Metaviews settled into its new home at the Academy of the Impossible on January 1. Since then, the space has been the setting for regular events in the Hacking Reality series, along with headquarters for our regular Wednesday teleseminars and other professional activities.

“The Future of Health” has been at the top of the agenda in 2012, as we have moved into detailed discussion about existing and future devices designed for medical professionals to diagnose patients, along with apps being produced with the hopes of letting each individual take preventative and therapeutic measures into their own hands.

Some of the other topics we have touched on so far this year include:

Metaviews.ca is currently setting up a new project: The Academy of the Impossible, located at 231 Wallace Ave. in the Junction Triangle neighbourhood of Toronto’s downtown west end. It will partly serve as a location for our salons and seminars along with all facets of our daily operations.

The setup for the Academy is a relatively novel one. As an open source social enterprise, it will integrate both for-profit and non-profit enterprises, along with providing a physical touchpoint for our clients and broader community. This will include bringing to life many online ideas that often end up remaining hypothetical — we want to make them feel possible.

Since consumers are also taking on the role of producers, the Metaviews programming at the Academy will reflect that inevitability, with events designed to empower the human relationship with technology. During this era of disruption for business, media and politics, our infinite series of “Hacking Reality” events will explore all forms of self-expression, from mobile apps and videogames to improv comedy and public speaking.

The events for AOTI members and guests will be concurrent with our continued subscriber efforts throughout the week. Now, with a permanent space, we expect to exponentially expand the insights we can share with clients. But we covered a fair bit of ground on the way there:

• How gadgets are marketed during the holiday season even if they’re about to become replaced by new models

• Shopping apps designed to follow people around the mall, measure window shopping and offer a better deal via Amazon

• YouTube’s evolution from a cat video free-for-all to a more Hollywood-friendly platform based on subscription feeds

• Changes to Facebook, Twitter and Google in the race to build social media market share — possibly at the expense of user trust

• Compliments and criticism for Open Government initiatives in Ottawa including reaction to the official social media guidelines

• The hopes and hypes of 2011 including the evolution of Anonymous, theories of Gamification and digital currency alternatives

Also, on deck for 2012, our second year-long major research project will focus on “The Future of Health” — which will include recurring discussions in our seminars and salons.

Please see the Metaviews.ca website for more information on the subscription package. And follow The Academy of the Impossible for news about all its programming.

Fall 2011 has been a fun time developing of Metaviews. While keeping tabs on the disruption of fields from advertising to academia, we have continued to develop our own projects, which has included extending our presence beyond Toronto.

A pair of salon events in Ottawa have focused on the challenges involved in the transformation to Open Government, which drew interest from all areas of the bureaucracy, as developing a more citizen-friendly approach has been pledged by the federal government.

Similar challenges are being faced by the non-profit sector as it attempts to retool its messaging for the social media age. The conversational research style of Metaviews.ca will increasingly be applied in this direction, too.

With the technological stakes increasingly being raised, though, we have continued to focus our attention on the business of the Internet. Recently, our subscriber newsletters, teleseminars and social media conversation has focused in areas that include:

• The state of the relationship between producers and consumers — and whether they can ever really be one and the same

• Whether or not self-styled internet intellectuals can be taken seriously in the age where everyone has their own online experience

• The increasingly blurred relationship between online communities and the way that we interact in physical spaces

• Marketing efforts that reach beyond online coupons or viral videos to target customers based on where they are standing

• New currency alternatives that stand to subvert the banking system and interest rates of credit card companies

• How hardware producers are constantly challenged by the marketplace to emphasize similarities more than differences

• What needs to be done in Canada to keep pace with the global evolution of online access and the distribution of content

As the year draws to a close, Metaviews.ca will conclude its year of specific research into “The Future of Authority,” and launch a similar project on how the internet stands to transform health care.

During the past year, I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with a great team of researchers, writers and practitioners to develop Metaviews.ca into an original think tank dedicated to the relationship between media, technology and society.

Some of our efforts have been open to the public: regular posts to the Metaviews.ca website and other social media outlets, a growing library of original videos, and live events like the Monday Night Seminar series in honour of Marshall McLuhan’s 100th birthday.

Subscribers have also been able to access our insights on a deeper level, through the Metaviews Weekly newsletter, the Metaviews Telseminar and private presentations related to our research project, “The Future of Authority.”

Discussion topics for fall 2011 have ranged from the analysis of mass media coverage on topics ranging from the future of gadgets in the post-Steve Jobs era, to the influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, to how retail stores will be impacted by mobile marketing.

Developments in social media, the political scene and the economics of the internet have also been at the forefront of the Metaviews.ca agenda.

Other topics that will be high on our collective minds this fall and beyond include:

• Challenges faced by all levels of government to keep pace with a new communications era

• The ongoing transition of mass media to personalized forms of distribution and consumption

• Why some online communities are trusted more than geographical ones — and some are not

• Video games as a new cultural force and the hope and hype that surrounds “gamification”

• Social enterprise as a gateway for corporations to make a personal connection with customers

• How wider online access to health care information will result in a two-tier system for Canada

While some elements of our Metaviews.ca agenda will remain free to all on the web, subscribers receive access to the full scope of our collective efforts.

The email newsletter, distributed each Friday morning, is packed with ideas that will help sharpen reader perspectives for the week ahead.

Teleseminars also include participation from both industry experts and opinionated observers, in the effort to approach topics in a friendly, articulate, conversational format.

Subscribers also get priority access to the entire Metaviews.ca team, who provide research and opinion from backgrounds including academia, education, journalism, politics, business, and technology, along with expertise in executing special projects and in dynamic presentations.

Please see the Metaviews.ca website for more information on the subscription package.