Leading futurists Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard today announced the launch of a web-based video series called Future Talks. Future Talks, produced by Doug Kaye (founder of the Conversations Network), debuts today on the Media Conversations channel with two long-form, in-depth videos that feature each futurist individually. They are interviewed by Mobile Entertainment Forum Chairman Emeritus and renowned music industry figure Ralph Simon. The first regular episode with Leonhard, Hiemstra and Simon, entitled “Media Megatrends”, will be available next week, on October 16, 2007. Interested viewers can subscribe via RSS and receive both the video and the audio-only versions, for free.

The new Future Talks video series is the result of an expanded collaboration between Gerd Leonhard and Glen Hiemstra, with Leonhard coming from a more specialized music, media & entertainment background, and based in Europe, and Hiemstra employing a more generalist and broader futuristic view, and based in the U.S.

Visitors to Futurist.com can access the series directly by going to our own Future Talks page if you wish, and from there you can watch the videos, or follow links to download them as MP3 audio files or MP4 video files. The first episode is available here…

After the introductory videos that are released today, Future Talks will feature a new, 10-15 minute episode for the next nine weeks. All videos will be widely syndicated on the Internet and are made available for free embedding and downloading under a Creative Commons license. The Future Talks website at www.futuretalks.com will serve as a hub that lists all related resources, blogs and episode details.

Quoting from the global press release…

“Glen Hiemstra is an international futurist who has been advising leading companies and government agencies for two decades. As the founder of Futurist.com he is recognized for his expertise in describing future trends and assisting enterprises in long range planning. He is the author of “Turning the Future Into Revenue” (John Wiley & Sons, 2006), and co-author of “Strategic Leadership: Achieving Your Preferred Future” (2000). Glen is on the advisory Board of EcoMedia, and among many current projects is advising a GM/SAIC/China consortium on a “sustainable mobility 2030” exhibit for the Shanghai 2010 WorldExpo.

Gerd Leonhard is known as an influential Music & Media Futurist and Media2.0 expert, provocative speaker, thought-leader and blogger. He is the co-author of “The Future of Music” (Berklee Press, 2005) as well as the author of “The End of Control” (www.endofcontrol.com) which was recently released online, for free. Gerd is based in Basel, Switzerland and blogs at www.mediafuturist.com. He also serves as CEO of music widget company Sonific LLC.

Gerd comments: “Guided by one of the most knowledgeable in the media business, Ralph Simon, Glen and I had a great time recording these shows, spinning and riffing on some very exciting future scenarios. Glen’s wider view of the future is absolutely amazing and the resulting videos are full of great gems of knowledge and inspiration.”

For me personally it was exciting to sit with Gerd Leonhard, who really is a media visionary, and tackle the challenging questioning by Ralph Simon. I expect that viewers will find what we had to say exciting, even inspiring at times, and certainly provocative. The web continues to become more and more visual, and I am pleased to join Gerd and the Conversations Network team in this project.

It was our decision to make Future Talks available for free, and syndicate it under a Creative Commons license. Gerd and I agreed that, “Sharing our knowledge and ideas as widely as possible is what we both cherish the most, and we believe that it is both our responsibility to do so, as well as an important and viral way of branding for both of us. We think the benefits of offering the Future Talks episodes for free will assure a wider audience. As you watch the series over the next several weeks, you will understand why we think this is the way of the future. We also realize that the future of media is conversations, not monologs, and we therefore look forward to engaging with our audience using our blogs and various platforms such as our Kyte.tv channel.”