A really good conference for communicators takes place in London next month, and plans are well advanced for a day of valuable professional development, strongly focused on the question "What’s the future of communications?"and how to address it: The disciplines of PR, marketing, social media and digital are converging and evolving at a breathless pace. Modern marketing communications is real-time, multimedia and multichannel. The challenge we face is to learn new skills, master new … [Read more...] about If you attend one comms event this summer, make it #FutureComms14
Personal Development
Redefining today’s communicator in Norway
When I look at the landscape of the communication profession around Europe, I see similar issues that concern communicators, most notably how strategic are communicators (and the profession itself), abiding by codes of conduct and practicing ethical behaviour, and being professional. It's a topic in the front of my mind as I finalise plans for a keynote presentation to the members of the Norwegian Communications Association on March 27. The devil's in the detail, of course, and what's hot … [Read more...] about Redefining today’s communicator in Norway
The future of blogging is rosy
Back in the day when blogging was social media, in the decade of the 00s, you were pretty limited in the methods you could use to publish your thinking and ideas. Then, you only had blogs, the websites that enabled anyone with a thought to create a web page (a post) and publish it. But those websites and those who blogged kick-started a near-revolution in how people expressed themselves and who did that self-expressing. That time is epitomized in Hugh MacLeod's "Read my blog" cartoon from … [Read more...] about The future of blogging is rosy
Re-Defining Today’s Communicator
Two weeks into 2014 and much of the talk about what's hot and what's not for communicators is about technology. Of the many, many tech topics that appear on trends and predictions lists, there are three that I believe warrant our attention in early 2014 above all others: Mobile: especially usage shifts and trends such as BYOD, the mobile cloud, and the "appification" of the workplace and business generally. Collaborative economy: access to and/or use of an asset - a product or a … [Read more...] about Re-Defining Today’s Communicator
Scoble and Israel join up the dots #AoCUK #CIPR
About 100 people gathered in Google's London campus last night to hear Robert Scoble and Shel Israel talk about concepts, ideas, experiences, trends and realities surrounding some of the themes and topics in their new book, Age of Context, published in September. The widely-anticipated event was organized by the CIPR and sponsored by Precise. Age of Context is the embracing term to anchor five converging forces the two authors see as profoundly changing almost every aspect of work and life … [Read more...] about Scoble and Israel join up the dots #AoCUK #CIPR
Should PowerPoint be banned from meetings?
If you've suffered through meetings where colleagues use PowerPoint decks as their autocues for droning 'presentations,' you'll love this development at two leading companies that could be a model for others to emulate. Author and communicator Eric Bergman reports that two CEOs - Jeff Bezos at Amazon and Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn - have eliminated slide-driven presentations from their meetings. In the case of Amazon, the ban on PowerPoint presentations includes a ban on printed decks as … [Read more...] about Should PowerPoint be banned from meetings?
Immersive LeWeb London
Today, June 5, is the first day of LeWeb London 2013, the two-day biz-tech fest that nearly 900 people have signed up to be part of, along with speakers, sponsors, journos and official bloggers. In that latter group, I'm one. The programme is terrific, and I'm really looking forward to being part of it all over the next two days. Thanks to the magic of WordPress scheduled posts, you'll read this post at about the time on Wednesday morning I should be coming out of Westminster tube station for … [Read more...] about Immersive LeWeb London
Good reasons to be at LeWeb London in June
In ten days time, LeWeb London takes place. The overall theme is the sharing economy; the speaker line-up is fabulous, the agenda is compelling and, so, far, over 850 people have booked to be there on June 5 and 6. This third LeWeb conference in London - to complement the winter LeWeb Paris that's been happening every year since the mid 00s - looks set to be as good as every LeWeb in recent years, and will once again feature live video events including Google Hangouts On Air that I … [Read more...] about Good reasons to be at LeWeb London in June