PR Futurist | Stuart Bruce | Purposeful Relations - 🚀 PR Futurist #67 | Are you a moron if you don't use AI? | Blockchain to verify news | Does nudge theory work? | Microsoft will pay for copyright infringement

Welcome

Are you a moron?

"If you don’t think there are opportunities with AI, then in my mind you are a complete moron."

This bold statement is from the head of Norway's sovereign wealth fund which owns about 1.5% of every listed company in the world. If that doesn't convince you to take action about AI (and give us a call!) then I don't know what will.

In this edition of PR Futurist we also ask if 15 years after its introduction is nudge theory working, share a new PR book that Stuart has contributed to, announce the winners of the Communicate DataComms awards that Stuart judged, reveal the results of the European Communication Monitor 2023, and look at how blockchain is being used to verify news photos.

News

Communicate magazine DataComms Awards 2023 winners revealed

Earlier this year I again judged Communicate magazine's DataComms Awards. There were some fantastic entries, not least PA Media which walked away with the prestigious Grand Prix. The award was for a partnership with the BBC, Sky News and News UK for a news curation platform that assists in data analysis for news outlets.

I also liked Airbus's reputation monitoring and measurement platform. It's similar to the approach we take to help clients monitor and measure reputations using a blend of social media and mainstream media monitoring, alongside market research with stakeholders to measure sentiment, knowledge and attitudes.

Other winners included EY with Commetric and the World Economic Forum (WEF) with Sensu Insight.

Get in touch if you want to find out how we could develop a real-time reputation monitoring and measurement system for you.

Stuart Bruce

Crisis communication

Law firm Schillings sets up its own PR company

The Financial Times reports that law firm Schillings is setting up a PR and communications agency to advise clients on protecting their reputations. What's most interesting is the heavy weight hires to lead it, both of whom will be equity partners in the new firm.

George Pascoe-Watson, chair of the UK PR firm Portland and a former political editor of The Sun, has been poached to head the new business alongside Victoria O’Byrne, a former communications director for the Prince and Princess of Wales and for Sir Richard Branson at Virgin Group.

Curiously, the story appeared in the FT before the new firm even has a name.

[Paywall as it's in the Financial Times.]

Last minute update as the fabulous Maja Pawinska Sims has covered the story in PRovoke Media and it doesn't have a pesky paywall.

Stuart Bruce

Research and reports

The future of public relations in Europe - European Communication Monitor 2023

The latest European Communication Monitor 2023 identifies some of the key trends and issues that public relations and corporate affairs professionals need to be aware of and adapt to. I've analysed some of the key trends and action points in an article on my PR Futurist blog.

Stuart Bruce

CommTech tools

Edge/Chrome extension get you the old TweetDeck, for free!

If you don't have a paid XTwitter account you're probably one of the many bemoaning the demise of Tweetdeck. Or rather that it's now only available to paid accounts. This is a nifty extension for Edge, Chrome or Firefox that gives you 'Old TweetDeck'.

Thanks to Kate Bevan for sharing this on XTwitter.

Stuart Bruce

Professional practice

Nudge theory: 15 years later is it working?

I've long been an advocate and user of behavioural psychology. At my old PR agency, we successfully pitched a 'nudge' idea to the NHS back in 2008, just months after the book was published. Ironically, the campaign we were asked to work on changed so we never implemented that particular nudge idea!

This is quite a cynical and critical article. My personal belief is nudge theory has its place but isn't always the appropriate way to achieve objectives and needs to be used carefully. But that's no different to anything else in public relations and corporate affairs.

Stuart Bruce

New PR book - The Pursuit of Reputation

Sujit Patil and Amith Prabhu are two of India's foremost public relations practitioners. I'm privileged enough to have worked with both. They have combined forces to write The Pursuit of Reputation.

The book combines a thoughtful explanation of reputation and why it is so critical with practical actionable ideas and tips. Each section is accompanied with insight and opinion from public relations and communications experts.

I'd like to thank Amith and Sujit for asking me to be one of the only contributors not from India. My contribution was on AI and communication technology. It was written before the launch of ChatGPT, but holds up well. I said: "The one technology that is already having a major impact which is increasingly significantly every month is artificial intelligence." I then referenced some of the uses, which are still the same with the main difference being they are all much better.

I've worked with companies in India for the last 10 years. India is home to some of the world's most dynamic and exciting companies and professionals. What I like most is the willingness to embrace new ideas and experiment. Suggest a 'future of PR' idea to an Indian company and they might be trying it within weeks. Try the same with most UK companies and they'll still be discussing it six months later.

Amazon links to purchase: UK, USA and India (both Kindle and print available).

Stuart Bruce

How to create a purposeful future for public relations

The Dublin Conversations is a fascinating project looking at the potential future of public relations and communications. At the end of September, it is holding a conference in Sligo, Ireland. You can find out more about the Dublin Conversations, the conference and my contribution to the international project in this article on my PR Futurist blog.

Stuart Bruce

AI, digital and social

"If you don’t think there are opportunities with AI, then in my mind you are a complete moron"

Nicolai Tangen, head of Norway’s huge $1.4 trillion oil fund, isn't mincing his words. He also says AI is like being “in a rocket on the way into space . . . It’s hugely exciting, but it’s also scary.” The huge fund (it owns on average about 1.5 per cent of every listed company worldwide) is using its trillion-dollar heft to encourage companies to properly address the opportunities and risks of AI by focusing on three areas.

Board to get on top of AI - they aren't.
Transparency on how AI is being used.
Risk management.

It is critical that PR and corporate affairs professionals are on top of AI and able to advise the C-suite on the implications for reputation and relationships. We can help you with this.

[Paywall as it's in the Financial Times.]

Stuart Bruce

Inquiry into AI large language models by UK House of Lords committee

In the UK the Communications and Digital Committee of the House of Lords has opened an inquiry into AI large language models and will take evidence from leading figures including:

Ian Hogarth, Chair, Foundation Model Taskforce
Jean Innes, Incoming CEO, The Alan Turing Institute
Professor Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge
Ben Brooks, Head of Public Policy, Stability AI

Stuart Bruce

Why is AI illustrated as a white, male, humanoid robot?

Visualising AI is a partnership between Google DeepMind and an incredible line-up of artists from around the world to create more diverse, accurate and accessible representations of AI, inspired by conversations with scientists, engineers, ethicists and more.

Stuart Bruce

News agency AP updates its Stylebook for generative AI

The Associated Press has updated its standards — and will publish 10 new AP Stylebook entries — to caution journalists about common pitfalls in coverage of artificial intelligence.

It should provide useful prompts or ideas to help PR and communications professionals create their own policies and style guides.

Stuart Bruce

Microsoft to defend customers on AI copyright challenges

I've said from the start that the launch of Microsoft Copilot will be a gamechanger for corporate and enterprise use of AI. Microsoft will mitigate the risks related to privacy, data security, copyright and similar issues that are usually raised. Microsoft is now doing what I predicted and has said it will pay legal damages on behalf of customers using its artificial intelligence (AI) products if they are sued for copyright infringement for the output generated by such systems. Adobe has made a similar commitment, albeit for much more restricted range of AI and content.

Stuart Bruce

CommTech newswatch

Using blockchain to authenticate news photos

I've long advocated that blockchain can be used by the news, PR and communications industry to help authenticate and verify news. This is a fascinating example by Reuters and Canon to use blockchain to authenticate photo-journalism news photos.

Warning, the Reuters website is truly hideous with lots of gimmicky jumping about to display photos making it much harder to read the story. I'd genuinely be interested to know if anyone actually thinks this is an improvement over just publishing as an easy to read web page?

Stuart Bruce

Anthropic launches paid Claude Pro subscriptions

AI is starting to get more expensive. OpenAI is charging $20 per user for access to ChatGPT Plus and now Anthropic has announced pricing for its tool Claude. Quelle Surprise it's also $20. It's currently only available in the UK and the US. We already know that Microsoft will charge $30 per user for Copilot.

Because all of these tools use AI differently and help you to do different tasks in different ways there might be a reason for paying for them all. The Purposeful Relations team is currently experimenting and figuring out what PR teams might need to invest in. We already know the answer will be different for different teams depending on their activities, challenges and capabilities.

The main problem with all these tools is that although individually they are all cheap for the potential opportunities (and cost savings) they offer, when paying for them all then costs rapidly mount up.

Stuart Bruce

Meltwater acquired by private equity firm

CommTech giant Meltwater has been delisted from the Oslo stock exchange and acquired by a private equity firm. It is just the latest communications technology company to be snapped up by private equity. The model is usually to acquire several smaller firms and merge them to cross-sell and upsell services.

This isn't always great for the customers (PR agencies and in-house comms teams) as often the combined services aren't properly integrated at a technical or user level. The cross-sell and upsell means customers aren't being sold 'best of breed' for each service, but just what the PE firm owns.

Meltwater is now owned by MW Investment (in turn owned by Marlin Equity Partners and Altor). Cision is owned by Platinum Equity. Onclusive is the brand used by Symphony Technology Group for its merged CommTech holdings. Notified was a small CommTech brand before it was acquired by Apollo Global Management which used its name for its merged holdings such as Global Newswire.

Stuart Bruce

Presspage launches its Media Inquiries tool as a standalone product

Last year we reported Presspage had added a Media Inquiries tool to its advanced newsroom publishing and media management distribution system. It has now announced that the Media Inquiries system will also be available as a standalone product to help media and investor relations professionals to manage inquires and questions.