Welcome
Howdy, from Washington DC
We're in Washington DC this week for the PRovoke Global Summit. Give us a shout if you're there. Sunday was 'Bleisure' - combining business and leisure travel - as we explored the Mall.
Professor Ethan Mollick, one of the world's leading academics on generative AI, recently said even he couldn't keep up with the rapid developments. That's never been more true than today. We'd already added a story about the latest ChatGPT features added last week. But later today that becomes out of date as if the leaks and rumours ahead of the OpenAI developer conference on 6 November (US west coast time) are to be believed then there are even more awesome features being added.
We'll be putting out a special edition of PR Futurist to share the latest best practice we've learnt at the PRovoke Global Summit.
News
AI briefing for FTSE 100 corporate affairs leaders
This year I've delivered lots of AI for communications and corporate affairs briefings and workshops to both organisations and in-house teams in the UK and internationally.
This week's was a little different as I spoke to more than a dozen senior corporate affairs and communications leaders from FTSE100 companies. There was a huge range of industry sectors from transport and financial services to hospitality and technology.
There was lots of interest in what they need to do to prepare and upskill their teams as well as the wider corporate reputational issues around implementing (or not) AI right across the business.
I've several more scheduled for later this year, including a keynote at an overseas conference in December. We can still fit in a few more this year and are taking bookings for 2024.
Find out more on our AI for comms masterclass page.
Stuart Bruce
Research and reports
State of AI Report 2023
The sixth annual State of AI Report by Nathan Benaich of Air Street Capital is now out. It covers the latest research and technology breakthroughs, commercial application and the business impact, politics and regulation, safety and intriguingly predictions.
Key themes include the dominance of GPT-4, other LLMs (large language models), investment and growth, and safety and ethics.
Stuart Bruce
Professional practice
Timesheets - love 'em or loathe 'em?
In a recent article PR Moment asks 'What impact will AI have on time-based agency fees?'. It's a good article and I agree with the points made that time-based billing isn't the best model for most agencies (from their perspective!).
It did remind me of an article I wrote last year saying questioning time-based fees shouldn't be related to the benefits of timesheets. The real value of tracking and understanding time isn't so you can charge for it but that it's usually the biggest cost. That's true for agencies and in-house teams. Understanding and tracking time is easy in 2023 and unlocks lots of potential for improving the happiness and wellbeing of colleagues as well as helping the team to become more effective at adding value.
Read my article on 'Why in-house comms and PR agencies should love timesheets' to find out more.
Stuart Bruce
PRCA appoints James Hewes as chief executive
The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) has appointed James Hewes as its chief executive. Hewes starts in January and is currently president and CEO of global media and publishing industry trade body FIPP (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Périodique or the International Federation of Periodical Publishers).
The appointment comes after a total overhaul of the PRCA’s structure, policy and processes, as a result of a governance review which started at the end of last year.
Purposeful Relations is a corporate member of the PRCA and Stuart has served on its UK PR Council. We look forward to working with James, especially in relation to creating standards and professional development on how the PR and comms profession should use AI and technology and approach measurement and evaluation.
PRovoke News has more about the appointment.
Tim Bailey
CommTech newswatch
Newswhip adds insights from LinkedIn
Newswhip has added LinkedIn insights to Newswhip Spike. It means journalists, PR and communications professionals can now use it to spot trends and find story ideas by accessing the most viewed Company Page posts in many work topics on LinkedIn.
One of our most popular training courses this year has been our one-day LinkedIn for PR and Communications Professionals. We've already added this new Newswhip service to it.
Stuart Bruce