“Nothing less than a transformation of humankind“
According to WEF founder Klaus Schwab, we find ourselves amidst the technology-shaped fourth industrial revolution. A revolution that might flush away old certainties in communications and marketing, turning the very nature of our profession upside down.
Imagine for a second that two-thirds of what we do today will be done more efficiently and effectively by algorithms in a not-so-far-away future. That creates either a lot of unpaid free time for most of us or the need to redefine our roles. As we live in an age of exponential rather than linear change we might not wait too long to adapt.
Many of us are already using different strategies and tools to succeed. Yet, this is only the beginning. The mind-blowing pace in which technology changes our life requires additional skills as well as an agile mindset. Communication managers whose only concern is the next press release fit into this world about as well as rotary phones. They work, but they don’t excel.
Some communicators may perceive this development as a threatening source of insecurity. We believe, however, that there’s little need to be concerned – if we embrace the new rules of the game. First, which profession if not the story-savvy communication community should be equipped and experienced enough to be a change driver, rather than a change victim? Second, every change opens opportunities (apologies for this deliberate use of a cliché); the possibilities to tell our stories and to measure our effectiveness are greater than ever before. And, isn’t this good news for a profession that has always been viewed with a note of condescension by other business functions and sometimes even the c-suite?
Every time the three of us came together in the past few months to discuss the changes in our very own communications discipline over a glass of Riesling, we always ended up talking about three megatrends that will be affecting us going forward:
1. Democratization and thus fragmentation of the communication landscape.
2. Interaction between humans and algorithms.
3. Building trust and ensuring relevance in an era of information overflow and fake news.
Every single one of the presents a challenge on its own. Combined, they may create a maelstrom that has the potential to overthrow our profession‘s operating model. Over the next weeks, we’d like to share our thinking on each of the three and the imperatives they impose on communications.
All of them meet at one intersection: digital transformation. Therefore, none of us will get around acquiring a high degree of digital literacy, even those of us who’ve written their first papers on a typewriter. We need to have a basic understanding of analytics and multimedia storytelling and the boldness to try out novel approaches in stakeholder conversations. We need to be open to overcome the lines between corporate communications and marketing (blurred though they may be). Forget about whether you work in a B2B or B2C environment. In the next context, everything is H2H, human-to-human, and increasingly even M2H, machine-to-human.
There’s a lot of VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity – along the way and some seemingly solid paths of the past might turn out to be the dead ends of the future. At the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that we are talking about organizations that are made up of humans and that will have to adapt over time. With the words of leadership consultants Peter Cairo, David Dotlich and Stephen Rhinesmith from their book Head, Heart & Guts:
“Most companies are both the beneficiary and the victim of their strong cultures, which can oftentimes prevent leaders from going against the conventional wisdom, standard practice, or tradition.”
Every time the three of us came together in the past few months to discuss the changes in our very own communications discipline over a glass of Riesling, we always ended up talking about three megatrends that will be affecting us going forward:
- Democratization and thus fragmentation of the communication landscape.
- Interaction between humans and algorithms.
- Building trust and ensuring relevance in an era of information overflow and fake news.
Every single one of them presents a challenge on its own. Combined, they may create a maelstrom that has the potential to overthrow our profession‘s operating model. Over the next weeks, we’d like to share our thinking on each of the three and the imperatives they impose on communications.
All of them meet at one intersection: digital transformation. Therefore, none of us will get around acquiring a high degree of digital literacy, even those of us who’ve written their first papers on a typewriter. We need to have a basic understanding of analytics and multimedia storytelling and the boldness to try out novel approaches in stakeholder conversations. We need to be open to overcome the lines between corporate communications and marketing (blurred though they may be). Forget about whether you work in a B2B or B2C environment. In the next context, everything is H2H, human-to-human, and increasingly even M2H, machine-to-human.
There’s a lot of VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity – along the way and some seemingly solid paths of the past might turn out to be the dead ends of the future. At the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that we are talking about organizations that are made up of humans and that will have to adapt over time. With the words of leadership consultants Peter Cairo, David Dotlich and Stephen Rhinesmith from their book Head, Heart & Guts: “Most companies are both the beneficiary and the victim of their strong cultures, which can oftentimes prevent leaders from going against the conventional wisdom, standard practice, or tradition.”
If we intend to change communications of our businesses, we need to change mindset and culture within communications first. And that might be the most urgent challenge we face.
Of course, Nicole, Axel and I do not have all the answers, nor do we believe in the exclusiveness of the three megatrends that we have identified to guide us through this change. But they seem to serve as a good starting point to discuss how we as communication and marketing professionals can keep our license to operate as well as a seat at the c-suite in a time of rapid transformation.
After all, we agree with Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that’s the one) who wrote in his book Rumsfeld’s Rules: “There are known knowns: the things you know you know. There are known unknowns: the things you know you don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the things you don’t know you don’t know.” Or in our own, more prosaic words: there is a lot of unchartered territory to discover.
One of the unknown unknowns are your thoughts. Do you agree or disagree? Have we missed anything? Please let us know, now and over the coming weeks. We are curious to learn from you.
