Forum Tech: Tools Helping Forums & Forum Officers

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller

There’s a small groundswell of Forum-fans building technology. Often it is YPOers who spot opportunities to automate a repetitive process or make something easier, and thanks to new tools, they are having a go at building themselves. In their own Forum, they often wonder whether technology can help, and then decide to have a go at building something.

Most are free, very early in production, and need testing. One is commercial. None are trying to change what actually makes Forum work: a small group of people sitting together in real time, trusting each other. Some raise real questions that we need to debate as a community, like when is it ok to have a robot in a Forum meeting?

But there is a lot around that simple experience that technology could make easier and, maybe more importantly, consistent. Consistency is actually a key ingredient in trust and we know that things as mundane as fumbled calendar invites can tank a Forum. These new tools tackle old Forum processes.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller

There’s a small groundswell of Forum-fans building technology. Often it is YPOers who spot opportunities to automate a repetitive process or make something easier, and thanks to new tools, they are having a go at building themselves. In their own Forum, they often wonder whether technology can help, and then decide to have a go at building something.

Most are free, very early in production, and need testing. One is commercial. None are trying to change what actually makes Forum work: a small group of people sitting together in real time, trusting each other. Some raise real questions that we need to debate as a community, like when is it ok to have a robot in a Forum meeting?

But there is a lot around that simple experience that technology could make easier and, maybe more importantly, consistent. Consistency is actually a key ingredient in trust and we know that things as mundane as fumbled calendar invites can tank a Forum. These new tools tackle old Forum processes.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

A Few Different Jobs

The tools tend to fall into a few broad categories. Some help members prepare for Forum, particularly their updates and 5% moments. Others are designed to help moderators run a better meeting. There are tools aimed at Forum Officers, those who oversee and support Forums within a community, helping ensure they are well-run, healthy, and valuable for participants. The tool is aimed at helping with administration and giving them more visibility. And then there are tools that try to bring some of those things together.

That distinction matters because Forum technology should probably be judged less by how many features it has and more by what it allows the people involved to stop worrying about.

If a moderator spends less time watching a clock, they can spend more time listening. If a member arrives having thought more carefully about the issue they want to bring, the group has something better to work with. If a Forum Officer can see where a Forum might need support without creating another layer of reporting, that is potentially useful too.

With that in mind, here are some of the tools worth knowing about.

A Few Different Jobs

The tools tend to fall into a few broad categories. Some help members prepare for Forum, particularly their updates and 5% moments. Others are designed to help moderators run a better meeting. There are tools aimed at Forum Officers, those who oversee and support Forums within a community, helping ensure they are well-run, healthy, and valuable for participants. The tool is aimed at helping with administration and giving them more visibility. And then there are tools that try to bring some of those things together.

That distinction matters because Forum technology should probably be judged less by how many features it has and more by what it allows the people involved to stop worrying about.

If a moderator spends less time watching a clock, they can spend more time listening. If a member arrives having thought more carefully about the issue they want to bring, the group has something better to work with. If a Forum Officer can see where a Forum might need support without creating another layer of reporting, that is potentially useful too.

With that in mind, here are some of the tools worth knowing about.

Forum Sage

Forum Sage is hosted by Gary Antonick, a Forum facilitator who now runs HBS’s Alumni Forums. The site is becoming a useful collection of Forum resources, including retreat resources, exercises, openers and answers to many of the practical questions that come up when you are trying to run a good Forum.

The most interesting part for me is the chatbot designed to help members and moderators prepare. You can choose to use ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The information you share is your own, while the tool draws on Forum training and experience to help with the conversation.

I’ve started trying it myself as a participant. I spent about 20 minutes using it to prepare my updates, and I found the conversation valuable in itself. It made me think more carefully about what I wanted to bring to the group and, perhaps more importantly, why.

That feels like a genuinely useful application of AI. It isn’t giving you the answer to your problem. It is helping you arrive at a better version of the problem before you bring it to the room.

Forum Sage is currently in beta and doesn’t require an account or login.

Forum Sage

Forum Sage is hosted by Gary Antonick, a Forum facilitator who now runs HBS’s Alumni Forums. The site is becoming a useful collection of Forum resources, including retreat resources, exercises, openers and answers to many of the practical questions that come up when you are trying to run a good Forum.

The most interesting part for me is the chatbot designed to help members and moderators prepare. You can choose to use ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The information you share is your own, while the tool draws on Forum training and experience to help with the conversation.

I’ve started trying it myself as a participant. I spent about 20 minutes using it to prepare my updates, and I found the conversation valuable in itself. It made me think more carefully about what I wanted to bring to the group and, perhaps more importantly, why.

That feels like a genuinely useful application of AI. It isn’t giving you the answer to your problem. It is helping you arrive at a better version of the problem before you bring it to the room.

Forum Sage is currently in beta and doesn’t require an account or login.

YPO Update Assistant

Another simple example is the YPO Update Assistant, created by my chapter-mate Nick Jekogian using ChatGPT. Nick originally built it three years ago as a way to learn about ChatGPT, and it was designed to help people prepare their 5% moments.

It has since spread organically through the Key Associate Forum community.

There’s no login, Nick isn’t actively working on it, and you can simply try it. It’s a good example of what I suspect we’re going to see more of: someone builds a small tool to solve a problem they have personally experienced, and other Forum members discover that they have the same problem.

YPO Update Assistant

Another simple example is the YPO Update Assistant, created by my chapter-mate Nick Jekogian using ChatGPT. Nick originally built it three years ago as a way to learn about ChatGPT, and it was designed to help people prepare their 5% moments.

It has since spread organically through the Key Associate Forum community.

There’s no login, Nick isn’t actively working on it, and you can simply try it. It’s a good example of what I suspect we’re going to see more of: someone builds a small tool to solve a problem they have personally experienced, and other Forum members discover that they have the same problem.

Forum Officer Intelligence

Dov Braun started working on Forum Officer Intelligence when he became Forum Officer for YPO Metro NY. His initial goal was fairly practical: automate some of the work involved in being a Forum Officer.

FOI now gives Forum Officers visibility into the Forums across their chapter and automates parts of the workflow involved in placing members, while carefully anonymising sensitive information. It also includes a “Doctrine Advisor” that synthesises the YPO rulebook to help with questions that come up in the course of running Forums.

There are tools for automating Forum health surveys and check-ins too, giving the Forum Officer a more current view of what is happening across the chapter rather than relying entirely on periodic conversations and spreadsheets.

Dov is also adding features designed to help moderators.

That broader ambition is interesting. If the tools used by individual Forums and the tools used by Forum Officers are connected, there could be a much better way for Forum Officers to understand where support is needed without interfering with the confidentiality or independence of individual Forums.

Several chapters are already helping Dov test FOI, but he is looking for more testers.

Forum Officer Intelligence

Dov Braun started working on Forum Officer Intelligence when he became Forum Officer for YPO Metro NY. His initial goal was fairly practical: automate some of the work involved in being a Forum Officer.

FOI now gives Forum Officers visibility into the Forums across their chapter and automates parts of the workflow involved in placing members, while carefully anonymising sensitive information. It also includes a “Doctrine Advisor” that synthesises the YPO rulebook to help with questions that come up in the course of running Forums.

There are tools for automating Forum health surveys and check-ins too, giving the Forum Officer a more current view of what is happening across the chapter rather than relying entirely on periodic conversations and spreadsheets.

Dov is also adding features designed to help moderators.

That broader ambition is interesting. If the tools used by individual Forums and the tools used by Forum Officers are connected, there could be a much better way for Forum Officers to understand where support is needed without interfering with the confidentiality or independence of individual Forums.

Several chapters are already helping Dov test FOI, but he is looking for more testers.

Peer Group Tools / PG Compass

PG Compass is the one commercial tool we’ve come across so far. It was created by two EO and YPO veterans who are trying to spread Forum more widely.

Its focus is on the administration around a Forum. It helps manage things such as the parking lot, follow-up, action items and goals. All the things that are important but can easily disappear into someone’s notebook between meetings.

Pricing is currently listed at $1,000 per year per Forum, although the site also refers to introductory pricing.

I’d be interested to hear from any YPO Forums that are using it. There’s always a difference between seeing a product described on a website and living with it through a full year of Forum meetings.

Peer Group Tools / PG Compass

PG Compass is the one commercial tool we’ve come across so far. It was created by two EO and YPO veterans who are trying to spread Forum more widely.

Its focus is on the administration around a Forum. It helps manage things such as the parking lot, follow-up, action items and goals. All the things that are important but can easily disappear into someone’s notebook between meetings.

Pricing is currently listed at $1,000 per year per Forum, although the site also refers to introductory pricing.

I’d be interested to hear from any YPO Forums that are using it. There’s always a difference between seeing a product described on a website and living with it through a full year of Forum meetings.

My Forum Hub

My Forum Hub is perhaps the most comprehensive example we’ve seen of a Forum Officer building the tools he wishes he had.

Valeriy Zeltser, Forum Officer for YPO West LA, has created a broad suite of moderator-support tools. The agenda builder is particularly good and is designed to be useful during the actual meeting, rather than simply helping with preparation.

There’s also an “auto-scribe” that listens during the Forum meeting and extracts issues.

That obviously brings up an important question around confidentiality and trust. Forum depends on people feeling safe enough to talk about things they would not necessarily discuss elsewhere, so any technology that listens to or stores a Forum conversation needs to be considered very carefully.

At the same time, there is an interesting opportunity here. If technology can take some of the administrative burden away from the moderator, perhaps the moderator can spend more of their attention where it belongs, with the people in the room.

Val is looking for more YPOers to try and test the platform.

My Forum Hub

My Forum Hub is perhaps the most comprehensive example we’ve seen of a Forum Officer building the tools he wishes he had.

Valeriy Zeltser, Forum Officer for YPO West LA, has created a broad suite of moderator-support tools. The agenda builder is particularly good and is designed to be useful during the actual meeting, rather than simply helping with preparation.

There’s also an “auto-scribe” that listens during the Forum meeting and extracts issues.

That obviously brings up an important question around confidentiality and trust. Forum depends on people feeling safe enough to talk about things they would not necessarily discuss elsewhere, so any technology that listens to or stores a Forum conversation needs to be considered very carefully.

At the same time, there is an interesting opportunity here. If technology can take some of the administrative burden away from the moderator, perhaps the moderator can spend more of their attention where it belongs, with the people in the room.

Val is looking for more YPOers to try and test the platform.

YPO’s ForumApp

YPO has its own Forum app, too. It was launched a few years ago with considerable fanfare and is still live, although it appears to have relatively few current users.

The thing I find most interesting about it is the integration with YPO’s library of Forum exercises.

It raises a question I’ve wondered about for a while: how many Forums actually look for fresh exercises or experiment with different formats?

There’s nothing wrong with the familiar updates-to-exploration model. It works for a reason. But Forum methodology is much richer than a single meeting structure, and occasionally introducing a different exercise or way of working can change the energy in a room and surface something that might otherwise remain hidden.

The app also includes an in-meeting timer, parking lot, and synchronisation with Forum member data on Connect.

I wonder whether the experience of these newer tools might eventually lead YPO to collaborate with a third party on another pass at a standard Forum app. The visibility and consistency alone could be worth the investment.

YPO’s ForumApp

YPO has its own Forum app, too. It was launched a few years ago with considerable fanfare and is still live, although it appears to have relatively few current users.

The thing I find most interesting about it is the integration with YPO’s library of Forum exercises.

It raises a question I’ve wondered about for a while: how many Forums actually look for fresh exercises or experiment with different formats?

There’s nothing wrong with the familiar updates-to-exploration model. It works for a reason. But Forum methodology is much richer than a single meeting structure, and occasionally introducing a different exercise or way of working can change the energy in a room and surface something that might otherwise remain hidden.

The app also includes an in-meeting timer, parking lot, and synchronisation with Forum member data on Connect.

I wonder whether the experience of these newer tools might eventually lead YPO to collaborate with a third party on another pass at a standard Forum app. The visibility and consistency alone could be worth the investment.

The ForumSpace App

And then there’s our own experiment.

I originally set out to build the Forum timer I wanted as a moderator. The problem was simple enough: when you’re moderating, you’re supposed to be paying attention to the people in the room while also keeping an eye on whether you’re five minutes ahead or fifteen minutes behind.

I wanted something that was almost brain-dead simple. The aim was to take a small amount of cognitive load away from the moderator so they could stay present as a participant.

The ForumSpace app is currently iOS-only and works best with the phone acting as the controller while the meeting is displayed on a laptop.

Since building the first version, I’ve added a few things. You can now build an agenda simply by talking to a chatbot. The app tracks your ETA, so the moderator can see whether the meeting is ahead or behind without having to do the math. You can play walk-on, break, and outro music from saved tracks or Spotify, and our ForumSpace breathing and training videos are built in.

One of my favourite features is the Forum photo album. It’s a small thing, but there’s something about seeing the faces and moments from a retreat when you’re sitting in a midtown conference room that brings some of that atmosphere back into the room.

I’m mainly interested in whether the app actually achieves the original goal. Does it make the moderator’s job easier? Does it remove rather than add cognitive load? Does it help the meeting run smoothly without becoming another thing the moderator has to manage?

That’s what I’d like to find out.

The ForumSpace App

And then there’s our own experiment.

I originally set out to build the Forum timer I wanted as a moderator. The problem was simple enough: when you’re moderating, you’re supposed to be paying attention to the people in the room while also keeping an eye on whether you’re five minutes ahead or fifteen minutes behind.

I wanted something that was almost brain-dead simple. The aim was to take a small amount of cognitive load away from the moderator so they could stay present as a participant.

The ForumSpace app is currently iOS-only and works best with the phone acting as the controller while the meeting is displayed on a laptop.

Since building the first version, I’ve added a few things. You can now build an agenda simply by talking to a chatbot. The app tracks your ETA, so the moderator can see whether the meeting is ahead or behind without having to do the math. You can play walk-on, break, and outro music from saved tracks or Spotify, and our ForumSpace breathing and training videos are built in.

One of my favourite features is the Forum photo album. It’s a small thing, but there’s something about seeing the faces and moments from a retreat when you’re sitting in a midtown conference room that brings some of that atmosphere back into the room.

I’m mainly interested in whether the app actually achieves the original goal. Does it make the moderator’s job easier? Does it remove rather than add cognitive load? Does it help the meeting run smoothly without becoming another thing the moderator has to manage?

That’s what I’d like to find out.

So, What Happens Next?

I don’t think we’re going to see technology replace the essential ingredients of Forum. Nor should we.

The interesting opportunity is much more modest: can technology remove some of the friction around Forum so that more attention can go into the part that matters?

That might mean helping someone prepare a better update. It might mean making it easier to run an agenda. It might mean giving a Forum Officer a clearer picture of where support is needed. Or it might simply mean not having to do mental arithmetic while you’re trying to listen to someone tell you about the hardest decision they’ve made all year.

The technology should support the experience, not become the experience. And because much of this is still being built, tested and figured out, there’s an opportunity for Forum members to shape what comes next.

Want to test some of these tools?

Several of the people behind these projects are actively looking for Forum members, moderators and Forum Officers to test what they’ve built and give them feedback. We’d like to help connect people who are interested in trying the technology with the people building it.

If you’re willing to experiment, message me on LinkedIn and I’ll connect you with the right people.

And if you know of another tool we’ve missed, please tell us about that too. This list is very much a work in progress.

Forum has always been about learning from experience. It seems appropriate that the same should apply to the technology helping us run it.

About the Author:

Dan Hoffman is the CEO of ForumSpace. He believes organizations grow as fast as their people grow. He believes people, like plants, tend to grow toward the light. He's less interested in inventing something new than he is in helping an old, human practice make a resurgence in modern life. Through ForumSpace and CircleSpace, he is able to work on scaling beautiful, transformative small group experiences and live the Warhol quote, “Good business is the best art.”