Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Future of Communications May 25, 2016 for APCO PR


1.   Thank you for inviting me back from the future to talk about the future of communications.  Does anyone have questions?  Pause…

2.   After all, I posted my messages on Twitter, LinkedIn, BlogSpot, Pinterest, Facebook I would agree that the concept of Alignment, Authenticity, Attachment, Advocacy) will form a critical hub defining future messaging. However, your goal should not only to be masters of newer forms of communications but to search our start-ups, new apps and for you to pioneer new channels and format of communications.

3.   As a challenge from my former student Tina Marie Adams I  was given 10 minutes to speculate and document the future of communications which may be the same length of the next President’s Address to the Congress on her or his policy ideas, the average lecture at Northwestern, the amount of time couple talk to each other per day week, the amount of time people read books per month and the amount of free time between work, distance learning, training and commuting.

4.   To document my findings and predictions,I have checked my tealeaves from Teavana tasseography/tasseomancy (also kypomancy and studied the bones hakata: by bones or dice

5.    and the other 356 historical methods of divining the future listed in Wikipedia  from A alectryomancy/alectoromancy: by rooster divination                to Z zygomancy: by weights (Greek zugon, yoke, balance + manteia, prophecy)   Did not use entrails, pig bladders, beans, wheels finger rings, demons, urine or dripping blood.

6.   But I did use the most likely Divining method:  one used in training and education will be cybermancy /ˈsaɪbərmænsi/: by computer oracles (English cyber(netics) + Greek manteia, prophecy)

SO,

7.   We are returning Parital art or Cave paintings ") some 40,000 years ago and I hope I don’t mean emoticons  or emoji’s  research suggests they make messages friendlier, senders better liked and increasingly used in business. https://blog.bufferapp.com/7-reasons-use-emoticons-writing-social-media-according-science

8.   To save travel money, energy, and reduce job status rather than ideas as a reason to listen   we will meet face to face less often using WeChat , decently attired Avatars  Virtual reality vs reality will become a real choice each day you go (or don’t go) to the office.

9.   Some of our messages will be pithier (terse) if you have recent dental work.  SMS or short message services have increased length to 160 in some cases and 10,000 characters in IOS Android apps, TwitterDeck, Twitter Mac, so if  you charge by the character in APCO 14 to 71 percent increase in revenue The new limit is 10,000 characters.

10.                   QR codes and other non-text links will be a rich and popular form of communications as it has shown in my 800 page book to allow readers, visitors to autoshows, events to listen to YouTube,  Video, Flash, Live Leak Veo h, http://www.freemake.com/blog/top-7-free-video-sharing-sites/

11.                   Despite the excitement of big ad money in 2016 for politics; political advertising at the federal level will be regulated and funded by government. First Amendment protection will go out the window.

12.                   Not big data but even bigger even giant data will dominate your search for content.  While our students use digital content analysis (old term)

13.                    With so many channels that don’t require advertising, Ad agencies will nearly disappear and with enough money may become the new media holding companies for television, movies, and other entertainment.

14.                   Brand messaging will mean less and reputation and precision consumer targeting will matter more with PR agency support. 

15.                   Mobile, of course, will be the dominant tool but will be biological at greater and greater levels to offer timely messaging taking clues from watches and exercise devices to measure physical body activity to translate into commercial messaging. For Example. Measure propensity to buy (thirst), sweets, suntan lotion, galvanic skin response with stimulus of outdoor billboards and audio messaging the sensors on the Simsense module. New running shoes, (like new tires on airplanes, stronger deodorant, suggest change in exercise actions for trainer or athletic clubs, need for specific vitamins, food groups, (restaurants that offer them).

16.                   Autowriting with Artificial intelligence like Kris Hammonds, Narrative science auto writing your quarterly reports for public companies, producing news from hot topics on line with avatar newsreaders,

17.                   Auto tracking for teenagers, unfaithful spouses, workers on non-work related time, repairs for cars at the micro level and in advance.

18.                   From FCC conference nearly absolute loss of privacy with home management internet of things, that will read your computer files hooked into the home internet as your NEST changes the temperature, knows how many and who is in your home, progress of kids on homework, weight of clothes in clothes basket for washing, level of milk container, healthy and less healthy consumption of foods by each family member to reorder food.

19.                   With the control of political advertising and advertising puffery or exaggerated claims will become illegal as I studied it UW -_Madison Ivan Preston, with an established lead on being transparent PR will lead the message function with what remains of journalism.

I want to thank the writers of 12 Monkeys, my colleagues and students at Northwestern University, Google Search and the on-line search services of Northwestern University. I also want to confess that I used a book stichomancy /ˈstɪkmænsi/: by books or lines (the Handbook of Strategic Public relations and IMC McGraw-Hill whose 66 authors I asked to predict the future in each of their chapters on various industries and PR practices.  Thank you.

Modest Proposal: How a course title in 2010 on "Fake News" got me in trouble - however, as usual I was ahead of my time!

For a graduate class in 2010 and designed in the previous year for the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern I used the term "Fake News" in the course title. At that time it was clear that when I was interviewed as an "expert" for a news story there was a rapidly declining amount of "fact checking" after the reporter submitted the story to his or her editor. Sadly, the class was denied by a department chairman and former advertising agency (tobacco) executive.  Given the recent rise in the term "fake news", I will use the idea in a spring class this year. As your readers will recall www.snopes.com has been growing in broader use since 1996. http://www.snopes.com/ is the best place to find if a story is true or false without bias though not all conservative readers think snopes is unbiased.

A suggestion sent to Inside on suggestions to deal with fake news.  https://inside.com/daily-brief:  ​Is it possible to ask those who Tweet or send public messages to check a box to have their message "fact checked"?    Even the act of requesting a fact check for a particular message would be a signal to the readers.  Obviously the volume of messages will demand a smart programmer combining text analysis to create a non-voluntary fact check.   However, from a brilliant librarian (my daughter) in the Boston area (Wellesley, MA) here are some other currently used ideas:
 
She states "this is a summary of librarian methodology: http://usm.maine.edu/library/checklist-evaluating-web-resources or http://www.lib.vt.edu/instruct/evaluate/ There really ISN'T a website that can do this work for you, since the whole point is to get rid of bias, and you'd have to evaluate the bias of the list! 

Wiki keeps a list of actually FAKE websites, but those are fake, not just bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites

I only recommend the following website as a supplemental. The polling of the bias of the sites isn't the most scientifically done (though they do explain it on the website), but it's good data to use in conjunction with other data points. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/"
 
Looking for history connections it might be that "yellow journalism", propaganda and even the taking of "brass checks" might be the parents of the bastard child named "fake".  Keep fact checking in your transparent work! 

Clarke Caywood, Ph.D. Professor,  Northwestern University