In the run-up the Public Relations Institute of Australia's national conference PR Directions on Monday/Tuesday next week, Brad Howarth - technology and business journalist and co-author of the book A Faster Future - kindly took time out of his busy schedule (which included tending to a newborn baby!) to answer a few questions from the PR Warrior.
Brad will be keynoting at PR Directions. The title of his presentation is: A connected society: Impacts and influence of the national broadband network.
G’day Brad – first things first, how’s your new book A Faster Future going?
Well. It’s now more than six months old, but still selling well.
More than that, it has generated interest and discussion in the right places, and got people thinking about the broadband-enabled future that we are moving into.
You talk and write a lot about what life will be like in a super-connected world fuelled by 'always-on' access to high-speed broadband: what challenges and opportunities does this scenario present the marketing and PR industry?
Keeping up is going to be probably the biggest challenge. The rate of change in practice and procedure that broadband is enabling is quite phenomenal.
Broadband isn’t just about speed, it is about instant connectivity, and that is what many Australians have today and more will have in the future, Instant-on connectivity is what enabled social media to flourish, as the web became part of the always-on background to our lives.
It’s hard to predict how far that will go, but it is not impossible today to use the Web to deliver a constant, instantaneous data feed on those topics of interest from the world around us. Combine that then with wearable technology and heads-up displays?
Also, we can today instantly verify information – you don’t need to weigh up the word of a whitegoods sales rep anymore, you can check what others are saying online. Access to information will make it increasingly easier for citizens to verify any claim made, and technology will make that process easier.
These changes are ones that are easy to think about, but there are additional technologies coming online which will make the concepts we are learning to work with today look positively passé over the next decade.
According to Nielsen research, Australians are the heaviest users of social networks in the world, yet I’ve read lately accusations that in terms of technology and social media, Corporate Australia is still stuck circa 2008. Is this true, or indeed fair do you think?
I think it may be unfair, from the perspective that corporate organisations around the world are struggling to come to grips with social media – not just in Australia.
Part of the reason there are many more great examples in the US is because there are simply more companies there. Could Australian companies do more to embrace social media and technology – yes, of course. The question is one of how to get it up the priority list.
We are going to see a lot of companies go out of business soon as a result of being overtaken by technology – many of them from across the retail sector. Part of the reason that Janelle and I wrote A Faster Future is to get business thinking about the changes that technology has brought, and may bring in the future, and how to both adapt to those changes and take advantages of new opportunities.
In your opinion, which companies in Australia are best-positioned to flourish in the hyper-connected marketplace of the future? Any organisations you think are thriving today in terms of their use of social technologies?
Mostly the small ones. These are the ones that are not constrained by traditional thinking. Companies like Shoes of Pray, Kogan, Freelancer.com and so on.
As far as large companies … it is hard to think of any that are consistently doing it well. Many in travel have gotten into it, such as Lonely Planet, followed by banking and finance – interestingly, these are the sectors that have been the most reliant on technology as a core part of their business for the longest.
Google's Vint Cerf believes about 99 per cent of what's possible on the internet hasn't been invented yet. Massive statement but coming from the man some call “the father of the internet”, it has some credence. What’s your take on Cerf’s assertion?
I agree with Vint, and I hear used as a rebuttal to those who say there are no applications today that require the sort of speed that the NBN will deliver.
I think in principal Vint is right – who would have predicted Facebook, YouTube or Twitter in 2000? But I suspect there is a lot that will be possible that we can think about today – it’s just a matter of combining common sense with imagination.
The easiest place is to think about the things that cause us pain today, or the things that we are restricted from doing. Blogging and YouTube solved the problem that people experienced through not being easily able to express themselves to a wide audience. What other problems or restrictions are yet to be solved?
You’re keynoting at the forthcoming PRIA annual conference PR Directions: What can we expect from your presentation?
As always, I just want to get people thinking – hopefully questioning common assumptions and thinking about what might be possible in days to come.
Thanks Brad. We look forward to catching up with you at PR Directions.
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