I am a builder. My career has spanned the rise of the commercial internet, web hosting, application service providers, managed infrastructure, security, DevOps, cloud native computing, platform engineering and now AI. Through all of it, I have been a builder and a leader.
I didn’t think, after all these years, I would be building again quite like this. But in the age of AI, we can all be builders. I am happy to be doing this.
Today, The Futurum Group is launching Futurum Media, bringing Techstrong, Tech Field Day and Visible Impact together into a go-to-market execution business. It becomes the umbrella for Futurum’s editorial properties and media services, backed by the broader organization’s research, intelligence and expertise.
For those of you who read DevOps.com and our other publications, participate in our programs or work with us, here is why I believe this is a significant next step.
A Community Worth Building On
DevOps.com grew alongside a community changing how software was developed and delivered. People needed somewhere to share what worked, debate what didn’t and question the claims being made. We helped provide that place.
As Techstrong expanded across cybersecurity, cloud native, AI and enterprise IT, those conversations became increasingly connected. Our readers were working across those boundaries long before anyone reorganized a coverage calendar around them.
The relationships we built are the foundation of Futurum Media. Readers give us their time because they expect useful information. Practitioners contribute because they have something worth sharing. Commercial partners work with us because we have earned the attention of people they want to reach.
We have to keep earning it. Bringing more expertise into that work is a good reason to build.
The Tip of the Spear
Futurum Media is the tip of the spear for the full Futurum enterprise.
Techstrong brings specialist publications, journalism, video, events and community relationships. Tech Field Day puts experienced practitioners in the room with technology developers, where they can examine products and ask the questions a presentation might leave unanswered. Visible Impact helps companies explain complex technology and turn that understanding into effective positioning and sales conversations.
Behind them stands a much broader set of capabilities. Signal65 can test technical claims. ETR can examine enterprise buying priorities and spending intentions. Futurum Research’s analysts interpret market developments and what they mean for upcoming decisions. The Futurum Intelligence Platform provides access to proprietary research and data, while Six Five Media brings executive and analyst perspectives into the conversation.
That combination connects technical performance with buyer priorities and market direction. It gives us more ways to investigate a subject and more people qualified to challenge an assumption.
For clients, those capabilities can support work from the initial market question through content, engagement and demand generation. For readers, they give us a deeper foundation for coverage. Futurum Media can draw on the resources appropriate to the task, whether that task calls for a single asset or a sustained program.
Why Now? Look at the Work in Front of Us
AI is changing how software gets written, how systems operate and who gets to build them. It is also changing how people find information and decide what to buy.
Producing more code or content has become easier. Assessing it still takes work. Does it solve the problem? Can it be trusted in production? What does it cost to operate? What happens when something goes wrong?
Our readers have to answer those questions. Vendors have to explain themselves to buyers who are busy, skeptical and swimming in material competing for their attention.
The industry needs informed scrutiny, technical depth and people willing to say what they think. Futurum has research, engineering expertise and enterprise buyer intelligence to bring to that work. Futurum Media gives those resources a direct connection to communities already wrestling with these decisions.
The exchange should run both ways. A practitioner’s deployment problem can expose a gap in the market’s assumptions. Buyer research can challenge a popular industry narrative. A technical evaluation can give everyone a better basis for discussion.
That is useful to an engineer choosing a tool, an executive approving an investment and a company trying to earn a place in the market.
Forward Analysts, Forward Media
Daniel Newman and the Futurum analyst team bring an approach that appeals to anyone building a business: Examine what is happening now with an eye toward the decisions coming next.
Where will buyers put their money? Which architectures could alter a market’s economics? What might accelerate adoption, and what stands in the way?
Answering requires evidence and a willingness to take a position. It also requires being willing to change that position when the facts warrant it.
Forward Media brings that analysis into reporting, interviews and technical discussions that people can participate in and question. It gives the industry continuing access to the thinking, along with opportunities to challenge it.
Credibility makes this work. Research findings must stand on their merits. Tech Field Day practitioners must be free to reach their own conclusions. Editorial judgment must remain independent, and commercial programs must be clearly identified. The audience’s trust is something we earn through those decisions.
Still Building
Writing The Indispensability Trap gave me room to examine AI’s economics, the enormous investments behind it and the assumptions about where lasting value will reside. Those questions are very much on my mind as we build Futurum Media.
I am excited about what AI enables people to create. I also believe the bets being made deserve serious examination. We can contribute to both, helping people understand the technology and giving them room to debate where it is taking us.
I get to do that alongside colleagues whose expertise expands what we can accomplish together. After all these years, that still makes me want to get to work.
To our readers, contributors, partners and everyone who has helped build these communities, thank you. You made this next chapter possible. I hope you will help shape it.
Learn more about Futurum Media.
Forward analysts. Forward media. Forward, engage.
