✅ Monday briefing: Francis Ingham remembered, Socially Mobile impact report, AI ethics, AI copyright, OpenAI blackbox, TikTok ban, Microsoft Copilot, and more...
Industry, platforms, ethics and tools
Francis Ingham, director general of the PRCA and chief executive of ICCO, passed away on Thursday last week after a short illness.
Francis lived for the public relations profession and helped elevate its status within government and management in the UK and worldwide. He spent his working life focussed on this purpose.
My relationship with Francis wasn’t ever easy. We shared a flat together for a couple of years in London and frequently argued about almost everything: politics, business, our rival industry associations, professional standards, and history.
We parted company as flatmates in 2013 when I became President of the CIPR. It was never going to work.
Like me, he rarely spoke about his background, but it was our common bond. We were united by a shared insecurity that we weren’t quite good enough and always needed to work longer and harder than anybody else.
Francis was one of the hardest working people I’ve ever known. He rose at dawn and rarely returned home before midnight - usually to the latest historical biography that he was reading and a glass of red wine. He had a fearsome intellect.
He was a complex individual; super smart, mischievous and fun, incredibly generous and loyal, but quick to take sides and dismissive of anyone who didn’t share his point of view. He used this as a power for political and industry campaigning. He lived for the fight: CIPR, NLA, Bell Pottinger, COVID-19, and most recently the war in Ukraine.
It made him plenty of enemies. I’ve been a foe, friend, and most recently foe. This makes me really sad reflecting on his untimely death. I can’t imagine another character quite like Francis in my lifetime and my thoughts and sympathies are with his family, friends and colleagues.
Communicate Magazine’s Andrew Thomas, PRMoment’s Ben Smith, PRovoke’s Maja Pawinska Sims have all written tributes to Francis.
Industry
📖 IMPACT REPORT: Socially Mobile supported almost 50 public relations practitioners from diverse backgrounds with management education in 2022. The community interest company provides free places on its 10-week executive education programme to eligible students and is open to fee-payers too. A webinar on 31 March will report on its first year of operation. Source Stephen Waddington.
📒 BOOK REVIEW: PR, Technology, Data & Insights by Mark Weiner is a robust, and hugely detailed guide, moving through chapters on technology, data, insights, landscape analysis, objective setting, strategy, tactics and evaluation. It's the sort of book that can be annotated and referred back to for practical advice. Source Claire Munro.
🛡️ PR SHIELD FAIL: SNP head of communication Murray Foote resigned after issuing agreed party responses denying that the SNP’s membership had dropped by 30,000. Membership was subsequently reported to have fallen by 32,000. It was insufficient to shield chief executive Peter Murrell who resigned 24 hours later. Spotted Steve Shepperson-Smith.
Platforms
⛔ METAVERSE GAME OVER: Meta’s enthusiasm for the metaverse is waning. The focus of its recent earnings call was AI initiatives, and user growth. It plans 10,000 job cuts across the business including within its augmented and virtual reality divisions. Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
👶 LINKEDIN INTEGRATION: Microsoft has integrated GPT-4 into its LinkedIn platform. We reported on the launch of crowdsourced articles based on the knowledge graph earlier in the month. New features include AI-generated profile summaries and job listings. Source Alan Morrison.
Ethics
⚖️ AI ETHICS: Attribution, sourcing, copyright, misinformation, and privacy are amongst the risks of using AI tools to produce copy. Organisations should exercise caution before using generative applications. Source Michelle Garratt.
©️ AI COPYRIGHT: The US Copyright Office issued guidance to clarify when content created with the help of AI is eligible for copyright. It said protection depends on whether contributions are “the result of mechanical reproduction", such as in response to text prompts, or if they reflect the author's "own mental conception." Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
⬛ OPENAI BLACKBOX: The launch of GPT-4 by OpenAI has resulted in criticism from among the AI community for lack of transparency, citing safety concerns. OpenAI has provided limited information on the data used to train the system, its energy costs, and the specific hardware or methods used to create it. Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
Tools
🙅 TIKTOK BAN: The BBC and UK Government have banned TikTok on corporate devices following security concerns. It follows the European Commission and reflects deteriorating relationships with China. The move is expected to be followed by other media companies and corporate organisations. Spotted Ben Lowndes and Nigel Sarbutts.
🫴 MICROSOFT COPILOT: Microsoft has wasted no time integrating the GPT-4 language model into its suite of Office products through its investment and partnership with OpenAI. It has added ChatGPT functionality to each application. Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
➕ WORKSPACE INTEGRATION: Google is lagging Microsoft with the integration of AI into its office product. A rollout to Gmail, Google Documents, and other Workspace applications is expected in a few weeks. Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
🐦 TWITTER API THROTTLED: Twitter’s new pricing for API access is restrictive for all but large marketing technology vendors. It will limit the use of the platform for academic research. More than 17,500 papers have been based on the platform’s data since 2020. Spotted James Crawford.