John Gerstner, CEO of Communitelligence has a fantastic summary of one of the IABC Conference sessions in which a panel of communication leaders considered the hot issues for the profession now and in 2011. His conclusion is that the role of the communicator has never been less clearly defined. Other themes he reported as concerns included the challenge of the blogosphere, communicators business acumen, and the gap between theory and practice.
Read his blog post on “What communicators are worried about”.
Gerstner’s point about the role of the communicator holds true in the Australian market. The range of roles and professional disciplines that merge at the point called ‘communications’ is broad. The importance of discussing the expectation of what the client excpects within the scope of communication is critical. As managers experience different forms of communication practiced by functions as diverse as human resources, marketing, change managers, public affairs, media managers, and organisational developers and training functions it becomes vital to work according to the outcomes required, and to form partnerships to deliver across disciplines.
The Communitelligence portal also provides excellent communication resources.
