As anyone who has lived in this city for any length of time knows, Richmond has its gaze fixed longinglyMalcolm toward the past. Back toward the ante-bellum South, the Civil War, to a long-gone era where the city was at the height of its powers and influence. For decades, city leaders and a complacent Richmond public have figured that the only way to recapture the faded glory of yesteryear is to try to keep the past alive instead of making an effort to reorient the city’s future toward new ideas and a new vision.

So I was surprised to see two “futurists” listed as speakers at last night’s Richmond Forum event. The first was Alvin Toffler, author of the influential book Future Shock. Appearing beside him was New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, author of two slim but popular volumes, The Tipping Point and Blink.

Alvin TofflerThe speakers that the Richmond Forum usually attracts rarely capture my interest. In the past they have skewed toward the conservative side, with more political figures and entertainers than academics or thinkers, and more males than females. And they have tended to be older, more mainstream speakers–John Glenn, Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Henry Kissinger, etc. You get the picture. So, I was especially interested to see Malcolm Gladwell, with his shock of reddish kinky hair, appearing before the somewhat geriatric and brightly bow-tied Richmond establishment. When I called about buying tickets, though, I found they were priced to keep the slackers, punks, and low-culture types like me out of the conversation. Thankfully, a friend of my dear, sweet mama had season tickets and couldn’t make it, and offered the tickets to us.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite some typical Richmond touches that prevented us from being too impressed. For example, the stage set was ludicrous. The stage was dominated by 5 towering fiberglass, faux-finished Corinthian columns , each surrounded by potted ferns. The columns had the effect of dwarfing the speakers, making them look Hobbit-sized. Before the presentation, a slide of the American flag was displayed, and we all stood to sing the National Anthem (Odd that I find that act to be divisive and partisan). I figured it was just something the old-schoolers in the audience were accustomed to–like saying grace before dinner, opening a door for a lady, and taking off one’s hat indoors.

Toffler talked about his new book, Revolutionary Wealth, highlighting an emerging new economic model that measures not only traditional markets, but also a growing non-money economy created (by among other things) the open-source movement and user-generated products, all made possible by Web 2.0 and the knowledge economy. He referred to this as prosumer participation–productive consumers–and cited YouTube and–a bit anachronistically–Famous Amos as illustrative examples of how non-monetary economies become marketized, and cited Napster as an example of how money economies become demarketized.

Much of what Toffler discussed was old news, in a sped-up, Future Shock sense at least. With Time declaring You (or is it Me?) Person of the Year due to the explosion and influence of personal media and social networking tools, Toffler the futurist seems to be playing catch-up. He didn’t even mention the real fortunes being made off of virtual goods in digital worlds such as Second Life. Do I pay a personal property tax on my 512 square feet of land in Second Life? How will this new revolutionary economy handle places like SL?

When Gladwell took the podium, he clarified that he was not, like Toffler, a futurist. His presentation was pretty much a rehash of a recent New Yorker article in which he framed the current information revolution around a Puzzles vs Mysteries analogy. Basically, to solve a puzzle, we need to collect more information. Once we get enough information, we can solve the puzzle. For mysteries, it isn’t a matter of collecting more information but sorting through and selecting the right information,  which should lead to one of (perhaps) several solutions. He used Watergate as an example of a puzzle. Woodward and Bernstein had to gather hidden information by tapping anonymous sources and using old fashioned investigative procedures until they had enough information to expose and bring down President Nixon. In contrast, Enron was exposed not by uncovering hidden information, but by meticulously sorting through and closely examining dense, complex information that was readily available from Enron’s website.

Gladwell believes that more and more we live in a world of mysteries, requiring a new set of specialized skills in which we don’t need more information but need to find the right information (take that, NSA). Gladwell’s ideas were fairly *lite* and superficial compared to Toffler’s notable gravitas. He stuck with his well-researched repertoire, and during the discussion period had trouble extending any of his ideas to several, perceptive questions from the audience. I suppose this is a fairly responsible approach–why would he know anymore than anyone else how the information age will effect organized religion? Still, his reluctance to engage turned what could have been a lively debate into a pretty staid, one-sided conversation.

It was an enjoyable evening overall, and as Elaine and I strolled arm in arm out of the Landmark Theater and into the Richmond streets, we were met with an unseasonably warm breeze as we turned toward where our car was parked. Perhaps it was the winds of change, finally arriving in Richmond after such a long, long absence. Or it could have been just a bunch of hot air.