Predictions from a decade ago - revisited - includes related article - 2010 - Where will Communication be? - Cover Story

They said we'd be more professional, more specialized, more female, and lots leaner, staff-wise. All in all, not a bad forecast, as far as it went. What they missed, however, was what really opened up our future.

On the following pages, we ask some thoughtful representatives of the communication field to speculate about the nature of the profession some 16 years down the road ... in the year 2010. It's a pretty harmless limb to crawl out on, most would think, since who remembers what anyone predicts if it fails to materialize 16 years in the future? After all, does anyone ever check back?

Well, we did. Since at the beginning of a new year everyone's attention seems to turn to predictions, we thought it might be enlightening to look back a decade and see how some of the observations made then have stood the test of time.Nothing malicious, mind you, just a revisiting of an article in the January 1984 issue of Communication World titled: "PR '84: Fourteen experts tell what's ahead."

While we're at it, 1984 seems like a good year to review predictions, since one of the most famous ones targeted that as the year we'd all be under surveillance by Big Brother. While some would argue that with increasing onslaughts on individual privacy, Orwell's prediction indeed came to pass; others might say the eloquence of the prediction outshone the reality. Perhaps his timing was just a bit off. In the predicting game, however, timing is everything. After all, it's not whether the economy will go up or down ... but when that separates the genius predictors from those who predict themselves into obscurity. But just how seriously should we take any predictions about the future? Don't the prognosticators seem to fall into one of two categories?

1) Those who suggest we'll have lots more of the same, and

2) Those who make outlandish predictions that they seem confident no one will ever remember.

Those in the first group are most likely to be correct, at least barring any significant departures from the status quo, or rapid introduction of new technology. Those factors can catch unlucky soothsayers off guard. Like the guy in London in 1868 who took the city's population growth rate, the number of horses on the street, then multiplied them by the horses' public bathroom habits. Conclusion: by the year 1968, London would be buried six feet deep in horse manure. Predictions aside, heavy vehicle traffic rather quickly replaced horse poop as London's key transportation concerns.

It's the prediction of the outlandish variety that seems most likely to be held to the harsh light of accountability. Like the guy who said by the year 1985 we'd all be commuting to work in our own personal helicopters. I don't know about you, but I hardly even get mine out of the garage for a little fun on the weekends.

Before we look at those communicators' predictions from 1984, here are a few from some higher profile individuals and issues from the book, "The World Tomorrow:"

* "In 1958, the president of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., predicted: 'There is a world market for about five computers.'" A bit on the conservative side, you say? Well, considering IBM's recent problems, maybe Watson's observation was more prophetic than it first sounds.

* "Professor Richard Woolley, Astronomer Royal, stoutly declared in 1957 that 'the future of interplanetary travel is utter bilge.' He was in good company. As early as 1920 the New York Times had pointed out that rocket pioneer Robert Goddard 'only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools,' because he believed that a spacecraft would operate in a vacuum. As for flying to the moon, 'the proposition appears to be basically impossible,' observed Professor A.W. Bickerton in 1926. In 1936, J.P. Lockhart-Mummery clinched the argument: 'The acceleration ... from rockets ... inevitably would damage the brain beyond repair.'"

Well, most predictions in the realm of PR and communication don't involve brain damage, although brain numbing has occasionally been charged. And, that brings us back to the original premise of this article ... How did the predictions of 1984 hold up? Well, some, as they say, were spot on, and could easily come from the pages of our communication trade media today. For example:

* "Cost control is the wave of the future," said one visionary. "When corporate budgets were not quite as controlled, public relations produced a good deal of freewheeling and sloppy planning." For those readers who were around 10 years ago when those comments were written, you'll recall them as the good old days.

If it often seems that tight budgets and cost cutting have been with us for a long time, it's not just a matter of perception, they have been with us for a long time. Another of our 1984 predictors (head of communication at a major bank) made this observation:

* "As things get better, staffs won't build. We're all staffed for the valley load and increasingly use contract talent or agencies on a regular basis to handle the peaks." You might find it hard to believe that comment was made 10 years ago.

Not everyone sized the situation up quite so accurately, however. In fact, most communicators didn't see it that way at all. In the IABC Profile/1983 survey, "Fewer than five percent of the sample felt they would be working with smaller staffs and tighter budgets." Ever-the-optimists, we communicators.

Another issue that seems to have been with us forever is quality. Here's what one observer said about it in 1984:

* "Companies have not lived up to the promises their communicators made several years ago. They told employees about quality of work life, quality circles, and participatory management, and workers began to expect more job satisfaction." Is it any wonder employees are tired of the "excellence-du-jour" programs?

* Another one of the evergreen topics among future-thinking communicators is the reputation of the communication field. One of our experts back then said: "The field will continue to grow more professional." (From the lots-more-of-the-same school of prediction!) "Increasingly, those in public relations will shed their reputations as 'hacks and publicists' and become 'management consultants.'"

Pretty good predicting, I'd say, although the 'hacks and publicists' charge is proving tough to shake. What this predictor missed is that while the field is indeed growing more professional, it has essentially divided into the true "management consultants" he speaks of, and the more plentiful, but generally lower-level, technicians.

Some of the other predictions of a decade ago:

* "More communicators themselves will specialize -- become experts in finance, law, high technology, travel or some other area."

* "More women will enter the field."

* "More computers and word processors will be in use." One went on to say: "It's difficult for me to write on a typewriter now; I prefer a word processor." Do tell.

But, one prediction that seemed like a sure thing, instead fizzled out:

* "Mergers of public relations firms and advertising agencies will continue as communicators in these two areas discover 'togetherness' can help them achieve common marketing objectives." While public relations and marketing moved closertogether, the fit between PR and ad agencies was uncomfortable at best and never lived up to rosy predictions.

A number of the predictions involved what would happen with media:

* "A trend that has big implications for the communication professional is the consolidation of power among the opinion-making media. There may be more and more media outlets, but fewer truly influential ones."

* ... another commented, "Public relations firms are just beginning to turn to major cable operations. As these operations grow, they will become the focus of even greater attention."

* ... and another: "More and more practitioners will be trying to get messages to the masses via 'the most effective media' -- not just any media -- and the 'mini-media' of cable television will become increasingly important in reaching specialized audiences in North America and Europe."

In these days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of trade with China and the thawing of the cold war, no one correctly envisioned the hyperspeed of international growth. Although trade agreements between the U.S. and Canada were in the spotlight in 1984, and one comment was:

* "It is incumbent on our profession to ensure that our relevant publics are made aware of the need for free flows of trade. Taxes and other trade barriers could become a grave hindrance to the economic recovery in the U.S. and Europe." Toss in Mexico and you have the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) debate of 1993/94.

Accelerating along with the speedup of international growth was the issue of diversity. It was not identified as an issue in 1984, and none of the communicators in the article discussed either the buzzword or the concept as one we'd be dealing with in the future.

No one envisioned the breakup of the Soviet Union and the spread of democracy and free trade around the world. Nor did any identify diversity as an issue that would grow out of the expanding global mindset.

On the technology front, none of our predictors mentioned desktop publishing, video news releases, satellite media tours, virtual reality or multimedia/interactive communication.

The message here is: No one can predict future "surprises," and it's the surprises that create the biggest changes.

If there's a problem with predictions, it has to be that they tend to underestimate our potential by simply extending today's reality. And the reality is ... sometimes we go beyond it to achieve our dreams.

SID CATO PREDICTS EGG ON FACE OF WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER

Lest you think you can make predictions with impunity, there are always people like Sid Cato around to remind you of them if they don't come to pass.

Cato, a Kalamazoo, Mich. newsletter publisher on the topic of annual reports, wrote this in a recent issue describing predictions about the emergence of summary annual reports, slimmed down numbers-oriented versions that go light on the communication:

"The summary annual report came on the scene during the 1987 annual report year. The Wall Street Journal's Lee Burton (he no doubt won't recall, still busy wiping egg off his face) saw the SAR as the 'wave of the future.' He predicted'100 summaries this year alone.' I wanted to wager there would be fewer than 25, which offer he declined.

"Peak year for the SAR, my figures indicate, was 1991 when 19 annuals went that route, still a far cry from my scaled-down 25, let alone the reporter's prediction of 100 ... six years ago. I've counted 12 '92 annuals that qualify as summaries."

Cliff McGoon is a communication consultant in Palm Springs, Calif.

COPYRIGHT 1994 International Association of Business Communicators
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group