PR firm Text 100 has a resident futurist, who knew?
Paull Young interviewed Dr. Georg Kolb, executive vice president practices and methodology for the Forward podcast. Text 100 is the PR company that set up an office in Second Life.
Paull asked yours truly to offer a little information about Second Life, the monthly meeting of communicators that kicked off at Lee Hopkins’ and Allan Jenkins’ Better Comms Café in SL last month and a little about my position as an “informed skeptic” of the space.
Dr. Kolb laid out three emerging trends that will shape communication and the way that public relations professionals will interact with comsumers and constituents in the future. Here is my take on his Three emerging trends:
1. Fragmentation. Media and information is becoming more fragmented and consumers have more choices than ever. Breaking through the clutter, and reach, are harder that ever to achieve.
2. Trust is built peer-to-peer. As the Edelman trust baramoter showed, a “person like me” is the most credible source of information http://www.edelman.com/news/ShowOne.asp?ID=102
3. Empowerment of the Consumer. New social media and peer-to-peer platforms make it easy for likeminded individuals to find each other and network, diminishing the need for outside communication.
These three trends will require that communicators understand the intracacies and tools to enable pull communications. It will also require communicators to be a trusted part of the communities in which they hope to share information. That means a fully immersive, two-way conversation. Last, the influence of the search engines will continue as people use them to find peer groups. Being able to be found in an organic manner (which goes beyond advertising, adwords, etc.) on the search engines continues to be key to credibility.
Dr. Kolb also entertained the idea of internships for students that want to staff the Second Life office. Look for more information about that as it develops…
Photo by takuya miyamoto
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