FMI: The Past, Present and Future

In 2018, Professor M. David Rice came across an online Flipboard magazine called 'The Future of Marketing'.

The magazine was started by tech entrepreneur Brian Bowman and featured a collection of forward-looking articles about where the profession might be headed.

David was impressed with the range and depth of articles, which were in line with an idea he'd had for a couple of years.

He believed the 加拿大约克大学 - 斯古里克商学院 could become a global leader in marketing innovation and training.

And as he read the publication, he had an outrageous idea.

What if I contacted the founder and asked if he'd turn the magazine over to Schulich so a talented team of marketing students could build on his work?

To David's astonishment and delight, Brian said YES!

And the Schulich School of Business Future of Marketing Institute was born.

The Toddler Years

At first, FMI's only offering was the newly acquired Future of Marketing Magazine.

David asked his Master of Marketing students if any of them wanted to help out on this bold new venture.

The five below raised their hands and began collecting articles, blog posts and other media stories and publishing them a couple of times a week.

As the months went, the students began to offer ideas on how FMI might grow.

During one early meeting, a student said they thought FMI needed to be more than a magazine, it also had to have a website.

David's initial response was, 'That's a lot of work! Who's going to build and manage it?'

And the reply back was one that David would hear many times from FMI interns: 'We will!'

So the team worked on the wireframe, design, logo and content and the The Future of Marketing Institute website was launched in 2020.

FMI introduced our LinkedIn and Twitter/X pages shortly after as a way to drive engagement with the wider business community.

The Middle Years - Expanding Media and Reach

Since 2020, FMI has experienced a continuous media growth spurt.

Each semester, a new team of smart and entrepreneurial interns contributed to the ongoing success of the Institute.

Shortly after the website and LinkedIn, FMI began a curated podcast. Our staff sourced and listened to the best and most innovative marketing-related shows. To date, we've published 173 podcast episodes from 96 of the leading business podcasts.

We launched our newsletter in July 2022 and added Instagram in 2023.

Also in 2023, Schulich adjunct professor Martin Waxman, MCM, APR joined FMI as Associate Director.

In 2024, we expanded our roster of interns to include both graduate to undergraduate students.

And we gave our first 'Future of Marketing Institute Excellence Award' to two outstanding and deserving BBA students, Simerjit Bahga and Jessica Trasolini !

We're happy to say, the award has been been established as a permanent recognition by Schulich and will continue in the years ahead.

To the Future ... And Beyond!

As we head into 2025, there are many new and exciting projects FMI wants to take on.

We're investigating how new multimodal AI systems like NotebookLM or text-to-voice platforms could help us create our own podcasts.

We're exploring ideas to produce an AI film, tentatively titled, 'Bliss Box', on what a dystopian or optimistic future of marketing might look like.

And we have a comprehensive archive of 7,500 articles published in our magazine since 2019. Our goal is to use AI to build that into an accessible database so researchers and students can easily access our treasure trove of sources.

These are just some of the ideas we're starting to explore.

Stay tuned in the coming months for news about more FMI initiatives.

Our Call to Action to You

Before we go, we want to thank Brian Bowman for saying yes!

And we want to thank our 89 interns who generously donated their time, energy and ideas to the Institute since we began.

Speaking of donations ...

We're excited to tell you FMI is part of the Schulich Giving Day Fundraising campaign for the first time!

Your contributions to the FMI Student Experience Fund go directly to our interns with financial assistance and awards during their business education.

We hope you will consider making a donation. Any amount you can contribute is greatly appreciated and will be matched up to $150,000 by generous Schulich Alumni.

Just click the Schulich Giving Day logo or FMI's Donation Page .

So that's our pitch for you to support FMI and help to invest in the next generation of marketers!

Before we go, we want to thank all of you by offering one final piece of advice.

As you read in the beginning of the newsletter, FMI started with a bold ask.

Our lesson is: Make outrageous requests. You never know when the person on the other end will say yes.

This post was written by FMI Executive Director and Professor David Rice and FMI Associate Director and Professor Martin Waxman .

Connect with FMI

Want to stay ahead of the marketing wave and prepare yourself for the future? Connect with us on our Website , LinkedIn , Instagram or Twitter/X .

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