Leadership

How to get the media on board to end AVE

Neville Hobson 1 Comment Advertising, Business, Communication, Ethics, Journalism, Leadership, Marketing, Professional Development, Public Relations, Reputation, Social Media, Trends
Fearless Girl

One of the hurdles along the road of seeing an end to the “advertising value equivalence” (AVE) measurement metric that’s decried by many in the PR and measurement communities is persuading organisations to stop using it. The issue with AVE is well summarised in a white paper published by The Institute for Public Relations in 2003, in which this succinct text appears: We urge you to move away as quickly as possible from statements of the nature, “Our news coverage this quarter was worth $X million in advertising.” Instead, talk about how you achieved your prominence goal, how your coverage gained in prominence over the year, or how you beat out your competitors in terms of the prominence of your […]

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Theresa May’s fragile foundation

Neville Hobson 2 Comments Communication, Europe, Leadership, Politics, Public Relations, Society
Theresa May

It was rather a surreal experience watching the BBC’s election night analytics and opinion show on the BBC News Channel on Thursday June 8, from shortly after the closing of the poll at 10pm (I lasted until about 1am on Friday morning). It was the exit poll – a joint effort by the BBC, ITV and Sky News – that set the scene for a night of traumatic change for the ruling Conservative party led by Theresa May, and qualified jubilation for the fractious Labour party (‘qualified’ because they didn’t actually win the election) led by Jeremy Corbyn that achieved its best-ever share of the popular vote (40.3%) in decades. Reaction on Twitter was immediate and humorous (or not, depending […]

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Why a robot could be the best boss you’ve ever had

Neville Hobson 14 Comments Artificial Intelligence, Business, Leadership, Society, Workplace
Dilbert robot boss

Designed with strong technical expertise and high intelligence, it’s not so far-fetched that the robots of the future could outperform human managers

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Are smart cities and digital privacy at odds?

Neville Hobson 15 Comments Business, Innovation, Leadership, Politics, Public Relations, Society, Technology
Helsinki railway station

The myriad sensors which offer so many opportunities for information collection also gather private data. Can a balance be struck between the two?

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The EU referendum was a political gamble that didn’t pay off: what’s next?

Neville Hobson 7 Comments Communication, Europe, Events, Experiences, Leadership, Politics, Public Relations, Society

It’s been a tumultuous few days since polling stations closed at 10pm on Thursday June 23 and the UK awoke on the morning of Friday June 24 to the news that the result of the national referendum on whether this country would remain a member of the European Union or not turned out to be not. I am very sad at this result – one that took many people by surprise, me included – as I believe that our future is intertwined with that of our European neighbours, individually and collectively; that this is a very good thing; and that being an influential part of the European Union is mutually beneficial and will lead to greater prosperity for all. I’m […]

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