Today I met with ‘futurologist’ Tom Cheesewright – a regular voice on tech developments on the radio. You may be wondering what futurology has got to do with a good ole B2B PR agency. Well Manchester-based Tom – founder of Book of the Future – has set up an interesting content service to help organisations and their PR consultants gaze into the future of their market. As we are often preaching, content (not garlic bread) is the future itself so we were keen to see what Tom had on offer.
Essentially Tom helps organisations – especially those impacted by technology – to scope out what the future holds for their market. As any B2B marketing professional knows, there are peaks and troughs in the content that comes from within your organisation, such as product and service launches, industry campaigns or corporate profiling. Where futurology comes in is by creating a compelling and engaging third party view that an organisation can ally with to give its audiences something new, insightful and different.
In our realm of natural B2B PR we often talk about the value of the ‘back story’ – where the client’s business came from and how it got to where it is today. But today was a revelation – as an industry we need to look more into the ‘front story’ of a business or an industry too, in order to complete this picture. As regular readers of this blog will know, we’re strong advocates of finding different and engaging content in B2B in order to stand out from the crowd. We’ll definitely be adding futurology to our toolkit and advise you to consider it too! Thanks for the insights, Tom.
Rob