Artificial intelligence isn’t new—it just kind of feels like it is. It’s been answering when you’ve asked Siri questions, driving our cars, and even recommending what video to view next on YouTube. But as new AI tools enter the market, especially generative tools that can create and refine content, communications and marketing professionals face unprecedented opportunity and challenges. Learn how to be an early adopter of AI to help you do more with less, as well as some of the pitfalls and cautionary tales of AI use.

How do you make a magazine worthy of recipients’ coffee tables? The editor and art director of CFA, Boston University’s College of Fine Arts magazine, will break down their collaboration process to produce an eye-catching and engaging publication.

Pull up a chair for a conversation with three writers talking the craft of storytelling: short-form and long-form, character and detail, structure and voice. Writer Ron Hansen is renowned for fiction anchored in history that can take readers on startling psychological journeys. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and many know he penned the novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. What you might not know is that for more than a decade he also loaned his talents as literary editor for Santa Clara Magazine. In a first for the CASE Editors Forum, he sits down to discuss his work as a storyteller. He is joined by an Editors Forum veteran, Dale Keiger, editor emeritus of Johns Hopkins Magazine. Keiger’s career as a writer and essayist spans nearly half a century. He has a few ideas for what makes good storytelling as well—and some concerns about where it’s heading. Maria Henson is a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and she serves as associate vice president and editor-at-large at Wake Forest University. She oversees Wake Forest Magazine, teaches journalism, and serves on the senior leadership team. Hosting this trio in conversation is Steven Boyd Saum, who has delivered keynote addresses and Magazine 101 workshops at previous Editors Forums. He also had the privilege of serving as editor of Santa Clara Magazine with Ron Hansen as his partner in crime, and he now serves as executive director of strategic communications and content at Saint Mary's College of California.

It's no secret that representations of gender identity have shifted in the last few years. At the Fashion Institute of Technology, where personal appearance relates to many of the disciplines we teach, the change was unignorable. Should alumni magazines touch on hot-button issues like gender identity? Here's how we addressed the subject, and why we loved the results.

Do story pitches from the development office "accidentally" end up in your spam folder? Do the words "institutional priority" increase your heart rate—and not in a good way? You are not alone! But with some planning, collaboration and a good dose of imagination, you, too, can turn what readers consistently say is their least favorite content into storytelling gold—and make your campus partners and your readers happy in the process. Editor-in-Chief Amy Lovett from Williams College will show you how.

How do we tell stories that resonate? We’re used to print as a medium for conveying narrative that will invite empathy and evoke images, but the intimacy of the human voice can also bring this all to life. Audio can fill in the breath of a comma, the hesitance of a question mark, and put a voice to a name. The speed with which podcasts have infiltrated media speaks (quite literally) to their value, and also, as we’re seeing, their limitations. This talk will explore why we’ve chosen to make audio, what goes into creating a podcast, what they can bring to the listener, and how they can work as one of many tools in the kit to achieve resonance.

Here is one editor's perspective on the trends, challenges, and opportunities that await higher education as the velocity of disruption speeds up and practitioners work to cope with the inevitable transformation of the sector. Plus a look at the role editors and their publications play in shaping the conversation going forward.

Great work sprouts from a great idea. But when deadlines are looming, who's got time to seek inspiration? Join the 2024 Editors Forum Content Committee as they share some of their favorite stories and the unique ways they were inspired. They’ll then open the floor to you! Participants will have the opportunity to share some of their own favorite stories and what sparked the initial idea. We’ll send you off with a jolt of an inspiration as we wrap up the conference.