Tech Trends for Journalists - 9th Annual Online News Association Presentation

Online News Association

10 Tech Trends For JournalistsSeptember 2016 Denver

README

This is the full presentation deck for Amy Webbs annual Tech Trends presentation at the 2016 Online News Association conference.

This year, Amys presentation included the participation of three live bots. Youll see them in this presentation, but they may no longer be live by the time you try using them.

9Thank You!

Me: 3 Things

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Futurist Technology, Media and SocietyFounder of the Future Today Institute. We answer Whats the Future of X for Fortune 500 + Global 1000 companies, universities, government agencies, large foundations, media companies. Adjunct Prof. @ NYU Stern School. Just completed a research fellowship at Harvard.

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Former ONA Board MemberServed on the ONA Board of Directors for 4 years. Co-organized the ONA conference in 2008.

Social Handles#ONA16trends @amywebb on Twitter @FuturistAmyWebb on FB

YOU: 3 Things

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There are 10 trends, but I only have time to show 5. You can download a full report at the end.

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I have some special guests joining me today. You can interact with them during the presentation.

Things are going to get weird. Make sure your devices are out >> Twitter, Facebook, SMS... and a Browser window

TRUE CRIME

A media executive pitched me a new strategy for the future of news.This was our exchange:

Exec: Were going to be the Uber for news.

Me: (Confused)

Exec: Three years from now, well have an on-demand news platform for Millennials. They tap a button on their phones and they get the news delivered right to them, wherever they are. This is the future of news!

Me: Is it an app?

Exec: Maybe. The point is that you get the news right away, when you want it, wherever you are.

Me: So you mean an app.

Exec: Yes! But more like Uber.

There were TWO crimes committed that day.

Crime #1: The executive mistook a thriving platform for an Uber for X tech trend.

1. A trend is driven by a basic human need, one that is catalyzed by new technology.

2. A trend is timely, but it persists.

3. A trend evolves as it emerges.

4. A trend can materialize as a series of un-connectable dots which begin out on the fringe and move to the mainstream.

What is a real trend?

Trends come from these 10 sources of change.

Every journalist pay attention to the future of media and news. Which means following emerging trends.

Trends are signposts that can be tracked as they move from the fringe to the mainstream.

Future Today Institutes Process

data > pattern recognition > modeling > interrogating >

mapping > scenarios >strategy > pressure-testing

Crime #2: The executive was blinded by Ubers success and wanted to copy it. So he didnt notice the real trend worth watching.

Ubers platform is a long-term threat to traditional media.

What is the one media source

we use in cars?

UBER KILLS RADIO NEWS.

Uber + driverless cars will free our attention from captivity.

Will you still choose to sit idle, listening to the radio? To podcasts? Or radio apps?

Analogy for the challenge that you all face:

Simultaneously thinking about today, tomorrow and many years from now, without getting distracted by shiny objects.

The future of news depends on your ability to see whats happening at the fringe and follow it to the mainstream.

5Emerging Tech TrendsFor NewsroomsScenarios for 2016 and 2026

Object Recognition

Machines have vision. What do they see?

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What do you see?

As humans, we recognize whats in

the picture.

Dry land, tiny shrubs

Method of carrying bottles of milk

Size of bottles,measured in metric

Probably notin America

Picture = 1 personAbeche = 1 city

Chad = one countryAfrica = 1 continent

7 billion people

Within the next few years, every one of those 7 billion people will own or have access to a camera.

Impending Global Data ChallengeEveryday people How do I sort/ store/ find my pictures?

Journalists How can we use pictures to make sense of the people, organizations and events that shape our society?

Anthropologists How can we use pictures to better understand our evolution?

Law Enforcement How can we harness pictures to inform us of criminal wrongdoing?

Computer Scientists

How can we train machines to automatically recognize objects in all these pictures?

To address that challenge,machines must recognize explicit object... but also context and infer meaning.

Image credit: Google

Addressing the Challenge: Object Recognition

Image credit: Google

Google Josh Hatch Teeth

Machines are being trained to recognize objects, and to infer meaning.

Machines can recognize useven when were moving...

FaceShift

Photo credit: Siri Stafford/Getty

Todays face-recognition algorithms...

Recognize you even if youre moving

Recognize you even if your hair is covering your face

ID you by smile, grimace

ID you by posture

Machines are learning to recognize our actions and behaviors, too.

CSAIL: New research - behavior

Machines can recognize our sounds. (Better than we can.)

CSAIL: New research - sound

Heres how all of this impacts the near-future of newsrooms...

Object recognition +Motion recognition +Sound recognition +Generative language algos =

The foundation for computer-generated news videos.

Think of it as a fully-automated version of the tool youre currently using.

News startups that aggregate and organize media will be in demand.

12 - 36 monthsDifferent version for every platform... at full burn, 50-60 videos a day

5 yearsDifferent version for every person across platforms... a day

If you build 1000s of videos, will they come?

Start experimenting with object recognition and auto-generated videos.

DO NOW: whiteboard your newsroom video strategy for the next 5 years

Practical Application

2026: Object Recognition

Trillions of cameras, 10x data.....But what about trust?

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University of Stuttgart researchers

Smart Dust*computers that are light enough they

suspend in the air

What if I hacked the network and changed the metadata:

GPS coordinates from Denver to Daytona?

What if our cameras stop reporting the truth?

In 2016: Were all in the FBIs Next Generation Identification Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS)

But, bias in algorithms...

By 2026... AdWordsObjects

Recognizes objects in video and photos

Offers image overlays from brands related to those objects

(Like buying Google ads, but visual)

Auction system companies compete to buy the rights to certain objects, like a coffee cup.

Filed January 2015

photo credit: Associated Press

2026: What happens on the 25th anniversary of 911if marketers buy the object words Twin Towers

Is there an algo that willprotect us against our ownpoor judgement?

Crowdlearning

Harnessing the data of the crowd.

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10 years ago:Crowdsourcing

2006: CrowdsourcingAsking us to contribute content, report on activities, etc.

2016: CrowdlearningQuerying our passive data in order to learn or understand something.

Crowdlearning:Possible because of the continual creation and transmission of our data. (Not just phones.)

Simultaneously: Aleppo edits on Wikipedia

Our thinking results in behavior.

Our behavior results in data.

That data can be used to to learn from the crowd.

Waze also tells us where people are stuck, which implies...

Data from the crowd signalsto journalists to ask different questions.

Good Crowdlearning sourcesStart here: myactivity.google.com

WazeWikipedia

HealthData.govTwitter list data

Googles busy times data

iARPA and DARPAs RFP listingsPopular Google Scholar searches and trending papers

DO NOW: Make a list of all the sources of data you, personally shed.

How can you use those sources for reporting & storytelling?


2026: Crowdlearning

New stories from old anecdotes. And who owns all that data?

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Anonymized crowdlearning data can lead you to new questions

about old stories.

Oil and Gas Refineries, too

Neighbors, friends parents, some relatives worked at or near the mills

Cancers that resulted in death

My mom - 60Our next-door neighbor - late 50s

My best friends dad - 64 Another friends dad - 56Another friends dad - 60

Another friends mom - 60My maternal grandfather - 69

My grandparents neighbor - early 60s

CDC data: Northwest Indiana doesnt seem that remarkable

None of the cancers were the same.

Not everyone worked in a mill. (My mom was a teacher.

Grandparents owned businesses.)

Buteveryone lived in that areatheir entire lives.

I know, I know.Correlation Causation

But it feels weird.Crowdlearning: Something about the

cells of people born between 1940 - 1948?

In the next 10 years, we will collect and share health data at an unprecedented rate. What can

journalists learn from the crowds data?

Reporters will mine this datafor numerous stories.

Machine learning and AIwill assist in helping to uncover

hidden patterns...

...but youll need to verifywhat youre learning and be

transparent about your sources.

Ask questions about all that crowdlearning data:

10 years from now, who actuallyowns all my data?

Health Location:mobile

Travelhistory

Online usage

Search

Financial

Activity(wearable)

Gardensensors

Driving SocialPosts

Photos & Videos

What if______ gets sold and auctions off my personal data to a 3rd party?

TwitterFacebook23andMeGoogleAppleFitbit

SpotifyNetflixPandoraAT&TComcastBox

EvernoteSnapchatEventbriteBlueApronAmazonUber

We should ask and answer that question

in 2016, before it becomes a problem in 2026.

2016: Mixed Reality(2nd year)

Immersive environments changed our expectations for how stories are told.

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Mixed Reality (n) Combines the physical and digital realms. Augmented Reality (digital overlays), Virtual Reality (an immersive digital environment) and multidirectional camera angles (360 degree).

MR as 360-degree images + video...

MR without headset...

Hatsune Miku: One of the worlds biggest pop stars

MR with headset...

Mixed reality allows us to connect with news in a more compelling way...

...and is changing our expectations of storytelling.

Immersive journalism project from Nonny de la Pea at USC...

Features real audio to recreate event outside a homeless shelter...

Use MR to tell the stories that are better experienced than passively watched.

The refugee crisisThe Great Plastic ReefChicagos gun violenceGlobal climate change

VR is not a revenue panacea Not everyone has a headsetSimulation sicknessRequires undivided attentionDoes your audience have time?Best place for your resources?

Dont invest tech and storytelling tools before you plan out your longer-term MR strategy

DO NOW: Develop a decision tree for your newsroom to decide when a story is:

VR, AR, 360-degree, Hologram, just regular old video.


2026: Mixed Reality

Because we didnt plan in advance, we now have serious problems within our digital realms.

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First-person, immersive video can also generate empathy in ways we may not like.....

Near-Future: Magic LeapMR combined with our own personal data, artificial intelligence and very fast, cloud-based systems...

See your grandmother sitting on your couch, she sees you on her couch, as if youre there together

Credit system: Pay-per-view news video overlays micropayments to see news and information

Credit system: Paid personalized news feeds

We didnt connect the dots in advance. We didnt ask:

How do virtual worlds change our sense of self? Our sense of belonging to a group?

How do virtual worlds increase/ decrease real-world violence?

How do we represent religion/ culture/ ethnicity in a virtual world, without using stereotypes?

If while in MR, someone harasses you, or violently attacks you, is it punishable offense?

If someone commits a crime in a virtual world, whos to blame? Who will help?

2016: Conversational Computing

Programmable software automates reporting and syndication.

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We are entering an era of conversational interfaces.

You can be expected to talk to machines for the rest of your life.

Conversations well have...

Near FutureBottable interfaces and platforms will replace standard user interfaces.

Changes the expectations of your news consumers.

Conversations replace comments.

These platforms can also simulate a conversation you might have with your editor. To help you think through ideas and concepts.

Whats the big deal? Whos for and against it, and why?

(Side note)No financial relationships

Akira was created to help you have a conversation to learn

more about ONA and #ONA16.

Dmitrii DumikCEO of Chatfuel

Dmitrii joined Amyon stage to talk about bots and journalism from a developers point of view.

1. ONA2. ONA conference3. Bots4. Futurism

Akira can have 4 conversationsto help you gain a better understanding

of ONA and the ONA conference:

There have been a fewearly attempts at conversational

journalism...

CNN Chatbot: Conversational Search (not AI)

Is this just a gimmick?

Conversational journalism meets people

where they already are.

Not a replacement for traditional storytelling.

Dynamic Listicle*great for specific subjects

like explainers

Basic Corpus: Syria Crisis Explainer Bot(Who, What, Where, When, How, Why?)

Whats happening in Syria?Where is Syria, exactly? Can I see a map?

When did the crisis start?Why did it start?Who is Assad?

Who are the refugees?What caused Syrias civil war?

How many people have lost their lives?Whats the humanitarian crisis, in a nutshell?

Are there any peace efforts?How is the U.S. involved?

Challenge to You: Election Night BotThis can be built with Chatfuel (or other)

Reminder of whos runningPolling station information (hours, locations)

Explainer for local rules, propositions, ballot initiativesWhat your news org says about the candidates (endorsements)

Historical voting trivial/ dataReal-Time local candidate results

Real-Time state and national candidate results

https://amywebb.pandorabots.com/https://amywebb.pandorabots.com/https://amywebb.pandorabots.com/

Amy is the Artificially Intelligent version of me.

Skills:Specifically programmed to help you understand my ONA16 tech trends

Amy learns as they go

Generative language

Amys an experimental bot, created with AI markup language and Pandorabots.

Lauren Knuze of Pandorabots then gave us a detailed

backstage tour of the corpus,code and how Amy was built

Challenge to You: Single-Issue BotThis can be built with Pandorabots (or other)

Issue bot: companion to a big story youve published

Newsstand bot: allows you have a conversation about thedays top 3 news stories ongoing updates, not a one-off

Local bot: geo-coded; knows basic 311 information; tells you local stories, events, happenings ongoing updates, not a one-off

Aikra and Amy are now live, so feel free to interact with them during the session and the rest of the day.

https://www.messenger.com/t/1774811266134387/

Facebook: Akira Bot

https://amywebb.pandorabots.comText: 415.286.9148

https://www.messenger.com/t/1774811266134387/https://www.messenger.com/t/1774811266134387/https://www.messenger.com/t/1774811266134387/https://www.messenger.com/t/1774811266134387/

DO NOW: Build a conversational journalism project. Try an explainer or single-issue bot. LEARN from your experiment to understand how to meet users where they are to have a conversation.


2026: Conversational Computing

Mistakes were made.

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Basic chatbots require a big database of possible questions and answers.

AI chatbots require data sets, algorithms and training.

Training happens in real-time,and require real interactions

with humans.

Other instances of AI behaving badly...

These machines have parents. (programmers)

And textbooks. (our data)

We are their mothers and fathers. We are creating them in our likeness.

By 2026, we will realize that we taught machines to talk, and they learned from our structural racism/ sexism/ homophobia/ xenophobia.

Ctrl+Alt+Future

Program your bots to helpbring awareness to why language matters.

If you try to harass Akira and Amy, theyve been programmed to teach you how to be a better human.

Botness Scale1. Perform its designated function well

2. Easy to access and use

3. Help people learn

4. Provide people context

5. Help people learn about their ownbiases/ broaden their worldviews

REMEMBER

This presentation is from the 2016 Online News Association conference, which was held on September 17, 2016.

The Twitter, Chatfuel and Pandorabots bots may no longer be live by the time youre looking in this Dropbox folder.

2016: Augmented Journalism

(2nd year was Cognitive Computing in 2015) Using new data mining, machine learning and cognitive tools to assist with your reporting.

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2001: C.A.R.Computer-Assisted Reporting

C.A.R. helps reporters to analyze public documents and crunch data.

Still have to connect the dots to understand the story.

In the 15 years since,machine learning, deep learning, etc. have matured. Systems are more powerful.

C.A.R. v2.0Augmented Journalism

Augmented Journalism

Using computers to help journalists analyze docs and data, connect dots and better understand the subject.

Tokyo, JapanAugust 2016

Female patient in Japan diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer



After treatment, recovery was unusually slow




Doctors started wondering if it was actually something else... but in all their medical records and data, they didnt see anything else





They fed her data into Watson, which crunched her genetic data against a bigger database. 10 minutes later new diagnosis: rare secondary leukemia





They fed her data into Watson, which crunched her genetic data against a bigger database. 10 minutes later new diagnosis: rare secondary leukemia

Changed her therapy, shes now in remission

Similar problem for journalists:

Connecting the dots based on fact and observation, not just hunches.

Some IBM Watson news experiments...

300k pieces of content

70k sources

looks for concepts rather than keywords, in order to make connections between nodes

News Explorer

Visualizing connections between nodes mitigates our own belief bias.

DO NOW: Try some of these emerging augmented journalism tools. Learn how to use them to help your newsroom add context and make connections between nodes.


2026: Augmented Journalism

Soon, youll be able to debate your storieswith an artificially intelligent editor.

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What if you had an artificially intelligent digital editor, to help you evaluate all sides of your reporting?

No, Wikipedia isnt trustworthy. This will eventually work with proper data sets.

What if debater could be used in real-time against, say...........

IBM Research: Debater

Organizational Doxxing

What happens when hackers goafter the personal details of every journalist and

staff member in your organization?

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In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, weve seen a number of data dumps. WikiLeaks has published troves of data. Hackers broke into Hacking Team, publishing a massive amount of internal data. Sony has been breached, and so have various branches of the U.S. government.

This isnt about stealing credit card information, but rather about making public the personal details of individuals. Doxing is mining and publishing personal information about a personorganizational doxing is when this happens to an entire company. (Security expert Bruce Schneier has written extensively about this.)

Why this matters for journalists: In the spring and summer of 2016, hate groups began specifically targeting Jewish journalists on Twitter. In our ever-polarizing political climate, news organizations ought to shore up security and to develop a risk management plan should they find themselves doxed.

Trend #6: Organizational Doxing

Digital Frailty

Were creating an unprecedented amount of digital journalism, thats free and available to

everyone...and it wont be here forever.

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We are creating troves of digital content, only some of which is being archived. Perhaps not every Facebook post should be saved in perpetuity, but might we need to look back on this moment in time and reflect on how our languagehow the very way we communicatewas shaped by our Instagrams, our Snaps, and our tweets? Will our future historians look back at this moment, marveling at the amount of anthropological data we were simultaneously creatingand destroying? Why this matters for journalists: Several news organizations have moved to digital-only publications as a cost-cutting measure. What happens if/when all of the money runs out? Weve already seen several archives go dark, including a few alt-weekly newspapers, who had produced important investigative reporting series about our cities. Thats today. What will a future society look like if our current media landscape goes dark? Do we have an obligation to preserve our digital journalism?

Note: ONA Board Member Mario Tedeschini-Lalli has also written and talked extensively about this, and hes a good source on this trend.

Trend #7: Digital Frailty

Verification

News organizations should be transparent when technology is used extensively forreporting or for story production.

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We are increasingly relying on data, algorithms and machine learning for various aspects of news gathering and publishing. News organizations must commit to transparency. They must tell consumers where the information came from, how it was parsed, and how the final story was ultimately produced. Better, still, if that process is divulged in a public place, like Github.

Why this matters for journalists: There are too many instances of bias in algorithms to list. Just as consumers expect to see a byline on stories, because it creates a chain of accountability, they will soon expect to know how automated stories and augmented journalists did their work. It is in the publics best interest, and in the best interest of newsrooms, to create a nutritional label of sorts for their stories, explaining which technologies and datasets were used.

Trend #8: A Nutritional Label for News (Verification)

Limited Edition News Products

Certain digital products are better for stories and consumers.

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Not every news product needs to last indefinitely. Some organizations have begun to experiment with temporary products: limited-run newsletters, podcasts that only last a set number of episodes, live SMS offerings that happen only during events. Limited-edition news products doesnt necessarily mean creating a bunch of labor-intensive one-offs. Rather, they can be templates that your organization can use, iterate on and redeploy again and again.

Why this matters for journalists: Whether its a planned news event (like the 2016 Election), an annual conference (CES, SXSW), a season (basketball, football, winter weather), or a big story that has a defined beginning and end, limited-edition news products are a smart way to deliver content, in a format that works best for the consumer.

Trend #9: Limited-Edition News Products (Live SMS)

Journalism as a Service

It is time to completely re-imagine how to sustain the future of quality journalism.

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The central challenge within newspapers is that there are immediate, acute problemsbut reasonable solutions will require long-term investment in energy and capital. The tension between the two always results in short-term fixes, like swapping out micro-paywalls for site-wide paywalls. In a sense, this is analogous to making interest-only payments on a loan, without paying down the principal. Failing to pay down the principal means that debtthat problemsticks around longer. It doesnt ever go away.

So publishers must learn to adopt a new kind of strategyone which addresses both those immediate financial needs while simultaneously addressing the problem of financial sustainability in the long term. To be fair, this is difficult to do. How does one prove out a positive ROI for something that wont happen for a few years? Publishers and their investors must get comfortable taking a risk on real R&Dthe kind that may not yield any result for a few years.

The most important revenue generators for the longer-term has to do with what I call Journalism as a Service. How can news orgs become the modern information layer that powers all facets of our everyday lives, whether were at home, or at work, or riding around in a driverless car? How can news orgs be used by others in the knowledge economy, such as universities, legal startups and data science companies?

How could we rethink news in different kinds of parcels, which include stories, but also include things like verified, searchable databases of people and organizations? Or a service that auto-generates a short report of the opinions on a particular subject, along with a list of quoted experts? Or a calendar plug-in that summarizes the most important news events to pay attention to during the week? All of these services could work outside of the social media landscape, and could be monetized.

Why this matters for journalists: Because it is time to completely re-imagine how to sustain the future of quality journalism.

Trend #10: Journalism as a Service (JaaS)

Why isnt Artificial Intelligence

a trend??

Artificial Intelligence

AI will impact all aspects of journalism...

OUT

Reporter

Social Media Manager

Web Content Producer

Multimedia Designer

Graphic Designer

Copy Editor/ Fact Checker

Line Editor

INData & Algos Investigations Team

Enhanced ReporterAugmented Reality Producer

Bot DeveloperPrincipal Researcher, Media Lab

Ecosystem ManagerPlatforms Manager

Public Editor for CodeLead Data Scientist

Automation Experience Designer

Journalism Jobs of the Near-Future

AI hasnt fully arrived. Were just at the beginning, still. Take time now to learn about what it really is.

Learn what AI really is, what it can do, what it cant do. Learn the lexicon. Read some papers.

AI: What You Should Do Now

The future of new isnt pre-determined.

Its something we all create together, in the present.

http://bit.ly/ONA16Trends

http://j.mp/dent2016http://j.mp/dent2016

My new book is all about the future, and how you can predict tech trends yourself!

https://goo.gl/hvF1ZG

Early access to FTIs 2017 Trend Report (journalists, teachers and researchers only)

https://goo.gl/hvF1ZGhttps://goo.gl/hvF1ZG

THE FORESIGHT PROGRAM

The Future Today Institutes Annual Retainer Client ProgramThe Institutes Tech Trends Forecasting Subscription Service

futuretodayinstitute.com | 267.342.4300

WHAT YOU GET AS A FORESIGHT PROGRAM CLIENTThis program ensures that an organization knows all of the near- and mid-future trends on

Quarterly On-Site Trends Research Workshops

These half-day customized trends

Sessions are deeply personalized for your organization and they are highly interactive. First, we detail emerging trends your organization needs to know. But from our point of view, information alone isnt

Thats why in the second half of our quarterly workshops, we apply two of the Future Today Institutes tools to help you determine how to move the trend into action. (Even if the result is to simply monitor the trend for a little while longer.) By the end of these quarterly workshops, youll not only know what trends are emerging, but what to do about them in the present.

Big Ideas Summit Invitations

Foresight Program clients receive invitations to our two Big Ideas Summits a year. We bring together the Future Today Institutes clients as well as experts working on emerging technologies for an exciting roundtable discussion. Youll have the opportunity to meet and collaborate with brilliant people and to share knowledge across industries. (Clients receive 2 seats per Summit.) Summits are typically held in NYC, Boston and DC.

Tools To Measure Your Forecasting ROI

Ongoing Advising

Our annual tech trends report is covered by dozens of media outlets (Harvard Business Review, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others) and is typically downloaded more than 250,000 times each year. The Future Today Institute clients receive early access to the report, giving them a strategic edge as they plan for the year ahead.

Whats the value of tracking trends? Well give you a set of tools to help you quantify the impact of the tracking trends within your organization.

The ability to talk with us throughout the month for advising, insight and inspiration. (Additional fee applies.)

Notes From The Near Future Monthly Trends Report

all of the emerging trends you should be aware of, why they matter, and who the key players are driving the trend.

Notes From The Near Future Monthly Trends Briefing Call

Slack Integration

A few days after the report is sent, we host a short virtual hangout to answer any questions you might have. Since all of our clients are invited to join, its also a great opportunity to hear from people working outside your industry.

For clients using Slack, we include a custom #trends channel to continually update and inspire your team.

Early Access To Our Annual Trends Report

To learn more about becoming a Foresight Program client, email us or call 267-342-4300.

http://future.todayhttp://future.today

futuretodayinstitute.com [email protected] @amywebb267-342-4300

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

Tech Trends for Journalists - 9th Annual Online News Association Presentation

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Transcript of Tech Trends for Journalists - 9th Annual Online News Association Presentation