 The future is uncertain - it is a constant refrain. Uncertainty is the off-beat in our rhythm of change. But life is - and always has been - uncertain. It only takes a moment and we find ourselves on a different path. A split-second decision, an accidental discovery, an idea, a mishap - anything and everything can alter our course. Probability - that great driver of generative AI - is the only keen eye we can cast over the paths we might tread and, for the last twelve months, I’ve been rolling the dice looking at probable futures for public relations, the shape of practice to come and what we need to learn and understand if we are to keep our sector on the road. Over the next five days I’ll be sharing some of the potential highs and lows we might find on those possible paths - with the last update scheduled to coincide with World PR Day, an initiative from BHMUK which you can find out more about here - https://wprd.app/ So what are the five futures? And what’s the likelihood of each? Today’s offering is something of a double - a speedy look at where we are now (always good to know where you’re coming from) plus the first possible future into which, like the others, some of us have at least dipped a toe. First up is a data-driven future. We’ll come back to that in a moment but, so you know what’s ahead (with some degree of certainty) here are the others:
There’s a bonus sixth which concerns our societal future - but that we will unwrap at the end, so I hope you’ll stay with me and share your thoughts on the shape of things to come. At the crossroads We have a muddle of models in public relations and communication management, all of which have emerged over decades, sparked by different perspectives, cultures and circumstance. Some countries still retain a focus on mainstream media relations while in others, the relationship is at the heart. Some organisations aim for information command and control, others seek to change behaviours. My focus has always been on the relationship because public relations builds and sustains the relationships we need to maintain our licence to operate. That licence can be social, political, economic, environmental or all four.  My PR Atom - illustrated here - breaks it down for you, shows the connection between the relationship and its supporting elements of communication, behaviour and understanding. If you want a more detailed explanation, here’s a video but in terms of where we are now there are three commonly found approaches across the world. First, strategic counsel that guides relationship, reputation and supports organisational purpose and outcomes. Second, short-focus task-based content creation and third, marketing communication designed to sell. The latter two are dominated by one-way communication - sending stuff out and, to paraphrase one of my favourite quotes, creating the illusion that communication has taken place. Organisational culture has an effect on practice as does place - for example, the approach you might find in a consultancy will differ from that in the public sector. For the most part, old methods and models still act as anchor points in organisations - but mainly those still operating on old-school 20th century business and strategic models that are unsuited to today’s world. One of New Zealand’s leading practitioners, Tim Marshall, often describes public relations as operating where issues collide and the many ‘collisions’ occurring in the world impact all of us in some way - either creating further uncertainty, forcing us to find solutions, creating division. One of our great superpowers as practitioners is our ability to provide situational intelligence to those we advise but - like the cobbler’s children so often poorly shod - we fail time and again to develop and action the insights necessary to inform our own future practice. So is there a utopian future for our profession to be found in our dystopian times? Let’s take a look. The First Future is Data Driven The last decade has seen practice transform and in all that time, one future has been cruising along in front of us - data driven public relations. It is a strategic approach that utilises data to formulate, implement and assess public relations programmes. Simply put, data-driven PR harnesses internal and external data to inform, support, and evaluate our decisions. And there’s a lot of data to harness. It can be anything from audience demographics, online behaviours, issues and trends, to employee engagement, campaign results and relationship benchmarks. For many of us, data driven public relations is one of those ‘the future is now’ moments. Using data to inform strategies has been a core practice element for a number of years. If we’ve been using it, can it really be considered as a ‘future’? I think it can if only because practitioners have fought shy of incorporating data analysis into their work leaning towards the ‘PR is Art’ argument rather than ‘PR is Science’ (although the reality is that it is both). Data plays a significant role in reputation guardianship - understanding the data that’s out there in the wild, how it is being used, or misused, in and around your organisation. Pros and cons of a data-driven future Data-driven public relations is powerful stuff. It fosters precision and encourages customisation. By leveraging data, practitioners can tailor programmes to specific communities of interest and stakeholders, improve outcomes and maintain (or build) relationships. It supports evidence-based decision-making rather than intuition or outdated models. Data-driven practice encourages decisions based on quantifiable facts. Most importantly, it give us the ‘measures’ in measurement and evaluation, providing clear indicators as to campaigns or programme progress - crucial for continuous evaluation, improvement and accountability. That said, a data-driven future comes with a down side. One major challenge is the skills gap. Data analysis and interpretation require a specific skill set, often lacking in our sector. In 2012, the Skills Wheel I developed highlighted data as an area for professional development but I have to say the move towards acquiring the skills has been slow. Ethically, the lack of understanding also fuels the privacy concerns associated with the handling of personal data, the potential for algorithmic bias and errors further complicates a data-driven approach. As some of the tasks undertaken by practitioners are made redundant, data-driven practice will shape the nature, structure and operations of our profession. We’ve already seen new roles emerge - data analysts, data storytellers, and digital ethicists to name a few but as yet, few practitioners have moved into those roles. I launched my first data-driven storytelling course in 2010 - and guess what? Nobody signed up. Only in the last couple of years have I seen practitioner interest start to bubble - but not boil. As organisations of all types increasingly rely on data to make decisions, issues around data privacy and security will become even more critical. They will need help to navigate the challenges and balance the potential benefits of data-driven operation against the ethical and legal obligations related to data management. This ‘first future’ is the first step to be taken at the crossroads. Data-driven public relations practice brings great opportunities and significant challenges. It is a future that inevitably brings further transformation and, as is so often the case, the first step forward begins the journey. Without stepping on the path marked data, the other futures are impenetrable - particularly our next exploration which is a second future driven by artificial intelligence. Hope to see you tomorrow.   Join me - and newly created colleague Alison - to learn how to use AI in PR and how to use it well. You can register here - https://bit.ly/How-to-useAIinPR. Look forward to seeing you then.
 Major practice shifts have arrived and PR Horizons, the first in our 2023 briefing series and available from today, is designed to give you the insights you need into what's ahead for public relations and communication.
Join us - free - to explore smart, powerful language processing tools, including ChatGPT from OpenAI, as we face the biggest changes in decades. The session includes insights into the challenge of AI, addresses the ethical and social considerations ahead, why AI has come for your job - and what to do about it. You can access the course here - https://bit.ly/PRHorizons23 - and, if you would also like to be a founding member of our new learning community - https://prknowledgehub.podia.com/pr-knowledge-hub-community send an email to learn-at-prknowledgehub-dot-com and let us know why you would like an invitation to join.  Have you ever finished a really good story and found yourself missing the characters? They’ve become your friends, bound to you forever as you have been immersed in their world? I know I have - and I still miss some of them, occasionally re-reading well-worn books just to check in and see if everyone's ok.
Sadly, the same engagement won’t be found in organisational storytelling. Even though we have a proliferation of channels and a multitude of means to tell a good story, they mostly go untold, unread and ignored. I’ve spent the last six weeks with a variety of organisations working with them on their storytelling, helping their public relations and communications teams overcome some of the frustrations that lock up a good story and prevent their stakeholders from getting to know - and understand - the organisation’s heroes - and occasional villains. In leadership sessions, authenticity is a prized quality, with the majority of would-be organisational leaders doing their utmost to be as authentic as possible but put them back into the workplace and in an instant, the transformational strengths of transparency, clarity and purpose disappear into the ether in favour of old-fashioned command-and-control. This means the real stories are seldom told, unceremoniously booted out in favour of ‘things we think we should say’ rather than ‘things that actually mean something to stakeholders’. Organisations - be they government, businesses, charities, schools - default to the provision of information rather than telling the story of who they are and what they do for those they serve. The problem with information is that it is passive, is generally hard to find, it is presented for the organisation and there’s generally a lot of it that is very hard for the ‘outsider’ to piece together. Stories on the other hand are active. They go walkabout and they are for somebody - designed to help them, connect or engage. Stories explain and create meaning. They show us your world and invite us to build - or maintain - a relationship with you. My tip of the month is don’t be sitting comfortably churning out information. Reimagine storytelling for your business. Break the information chains that restrict understanding. Show us your characters and how they build your world. Engage me in such a way that I miss your organisation and actively seek you out. Tell me a story that changes my mind, makes me think differently or helps me understand. That’s our job to do - and to do it well.  Frustrated that I can't fix the big stuff that's gone to custard in the world this year, I've aimed instead to do as many small things as I can on the basis they might help at least one person. SWITCH is a free training course for those new to public relations and it is a course I've developed to help with the small things - although in training terms it's a big juicy session with a packed 90 minutes of information and insights to help you on your way. Created to help you move from another sector into public relations - perhaps you've lost your newsroom job or you've found yourself made redundant thanks to COVID-19 - it guides you through all you need to know about public relations - what it is, what it does, working environments, ethics, tech, what you need to learn, what to expect and how to get started. Find it here and let me know how you get on |
About Think ForwardThink Forward is written by Catherine Arrow. It answers PR questions, highlights practice trends - good and bad - and suggests ways forward for professional public relations and communication practitioners. Archives
July 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed