-5pm, London GMT 9-10pm and Sydney, AEDT Friday 8-9am), login to Twitter and follow the #futrchat hashtag Watch for questions from me @localrat. Those questions should start near the top of the hour and will be labeled as Q1, Q2, and so on. Expect around 5-6 questions. Add your answer as A1, A2, A3, etc.

Please use #futrchat in your all your tweets. Follow Emily Empel @locatrat for questions. Cindy Frewen @urbanverse and Jennifer Jarratt @jenjarratt will keep the conversation moving along.

Feel free to pose questions, add links (if they pertain and no promotional ads), and teach, inform, persuade, enlighten, or provoke with your comments. And always reply or ask specific questions to other people. What did they mean, can they expand, how about such and such? That’s what keeps the conversation moving!

Here are some useful tools for connecting:

•Twitter Search on twitter.com
•Tweetdeck (multiple search columns; set up required)
•Tweetchat (links directly to #futrchat, adds hashtag to your tweets)
•Twubs (links directly to #futrchat, adds hashtag for you)
•Tweetgrid (up to 9 search columns/boxes, easy set up)

First register at twitter. If you use these sites, you register/sign in again usually through your twitter account; if asked, allow them to access your twitter account which allows you to tweet using the tool.

Futrchatters, let’s get weird. Perhaps, we’ll co-opt your ideas into the APF’s next conference on Gaming and Simulation being held in Orlando Florida May 2-4, 2013.

“I wish my sister took the time to send me a text message for my birthday or at least post on my Facebook wall!” –December 2, 2050

Over the past few months, a variety of data has surfaced regarding a particular trend reversal. Companies are offering traditional communication like “snail mail” as a service. Last summer, Snail My Email introduced a global art project. 10,457 handwritten letters were penned by 234 volunteers from email submissions around the world. Another organization, Paperfinger, provides calligraphy services to enhance traditional love notes. Quarterly Co. sends participants physical objects along with letters from key tastemakers as a monthly “show and tell”.

Futurists would be remiss to discount nostalgia in alternative scenario generation. Yet, as far as I know, future studies does not have a formal method to forecast future areas of nostalgia.

The power of the “snail mail” countertrend isn’t in the data points. Instead, the idea of a resurgence in past conceptions can be used as an extended metaphor for enhancing future scenario sets. Electronic communication can quite possibly replace other methods of future communications. But what is the post-digital age? Why would some groups want to go back to a landscape dominated by “digital” media?

Using current countertrends to construct future ones could be a powerful tool to generate a remarkable scenario set. There are values and traditions future societies will yearn for from the past.

What role should nostalgia play in scenario development? How can futurists systematically generate a scenario set where feelings of nostalgia resonate with a particular audience? Is there an approach where participants could be excited by the future while longing for a past that does not yet exist?

Jim Dator writes about the idea of “aiglatson” or nostalgia spelled backwards. Dator believes it is critical for futurists to revere the future; without being disrespectful to the past. Futures provides society with narratives that bring them into new future worlds. Part of these worlds should include remembering a past that has yet to be created.

I would rather buy a diamond from Cartier than JCPenny’s. Am I ridiculous? Duh. Is there a difference in quality? Probably not much. Do other brands offer diamonds that look just as regal and luxurious? Definitely! I’ve seen them highlighted in Vogue. But, I still want Cartier. And face it, Global Business Network (GBN), is the Cartier of futures work. The 2×2 matrix their diamond ring.  GBN gets a bad rap in the futures community. We say it’s impossible to fit future outlooks into four separate square boxes. Yet, GBN excels where we don’t- at packaging foresight.

This week, I attended a Methods Seminar taught by Dr. Wendy Schultz. Though I’ve taken courses on futures methodologies, Wendy’s presentation was awesome in terms of evaluating methods across the board. The seminar exposed students to five schools of futures thought including morphological analysis, archetype narration and causal layered analysis.

Afterwards, I was left with the thought: how can we present the “anti” 2×2 models in a compelling way to organizations? I’ve yet to hear of most clients begging for causal layered analysis. When compared to the 2×2 matrix, futurists agree that other methods offer a more comprehensive narrative of the alternative futures landscape. But we forget our language. We are a cult where the code words are scenario, uncertainty and emerging issues. Our clients speak revenue, profit and predictability. Business and futures need to develop a common language in which advanced foresight becomes an integral and actionable piece of the strategy puzzle.

Of course, I’m sure a good many futurists are secretly packaging their products. My plea: publish a book Peter Schwartz-style and help a futurist out! Steve Jobs proved it’s not about just your offerings but more how you package them. We are currently the boutique diamond designers. We must start being brands. We need to be iconic.

This morning I watched an intriguing debate on the BBC on “Human Trafficking”. Laura Agustin (known as the “Naked Anthropologist”) voiced dissent on a panel as she urged policy makers not to overgeneralize the condition of migrant workers worldwide. In particular, Agustin stated that not all migrant workers are forced unwillingly into working abroad. Moreover, definitions of smuggling and trafficking must be considered before characterizing all migrants as victims.

Like-minded individuals within the area of trafficking advocate for universal policies regarding migrant workers. Agustin is a  refreshing voice working on the fringe towards a future where a myriad of voices are considered before shaping protocol. Contrary to the celebrities present at this debate like Ashton Kutcher or Mira Sorvino, Agustin does not sermonize the plight of migrants. Instead, she addresses key assumptions, or misperceptions, that social advocates have about migrants worldwide. In many ways, Agustin’s viewpoint could drastically change not only the discussion about migrant work, but also how policy is shaped within this domain in the future.

How can futurists consider a range of human conditions without playing into popular stereotypes of marginalized human populations?

How do you prepare for changes in the future? Do you gauge possibilities through speaking with family and friends? Read self-help books? Maybe you have your goals scribbled on scrap paper and saved in a drawer? The future is a perplexing subject. On one hand you have a very good idea of where you aspire to end up. But life is at times (or even most times), uncertain. So, the path you stress over outlining is rarely straightforward, sometimes nerve wrenching, and always an adventure.

There is a profession that has one sole priority- the study of the future. No, I’m not talking about psychics, crystal balls, or prediction models. Instead, let me introduce the discipline of future studies. An ever-growing field, future studies adds value to organizations (and individuals) by helping them think about the long-term future. This blog is a way for me to share my excitement and background in future studies. As my professor Dr. Bishop says, “We place an emphasis on studying the past, why shouldn’t we do the same for the future?”