I'll be in New York mid-week to moderate a PR Week conference panel and asked for your thoughts on the content. Thanks to everyone who contributed! Here are highlights from your responses.
1. What's next for the communications industry?
- A mobile, sematic web and the personalisation of data. - Ubergill
- Social media fatigue, large-scale burnout as a result of always-on and partial attention deficit leading to relationship breakdowns across the board. - Annalie Killian
- Organizations that do not adapt will be seen as disingenuous through no fault of their own. We're really moving to a critical time where customers have outgrown those serving them. - Cory Hendrickson
- I think the next big thing is the realization of the power that the little guys now have, that does not require waiting around for traditional media. - Angela Connor
- Un-mergers along functional lines that change business models for different parts of the very broad communications industry. - David M
- 2009 will be about tools to cut through all of the noise and teaching best practices so that our messages resonate. We will see more filters and more strategy behind brand participation. - Aaron Uhrmacher
- The biggest (and most painful) next thing for the industry is a complete shift in the skill sets, experience and approach of successful communications practitioners. - Jay Gaines
- The communications industry needs to ensure complete marketing integration with all aspects of media, including traditional and online venues. - Julie Arnold
- Measurement. Measurement. Measurement. - Jeremy Frank
2. What's the biggest development in the social media space that affects all organizations?
- How much search matters, and the fact that everyone is now a publisher and has influence. MSM would never want to lead on that they've lost control…they have. - Adam Singer
- At some point we will see a huge enterprise level level of adoption. - Marc Meyer
- With the rise of so many individual publishers, it is increasingly difficult for enterprises to "push" their brands onto a market. – James Cioban
- In short, the explosion of self-publishing tools, services and technologies. - David Politis
- The shift from 'marketing to' to 'marketing with' the consumer, the rise of infinite influencers. - Gunjan Rawal
- Wiki will lead the economy to create from shared communication with the user, up innovation in business models, opening our processes and creativity to work together hundreds of creative minds. - Rodrigo
- “Marketers as media” will be the norm rather than the exception in communications efforts moving forward. - Nick Mendoza
3. What's the most underreported trend in the business world that you think deserves more attention?
- The older guard/senior management at large corporation (Fortune 500) are often technology-averse. Look at the picture of the Detroit leaders in the White House last week and tell me how many even can define social computing. - Steve Poppe
- The death of conventional communications. The newsfeed will do to messaging what the video did to the radio star. - JoeC
- The tension between wanting to promote a company's culture in which employees are active participants in social media and the issues associated with it when an employee participates an is "off-message." - Zach Braiker
- At many companies, the personal brands of team members are surpassing the value of corporate brands more and more quickly. The result is a transient workforce. I can only imagine the implications. - Scott Hepburn
- As more companies start to "get" social media, they are insisting on building their own communities. I personally believe they should use what's available, where people are already gathering, to hear what folks are saying and join the discussion. - Jeannie Walters
- A decline in overhead costs as a huge development for the communications industry. Social media continue to obliterate the traditional economics of media production, distribution, collaboration and R&D. Organizational functions that were once money- and time-suckers become increasingly inductive. - Josh Shabtai
Great insights. Over the past six months, the level of conversation here has increased dramatically. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and letting me share thoughts with you.
UPDATE: You can view cached real-time reactions to the whole conference on Twitter