PR Futurist | Stuart Bruce | Purposeful Relations - 🚀 PR Futurist 78 | 🏛 Social media chiefs at Senate| 🤢Harder to recover reputation

Welcome

As we begin to see the early shoots of spring, lots of developments to keep up with, we do it so you don't have to!

Our advisory board member Kara Alaimo has provided a useful roundup of the evidence given by the big social media bosses to the US senate. If you want to discuss the sorts of issues we cover PR Futurist you need to attend the Davos Communication summit which has now opened for exclusive registration, don't miss it!

As it becomes much harder to recover from corporate reputational crisis due to a polarised climate, let us help you avoid them as well as preparing to handle them well. In other news the countries of the EU have given a crucial nod to the first-of-a-kind artificial intelligence law. It will be interesting to see the impact and what the benefits and drawbacks will be.

And finally I had fun creating this AI image to illustrate using Copilot.

News

Davos Communications Summit opens for exclusive registration

The World Communication Forum Association is returning to a live summit in Davos on 11-12 April. Stuart will be in Davos an elected member of the WCFA's global executive committee. Places are limited so it's important to book early.

Karen Marshall

Social media bosses testify to US Senate

Purposeful Relations's advisory board member Kara Alaimo writes for CNN to analyse the evidence provided by the chief executives of Meta, TikTok, X (Twitter), Snap and Discord as they testify to the US Senate. Kara is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Her latest book Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back will be published on 5 March.

Stuart Bruce

UK government comms chief Alex Aiken quits to advise UAE government

Alex Aiken established the UK Government Communication Service and built it into one of the world's (if not the) best government communications operations in the world. After 12 years as a civil servant he is leaving to become an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United Arab Emirates.

GCS has more than 7,000 public relations and communications professionals throughout the UK civil service. It is an excellent source for best practice as it publishes most of its frameworks, playbooks and guides on the GCS website. They are a useful knowledge source, not only for public sector communications professionals, but those in the private sector. The resources cover everything from planning and measurement to combatting fake news and behavioural psychology.

Stuart Bruce

Get in touch

Do you know how much you are spending on IT?

Do you know just how much you are spending on IT? You might have a good idea what you are spending hardware such as laptops and maybe even what you give Microsoft or Google each month for your office software. But what are you spending on all those essential services from Cision, PRophet, CoverageBook and the like?

Our CommsTransform™ process includes an audit of ALL your IT related expenditure and shows you where you can get more from your subscriptions, using functionality you were not aware of. You may find you can trim some of your expenditure without losing any function.

Book a call to discuss how Purposeful Relations can help you get best value for your money.

Data, measurement, analytics

New GCS Guidelines launched

The UK's Government Communication Service (GCS) has published the third iteration of its communication measurement and evaluation guidance. The immediate thing I liked about the GCS Evaluation Cycle was that it emphasises the importance of measurement for insight and improvement, not just to prove value or success at the end.

I was excited about the idea of new GCS measurement guidance as I've used the previous two iteration extensively with clients. However, now I've had time to study it in detail I think it's probably more accurate to describe it as version 2.2 or 2.5 rather than 3. It's easier to understand and follow than version 2, but not fundamentally different as it's still fundamentally based on the Kellogg foundation evaluation logic model.

The biggest challenge and difficulty for most communications professionals and teams will still be using it on a day to day basis to improve their work. Most of our communication measurement consultancy work is based on creating bespoke, customised frameworks. The fundamental principles remain, but the detail of how we describe it and train people to use it varies to work in the different cultures and business processes used by clients.

Stuart Bruce

Crisis communication

Reputational recovery from corporate crises become far harder

Corporate crises — and reputational recovery — traditionally have been shaped like a U. Companies could 'fix' their operational issues and experience a reputational recovery. Today companies increasingly face L shaped crises from which there is no easy recovery. These L-shaped crises are a result of the polarised climate and are more severe because they are driven by politics and culture wars, Sectors of society become alienated and those customers refuse to accept an apology because to them it is an issue of values, not of products.

The Harvard Business Review article by Stagwell CEO Mark Penn is focused on the US, but the L shaped crisis driven by polarised societies are just as prevalent in many other markets such as the UK and India.

Stuart Bruce

Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake chief financial officer

Have you updated your operational and crisis communications procedures to cope with disinformation, misinformation and deep fakes? You need to as it's a scary world as this story about a $25 million deep fake scam shows. A worker was conned into making the payments after a video conference meeting with a deep fake replica of this company's chief financial officer. The victim was reassured as there were other colleagues the worker recognised, who also turned out to be faked.

Stuart Bruce

AI, digital and social

You need to join Bluesky today

Bluesky is an XTwitter competitor that actually emerged directly from Twitter. It looks and functions in a similar way, but with some significant differences that potentially makes it much better. I joined Bluesky last year when it only had about 80,000 users. It grew slowly as it was invite only and invites were hard to get... it took me a month or two to get one to be an 'early adopter'.

It's now out of beta and anyone can create an account. Within a day it had almost 800,000 new users.

I'm @stuartbruce.biz on Bluesky. Please follow me and let me know what you think of Bluesky. My username shows how you can verify yourself on Bluesky by setting it up with your own domain or to enable employees to create accounts based on your corporate domain.

There are a couple of useful tools I'd recommend. DeckBlue is a Tweetdeck lookalike that makes it much easier and faster to cope with yet another social channel.

SkyFeed is another, but with more 'power' features that make it look more complicated. Bluesky lets you create your own specialist feeds based on specific interests or issues. However, it's not the easiest process and requires coding ability. SkyFeed simplfies the process as it creates the code for you based on what you enter into several prompt boxes.

I've created a rudimentary feed for public relations and corporate communications. It's a work in progress and needs to be refined and improved.

Stuart Bruce

Generative AI in a nutshell - how to survive and thrive in the age of AI

We spend a lot of time giving keynotes and workshops on AI and its implications for public relations and corporate communications. If you're looking for a generic simple explanation of generative AI then this 18 minute YouTube animated video is worth a look.

Stuart Bruce

EU countries give crucial nod to first-of-a-kind Artificial Intelligence law – Euractiv

The 27 countries of the European Union have taken a significant step forward in regulating AI. They have unanimously approved a political agreement provisionally made in December. Some EU countries opposed legislation that was too strict as they feared it could curtail the growth of their own AI companies. However, the European Parliament pushed for tougher regulation and the final draft contains technical compromises.

It's too early to say what impact the new regulations will have or if they will ultimately hinder or benefit European citizens and companies.

Stuart Bruce

Google rebrands Bard as Gemini in its official launch

Apart from being powered by LLMs (large language models) all the generative AI systems have one thing in common.... confusing branding. Google launched Bard last year, to not much fanfare. It then released its infamously faked Gemini video. It has now officially rebranded Bard to become Gemini.

Gemini Advanced is Google's paid service to compete primarily with Microsoft's Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus. Google is clearly still playing AI catch-up as despite charging £19 per month it still says "available soon" for use in "Gmail, Docs and more".

Early reviews are mixed as several leading AI commentators, including Professor Ethan Mollick, have experimented with giving the same task to Gemini and ChatGPT. It appears ChatGPT usually has the edge, but not always.

There's also a Gemini mobile app, but it isn't available in the UK yet (I think it's USA only). You can 'sideload' it on Android, but if you don't already know how to do that then I wouldn't recommend you try it!

My initial take is that it's probably less about which is 'best' and more about which fits your organisation's workflow most effectively. We're vendor neutral so can advise clients on any platform, but we're mainly a Microsoft house for our own systems. Unless Gemini becomes spectacularly better at something we need to do then it's hard to see how we'd ever need to use it extensively. Copilot's integration into Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Whiteboard etc is AI our team can use on a daily basis. If your ecosystem is Gmail, Google Docs etc then Gemini should work more effectively for you... once Google actually launches those features.

Stuart Bruce

Case studies

Political photos illustrate the power of photography in PR

This fascinating article with its iconic photos is a brilliant illustration of the power of photography in public relations and communications. The memorable examples are from politics, but are the lessons are equally applicable to other sectors.

The photos include Neville Chamberlain waving that piece of paper, Margaret Thatcher in a tank, George Bush (in a flying hacker) and Tony Blair (in a comfy jumper and shirt) at Camp David, John Prescott's punch, Ed Miliband's bacon sandwich, David Miliband's banana moment (although my friend Baroness Blake has been cropped from this version) and the infamous Bullingdon Club which features David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson.

I've directed more than a few political (and corporate) photo calls and photo shoots in my time. It's not easy as inadvertent backdrops, angles or props can slip through, no matter how thorough you think you are.

The right photo can make or break a story.

Which are your favourites from those shown? Are there any memorable photos for you that they've missed?

Stuart Bruce

Research and reports

CIPR PR Population Report of 2021 census data reveals alarming diversity issues

The Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) has published the CIPR PR Population Report examining the demographic make-up of the public relations profession.

Stuart has analysed the research on his blog.

Tim Bailey

Nearly nine in ten UK lobbyists and PRs say that greater lobbying transparency is needed

In a busy month for CIPR research it has also published the result of a poll of UK public affairs professionals. They overwhelmingly want a reform of legislation governing lobbying and the CIPR has written to the three main party leaders calling for an overhaul of the 2014 Lobbying Act.

Stuart Bruce

PR practitioners from lower socio-economic backgrounds find barriers to entry to profession but advantages in practice

New research funded by the CIPR has found that PR professionals from lower socio-economic backgrounds report their social experiences and backgrounds have had a positive impact on their practice. The report - 'Fish out of water: the experience of PR practitioners from lower socio-economic backgrounds, why it matters and what we can do about it'.

Stuart Bruce

CommTech tools

Semafor Signals - a new multi-source breaking news feed using tools from Microsoft and OpenAI

Signals is a new news service from Semafor. Signals is a global multi-source breaking news feed in which journalists, using tools from Microsoft and Open AI, offer readers diverse, sophisticated perspectives and insights on the biggest stories in the world as they develop.

Signals responds to the deep and continuing shifts in the digital media landscape and the post-social news moment, and to the risks and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence.

Stuart Bruce

Professional practice

Still time to enter the DataComms Awards

I've judged the last two rounds of the DataComms Awards. You've still got time to enter this year's awards as the late entry deadline is 16 February.

Stuart Bruce

How to and tips

Are you really going to trust a spreadsheet with your data?

The spreadsheet is one of the most significant developments to have come out of the personal computer revolution. A fantastic analytical tool that allows users to undertake data driven tasks. From my own perspective it was the gateway software that got me into IT in the 1990s.

Spreadsheets are not a suitable place to store data. Spreadsheets are for number crunching. Tools with validation and better version control are essential, this is the reason for the existence of databases. The article (I wish I had written it!) outlines the risks that mass spreadsheet use introduces into an organisation.

When we run our CommsTransform™ process with clients, one of our questions is “how and where is your important company data kept?”

Dear reader, can you guess the most common answer?

We've always got better tools we can recommend.

Tim Bailey

Google's SEO Starter Guide gets a makeover

Google's SEO Starter Guide has been around since 2008. It's a starter guide so covers the basics that everyone in communications should have a grasp of. Given the importance of search to communication and reputation it's alarming so many PR professionals haven't got to grips with it.

If you haven't (or even if you have) then now's the perfect opportunity to improve your knowledge. The guide has been revamped to make it clearer and even easier to use.

Stuart Bruce