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About our Forum Community

The forum consists of over 2000 AA members who share an interest in the use of technology to help carry the AA message.

We welcome all to our community and hope you’ll find useful information here as well as opportunities to share your questions and experiences in either carrying our message of recovery or supporting those individuals and organizations who carry our message.

While many of us are used to using and supporting technology, a lot of us “have no clue” (or fewer clues…) around computers and devices.

We range in recovery time and service from a few days to multiple decades. We range in responsibility from average members to District and Area officers, committee chairs and members, from Intergroup Staff to Trustee – all are welcome and encouraged to share.

We hope to share our experience as well as our needs and questions about how and where to use technology in our AA experience and our service entities

About this Technology in AA (TIAA) site

This site serves both as a Reference, both for those who have interests in topics concerning the use of technology in providing AA services and those who are already members of the TIAA forum community.  The portion of the site that is available without joining our community serves as a tool that highlights subjects that are trending, subjects that are important, and subjects that may be most helpful.

Here you will find sharing about AA members experience with websites, video conferencing, email, phone systems, and more.  It is distilled from conversations on the forum where members ask questions and share their experience.  We also share links to other sources of shared experience.

We do not offer “official” or definitive answers, each AA entity is, of course, free to implement or not implement technology as they see fit.  If you have other experience using technology, you are invited to share that experience on the forum so that others can benefit.  If you have questions about a use of technology, you can ask them and get help on the forum.

About this forum

The Forum is for A.A. members to share about using technology for accomplishing the primary purpose of A.A. We range from technology giants to complete novices just interested in the subject. All are AA members or support AA technology, and all are welcome. If you are not sure what a forum is, see this description.

To join the forum, sign up or email: info@tiaa-forum.org.

You can come here to:

  • Share your experience about using technology in A.A.
  • Ask questions about how to use technology in A.A.
  • Just follow the many discussions to see how technology is being used in A.A.
  • Share your progress as you explore or develop technology in support of A.A.

About the TIAA-Forum Organization

The TIAA Forum intends to operate as a Tradition 9 “service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.”  As such we have rotating leadership, are self-supporting through member’s contributions and are responsible to our members.  We are not a part of AA as such, nor are we affiliated with The General Service Board of AA or GSO.

More formally, we are registered with the State of Colorado as a non-profit association and with the IRS as a 501(c)3 non-profit.  Our membership consists of all members of the forum.  We have our annual membership meeting online in December of each year. We have a board that meets quarterly and a working Admin team that provides technical support and community management.

A Brief History

In 2013, at the first National AA Technology Workshop (NAATW) the attendees found it so valuable to get together with others interested in the subject and wondered how we might continue our conversations between the annual workshops.  At the second NAATW in 2014 a small group of five agreed to check into and try creating a forum to continue the sharing all year.  By the end of 2014, the forum was created and soon had a dozen or two participants.  It was still an informal system running on a website created and paid for by one of the founders. 

Membership grew gradually by word of mouth, and the small founding team learned through trial and error what worked.  By 2017, the forum had grown to about 700 members and it was apparent that it had become a useful, effective means of communication.  We realized that the dependence on a small group of founders was not healthy for the long haul.  At that time, we registered with the state and the IRS and established our current structure.

Instructions for completing this form

Name (required):

The name you use here is not verified and only used to control for spam and bot submissions. It will not be tied to your account. You can create and edit a profile disclosing the account name and information you wish to expose to the community (not publicly visible outside the forum) when and after you join.

Email (required):

Email where the invitation to join will be sent. This will also become a default primary way of logging in or recovering your password. We recommend a personal email address (e.g. your_name@example.com) instead of a “positional” email address (e.g. webmaster@your_intergroup.org) unless you intend for you membership to rotate with the person holding the position in the future. This email address can be changed after you join if you wish to change it by editing your profile information.

Affirmation (required):

By the group conscience of the members, this forum is only open to members of AA and those non-members of AA supporting AA services (e.g. Intergroup offices, AA service structure, etc.).

Topic interests (required):

If you are interested in conversations in more than one  technical topic area (e.g. web sites, answering services, virtual meetings, etc.) or have a general curiosity about AA discussions in general (e.g. topics above and beyond technology like committees and group dynamics), you would probably want to select the default “General” option.

If your primary interest is in Archives only, you probably want to select the “Archives” option. Note that with either option, you will still have access to all topics on the forum but with the “Archives” option, your “home screen” will automatically place you in the “Archives” category where most of those conversations happen.