Posts Tagged ‘The Futures Lab’

After a period of intensive discussion and collaboration, Derek Woodgate , President of The Futures Lab, Inc. and Maggie Duval, the CEO of Plutopia Productions Inc, have decided upon a merger of the two organizations under The Futures Lab, Inc. banner. The new business unit within The Futures Lab, Inc. is titled FEEL (Future Entertainment and Events Lab), will be located in Austin, Texas. This is an apt name given Derek’s extensive consulting, authoring and speaking work over the past decade on the future of entertainment, media and communications and his input as Chief Creative Officer at Plutopia Productions. Derek has become recognized as an authority on the application of emerging and immersive technologies and the changing human in the design and production of experiential entertainment with his creation of what are termed “Sense Events.” These multisensory, immersive, interactive events show in practice many of the wonderful, creative inventions and innovations that are under way to future‐proof and augment our future, with content often reflecting ideas resulting from The Futures Lab’s consulting assignments.

The Futures Lab, Inc is in it seventeenth year of operation and will continue its global consulting activities for a myriad of categories and world-renowned clients, extending its network both in terms of territories and personnel. With sister companies/partner offices now in eight countries and having conducted consulting work in over 20 countries worldwide, the new set up will enable FEEL to expand it services which include the creation, design, content acquisition, rendering, curation, production, implementation and marketing of future focused ‘sense events’ into new territories. Plutopia events in the US have always had an international character, involving artists from across the globe.

Maggie was CEO of Plutopia Productions for six years. In addition to the revolutionary five SXSWi and two SXSW Music related ‘sense events’ that she produced during that period, Maggie also created and produced Showdown at the Unobtainium: Tesla vs. Edison and numerous other events featuring famous futures-related speakers and performers, such as Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, Douglas Ruhskoff, etc.

Whilst most of the existing Plutopia Productions team will be integrated into FEEL, Maggie has already confirmed the addition of Randall Aretoo Squires as the Technical Producer. Randall was the technical producer on the Plutopia FutureMusic Summit 2012 and Maggie’s Showdown at the Unobtainium.

These changes coincide with Derek’s recent appointment as Consultant in Residence at DAEL: the Digital Arts and Entertainment Lab at Georgia State University.

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After 15 years, we have created a new dancing star. The Futures Lab, Inc. has merged with Plutopia Productions Inc. under a new holding company, Plutopia Futures Group. The Futures lab will continue to conduct its futures consulting business, but will focus on the entertainment, media, communications, consumer electronics and adjacent industries. Over the past 5 years, we have sponsored and contributed to Plutopia Productions’ future focused experiential events by providing access to our network and emerging technologies and related ideas either developed with our clients or contacts at companies and institutions such as MIT, University of Texas, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, etc. as well as access to our offices around the world. Maggie Duval will continue to head up Plutopia Productions, Inc. and Derek Woodgate will remain President of TFL. The Group is in the process of electing a new board, on which both Maggie and Derek will serve amongst others.
The Plutopia Futures Group will provide an umbrella operation for TFL, Plutopia Productions, Inc. and Plutopia News. All of these organizations will operate independently and collaboratively.

The Group headquarters will be located in Austin, TX, but TFL will officially move its offices to Atlanta, GA.