The annual members Gathering has been a key activity in the history of the APF. After the initial gathering April 2001 in Seattle, "Applied Futures Summit," the organization began planning formal events. Each gathering focuses on a particular topic, including both possible futures and futures methods.
- 2003: “Futures of Futures” in Austin, Texas
- 2004: “Future of Reality” in Las Vegas, Nevada
- 2005: “Futures Insurrection” in Miami, Florida
- 2006: “iMod: Hacking the Big Ideas” in Santa Fe, New Mexico
- 2007: “Future of Identities” in Vancouver, British Columbia
- 2008: “Future of Social Media” in New York City
- 2009: “Futures By Design” at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California
- 2010: “Big Questions” in Denver, Colorado
- 2011: "V-Gathering Futures Festival" global virtual gathering
Initially organized by Michele Bowman and Christian Crews, Garry Golden assumed leadership in 2009. In October 2011, the inaugural Virtual Gathering featured 26 futurists on four themes: Crazy Futures, Art/Design/Architecture, FS Methods, and Building a Futures Business. A 2012 gathering in Europe celebrating the APF Tenth Anniversary is in early planning stages.
Professional Development Seminars
Annual Professional Development seminars precede the World Futures Society's conference. After the inaugural Washington DC event in 2004, APF conducted Pro Dev events in Toronto, Minneapolis, San Francisco, twice in Chicago and a second time in Washington DC. (Contact Jennifer Jarratt for information about the 2012 Pro Dev Seminar in Toronto).
Profutures: Futures Insights Webinars
In 2011, the APF kicked off a series of quarterly webinars. For the inaugural webinar, Andrew Curry presented The World in 2020: The Business Challenges of the Future.
Most Important Futures Works (MIFW)
In order to promote the futures field to the public and to recognize the work of professional futurists and others whose work illuminates one or more aspects of the future, APF selects and recognizes significant futures works. Founded in 2007, the first awards occurred in 2008. Ken Harris serves as the chair.
For the inaugural selection, only published works were eligible and included recent and classic texts. Fifty-seven publications were nominated. The top ten were recognized by the APF and can be found under MIFW History. Here's the top three.
The second round of awards was made in early 2009. Expanded to include digital publications, fourteen works were nominated. Here's the top three honors awards.
Honorable mentions were awarded to three others, listed under MIFW History.
After the 2009 MIFW awards, a new multi-year jury-based process was adopted for the 2012 Awards.
Student Recognition Program
In 2008, an annual recognition of excellence in student projects was initiated by Verne Wheelwright and Jim Mathews. Students' work has been recognized in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Current winners can be found here.
Listserv Community
Since the inception of the APF, an active listserv maintained by Mark Justman connected members globally. Conversations involve APF activities, new reports and publications, members' news, and foresight conferences. Every week, provocative questions circulate on topics including the future of geopolitics, scarcity, automobiles, leisure, paper products, sports, and post-capitalism, biggest surprises of the past decade, better scenario methods, and unusual locations for a futures workshop.
Compass Newsletter
The Compass newsletter began December 2003 and is published quarterly. Past issues can be found in the Members Only "Community" section (log-in required) and include important articles, book reviews, members' news, and APF news. Past editors included Andy Hines and Garry Golden. Since 2009, Jim Mathews has served as the Compass editor.
Twitter #futrchat and Social Media
In October 2010, APF began a monthly series of twitter chats. Founded by Jennifer Jarratt and Cindy Frewen, topics have explored the future of: (in 2010) education, money work, (in 2011) transportation, big questions, disasters, relationships, personal, social & political power, limited resources, and design. Besides Jennifer and Cindy, Maree Conway, Guy Yeomans, and Justin Pickard have hosted. Venessa Miemis was an invited guest for future of money. Profuturists blogging site was set up spring 2011. The APF twitter account, established in 2011, is @profuturists.
APF Leadership
Past board members and founding board members can be found here. Current board members can be found here. In addition to the above committee chairs, Membership is headed by Peter Bishop and Nominating Committee is led by Jennifer Jarratt.
