📰 PR Futurist #41 🏔️ Davos 🗞️ News about news 👩 CEOs 🌍 and the metaverse

Welcome

The future of news, the workplace, CEOs, communications and communities

Lots to share in this issue including new research into CEOs from the World Economic Forum in Davos, a fun (and alarming) game where it's up to you to prevent climate change and a round up of a fascinating conference on the power of professional communities.

If you read to the end we've also got a cute picture of a puppy... and if you follow the link you'll get penguins as well.

News

Bill Gates on how the metaverse will change the workplace

A fascinating extract from Bill Gates's new book ‘How To Prevent The Next Pandemic’. He makes lots of interesting points, including it's a fact that massive change in work is coming, regardless of what you personally think of work from home, hybrid etc. He also tackles how technology is already changing rapidly to replicate the 'water cooler' moment that many fear is lost by the demise of physical offices.

Your invite to Davos

Okay, not quite. I used to look forward to heading to Davos every year, shortly after the World Economic Forum, to attend the World Communication Forum.

Unfortunately, unlike WEF, the WCF isn't back in Davos yet. But it's on our roadmap for next year. However, we are having a remote summit on Tuesday 7 June. The theme is The New PR World: Look ahead. Re-think. Change. Succeed.

It's free to attend and speakers include: Maxim Behar (Bulgaria) - president of WCFA and CEO of M3 Communications; Arun Sudhaman (Hong Kong) - CEO/Editor-in-Chief, PRovoke Media; Francis Ingham (UK) - PRCA Director General; and ICCO Chief Executive; and me - Stuart Bruce (UK)! I'll be talking about The Key Role of Public Relations in the Global Recovery

There are speakers from Armenia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, UK, USA and Vietnam.

A 45 tweet Twitter thread on the future of news

Ros Atkins is the journalist behind (and the face of) the BBC's viral news explainers. In this 45 tweet thread, he shares some thoughts on the future of news. It's essential reading for everyone in PR and communications. Too often, PR lags behind and keeps doing what it has always done, rather than innovating and understanding how the news industry has changed and is changing rapidly.

AI

Community management lessons from the Guild Community Summit

Last week, Stuart and Tim both attended the Guild Community Summit on professional communities and community management. Communities are a huge opportunity for PR and communications and there's a real risk that once again we miss out (just like with SEO and social media) if we don't act now. Watch out for some news from Purposeful Relations on this soon.

Is WordPress still a good choice for a Content Management System?

WordPress is a monster! A good review of how WordPress in particular, and popular open-source platforms in general, evolve. Any technology has a trajectory of development and, as an end user, you sign up for the journey. As anyone who has changed technology platforms will attest, migration to another technology can be painful and expensive. However, evolving a technology to use the latest and greatest approaches, such as a headless front-end, also has immense challenges.

If you're wondering what on earth a 'headless front-end' is then that's why you need to talk to us!

Corporate affairs

CEOs are an underrated 'marketing tool'

New research by Brand Finance reveals that an outspoken or high profile CEO can have a particularly positive or negative impact on reputation. Well, no s**t Sherlock! Not surprisingly, it shows this is strongest when the CEO is also the founder. It does provide more evidence to support our argument about the benefits of having a socially active CEO and C-Suite. However, this must be balanced to provide them with expert support and advice to maximise the opportunities and minimise the risk.

New survey of 1,000 CEOs worldwide | World Economic Forum

The TL;DR (too long, didn't read summary) of this survey of 1,000+ CEOs around the world is that CEOs are learning the value of being human. The four key findings are:

Complexity and rapid change are reshaping business.
CEOs recognize they must change themselves to change the world.
CEOs sense their goal is prosperity for the many—but most are far from achieving it.
CEOs are expanding their capacity to be adaptive, relational, and self-aware.

The Climate Game — Can you reach net zero?

We all care about the planet, right? Sustainability and the environment is somewhere near the top of our agenda, isn't it? This is a great game from the FT which challenges you to see if you can save the planet from the worst effects of climate change. Let us know how you do.

Get in touch

Still working on this.

Are you fighting your technology? Do you need to better organise and train your colleagues to get the best out of your investment? Purposeful Relations can help you. You can reach Tim on +44 7958 936969 or Stuart on +44 7852 135456, book a video meeting, or drop us an email, and someone from Purposeful Relations will get back to you.

p.s. If the crisis communications stories caught your eye, then you should speak to Stuart Bruce Associates.

Davos - PR, puppies and penguins

As well as this fortnightly PR Futurist newsletter, I (Stuart) also publish a LinkedIn newsletter. It tends to be more personal than this, but does include links to the most popular news or research we've shared here. If you're not already subscribed then please hop over to LinkedIn and sign-up.

Why wouldn't you, it's got a picture of my puppy?

Crisis communication

This is how easy it is to create a fake AI-generated blog

This is an Alice Through the Looking Glass story about a college student who had only just heard of GPT-3 (the AI writing tool) and in less than a week created an AI model to produce an entirely fake blog. It was more successful than he expected and one of the fake posts hit the number-one spot on Hacker News... with most people not noticing it was an AI generated fake. However, the twist in the tale is that he wrote the click-bait headlines himself.

For PR professionals, it raises lots of interesting questions. The power of AI-powered writing. Did you know? Are you benefitting? The reputational threat from fake content, Are you ready? The ethics question. If AI and ethics isn't in your reputational risk register then it should be.

Fake news about our fake news study spread faster than its truth

If you're in any doubt about the prevalence and danger of fake news then you need to read this article. Several prominent journalists spread misinformation about misinformation. The news they shared was that a big study into fake news had been debunked. Except it hadn't and the journalists themselves were sharing fake news.

CommTech newswatch

UK government focuses on innovation in communications with Project Spark!

The reason we set up Purposeful Relations is because we want to help in-house communications teams and PR agencies to innovate and improve. It's exciting to see that the UK Government Communication Service has launched Spark! to spark innovation.

Simon Baugh, CEO of GCS said: "The fast pace of technological innovation is profoundly changing our world and opening up new opportunities for how we can deliver world-leading public communications."

Did you know that when Simon was a student in Leeds he was my lodger in the first house I ever owned? It's a small world.

How to and tips

MS Teams booths prove a hit for hybrid working

This was a surprise hit when I shared it on LinkedIn. Lots of views, comments and reactions from people intrigued by the idea and thinking it might work for their workplace.