Passion and the Future of Work

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A little while ago, I spoke in the keynote session of the Richmond Financial Industry Forum in Interlaken, Switzerland.

I spoke on Passion and the Future of Work. Below are some distilled thoughts from my keynote presentation.

The future of work is perhaps the most important lens to understand the future of business, society, and indeed humanity.

Over the next decade and more we can expect the global landscape of work to change to an extraordinary degree.

There are two primary driving forces that are transforming work.

In a connected world, almost all work can be done anywhere.

And the exponential growth of processing power is enabling computers to outperform humans for an ever-increasing scope of work.

At the same time we have long been designing organizations in a way that dehumanizes work. As we design workflow around increasingly precisely defined jobs and roles, this has often taken out the scope for uniquely human characteristics such as imagination and ingenuity.

Today we must focus on the work and activities at which humans can express their unique capabilities and excel far beyond machines. (Read more on the dehumanization and humanization of work.)

What we are passionate about is very likely what we are best at, what enables us to express ourselves and our capabilties to the fullest. We can be sure that passion will be at the heart of the future of work.

For most of us there are two domains to have a real impact on the future of work: ourselves as individuals, and the organizations in which we are leaders or employees.

For individuals, real passion always comes from beyond ourselves, in being inspired by or having a positive impact on others, whether it be our family, or humanity, or even beyond.

Organizations must understand the reality of an increasingly fluid global talent economy.

One useful definition of talent is those who have complete choice in what they do and who they work for. These talented people are those who will drive the success of the organizations they work for.

Money alone will certainly not attract the most talented. They look for far more, including the ability to develop their capabilities, to work with equally talented peers, to enjoy their work environment, to have flexibility and choice, and to achieve worthwhile things that have a broad impact.

There will be a rapidly increasing gap between companies that truly offer these possibilities and can thus attract the most talented, and the rest.

One of the massive emerging opportunities for organizations is to tap the full breadth of capabilities of their employees. Everyone is multi-dimensional in their skills, of which usually only a part is expressed in a job.

Internal crowdsourcing is about tapping the ‘crowds’ inside companies, by drawing on their insights, experience, and creativity that may not be used within their formal job description. This not only gives the organization access to more capabilities, it also allows staff the ability to draw on more of who they are and their fullest potential.

Climbing mountains is a powerful metaphor for our lives. Early in our lives we can see the opportunity to rise from the valleys, to go up and engage with the extraordinary beauty around us. Yet after we have spent much of our life climbing a mountain, we may realize it is the wrong mountain.

We all have aspirations. It is important that we ensure those aspirations are true to ourselves, express who we are rather than what society or our parents tell us is important. Those ‘true aspirations’, when we find them, will always engender passion.

That passion, and nothing else, will drive us to create a future of work that we want for ourselves and for our children.

Seven Capabilities for the PR Agency of the (Near) Future

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Back in the day, PR agencies only needed two things to succeed – be a better than average writer and have a rolodex (aka database) of media contacts. (A bottle of scotch in the top desk drawer was optional.) While both of those are still important today, the complexity that’s been created with the popularity of social media and an unquenchable desire for visual content has added multiple new demands on the PR agency of today that will be in play well into the foreseeable future.

Given these trends, here are seven capabilities (including a variation of the two already mentioned) for the PR agency of the near future:

  1. Data capture and analytics – In the past, the only data you had to be able to analyze was the number of hits. Today, with so much data available on campaigns, trends and audience behavior, there’s really no excuse for a PR agency to say they can’t measure ROI. Notice the point here is that it’s data analytics not just data collection. All of that data only becomes actionable once it’s analyzed and that means having someone available who’s skilled at doing so. That means not only having data analysts on board, but making sure they’re trained in PR and having established processes in place.
  2. Social media measurement – Unfortunately, many PR firms and practitioners have resorted to simplifying this the same way two or three generations before them did with counting placements as the sum total of how to measure results. Today, there’s a mistaken comfort level in counting likes and follows (quantity) over engagement and referrals (quality). Since the popularity of social media channels is rapidly shifting with generations, measurement will continue to be difficult. But if agencies don’t get in the habit of doing this now, other entities will be doing it for them – and owning it as a result. Facebook, Twitter and Google offer a variety of free analytical tools to give you at least enough data to understand basic levels of reach and performance.
  3. Community engagement – Reams of paper and terabytes of text have been created about the importance of this. PR agencies have actually gotten quite good at it, but it’s quickly becoming commoditized. It doesn’t have to if you’re truly engaged with online communities. Take this example related to Kellogg’s the cereal company known for Corn Flakes and Froot Loops. After Tim Burgess lead singer for the Charlatans tweeted how the phrase “Totes Amazeballs” sounded like a type of cereal, Kellogg’s created a limited edition Totes Amazeballs cereal and released it via social media. That’s called true engagement and all it took was paying attention.
  4. Crisis communication in the 24/7 age – PR and crisis management have gone together like butter on toast. What has changed is the 24/7 news cycle and the ability of trolls to turn what may seem like a small complaint into a near life-threatening situation. The solution is to be hyper-vigilant about how any element of a campaign could be misconstrued, and by being hyper-responsive when things go south. Gone are the days when there was time to consider a response. While a crisis plan has always been a necessity (though often ignored until a crisis presented itself), it’s even more important today. And every possible contingency and response needs to be included.
  5. SEO and SEM – While most PR agencies are at least familiar with SEO, agencies that specialize in SEO are probably more aware of PR. They see the benefit of securing coverage with a link and are probably more in tune with how to make the most of it. PR agencies must become more adept and aware of how SEO works, but also look at how SEM complements it. Just because there’s marketing in the term, doesn’t mean PR should walk away and leave it to other types of agencies to understand and adopt it.
  6. Writing Varied Content for Different Media – Because content has become so vital and yet there’s so much of it, the need for good content that stands out from the rest is even more important. What’s changed is that PR agencies must learn to write well, write visually, and write about a lot of different topics. That means knowing how to use video and pictures to tell the story in ways that the written word alone cannot. This flies in the face of how PR has been taught and practiced with a reliance on the written word that is almost sacrosanct. But considering the prevalence and desire for more and more video content, that dependence on the written word alone will have to be broken.
  7. Influencer Relations – Having access to key media and influencers is still important to PR. No other element within the entire marketing umbrella can lay claim to this or should. Until every consumer who wants to can influence a reporter, publisher, blogger or editor, PR will still be the primary conduit for conveying information to the media. The conundrum today is the continually blurring line between the media and influencers who require a similar level of attention and relationship building. That line is apt to become even further out-of-focus as reporters are forced to both publish and promote their work and media outlets hire social media icons to create content.

In a couple of years, this list could look different, but any PR agency that embraces these seven capabilities now will be well-positioned for what the near-term future may hold.

Trend of Top Journalists Moving into PR Can Enhance Integrity and Transparency

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By the time recipients of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize were announced in April, two of its winning journalists had already switched professions to public relations. The news dismayed many media people as it served as a reminder of the dwindling newspaper business, and particularly the downfall of small-town news and its public service stories.
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The newspaper reporters, Rob Kuznia of The Daily Breeze in Torrance, California, and Natalia Caula Hauff of The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, left their jobs for different reasons.

Kuznia, who won a local reporting Pulitzer for a series of stories on corruption in a local school district, was struggling to pay rent, living paycheck-to-paycheck on his former wage. Hauff, who won the public service award for a seven-part series on domestic violence in the state, wanted to start a family and needed a reprieve from her demanding work environment.

Their moves into public relations don’t seem as shocking as perhaps they do timely. Newspaper reporter regularly ranks as one of the worst careers due to its low pay and high stress situations. Paired with the decline of print journalism and subsequent job cuts, the choice to change professions is often made for journalists.

Yet the loss of journalism’s top reporters is primed to become PR’s gain. Similarities between the professions, such as great storytelling, the ability to work under tight deadlines, and the need for a wealth of good contacts, make journalists appealing additions to the industry. The shift may also shape the attitude of the future of PR, and offers the potential for more transparency and integrity in the industry.

Transparency

In our current digital age, keeping news and facts hidden from the public is increasingly difficult. It’s also potentially risky for client reputation if data is leaked from an outside source without context, and may give the impression that a company is concealing important information.

More than ever, we are living in a time of instant global sharing, with the looming prospect that one can’t hide, so why try? Emails can be forwarded in seconds and social media posts may go viral and show up in search engine results before involved parties have a chance to shape the course of dialogue. It’s a time of co-creation between brands and the public, and being prepared by being open can put a company ahead of the game.

Since journalists have been trained to uncover the truth and share the facts with accuracy, this mindset in public relations can help brands control the message and better serve their customers by welcoming conversation and honesty.

Integrity

With transparency comes integrity. Of course, public relations has its own code of ethics, and top professionals in the field already operate with a keen sense of moral principles.

According to the Public Relations Society of America, upholding integrity and public trust are essential to maintaining the profession’s role and reputation.This is done in part by allowing the free flow of truthful and accurate information, as well as open communication to promote informed decision making.

Welcoming award-winning former journalists into the industry can further strengthen and protect high ethical standards with their dedication to sharing the facts in an unadulterated manner. This focus on embracing openness and actively disclosing company data can bring further confidence to the field, as well as from clients and potential clients. It may not only bolster client reputation, but also make the company at large more appealing to do business with.

In the future, public relations will remain in strong demand, especially as new technologies create different channels of communication and environments that foster the rapid exchange of information.

Perhaps not every journalist is suited for the field; however, exceptional reporters with shrinking news outlets available to them are finding public relations an attractive alternative for sharing their talents. Their commitment to imparting honest information in fast-paced and fast-thinking situations may also make them an asset to public relations in our hyperconnected era of digital communication.

Consumer expectations continue to rise: advocacy reduces, antagonism rises, but trust enables value creation

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The latest results from IBM’s annual Smarter Consumer Study provide interesting insights.

If consumers are smarter, they are expressing it with not just increased expectations, but an increasingly active expression of their displeasure if expectations are not met.

The following chart, provided to me by IBM in response to a request for more detailed information, shows that in all major countries advocates – those who actively advocate for their primary retailer – have decreased, while antagonists – those who would actively discredit their retailer – have increased.

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Source: IBM
Read more →

Which types of Artificial Intelligence should we be worried about?

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By Ross Dawson

I don’t tend to be fan of static column infographics, but I make an exception for this lovely infographic from BBC on whether we should be worried about Artificial Intelligence.

It looks at the many imagined and existing instances where AI is having an impact on our lives, including algorithmic trading, killer robots, seductive operating systems, superhuman cyborgs, and self-replicating AI, and then looks at the domains in which machines and humans excel.

Recommended!!

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Source: BBC Future

The C-Suite Finally Embraces Social Media: Here’s What That Looks Like

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It doesn’t seem that long ago that if surveyed, most CEOs would admit to either a lack of use for social media for themselves or a complete abhorrence for it. Times have changed. A recently released study by Weber Shandwick found that 80% of the chief executive officers of the world’s largest 50 companies are now engaged online and on social media. The results published in “Socializing Your CEO: From Marginal to Mainstream,” show that CEO sociability has more than doubled since 2010.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that LinkedIn was the most popular social media network for CEOs, followed by Twitter.


Image Source: Weber Shandwick

According to the Weber Shandwick CEO study, Facebook usage in 2014 was non-existent for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the number of fake CEO accounts on the site. Otherwise, usage on other social networks increased substantially.

As the study learned, CEOs are becoming more comfortable with the idea of some level of social engagement and are more rapidly beginning to understand its value and embrace it. Newer and more established CEOs alike are now realizing that being more socially engaged can help them communicate more quickly and easily when demands on their time prevent them from doing so with more traditional communication channels.

However, as the survey report indicates, there is no one-size fits all approach for CEOs since the types of networks used and what gets posted on them can vary depending on personality and situation.

But C-suite adoption of social media isn’t just confined to CEOs or even CMOs. A different study CIO Social Insights Report (by Robert Half International and Leadtail) indicates the need to broaden that perspective with the inclusion of CIOs. While that study doesn’t delve into specific numbers related how social media use among CIOs has changed, it does provide some insight into how CIOs are using it today.

While the key findings listed below aren’t too surprising, they do indicate that CIOs may be using social media more for conveying and accessing information than for being outright social within their company and with their industry peers:

  • CIOs engage on social media to showcase expertise and leadership, and drive conversations about technology strategy and innovation.
  • Cloud computing and infrastructure, big data, analytics and the Internet of Things are top-of-mind topics for these technology executives.
  • CIOs and IT leaders actively engage with the social media content of other technology leaders, industry analysts and journalists, as well as with marketing and social media influencers.

Like their CEOs, CIOs seem to prefer Twitter to most other social networks. Where this gets interesting, though, is what the study reveals about the publishers CIOs prefer to retweet information from. While the top 20 includes what you might expect — CIO.com (number 1) and CIO Magazine (number 20), in between are sandwiched sites like Mashable, Venture Beat, and The Verge. A bit of an eclectic mix that indicates that this audience isn’t as confined to pure technology plays as one might think.


Image Source: Robert Half

The CIO Insights Report reveals a mix of technology, business and financial outlets as source material for Twitter activity by CIOs.

The list of thought leaders CIOs mentioned for the report or follow is equally varied and includes Vala Afshar (CMO of Extreme Network), Peter Thiel (PayPal founder) and Steve Wozniak. Yes, Steve Wozniak is still relevant with CIOs.

What both of these reports indicate is that the adoption by the C-Suite of social media that employees at every level have been clamoring for is finally starting to happen. Will a couple of high profile slip-ups on social media reverse that trend? More than likely not. As new apps for sharing more visual information over social networks become easier to use and more readily available, there will likely come a day when the C-suite will wonder why they didn’t embrace social media earlier.

Insights into the levers of innovation in 40 major cities globally

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The City Initiatives for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CITIE), a joint venture of NESTA, Catapult, and Accenture, has just release a very interesting report on the drivers of innovation in major cities globally.

The CITIE Framework examines 9 different areas in which cities can support entrepreneurship and innovation, shown here:
Read more →

How Brands Are Using Live Video Events: The Opportunity for PR

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New Balance, MasterCraft, Pottery Barn. Three big U.S. brands, one innovation in common: using live video events to improve public relations. The game changing potential of live, interactive broadcasts is already in motion. Take, for instance, the rapid growth of live-streaming platforms such as Ustream, Brandlive, Meerkat and Periscope. How are top brands using these live video technologies successfully, and what role should PR play in this process?

New Balance: Finding the right balance between in-store and online media
Sports footwear giant New Balance uses live video to build multi-event product launches. Consumers and retailers have been invited to “hear about all the latest in #runnovation and get your questions answered by the product team, live from #NBHQ!” Company spokesperson Tom Taylor has praised live video as “a powerful and consistent means of visually connecting with fans and customers, bridging the gap between in-store and online”.

If retail is on track for a high-tech, interactive future, the footwear brand is stepping in the right direction. Video kiosks at the brand’s retailers create in-store hype, while its live webcasts integrate social feeds, chat and e-commerce. New Balance also uses live video internally to give field reps the low-down on its products and brand message.


MasterCraft: Mastering the art of product education
Another brand using live video events for both training and consumer awareness is premium sports boat manufacturer MasterCraft. The company sought a streamlined method to inform its 150 boat dealers about new models. It also desired real-time, visual engagement with its geographically diverse consumers. As MasterCraft’s Director of Marketing, Jason Boertje, told Retail TouchPoints, “The more we can show our product when we educate the consumer, the better off we’ll be.” Using live videos with real-time question and answer feeds has increased the sense of participation from consumers and dealers alike.

Boertje believes that an interaction-based live video model offers a promising return on investment. Digital marketing research by MasterCraft’s live video platform, Brandlive, indicates that consumers are more likely to buy a product featured on a live, interactive broadcast than on a pre-recorded video. Plus MasterCraft can use Brandlive’s post-video quizzes and attendance stats to gauge the learning and loyalty of its dealer network. Creating and archiving live videos about sales, product specs and upkeep is proving convenient for the company and practical for sellers to access.


Pottery Barn: Harvesting the hype around holidays
Home-furnishing store chain Pottery Barn is converting public fanfare around holidays into live video. Online events such as “Host a Spooktacular Halloween Party” and “DIY Easter Baskets” are fun, informative and useful. Quality content adds value for viewers and can improve brand loyalty. Therefore, Pottery Barn crafts the perception of valuable content by asking viewers to register for “exclusive access” and by posting Facebook promos with in-house designers.

Nick Wheatley from VideoCommerce observes that, like Pottery Barn, the majority of brands using live video are not hiring professional talent. Instead, they are putting their own employees in the limelight. This strategy not only reduces costs; it also lets employee devotion and knowledge shine through.


How PR can ramp up its offerings
In a world where companies can deliver PR messages straight to the consumer via live video, how and why should PR firms assist with this process?

Fritz Brumder, CEO and co-founder of Brandlive, puts forward the following case in PR Daily:

“The good news is that PR firms are uniquely qualified to claim ownership of live video, because their media outreach efforts tend to focus more on timely news or event-driven campaigns such as product launches.

A PR agency looking to beef up its live interactive video offerings must know how to successfully build on its traditional skill sets. Based on our experience at Brandlive producing over 3,000 live interactive video events for over 120 brands, PR firms that can pull together a team with the following skills to form a “live streaming video center of excellence” will be best positioned to succeed:

  • Structuring and crafting brand and product stories
  • Preparing client executives for on-camera/on-stage appearances
  • Activating social interaction
  • Knowledge of audio/video production”.

The business case for PR involvement
As Brumder points out, PR agencies must formulate “a business case for why their live video capabilities would provide better value or produce more valuable results” than unassisted live broadcasts by companies.

Martin Shepherdly, the CEO and founder of BeThere Global, comments that live streaming has three advantages over traditional PR mediums:

  1. The level of engagement and two-way communication engendered among the audience through interactivity
  2. The customization of the viewer experience for specific audiences, and
  3. The detail with which viewer statistics can be measured.

PR agencies must learn to harness these benefits for clients if they are to swap pre-prepared, commercialized spin for natural, personal interaction. As futurist Ross Dawson reminds us in an article on where PR is going, PR is no longer “about hiding or manipulating the truth; it is about providing access, being open”. Live video bolsters a massive opportunity for PR: helping brands to engage with a world that favours dialogue and transparency.

Image sources: New Balance, MasterCraft, and Pottery Barn

Five Steps to Being a Highly Visual PR Agency

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A couple of years ago there was quite a flurry of discussion, panel topics and articles bemoaning the state of public relations relative to its entrenched use of words over pictures. The reason for the hand wringing was that most public relations professionals were still focused on the highly non-visual means of communicating through press releases, email pitches and written statements. Who could blame the profession for their concern considering the growing propensity of the world to be far more enamored with pictures and video over text? Meanwhile, ad agencies, design shops and digital production houses were all beating PR to the visual punch.

Unfortunately, the most substantial visual element that PR could lay claim to in this burgeoning visual age is the popularity and use of infographics. While both praised and decried, infographics at least gave PR a means to an end in terms of conveying data rich information in what could be a visual but meaningful way.

But infographics aren’t the same as the pictures and video that is becoming the shared content of choice in social media. Even the most popular text intensive social media platform – Twitter – has added greater ability to share videos and pictures; and one visual oriented social channel after another has entered the market. Even popular video sharing sites like YouTube, Vine and Vimeo are being chased down by the likes of up and comers Meerkat and Periscope (connected to Twitter).

While it can be argued that any self-respecting PR person has known the value of a good visual for some time, product shots or even short explainer videos accompanying a press release don’t really count. This isn’t visual story telling. It’s just attaching a visual to a written document. That’s not the way people want their information, how they consume it or even the most effective way to communicate it.

To provide some idea as to the impact of video from a marketing standpoint, consider these facts about video usage from an article in Business2Community

  • The use of video content for marketing increased 73% this year; use of infographics grew 51%.
  • Articles with images get 94% more views than those without.
  • Posts with videos attract three times as many inbound links as plain text posts.
  • 62% of marketers use video in their content marketing.
  • Two-thirds of firms plan to increase spending on video marketing in the coming year.

The future of communications is clearly established in the visual arts, so how do PR agencies match or even catch up to ad agencies, digital agencies and design firms to ensure relevancy into the future? Here are five steps you can take:

  1. Take a class – the most common forms of visual storytelling are movies and television. Encourage, maybe even require, your staff to take screenwriting classes. Alternatively, periodically bring a professional screenwriter or script doctor in. Maybe even someone who writes and produces commercials. The ability to tell a story in 10-30 seconds is an art and most of the video content out there is going to continue to fall into this category.
  2. Push visuals as a given not a choice. Challenge your staff, your clients, and your agency to be more visual. Eliminate superfluous words in favor of stronger visuals. Guy Kawasaki, the former Apple marketing exec who worked on the introduction of the first Macintosh in 1984, famously penned the 10/20/30 rule for PowerPoint presentations. Ten slides, 20 minutes, no smaller than 30-point type. The latter being the most important from a visual standpoint because once you use 30-point type, the available real estate on a slide drops drastically.
  3. Hire for the skill. It’s impossible to get an entire agency or in-house department caught up in this movement at once. So finding people already skilled in the art of visual storytelling is a possible shortcut. Just understand that what they make up for in skillset they may lose in understanding the difference between PR and advertising. What’s interesting is how many PR firms are responding by hiring people outside of the typical PR agency world. Last fall, Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, went on a hiring spree adding several senior level staff all from advertising and marketing firms.
  4. Share insights. The Millennial generation is the first generation that has grown up never knowing a world without the web. Their lives are so intrinsically connected to it that they are hard-pressed to fathom what life must have been like without it. This generation is also driving the visual evolution. So tap the members of that generation for personal and broader insights, and then feel free to share. They get that this is part of the process.
  5. Don’t fight it. For those in PR who are proud of their writing skills and accomplishments and may believe that the emphasis on visuals over text is like equating graphic novels to classic literature, have to realize that hanging on to outmoded methods is a fast track to irrelevancy. The ability to craft a well-written sentence then string several of those together to explain a particular point is still valuable. But the ability to mix pictures with those words to tell a more compelling story now trumps that ability.

There is a caveat. No matter how visually oriented the world becomes, everything can’t be about a story in pictures. Some aspects of the world will continue to become more complicated. Connecting words and pictures to make the biggest impact will be critical toward communicating those complicated elements in the most understandable way possible. The future of PR may depend on it.

Five Big Demographic Shifts and What They Mean for PR

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Much has been made of how demographic changes – primarily generational – are affecting media consumption. The focus continues to be primarily on Millennials across the world and their propensity to consume media on multiple screens while constantly being on the move.

What’s been missing, however, is a look at even deeper changes that are profoundly altering the demographics of entire countries and regions of the world, and what those changes could mean to the future of PR.
While there are a multitude of demographic changes to consider – such as shifts in wealth distribution, other age related issues, and immigration – the changes associated with age cut across multiple topics. George Magnus, famous economist and author, made some predictions related to age during a presentation he gave to the Conference Board in 2013. Let’s look at the five massive ones and how they impact PR.

1. Older not younger.
Over the next 35 years, there are expected to be more older citizens than children. That means about 418 million people in the world over the age of 60 by 2050. While most Baby Boomers will have since passed by then, that means a lot of older Millennials and Generation Z-ers inhabiting the earth. While their affinity to devices may vary by global region, they will bring their digital expectations with them, providing both opportunities and challenges. Public relations professionals will be tasked with staying current on information that will shift with the needs that come with growing older. That includes healthcare, shopping and travel options. Combine this with a generational expectation of transparency and the role of public relations in both ensuring transparency and combating charges of non-transparency will become even more prevalent.

2. Non-communicable diseases – new epidemics.
According to the Business Insider article, the World Health Organization has called the invisible epidemic of non-communicable diseases responsible for about 60% of deaths globally. The leading culprit is depression, which is expected to become the biggest single cause of disability by 2030. That will likely mean more pharmaceutical solutions entering the market across the world, but also more holistic options with populations in various global regions being more open to them than others. This may also force a more candid and open discussion of the issue and remove some of the stigma related to discussing it. Public relations has an opportunity to help drive this shift while also playing a part in the way different medications will be introduced into the market. The challenge will be to keep the fight against communicable diseases from taking a back seat in terms of awareness.

3. Faster to 60.
More people are reaching 60 than ever before. In most developed countries, it took about 40 – 80 years for those over 60 to double in size of population. In emerging markets, however, the process is playing out in about 20 years with China being the fastest to hit this mark. The result is that many people are growing old before they or the countries where they live can afford it. For PR professionals, this will mean the need for communication strategies tied to what will inevitably be strained resources, new government initiatives related to both financial and physical well-being, and new products touting the ability to help the aging population cope.

4. Who’s going to pay for it?
The issue here is around what is referred to as the old age dependency ratio — the number of workers available to support a single retired citizen. A low dependency ratio is where there are fewer workers available per older citizen. For instance, the 1.5 workers per retiree expected by 2050 in countries like Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain where weak fertility, rising longevity and more stringent immigration policies are the cause. Meanwhile, economies like Sweden and France are predicted to have higher ratios that will fall from 4-5 workers today to about 2-2.5 by the mid-century. This is mostly due to higher fertility rates and a more open immigration policy. PR may be asked to create campaigns that will 1) keep workers working longer, 2) extol the virtues of helping support the elderly, and 3) loosen immigration policies to ensure a more manageable dependency ratio that isn’t available without it.

5. Exploiting the economic dividend.
There is an ideal economic phase where child dependency is falling and the working age population is expanding, and old age dependency is just on the brink of rising. Growth in income, savings, investment, and technical progress highlight this phase. Once the old age dependency ratio starts to rise, however, then all bets are off as it tends to drag down growth. Strong financial institutions, positive investment climate, stable infrastructure, and ongoing innovation allow countries to exploit this demographic dividend to their benefit. While PR can’t directly affect any of these elements, it can communicate what companies and government institutions are doing to improve and protect them. Consequently, PR will be called on in the future to effectively communicate the economic dividend to help ensure its longevity and benefits.