PR Futurist | Stuart Bruce | Purposeful Relations

Welcome

The former Labour general secretary edition

Welcome to PR Futurist. It's a little shorter than usual because of the Easter break and my few days in Davos, which kept me away from my desk. This is also a busy week as I'm presenting two webinars on AI and comms. The first as part of Folgate Advisors's AI Month is on Microsoft 365 Copilot for PR, comms and corporate affairs. The second is invite-only for CCOs and looks at the latest impacts of AI they need to be aware of. Details of both are below.

It features three former general secretaries of the Labour Party. The first is David Evans, now Baron Evans of Seeland, who was one of the keynote speakers at the Davos Communications Summit. The second is Lord Iain McNicol, who chaired an independent commission for the Institute of Directors. And the third is Matt Carter (not yet in the House of Lords!), whose company has published new research on reputational resilience.

I haven't had time to write up a full report of the Davos Communications Summit as there were so many excellent speakers and panellists. I'll do so later this week and share it on LinkedIn and my other social channels, as well as including a link in the next edition of PR Futurist. I'm planning to do two reports. One on the whole summit and a second just focussing on the impact of AI on PR panel that I chaired.

News

Webinar on how PR, comms and corporate affairs can benefit from Microsoft Copilot

Purposeful Relations has partnered with Folgate Advisory for its AI Month. This Thursday (24 April) Stuart will present a webinar and answer questions about how PR, communications, and corporate affairs teams can use Microsoft 365 Copilot.

In the AI 'geek' world Copilot doesn't get enough attention or respect, as the bleeding-edge AI geeks want to use the latest fancy models and features from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others. But in the real world, if you're already using Microsoft 365 then Copilot is the most practical and productive AI for most teams.

In this webinar, Stuart takes a look at why Copilot is often the best solution and how PR and communications professionals can use it to save at least two to four hours a week and improve the quality of their work.

It's free to attend and you can sign up here.

Karen Marshall

Is corporate comms getting left behind in adopting Gen AI? - Exclusive briefing for chief comms officers

On Friday morning (25 April) Stuart will be presenting an exclusive, invite-only online briefing on the latest developments in AI that are most relevant to chief communications officers and senior in-house PR professionals.

The rapid advance of Gen AI is leaving many confused. How can corporate affairs and comms embrace the opportunities and avoid the risks as other professions move beyond experimentation to systematic adoption. In this talk and Q&A Stuart will explain how.

Generative AI needs to move quickly from experimentation to adoption since it's time to ensure it is embedded in corporate affairs strategy. The role of CCOs is to help secure social licence for AI (generative, applied and embedded) by advising on ethics and governance, and by educating stakeholders to build trust in AI adoption by companies and organisations. Secondly, now that AI is a stakeholder that shapes reputations and brands, how can corporate affairs influence its answers?

Reply to this email or get in touch to see if you meet the criteria to be invited.

Karen Marshall

AI

Widely-quoted experts turnout to be AI generated quotes

This Press Gazette story has created quite a furore. It's about rogue users of journalist request services such as Response Source who are responding using apparently fake experts with quotes created by AI.

Titles that have run these 'quotes' include the BBC, The Guardian, The Sun, The Mirror, Vogue, Metro, Cosmopolitan, The i Paper, The Express, Hello, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail.

Some commentators have blamed the journalist response services for not vetting users, but my first thought is that it is up to jounalists to verify sources and quotes. The services are designed to make their jobs easier, not do their job for them.

I'd be interested to know what you think?

Stuart Bruce

Corporate affairs

IoD launches new code of conduct for directors

The Institute of Directors has published a new code of conduct for directors. It was developed by an independent commission chaired by Lord Iain McNicol, who served as the General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2011 to 2018 where he was responsible for its governance, legal compliance, and operations.

The code is designed as a practical tool to help directors make better decisions. It provides organisational leaders with a behavioural framework that can help them build and maintain the trust of the wider public in their business activities. It represents a voluntary commitment and is not intended to hold back directors or create a new burden of compliance.

Stuart Bruce

CommTech tools

Microsoft adds 'deep reasoning' agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot

One of the most impressive improvements to AI in recent months is their ability to do 'deep thinking' or 'deep reasoning'. Instead of just spitting out an answer, the AI model does complex multi-step thinking and reasoning. Microsoft has added Researcher and Analyst to provide in-depth research capabilities and the ability to analyse complex raw data, including connecting with third-party sources such as Salesforce or ServiceNow.

Stuart Bruce

Research and reports

Interactive database of 300+ listed company crises

My good friend Rod Cartwright has shared an invaluable new resource for anyone interested in reputational risk and crisis communications. The SenateSHJ Crisis Index is an interactive database analysing the financial impacts of over 300 listed company crises from around the world over the past 44 years.

In his LinkedIn post, Rod explains that it captures data from 27 stock exchanges, across 32 industry sectors and eight crisis categories. It allows users to explore the corporate and financial ramifications of specific crises on:

💰 Share price 💵 Earnings per share ⌚️ How long share price/EPS took to recover to pre-crisis levels (if it did) ⚰️Whether the CEO left or stayed

Across the full dataset, the research found:

☢️ An average share price drop of 35.2% ⛔️ An average EPS fall of 68.3% ❌ 425 days for the share price to return to pre-crisis levels, on average 🆘 121 companies have never - or not yet - recovered 📞 Telecoms and Energy saw the highest average impact on share price 💎 Banking, Financial Services and Insurance show the slowest recovery time 💣 'Mismanagement' and 'White-Collar Crime' hit share prices hardest 💻 'Cybercrime' had the lowest share price impact

You can access the database from Rod's LinkedIn post or go to it directly.

Stuart Bruce

New Reputational Resillience Index research

Another new resource about reputational risk and resilience is research by Matt Carter's Message House and its new parent Bully Pulpit International. The study with c. 17,000 consumers and including 171 brands and 46 attacks, that unpack what resilience means in today’s ‘post-truth’ world, which attacks are most damaging, and what you can do now to protect your brand.

Matt is the third former general secretary of the Labour Party featured in this edition of PR Futurist.

Stuart Bruce