Welcome
New Year, New Start?
Welcome to 2023 and wishing you a Happy New Year. The start of a new year is a good time to look to the future. Thanks to the efforts of Alex Judd, you can while away an idle moment reviewing the predictions for 2023 of some of the world's biggest organisations. If something more actionable is to your taste, our own Stuart Bruce offers 10 PR measurement resolutions for 2023.
Our scepticism of 'technological determinism' (fixing problems with yet more tech...) is shared by Simon Collister in his article for The Drum — the nirvana of full data for the customer journey may not be worth the expenditure. Finally, congratulations to Purposeful Relations Advisory Board member, Dr Kara Alaimo who has become an Associate Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) in the USA.
Fireworks photo by Designecologist
Tim Bailey | Purposeful Relations
News
Do our global CommTech survey and you might win a PRovoke Global Summit pass
We're working with PRovoke Media, International Communications Consultants Organisation (ICCO) and the World Communications Forum Association (WCFA) in Davos to conduct a global survey on how the industry uses PR and communications technology.
Click the headline to read Stuart's blog post about it or just follow this link to do the survey. Please help by completing the survey and sharing it with your colleagues. Everyone who does the survey can enter a free prize draw to win a pass to the PRovoke Global Summit.
Tim Bailey
stuartbruce.biz
Corporate affairs
What companies are missing in their approach to corporate activism
A thoughtful and instructive article on how companies can develop a "corporate-activism capability". It's from Boston Consulting Group and published on the University of Oxford's Social Evaluations Research Priorities website.
Stuart Bruce
socialevaluations.org
Data, measurement, analytics
10 PR measurement resolutions for 2023
New Year is meant to be a time for making resolutions, so here are my suggestions for your PR measurement resolutions. What PR measurement resolutions will you make?
Stuart Bruce
stuartbruce.biz
Are marketers chasing a false Nirvana with connected customer journeys?
This is a thought-provoking opinion piece by my old friend Dr Simon Collister. He argues we need to rethink the tech-determinist view of the joined-up customer journey. It's similar to points I make when talking about data, insights and measurement for communications and public relations.
There is an understandable obsession with proving business impact, but the reality is it is always going to be far more complex and attempting to map or measure every nuance of the 'customer journey' is a fallacy. It's an even bigger mistake to fall into the trap of chasing the myth of attribution, as even in all digital businesses it never takes into account everything.
Stuart Bruce
thedrum.com
AI, digital and social
Will 2023 be the year of mixed reality?
All the hype is about the metaverse and virtual reality. However, I'm far more excited about the possibilities of augmented reality. VR is expensive and difficult to create and not many people have the equipment to access it. In contrast AR is much easier and faster to create. Once you know how it is easy enough to do yourself with little technical expertise. It also doesn't need specialist kit to access it.
If you've got a mobile phone, you can use augmented reality. Google Map's Live View use AR by displaying directions while you're holding up your phone camera. Or for fun why not try Pokemon Go? How many pokemon are residing in your neighbourhood?
Stuart Bruce
venturebeat.com
Microsoft's VALL-E can imitate any voice with just a three-second sample
It's interesting that Microsoft's is now researching using VALL-E to create authentic voices with just a tiny sample of the real voice. Using AI to create authentic versions of a real person's voice isn't new. Since 2019 in my PR training courses, I've used the example of the UK energy company where the CEO was tricked into making a fraudulent bank transfer because he didn't know he was speaking to an AI version of his German boss rather than his actual boss.
At the moment VALL-E isn't in the wild, but there are tools readily available that enable you to create authentic voices. But at the moment I think they all require much longer voice samples than VALL-E.
Stuart Bruce
msn.com
Research and reports
All the 2023 prediction decks in one place
If you're like us then you've probably been devouring the plethora of 2023 prediction decks to see if you can glean any worthwhile insight. Alex Judd hasn't just done that, but he's also collated them together into one huge folder on Google Drive. Thanks Alex. Fill your boots!
Tim Bailey
google.com
Professional practice
Purposeful Relations advisory board member joins Fairleigh Dickinson University
Breaking news from Kara Alaimo, a member of Purposeful Relation's advisory board, who has joined Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) in New Jersey, USA.
Dr Alaimo joins FDU as Associate Professor of Communication and will launch a new track on its Bachelor of Arts in Communication degree focusing on social media.
Kara was previously a senior communicator in President Obama's administration and at the United Nations. She's a regular contributor to CNN, New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic amongst many others.
Dr Alaimo is the author of Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street, where Stuart Bruce was one of the contributors. It is used as course text at universities around the world.
Congratulations Kara.
Stuart Bruce
fdu.edu
Pixar animator shares his secrets to telling a compelling corporate story
Interesting article on how to tell a corporate story. The origin story can be compelling and is too often forgotten, yet it helps make the ongoing saga more meaningful.
Every company has a good story. It's about being able to find it, but even more importantly then being able to tell it well.
Stuart Bruce
linkedin.com
CommTech newswatch
Will PR tech be the next marketing frontier?
Will PR tech be the next marketing frontier? Well, doh! That's one of the main reasons we set-up Purposeful Relations. We saw what was happening in advertising and marketing technology (MarTech) and other professional services such as legal and saw that the PR profession industry was much slower to innovate and embrace more effective working practices.
We set-up to help in-house communications teams and PR agencies to identify, buy and implement communications technology (CommTech). The aspect where we're seeing the most demand is in PR measurement and evaluation which is both changing professional practice and implementing some technology.
Tim Bailey
mashable.com