The Importance of Trusted Sources

Have you ever had a presentation go out of date before you’ve even given it? I have! I was invited along the annual Charity Mash-Up, organised by Surrey Community Action, to share practical tips on how charities can best use recent developments in AI.

However, two days before my talk OpenAI and Anthropic launched new models and Apple announced a major upgrade of Siri within iOS 27. Cue a last-minute rewrite of a couple of my slides! And I had to deliver them with a caveat: a few things might be out of date by the end of the session, never mind the end of the year.

An impossible task

As something of a lifelong learner, I like to know the latest about everything. But with AI, I’ve had to be much more choosy. The changes are coming so thick and fast that trying to track every one of them feels like a game of whack-a-mole. As PR, comms and public affairs professionals, how on earth do we stay on top of it all?

The answer, of course, is that we can’t cover everything 100% (unless AI is your full-time job and you can immerse yourself in the updates as they happen).

What you CAN do is be a sense-maker about who you listen to. Identify a few trusted sources to help signpost the most important updates and offer an early perspective.

Currently I’m grateful for information from Big Fish Training partner Michael MacLennan, who generously publishes all his AI findings and experiments, alongside comms industry voices such as Stephen Waddington and David Gallagher. They digest many of the updates so I don’t have to, flag the more significant ones, and suggest ways in which the industry may be impacted.

Of course, I still want to do my own reading and analysis but these are the people who prevent me from disappearing down rabbit holes that don’t go anywhere meaningful.

It's not just AI

The benefits of identifying trusted sources outside of our immediate circle of colleagues, clients and stakeholders aren’t confined to keeping up with AI. 

Recently, I’ve had the privilege of coaching several senior professionals looking for a new challenge. In each case, our discussions were wide-ranging. But one question I asked all of them was this: where do you look for inspiration, both inside and outside the industry?

True inspiration is vital if we want to grow, broaden our skills and feel fulfilled. And we rarely find it just by looking at our peers working alongside us in the same organisation. We have to go looking for it beyond our own doorstep.

The Charity Mash-Up gave me a really healthy dose of inspiration. I spoke to so many people doing excellent work (often with limited or no budget) to deliver real impact in their local communities. Many of them were former comms professionals (we really do get EVERYWHERE!).

It was a great reminder of how far comms skills can stretch beyond the settings we usually use them in and what an impact people can make when they come together with a purpose. I left that event with new ideas, feeling upbeat and inspired to think differently.

There’s a bit of irony in that, too. I’d spent the week before chasing AI updates. But the thing that really got me thinking differently was a room full of people.

One small experiment: narrow your feed and widen your world

So what can you do to keep up and stay inspired at the same time? Keeping up with AI needs a short, targeted list, so we narrow things deliberately. And inspiration needs a wide net. It’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland if you think about it: one bottle to make you smaller and one cake to make you bigger.

First, narrow it down. Take a look at where your AI news comes from at the moment: newsletters, podcasts, LinkedIn, a colleague who is really on the ball. Which sources actually help you make sense of things and which just add to the pile? Keep the useful ones and give yourself permission to mute the rest for now.

Then, widen it out. Some time in the next few weeks you could try one thing that takes you outside your usual world. For example:

• Meet up with a non-PR friend and find out more about what they do and what they like about their work at the moment
• Go to an event that’s adjacent to your day job rather than at the centre of it and start some different conversations
• Steal from a different industry: pick a sector you know nothing about (architecture, farming, Formula 1 - that’s my list for starters!) and spend 20 minutes finding out how they solve a problem you also have

After choosing to do any of these, a good question to ask yourself is: what did I notice that I wouldn’t have spotted at my desk?

The AI Pentathlon

Returning to keeping up with AI, you won’t want to miss out on the replay of the most recent Big Fish Training webinar. Michael MacLennan was our guest and he walked us through an “AI Pentathlon” that pitched eight tools against one another and assessed their ability to handle five real comms tasks. The results were eye-opening, and not necessarily in the way you might expect!

You can watch the replay here.

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