But once the public at large became aware of the new hot thing, the cracks started to show. Design sites were quick to point out the issues with Ello’s very, erm, minimalist aesthetic – considering most social networks can, like supermarkets, be identified simply by a colour, the fact that Ello has no colour in its basic design is a statement and a half – while those in the industry were desperate to pick holes in the site’s grand claims to be for the good of the users.

I was one of them. Given Ello’s grand claim to never sell user data and never run ads, I was curious to find out more about Ello’s ethics and its eventual, inevitable grand plan to turn a noble goal into a money-making machine. (Ello has since confirmed that it will eventually charge for a premium version of the service.) As well as that, I was curious to find out a little more about what this ‘collective of artists’ that promotes user rights above all others had built into their terms of use to protect these users both from themselves and from Ello. Because a large part of the public-at-large’s issues with the Big Bad of the social world, Facebook, stems from this public not necessarily reading or caring about the Ts&Cs when it signed up, I thought I’d take a look at what was contained in Ello’s, and what this can teach us about what it means to be a social network in the modern age.

Good behaviour – Ello’s policy on hate speech

A big one that Facebook , Twitter, Tumblr et al repeatedly fall down on is the prevalence of gender-based abuse on their networks; Ello’s Rules include orders not to post hate speech relating to ‘race, sexual orientation, religious or political belief, age, or just about anything else’. No specific mention of gender or gender-related issues. Naivety on the part of Ello, or not something they deem as worthy of stating? On a more positive note, however, Ello seem to be taking potential fake profiles seriously  – users are required to upload a profile photo and could have their profile deleted if they fail to do so –  which could be a positive step should the issue of culpability ever arise.

Brands – Ello’s policy on impersonation, automation and spam

Clearly this isn’t intended to be a marketing/brand platform, as Ello states that it’s a platform ‘for human beings’ and isn’t for mass fan growth, automates posting, or marketing. No surprises there and especially given that they don’t intend to make money from advertising, giving brands leeway to behave on Ello as they do on Facebook and Twitter would likely be a contradiction. Excluding brands, or at least making the claim that the site does not welcome brands, from this site so early on in the game is a good show of commitment to their values. But rules can be changed…as they state later. And that hasn’t stopped a few brands from getting in on the game – Netflix being a notable example. What brand can resist a shiny new potential engagement platform, after all?

Artists, creative and original content – Ello’s policy on copyright infringement

A big one that image sharing giant Pinterest fell down on early on was the issue of copyright infringement, and whose responsibility it was if such an activity took place on Pinterest by a private user. Like Pinterest, Ello uses its rules to wash its hands of responsibility for individual cases, adding a condition not to post content that ‘violates a law’ (no specifics about country laws, but presumably this is US-focussed as their financial details are) as an half-hearted addition. Considering this is a site built by artists, this seems quite a strange thing to do. Likely because, on the internet as a whole, the issue of copyright is a massive beast, but as a fledgling network Ello had an opportunity to pin down this issue and consider how it, as a site whose founders have so much invested in getting this right, might make things better for artists who have their work uncredited.

For everyone – data storage and paid services

Ello has already stated that they will likely charge for paid services in the future, so that’s answered the question of where they’ll be getting their money to keep maintaining the service (though, since these features haven’t been disclosed and aren’t likely to be until the site reaches a certain capacity, who knows if anyone will pay for them). They’ve also, according to reports, attracted over $5million of funding from various VCs and investors. But what exactly are these VCs paying for? Why would anyone invest that kind of money in a network that has resolutely stated that it will not share or sell user data for financial gain? A spokesperson for of the earliest investors, FreshTracks Capital, told Gigaom that he himself doesn't like the ads model on social networks generally, and that they as a firm practice long-lead investments so the fact that Ello itself seems to have no ‘quick win’ strategy in place to earn them back those big bucks doesn’t worry them. But after all, this is the internet, says the cynic in me. Who has that kind of time? (And by that I also mean the users – word-of-mouth awareness-raising worked for Facebook and Twitter in the early days, but will that work today?)

By comparing this fledging network to the behaviour habits of some of today’s biggest social giants, it seems that the site, while falling down on a few key issues that plagued these networks too, is making a relatively solid go at putting its data privacy where its smiling mouth is. In this regard, it might well stand a chance of continuing to be ‘the anti-Facebook’, albeit a much smaller version. But is it fair to judge Ello on the same level as its nemesis, Facebook, at all? In fact, Ello claims to be providing a public benefit to the point that it has actually filed for registration as a public benefit corporation(which comes with a whole raft of additional stipulations for the founders), not exactly something Facebook’s detractors would accuse it of doing. While Ello has this noble goal in mind to connect not the world, but a smaller community across it, whether this noble goal will satisfy investors remains to be seen.

But before any of this can happen, Ello needs sign-ups. At the start of October, business intelligence company RJMetrics told VentureBeat that Ello had an estimated userbase of 160,000, over a third of whom had never posted on the site. RJMetrics also revealed that compared to the early days activity of major social networks, Ello’s performance levels are comparable, meaning that there could be life in the platform yet.

Just keep an eye on that smiley face…

Last week, social media researcher Jeremiah Owyang joined Weber Shandwick’s San Francisco team during an evening with the sfAMA to discuss the three major opportunities for brands in the collaborative economy. Here’s what we learned.

Offer Access Over Ownership

The line is blurring between product ownership and access to products. Owyang points out brands must evolve by offering their brand as a service. Consumer preferences are shifting toward on-demand access to products over ownership, as evidence by the explosion of services like Uber and Netflix. Nordstrom’s recent acquisition of Trunk Club is proof that companies are recognizing that a service-based membership model can help drive sales and feed consumer demand for more customized, convenient and technology-forward shopping experiences.

Embrace The Cycle of Product Exchanges

Technology is allowing products to be easily transferred when they are not needed or no longer useful, allowing items to exchange hands over and over. Brands are now asking, “How can we be a part of these transactions?” Take for instance Patagonia’s eBay program that encourages consumers to purchase products second-hand.

Build Platforms That Reward Loyalty and Community

Brands are seeing the potential for tapping into the power of the crowd by creating platforms that give a voice to communities and loyal customers. Owyang pointed to Hasbro’s partnership with Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace, which allows consumers to create custom My Little Pony artwork. “Instead of trying to prohibit it, they’re enabling it, and I think that’s awesome,” said Peter Weijmarshausen, chief executive of Shapeways on New York Times. “By embracing this new technology, it’s good for everybody. The end-user is happy because he or she gets what they want, and we don’t get into a fight.”

Still not sold?

Consider that collaborative economy programs and partnerships are powerful mechanisms to build a company’s social mission – which is especially important at a time when sustainability is becoming just as important as profitability. Ninety-one percent of U.S. consumers will switch brands to one that aligns with a good cause and 50 percent of global consumers say they will buy from companies that give back to society. The business case for the collaborative economy is hard to deny.

At Weber Shandwick San Francisco, we’re in the backyard of several companies and startups forging the path for the collaborative economy.  We’re advising clients as they adapt their business models, and integrating makers, co-creators, crowd funders, peers and customers in our storytelling efforts in new and exciting ways. We’re excited for the endless opportunities ahead.

For more information on the collaborative economy, examples, tools and resources, visit Web Strategist or download Owyang’s presentation here.

Disruption Data: The Collaborative Economy Enables P2P Commerce from Jeremiah Owyang

Some of the industry’s ‘maverick’ thinkers (the ones who usually end up as ‘creative strategists’ at creative agencies) have been throwing this statement about freely on LinkedIn’s publishing platform of late. And while they’re presumably paid in spades to say the bold things, the rest of us need to take a more measured approach to how we get the same message out in a client-friendly way.

So say it with me – digital strategy has evolved. See what I did there? Not particularly subtle, I grant you. Not exactly something that many of you didn’t already know. But a lot safer to go touting around when you’ve got the word ‘digital’ in your job title. As part of a broader comms package, social media has been embraced on a basic level by pretty much everyone, in varying degrees from the Buzzfeed-worthy (‘get the intern to Twitter!’) to the brand manager-savvy (‘we need to support our PR content with unique digital content’). But this isn’t going to go far enough for much longer, and this isn’t going to keep digital agencies alive for more than a few years. As the idea of digital strategy evolves, so must we. So how is the digital model evolving, and what can you do about it?

It’s going mobile. Shout this one from the rooftops, everyone – the laptop isn’t dead, but from a social point of view it’s no longer at the head of the pack. This chart from TheNextWeb shows how countries’ use of mobiles is increasing by the day, and in developing countries the mobile phone is now connecting up millions of people with the developed world (via initiatives such as Internet.org). Don’t be naïve to the reach of the simple mobile phone, whether your client is a global software retainer or a car parts dealer in Basingstoke.

It’s gone beyond social media. Can’t hammer this one home hard enough – digital is a term that confuses many of us and will continue to confuse us as it’s constantly changing. Two years ago, wearables were a comedic pipe dream from sci-fi films. Now they can be seen on London streets. What might come next? It’s time to do some informed future-gazing, which is something that we comms professionals are well-equipped to do – from the new crop of graduates who practically grew up on the internet to the seasoned professionals who have learned to adapt to the speed of the market.

It’s getting faster and more agile. As the internet, digital, social media, and comms itself gathers momentum and gets crowded by noise, we’ll no longer be able to afford the luxury of spending months planning a single week’s worth of content. Hell, we barely have that now! In a recent talk by a rep from Twitter, said rep referred to training brand teams’ ‘muscle memory’ to think at the speed of the market and allow them to sign off content faster, to make sure you capitalise on relevant events when they happen. And from single tweets expanding to full campaigns, the more training you give this muscle the stronger it comes. Faster muscle memory equals faster team.

It’s learning from its mistakes. We gleefully share around our favourite daily social media fails and the more techy of us share our worst website, DM or campaign crimes, but it’s time to start consciously bolting a learning onto why we think these campaigns are bad or good, and what key element of this failure or success we can draw out and implement as part of our new and improved communications effort. As the market and the industry evolves around us, we can afford a few short minutes to stop and learn. Its purpose is changing.

The best social media content strategies focus on an even balance of communicating messages and engaging with customers, but behind the scenes all of a brand’s online assets should be quietly working for the same goal. Brands are slowly waking up to the fact that data collection isn’t just a token requirement.

It’s got to work harder. The age of the brand as king of social media (if it even existed in the first place) is dying. As social networks become rapidly oversaturated with brands and, as page reach starts to die, with branded ads, and even Twitter tentatively tests new ways to expose branded accounts to users and gets shot down faster than you can say ‘RT and follow’, it’s high time you thought beyond just eyeballs as a metric for how you succeed. Your customers are smarter than you are, and you need to look closer at how they’re behaving in relation to your content and service in order to offer them something they really need, or at least really value, online. Earn those eyeballs, and they’ll be far more valuable to you. Far from being the time to go it alone, now is the point at which the whole marketing mix – clients, PRs, digital specialists, creatives, project managers – all need to work together more closely than ever to earn the aforementioned audience eyeballs. It’s going to be a challenge and it’s going to be all hands on deck, but it’s going to be an exciting time.

We know early entrants to the smart watch market are experiencing stiff adoption, high-return rates and low satisfaction rates, and we also know that Apple doesn’t enter a new market without a significant amount of research, planning and confidence it will dominate. That is why the device won’t be on the market until after the holiday season. Unlike the iPhone 6, which you can order next week, the watch isn’t ready for primetime. By early 2015, we should expect the user-experience and value will justify its price tag for early adopters (and more general consumers).

The ability to wrap quantified-self and mobile payments into the watch are two other areas we’re watching closely. The research that shows today’s self-tracking products are popular for six months before they are discontinued wasn’t lost on Apple. They have deliberately incorporated quantified self-tracking sensors, software and gamification into the device to maximize the benefits users will get from daily wear of the Apple Watch.

Having the ability to check out at the store without pulling out a wallet or purse is only half of the benefit of mobile and watch-based payments. Americans are sick of the words "data breach,” and Apple Pay could help popularize security best practices — like two- and three-factor authentication — without adding significant time or effort to consumer purchase behavior. In typical Apple fashion, they launched with large, global partners who already have the technological infrastructure in place to help drive mainstream adoption of mobile payments.

Lastly, because we’re always thinking about the changing nature of how humans consume content from publishers, companies and each other, at Weber Shandwick we've been talking to our clients about their smart watch content strategy for over a year now. That’s a thing now: smart watch content strategy.

Just as we help brands adapt their content from a website to a mobile experience, we’ll need to determine how content is shared on wrist-screens, too. It’s an exciting evolution milestone for consumer engagement strategies and content marketing programs, and we’re excited to be part of driving value on behalf of our clients and their stakeholders.

We are all well aware of the speed at which media outlets rotate home page and subsection lead stories to meet the demands of today’s 24-hour news cycle. Why is this an issue? That great story that took forever to land is only going to receive organic exposure for a very short period of time.

Furthermore, while media outlets provide estimates around impressions, they don’t provide brands or agencies with detailed data and analytics  (yes, it remains a grand wish) around the stories they publish. While inbound referral traffic measured through Google Analytics or social signals (give BuzzSumo a whirl) can provide a slice of insight into story engagement, there remains a lack of insight based on unique views, time on story, scroll depth and other measures that can be analyzed when a story is published on your brand’s owned properties.

Enter paid media.

Content discovery tools such as Outbrain and Taboola as well as social advertising on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can serve as a critical bridge to amplify your story AND gain valuable engagement insights. For a communications or PR lead for a brand or organization, this may all seem counter-intuitive – “why would we use budget for paid media when we’re already using media relations to get our message out?”

Great question. Here are four significant reasons you would want to support your media relations efforts with paid media:

Maximize the Lifespan of an Earned Media Hit 

As previously noted, news stories cycle out fast. Content discovery tools and promotion on social channels can keep fueling traffic to your story for days, weeks, months beyond the day the story publishes.

Maximize an Owned Story from Your Earned Media Hit

Smart marketers are using their company or organization’s blog to publish and promote a variation of an earned media hit to maximize exposure to their target audience. Paid media can be used to also point traffic to this story whereby rich data and insights can be gathered via Google Analytics. Furthermore, top level comparisons around impressions, cost-per-click and click-through rate can then be made to see which channels and ad creative are most effective in driving to the media outlet’s story or your owned story, ultimately helping optimize your paid media spend in real-time.

Retarget to Your Audience

Retargeting is becoming more and more of a powerful tactic each day. Facebookjumped into the retargeting game early and continues to advance their approach (also worth keeping an eye on their jump into content recommendation as well). Twitter  and LinkedIn have both entered the retargeting game. Taboola is now offering retargeting (Outbrain sure to follow soon) and we know paid search retargeting has always been in the game.

Point being that retargeting now enables you to use paid media to place your hard-earned media hit directly in front of your target audience as well as look-a-like audiences that reflect the same characteristics as your target audience.

Use Data and Analytics to Shift Strategy

The insights and analytics you can gather based on driving traffic to a story on your owned property as well as to an earned media hit can help determine actual engagement and resonance with your audience. It may lead you to tweak how you tell a story on your own blog or shift and optimize more of your paid spend behind a certain headline that’s driving strong results in Outbrain, for example. Data will help inform your decision making and justification around shifts in story angles ahead for future media outreach.

While the paid media space continues to shift at a rapid pace, the implications and effectiveness for accelerating media relations efforts are already very apparent. It’s time to start taking advantage to maximize third party credibility and we’re here to help.

I’m often asked what it was like to grow up in Palo Alto and how it’s changed over the years. By way of background, my family has been involved in technology (technology, of course, being a relatively new term) since the 1940’s when my grandfather founded a company that distributed electrical and radio components. It was a small universe back then, and he supplied to William Hewlett and David Packard, both of whom became friends. Through the stories of my grandfather, then the experiences of my father who took over the business – plus family exposure to a gamut of Valley engineers, marketeers, publicists and lawyers, it’s fair to say I’ve had a front-row seat as Palo Alto (and indeed Silicon Valley) has evolved.

Palo Alto felt very different when I was young. Back then, the vibe was strongly academic – just as you’d expect with Stanford University at its edge; left-wing bordering on bohemian; outdoorsy; prosperous but consciously low-key. People were educated and accomplished, but inconspicuous. In many ways Palo Alto was a typical university town. Technology was part of its fabric, certainly – everyone was proud of the fact that HP had been founded in a downtown garage and that Stanford sparked innovation – but technology was just one facet of the city’s identity.  

The tech scene really began to gather pace in the 1990’s, and you could feel it. Steve Jobs lived nearby, and on one occasion, while walking by his house, I spotted Jobs, Larry Ellison and their wives drinking wine in the kitchen, laughing and utterly relaxed. It struck me then that I was living in somewhere quite special. Here you had men of enormous power and wealth going about their lives casually and normally; seemingly accessible in this modest suburban setting – yet there was no doubt these friends were exchanging significant business insight between sips of Pinot Noir.  

Since then, and despite the periodic recessions, Palo Alto has continued on its rapid evolutionary path. When I was home recently, I had to stop to take it all in. Palo Alto today is best described as living up to its hype. It’s a civic embodiment of the iPhone. The pace is frenetic; the people are pressured and competitive. It’s about who you know, what you’ve done and your personal game plan. I suppose it was always that way, but it’s more apparent now.  

It looks different, too. Sadly, many of the characterful cottages and bungalows have come down, replaced by impenetrable mansions straining modest lots. Designer shops have replaced funky, one-off predecessors such as Minerva Books and Swains House of Music on University Avenue while bird-song has been subsumed by leaf blowers and Patagonia has been swapped for Prada. There’s still an environmental edge, but the Honda Civic has been upgraded for a Tesla Model S.  

I guess you could say I yearn for simpler times (though perhaps this is more a sign of my advancing years than any judgement passed) – but objectively, the metamorphosis is entirely appropriate for a place like Palo Alto. You could say the city has taken on the characteristics of technology itself. One thing has stayed the same though: Palo Alto remains a place that – because of its unique qualities – inspires fresh, brave and often magical thinking.

Never before has any presidential candidate managed to gather thousands of volunteers to create materials on social media platforms, placing Indonesia in the top worldwide trending topics, particularly on Twitter.

With a clear shift towards a a more connected mobile and social society, brands should also expect the same kind of treatment as the influences of affluence and internet penetration expand in the country. So what should you look out for?

Key trends:

The next frontier for online retailers – Indonesian e-commerce, at US$1.7 billion, is still low compared to India, but some projections peg it to surpass US$4 billion by 2016, with most purchases happen during office hours. Since fixed-line internet connections at home are typically slow and unrealisable, online shoppers take advantage of more stable and fast connections at their offices.

Consumer-to-consumer commerce is on the rise – people use various mobile and social media platforms, such as Kaskus, tokobagus.com, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and BlackBerry Messenger, as the front window of their online shopping experience. Kaskus is the largest online marketplace in Indonesia and has millions of members as well as very active online discussion forums.

M-commerce is seeing a growing presence – in the next 3 years, e-commerce sites will prepare to launch their m-commerce apps for easy browsing and purchasing via smartphones.

Apparel and footwear - they are likely to record the strongest performance in internet retailing. In the midst of ever-rising nationalistic sentiment, young Indonesians lean towards the preference of trendy local footwear and apparel brands to purchase from online retailers.

Fun facts:

As the number three Twitter country in the world, Jakarta ranks as the top Twitter city, ahead of London, New York, and Tokyo

The many hours Indonesians (in particular Jakarta residents) spend on the road in heavy traffic jams is allegedly a major factor in the fast-growing use of the social medium

While Indonesia’s internet penetration at 15% is lower than the world average of 30%, mobile penetration is actually much higher than the world average (112% vs 93%)

The full article first appeared on Campaign Asia.

The general line of thinking is that business and consumer communications are on a separate level, with B2C the more dynamic, creative and engaging offering. As a consequence, the lack of creative space and value on ideation in B2B communications is undermining efforts and investment in any social or content strategy.  This is a mistake. B2B communications should be treated with the same level of creativity as any iconic lifestyle brand.

So what is a brand to do? Here are three easy to implement tactics that will quickly raise the standard — and effectiveness — of your content:

•  Put editorial — and not the channel — at the heart of your online strategy.  What’s the real story? Why would anyone care? Are we offering value or utility?

•  Pay attention to what the audience wants, is searching for, and values.  There’s a plethora of tools for search engines, social media and CRM (just to name a few) to begin to understand these audiences better.

•  Define the brand’s voice — online and country-specific.  The global style guidelines from the US might not be appropriate for Indonesia.

It is no longer enough to open social media channels and populate with mundane, generic content.

The changing nature of the media, consumers addiction to list-content and brands relentless nature to push promotional materials has meant that audience now filter, reduce and channel content deemed unworthy. The challenge for B2B communicators is to make sure their content passes that filter.

Over the course of my PR career, I’ve acquired various skills like writing, project management, and how to tell a compelling story. As I’ve grown into a managerial role, I’m more focused on building soft or people skills like providing feedback, solving problems or learning how to read between the lines. Leaders at all levels rely heavily on people skills, which are often what differentiates one person from the next and a strong indicator of how successful you’ll be in any organization. With a fair amount of experience under my belt, I couldn’t help but wonder: Can you build people skills or are they something you’re born with?

So, just like any teenager who grew up reading YM or Seventeen, I bought a book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0 which came with its own built-in quiz on emotional intelligence (EQ), which is the ability to recognize and manage emotions in yourself and others. As I learned, EQ is the foundation for a host of soft skills, tapping into flexibility, empathy, the ability to tolerate stress and other essential capabilities.

While it wasn’t as easy as a 10-question quiz on “Who’s your celeb twitter twin?” there were a number of key takeaways:

EQ is often one of the prime indicators of a good manager, and on a broader scale a good leader;

People with the highest levels of IQ outperform those with average IQs just 20% of the time, while people with average IQs outperform those with high IQs 70% of the time. The missing link? EQ;

EQ accounts for 58% of performance in all types of jobs, making it critical to success, both professionally and personally;

EQ demands continual focus, patience and the diligence to manage and measure success;

And my favorite:  It can be learned.

In 2008, it was common practice to record video to digital tape, DSLR cameras were only usable for photography purposes and high definition recording was still a luxury reserved for high-end production shops.  In fact, YouTube was still a year away from supporting HD video playback.

As we’ve adapted new technology, our opportunities to push the limits in visual storytelling have become almost limitless.  In fact, where technology used to be the bottleneck for most producers, we’re now finding another set of roadblocks facing our cameras head-on.  We’re seeing huge shifts in the gap between social and ad quality video, causing video businesses to completely re-think their costly approach to production.  The social sharing channels that were once free and transparent outlets for creatives’ and businesses alike are quickly beginning to transform into a very ad-like ecosystem.   And then there’s governing regulations’ inability to keep pace with the overwhelming progress behind video technology.  This latest shift has recently come to light in the form of a remote-controlled flying quad-copter, often collectively referred to as “the drone”.

The word “drone” gets tossed around a lot lately.   It’s a buzzword fueled by a flurry of media attention.  Sci-fi films, Amazon deliveries, military deployment; we’re all thirsty for more drone news.  The pre-emptive classification has caused most of our confusion and worry for these flying objects.  Weaponized, unmanned, government aircrafts currently deployed on daily missions over Baghdad are communicated as “drones” just the same as my neighbor’s Brookstone remote control toy quadcopter is being classified as a “drone”.  Proper classification and regulation can’t seem to catch up to our feverish rollout of flying goods.  As much back and forth as we’ve seen from the FAA regarding commercial drone usage and classification, I for one will not be dragging my feet for the opportunity to film from the sky.

In today’s video production landscape you have to always be willing to evolve technique.  The resolution quality of what I filmed for a client six years ago on tape would be in no way acceptable to a client today.   A huge way we’ve achieved advances in quality comes from the tools and technology.  As our Weber Shandwick Studio continues to look forward to new technology to “elevate” our work, a video equipped quadcopter became an exciting investment opportunity. This new tool is now carefully considered for any production work within our client portfolio.

The video production world has exploded with new possibilities from the adoption of this new gadget.  It goes where traditional helicopters couldn’t, it can be operated and controlled by a single producer, and best of all, it delivers an outstanding video image from a completely new perspective.

Similar to how the GoPro revolutionized action-cam videography, the video drone will do the same for aerial footage.  Consequently, we will soon be saturated with beautiful aerial footage anywhere you click and play.  We should continue to use the best tools available to us so we can further evolve our client work just as we always have.  And while Weber Shandwick will continue to support the evolution of our technology and techniques, it is the storytelling content itself that really holds the highest value for our clients.   Video drones, GoPros, high-speed cameras, etc; none of it would be useful to our work without a robust team of talented writers, brainstormers, and researchers who know how to conceptualize and produce the content that makes our client’s stories come to life.  No matter what gadget or gizmo I’ll be touting in another six years from now, I guarantee we’ll have a team of talented storytellers developing the content behind it.

Myth #1: Everybody is using “big data”

The accessibility of information and the lower cost of accessing this information have created the illusion that everyone is “doing” big data – but as Allyson explained, “Big data is what we talk about, but analytics is what we really care about.” Allyson also said there’s a huge disconnect between understanding the importance of big data and doing it well. In fact, according to a recent Bain & Company survey, only four percent of companies are really good at analytics.

Myth #2: Leaders succeed with tools and tech

If an organization jumps in without first creating the appropriate culture and infrastructure to support big data, it will most likely slip and fall into the 96 percent of companies that are not getting the most out of big data (Bain & Company). Big data needs to have a seat at the table and be infused throughout the organizational culture – from the top down. “If you don’t have the buy-in of the CEO and create a culture that breaks down silos in order to integrate multiple data sets from across the company – and use that data to inform decisions – then having a lot of data isn’t going to make your company successful,” Allyson said.

Myth #3: Big data is new

“We’ve always used data to inform our decisions, but now there is so much more data available – and at lower costs. It’s more of an evolution than a revolution that now requires specialized roles and technical infrastructure to support. It also comes with the added responsibility of managing data that must be kept secure,” Allyson explained.

Myth #4: Getting a data scientist gets you in the data game

“A data scientist operating in isolation can become consumed by the data and be inefficient,” Allyson said. “Succeeding with big data requires a cast of people – including a data scientist – but also a business analyst to identify and prioritize the business problem and determine the relevance of the data. Technical specialists are also needed to provide the right hardware and software to mine and store massive quantities of data.”

Myth #5: Get in the game with a market research partner

The market research industry may be struggling the most to get a handle on big data. “Market research firms have been trusted partners when working with data for years – yet they are used to working with smaller, more structured sets of data, with an already defined question they are looking to answer,” Allyson explained. “Big data is a much different animal. It’s sloppy and you are forced to align multiple data sets.” Nearing the end of the conversation, we asked Allyson, “Why should marketers or communicators care about big data?” and we were at first taken aback by her response.  She said, “They shouldn’t care about big data… it’s just a buzz word, a trend.” But, she explained, “Companies should care about being data-driven, and that means having the right staff, agency and/or partner to make sense of the data.” She then gave the example of how Netflix was able to leverage data to optimize their original programming to resonate with target audiences. For the original series “House of Cards,” Netflix analyzed data on the director (David Fincher), actor (Kevin Spacey) and British version of the series to create a winning original series. And therein lies the real gem beneath the big data hype that we should all pay heed to… the ability to pull meaningful insights from data that help an organization better understand its customers so it develops the right products or services, and communicates to them in a way that resonates.

Image courtesy of justgrimes.

Q. How have you seen technology companies evolve in Texas? Has the presence of technology companies remained the same or increased?

I’m lucky in that I’m able to travel around this great world quite a bit. And it’s become even better to engage in conversations about my home base over the years as I don’t have to only be able to discuss the TV show ‘Dallas’ or latest win-loss record of the Dallas Cowboys (although, I’m always game to discuss the Cowboys). Having major technology brands shift their headquarters here is one advantage to placing Dallas more on the global technology map. We also have a significant presence of massive global brands with their North American headquarters or primary offices located here. Again, not to fixate on the mobile space, but that’s an easy one to point at the growth that’s happened with the companies located here. The mobile ecosystem is alive and well in Dallas, and that’s been fun to watch grow in recent years.

Q. What advice do you have for technology companies going through major transformations?

Be transparent and know what your company stands for – your mission. Why are you doing what you do? It shouldn’t be solely about making money. What’s your greater good? What motivates you each day to change the status quo or reinvent a new way of life? And while this seems like 101, it’s increasingly tough for brands to communicate this to the various stakeholders. If you spend the time to truly understand this and then find and educate the right advocates (hint: most of the time your employees are advocate #1 with strong, influential networks!), then most everything else will become easier. A product launch, customer win announcement, executive speech, or a post to your company’s social channel of choice all comes back to what your company is all about. Master this and you’ll know how to deal with transformational periods in time. And trust me; everyone goes through a transformation of some sort. Might as well be ready for it.

Q. You traveled to Barcelona earlier this year for Mobile Word Congress, where you saw trends in the continued growth of 4G LTE and the emphasis on wellness. Now that we’re six months into 2014, what issues are driving the mobile discussion today?

Certainly wellness and 4G continue to make headlines. The anticipation for 5G networks and even more powerful, tiny processors in your smartphone, tablet and wearables also are driving even more discussions since Mobile World Congress. But the one trend that might not be as sexy as the latest, sleekest smartphone or smartwatch, but is perhaps the most vital cog to our mobile world is the power of the network. People are streaming more videos, accessing content via apps and communicating with one another through mobile-oriented services more than ever. None of these experiences are worth it if the network crashes or buffers. Look, it’s no secret the network has always been the critical piece to mobility truly taking off. But with potential huge TV/content providers utilizing one another’s networks and footprints to reach more consumers’ content desires, it’s becoming more and more clear that the network truly holds the power.

Kate Steele, Executive Vice President here in our London office recently passed along an interesting article from The New Yorker about the film – yes a feature article about Disney princesses made its way into one of the most esteemed publications of our time. But that’s just it – this wasn’t an article about how the tried-and-true story of a star crossed princess and prince made a big studio millions of dollars. But how a big studio took a tried-and-true (overused?) story and made it worth millions. A story The New Yorker talks about. A story that we’re talking about right now.

As both the article and Kate said when she shared with our team, Frozen’s dominance is all about successful storytelling, relevance to the audience and great syndication. On the truest level, isn’t that what we do on a daily basis?

We are storytellers.

If it’s a smartphone launch, new piece of research, latest partnership agreement or…nothing at all, our job is to find the story and tell it. I think we forget this from time to time. Or maybe we don’t give ourselves enough credit. But storytelling is an art form and where we (meaning PRs) provide a real difference.

We know what’s relevant and who it’s relevant to.

One thing that’s been drilled into me since day one in the professional PR world – nearly seven years ago (yikes) – is that a pitch (the story!) will not go anywhere if it’s told to the wrong person. Isn’t that what we hear constantly not only from our peers and bosses but from the audience itself?  We need to continually reinvent our thinking, our creativity and our stories to help clients reach their goals.

Which brings me back to the New Yorker article an that exact point that journalist Maria Konnikova stated about the awe that is Frozen, “Another strong point of appeal: the story keeps the audience engaged because it subverts expected tropes and stereotypes, over and over.”

Speakers included our very own CEO, Colin Byrne who took us through his thoughts on synergies between creativity and practical applications data – including Weber Shandwick’s Science of Engagement methodology. A takeaway from Colin’s session that struck the three of us was the fact that with brilliant creativity you can win a swathe of fabulous awards and surprise audiences but – and this is a big but – it may not necessarily transform a PR campaign in terms of delivering true business results.

Anna Salter from Kantar also spoke, discussing deep dive measurement tools that are now available to brands – there are now all sorts of fancy social and influencer engagement mapping. She also highlighted the fact that base level tiering and message cut-through analysis was still hugely important to evaluating the ROI on PR. This rings particularly true for smaller brands that are just starting out with their engagement and might not necessarily require such deeply data driven analysis and measurement to start out with, but needs to be something at the ready to activate as required.

As Gen Y audience members, we felt that we’ve never seen an exclusive cut between insights and data vs creativity and ideation. Rather than PR solely reaping the benefits of data and numbers, the industry is really at the fulcrum of broader change where multi-disciplinary expertise is now fuelling a greater synergy of skills. The industry as a whole has a lot which it can learn from other sectors including advertising and broadcast mediums which incorporate content development, social, production and other skills that are adding to the PR artist palette and science kits.

Whether you are actively using data to inform campaigns or whether insight research subconsciously guides creative direction for campaigns, the two have always walked hand in hand. Going forward whilst there will be numerous new tools, apps, maps, simulators and data driven analysis, at the heart our discipline will is still very much remain the same – straddling the intersection between art and science – a great work of the marketing communications renaissance.

But advances in technology mean AI is emerging from the realm of pure fantasy to become more of a reality than ever before.

AI is not new but the term has become tainted by the high expectations placed on the technology that until more recently, have not materialized. In the 1950s and 1960s, much of the focus for AI development focused on replicating the logic-based reasoning of the human brain. Fast forward and the seemingly fruitless quest to emulate human intelligence has given way to AI systems designed to accomplish specific tasks. And this new approach is paying off. After all, we did not learn to fly by mimicking birds. We learned by understanding the underlying science behind flight and the dynamics of air and space to design a specific solution (the airplane) based on that.

Now we have systems based on algorithms that can draw meaning from vast amounts of data, that have natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to interact with people, and that can ‘learn’ by emulating how people handle specific tasks. This is already being applied in everything from driverless cars, personal assistants like Siri and winning complex games like chess and Jeopardy to automating specialized IT tasks that previously only expert IT engineers could perform. Even some of the technology industry’s biggest players like Facebook and Google are investing in AI technologies.

So what does that mean for us mere mortals?

Well, there have already been predictions about what this means for jobs and employment. According to a recent Oxford University study, AI could automate almost half of all jobs in the U.S. within the next two decades. This handy interactive from Quartz shows the likelihood of specific jobs becoming automated in the future. Luckily, public relations specialists have just under a 20% chance of their jobs becoming computerized. But AI is already impacting our industry. AP recently announced that the majority of its U.S. corporate earnings stories will eventually be produced using automation technology. The rationale is that it will free reporters to pursue more in-depth editorial.

For our clients, we’re likely to see the transformation of certain industries. Take outsourcing for example, which has long been a solution for companies looking to cut costs through cheaper labor. Will we start to see outsourced labor supplemented with automated labor, not only for financial benefits but also to improve quality of service? Take healthcare as another example. Will we start to see AI systems, which can crunch huge numbers of variables, start to aid the diagnosis of disease? In the future, we may even have entire conversations with virtual call center agents for routine enquiries in exactly the same way that we would with a human operator. The possibilities are endless.

The extent to which AI will impact business and indeed, broader society, remains to be seen but one thing’s for sure – the robot revolution is coming and smart businesses, educators and even governments need to look at what it means for them, and how they can ensure people are equipped to succeed in a future where machines are an even bigger part of our lives.

Far too often, I see outfits focused entirely on profits. Not just prioritized as the number one concern — which is troubling in and of itself — but prioritized so highly that the immediate runners-up aren’t even given attention. This usually happens when a logistics-focused management team is put into place, whereby any and all cuts are seen as positive and short-term improvements are the only ones considered. In business education, this is arguably consistent with a business entering “crisis mode,” by which there’s absolutely no alternative to remaining solvent.

But I’m seeing businesses with billions in the bank do this, and it’s driving me insane.

What I believe that these firms don’t understand — or care about — is the long term impact of their actions. By focusing solely on profit, things like customer service and employee morale take a backseat. Which is ludicrous, because without pleased customers and determined employees, where does one think a business will end up?

As an example, I’m a relatively loyal flyer on one airline in particular. A few months ago, a truly stupefying blizzard sat down on Atlanta, canceling my flight back home from a foreign country. While it took a couple of calls, I was finally rebooked on a completely different airline through a different city in order to get home. Judging by the receipt, it looks as if that act of generosity cost my preferred airline around $1,000.

But let’s evaluate what exactly that $1,000 gesture really cost (er, bought) the airline. A company insistent on making every decision based on how little it will hurt the bottom line would’ve never bailed me out. In the short-term, their quarterly report would show approximately $1,000 in additional revenue. In the long term, or even medium term, they’d suffer an indeterminable amount. For one, I’d never pour my flight dollars into their airline again. Secondly, I’d very likely spread a similar message to everyone I know, both in real life and on the Internet. Beyond all of that, I’d ask you to envision what type of bed the airline was making for itself if that kind of nonchalance became habitual, and was applied to every single customer without fail.

As for the airline who took the $1,000 hit? Suffice it to say, I’m going to do everything possible to fly on that airline in the future, even if it costs more. Why? Because once you’ve proven to me that you’ll put the customer first, it’s worth paying more for the peace of mind — if ever I get stranded again, chances are high that the airline will do everything in its power, even if it involves a financial loss, to get me home.

New Forms of Discovery: With the proliferation of smartphones, music lovers are finding new paths to discovery. Social sharing features are baked into streaming services as companies forge partnerships with social networks for simple integration. Some services feature human-curated browsing, genre-specific and feature sections to guide discovery. Music blogs and publications are even going mobile, in late 2013 Pitchfork launched an iOS app, Pitchfork Weekly, to engage mobile readers. Through social sharing, curation and algorithms people are embracing new mobile forms to check out new artists and songs.

Partnerships and Growth: With streaming at the forefront of the new music industry, we’re seeing more music-related announcements than ever. In April, IDC published a report revealing that global smartphone shipments were up 28.6 percent year-on-yearahead of forecasts. Announcements ranging from global partnerships between wireless companies and music services to the launch of new radio products are dominating the news, further solidifying the connection of music and mobile. Studies also show that music is benefitting from this smartphone growth: music app revenues on iOS and Android reportedly grew by 77 percent in 2013, making music the third most profitable app category

Live Music Goes Mobile: With the kick-off of festival season, eMarketer reported that live entertainment seekers—mobile phone users who plan to see a live performance within the next three months—are turning to their phones to help plan. According to Q1 2014 polling conducted by Decision Fuel for Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and InMobi, 60 percent of US entertainment seekers said mobile was their favorite source for live event info. Streaming services are even launching tools to engage with live music sets and creating their own content from live shows.

The trend of music on mobile will continue to evolve as consumer engagement with smartphones continues to rise. We’re excited to see how streaming services will innovate to improve the mobile experience. How do you engage with the new music industry?

Image courtesy of Martin Fisch.