From WEF to TED, we are lulled into a trance by the siren songs of the forums

Frank Kane discusses whether the mind-expanding world of forums is worthwhile.

Forums or fora? I’ve been to so many recently - this is the height of forum season in the UAE - that I don’t know the difference any more.

The classicists would probably rule “fora”, but the style book no doubt says forums, so that’s what we’ll stick with for the time being. Whichever, they have been the “big thing” in the business conference industry for some time, and it looks like they’re here to stay.

One thing, however, should be pointed out at the beginning: they are not forums in the sense understood by the world of antiquity. The Romans would have held a forum in an open field or marketplace, with entrance freely available to the humblest citizen.

That was the point: to enable the free exchange of views between people of many differing opinions, a kind of Latin, low-tech chatroom.

Nowadays, business forums are the opposite. There is a strict invitation-only policy, restricted to C suite executives, bankers, policymakers and global “stars” of one kind or other.

A modern business forum isn’t complete without an ageing rock star, or a teenage prodigy of some kind, to give it credibility and counterbalance all those boring suits, even if they inevitably offer a rather more amateur and populist view. That’s the point, balance.

Journalists and other media get invited too, but outside a level of overopinionated media super-stardom – like Piers Morgan – they are tolerated only as long as they know their place and obey the security-enhanced, behind-closed-doors forum regime.

The media’s job is to act as a conduit for the transmission of the views of Very Important People on the stage, rather than any kind of actual participation.

This segregation is hammered home by the lanyard laws. Access-all-areas passes are usually restricted, and defined by the colour of the plastic badge you hang round your neck.

Sometimes, even obtaining one of these precious items isn’t enough. I was at a forum in the region recently where even the AAA badges were further ranked according to whether or not you had a multi-coloured hologram on the back. If not, doors were literally closed in your face for certain events.

Even so, the forum format is beguiling. There is something hypnotically calming about the “plenary sessions”,the big open set pieces where the big cerebral beasts strut their stuff on stage: inevitably a deep azure theme to the platform set-up, precision spot-lighting and the perfect sound system.

The formula was invented by the World Economic Forum in its annual bash at Davos, but it has been flattered by imitation around the world ever since. Since the advent of TED, the younger and cooler rival from California, WEF has had to adapt to new techniques, but probably still leads the way in the forum field.

I was in a forum recently in Dubai that exactly replicated the Davos techniques, and had the same effect. It was almost possible to imagine snow-capped Swiss mountains outside, rather than the Sheikh Zayed Road.

There you are, a couple of thousand people maybe, all lulled into an intellectual trance by the forum magic, believing with one mind that you are doing “something good”. The beauty of it is that the plenary will break up after the session is over, but will magically reassemble the next time, like drops of mercury reforming.

You drift off into a kind of dream world where the sonorous voices on stage are deeply reassuring, convincing you that the whole exercise is mind-expanding and worthwhile. Sometimes it actually is.

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