Mel: [00:00:00] If you're working in any sector right now, you might be wondering where the future of your profession lies.

With global trust levels plummeting, AI use and development skyrocketing, and the world order as we know it being flipped on its head, nobody is immune to change. So we all need to think carefully and deeply about how we can future-proof our careers, including what skills we'll need to build and what skills we might need to let go of.t

And for communication professionals, we should already be well and truly on that path. But if you're not yet, or you're still feeling a little lost, or maybe you just want to validate that you're on the right track, then the next two episodes are for you. Because I interviewed a person who is at the very forefront of what's happening in the communication profession, and he spilled the beans.

Introducing Adrian Cropley. Apart from being just a jolly good human, Adrian is a global leader in strategic communication, co-founder of the Centre for Strategic [00:01:00] Communication Excellence, and a director on the board of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management. The Alliance brings together representatives from all different comms and PR associations from around the world.

With more than thirty-five years experience, Adrian has advised organisations worldwide on change, leadership communication, reputation, and culture. He is also a past global chair of the International Association of Business Communicators and a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia. He is also a recognised advocate for responsible AI, helping organisations to harness emerging technologies while building trust, engagement, and measurable business outcomes.

We had such a long and juicy chat that we've decided to split it across two episodes. So today is part one of this two-part series with Adrian. In the first half of our conversation, we covered things like the ethics of AI-powered bots, the big waves of [00:02:00] technology change we've already experienced in the comms profession, the AI slop problem, and treating AI as a stakeholder.

It's a conversation filled with loads of gold nuggets from Adrian's incredible brain and experiences. So let's get into it. Here's Adrian

Adrian Cropley, welcome to the show.

Adrian: Thanks for having me, Mel. It's great to be joining you.

Mel: I am so excited because, you know I'm a long time fan of yours.

But before we kick off, can you tell our listeners a little bit about you? Who are you? What do you do? How did you come to develop your expertise in this space?

Adrian: Ah, excellent. Thanks, Mel. Well, um, so Adrian Cropley. I'm from Melbourne, Australia. Uh, but have been in the communications profession for over 35 years now, so you know, I'm feeling kind of old being in this one.

Mel: Aren't we all?

Adrian: But but I tell you what, you reinvent yourself as you're going, uh, going along in a, in a career. But I, I started out in, in [00:03:00] comms in, uh, a company called Ericsson in, in technology. Well, and technology back then was a telephone. Um, so it's, uh, uh, we've evolved from there. But I, I was one of the first people to be in internal communication.

So it was at, at a time when, you know, nobody knew what, uh, uh, internal comms was. Um, so there was a handful of us around the world that was really pioneering in this space of internal comms. I built the first strategy for Ericsson in Australia, and that went on to, uh, to inform the strategy for Ericsson globally.

So I, I got tagged with, "If this is wrong, it's all your fault." Um But, but we're really kind of just jumping into what is this all about. And, and it was in those early days we realised that communication is not just about writing the, the blooming newsletter. And you and I have had these conversations ad nauseam about the, uh, uh, the value that we give as communication professionals.

So I've been, uh, you know, [00:04:00] as I said, in the profession for, for many years. Um, I've been involved with IABC. I was global chair of IABC, and I was talking to somebody, it's about 15 years ago now that I-

Mel: Oh, really? ... was doing that. It does, it only feels like yesterday, but, uh- You still look just as young.

Adrian: Oh, thank you, darling.

I'm gonna take every compliment I can get. And hopefully the video's not showing the wrinkles too many times. Ah. But, um, I'm now actually, uh, on the board of the Global Alliance for, for Public Relations and Communication Management. So it was, um, you know, you move from the association world into basically the federation of all associations globally.

And, and I tell you what, that's quite, quite exciting. So I, I run, um, and, uh, co-partner the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence with my lovely partner, Sia Papageorgiou, who you've met. Um, and, uh, we now have a, a global- um, network of communication professionals, which you are part of, [00:05:00] and I'm loving it.

Um, and so we-

Mel: I'm loving learning, being able to be in a position where I can learn from you and Sia and all those amazing people, so, um- I,

Adrian: I tell you what, you, you, you know, you, you put your little wishlist out there and, uh, and every time you end up working with somebody like yourself and you go, "Oh, that's somebody I've always wanted to work with."

Um, and Sia and I were like that. Now, many, many years ago we spoke at a conference, um, oh my gosh, it has to be 20 years ago. And, uh, and said, "Hey, one day we should work together." And, and we ended up running a business together. Hey. So that's, that was, was joyful times. Um, so why in this space now? It's really interesting because, you know, the, uh, we're gonna dig into to AI a little bit later, but, um, the reality is we keep changing as a profession, and I've gone through a number of changes as, as you have.

Um, and I've seen how our profession has transformed over many years. Um, [00:06:00] so we jumped on early in the AI journey, and when I say early, I mean, AI's been around since the, the mid-'50s, right? Yeah. But nobody really had it on the radar apart from, you know, the Terminator and those types of things until, um, until 2023 when ChatGPT became a thing.

Mm. And then suddenly, ooh, AI is here. But we had started doing research in the centre in 2017, looking at here is this thing that is coming, how are we preparing for it? So I've been fortunate enough to, to always want to look at where, how we're evolving in the AI space. So we started, uh, an AI forum in the, the centre a couple of years ago, certainly when ChatGPT hit, um, for comms people to get really comfortable about dealing in the space of, of AI.

Mm. Um, and now I, I'm... One of my, my key passions is working in this area of responsible AI governance, uh, [00:07:00] ethics, which I never thought would pass my lips as something exciting.

Mel: I know, right? I remember doing journalism ethics in, you know, 101 25 years ago or something and just thinking, "Oh my God, this is- This is dragging me through the over the coals and then some.

But now it's just such a... I think what I've developed as a communicator over the last 25 years is a real risk lens, and so that for me is where that ethics part comes in. Mm-hmm. Is, uh, and I'm doing a little bit of research at the moment too around, well, what are people comfortable with using AI- Yes ... for, and what are they not comfortable with?

Um, an example I use is, uh, I was ringing up to cancel an appointment with my physio and, uh, I spoke to a bot to do that. Yeah. And they'd recorded the voice of one of their team members, so it sounded legit, but yeah, they were very clear that it was a AI tool and rah, rah, rah. Um, and I was able to cancel the appointment without actually speaking to a human, which I'm okay with because that's an awkward chat.

I hate having having to cancel appointments. It's like three hours to cancel. Yeah. [00:08:00] So I was like, that got me thinking, "Okay, if I'm c- I'm comfortable with that, but I'm not comfortable with talking to a robot in other instances."

Adrian: Yeah.

Mel: So where are lines here of, of ethics and, and comfort? And,

Adrian: and, and one of the important things you just said there is y- you understood it was a bot.

Mm. Um, you know, uh, there's so many people are having or had experiences talking to a bot, and you wouldn't have a clue. And I mean, in fact, the first time I talked to a bot was with my owner's corporation company, who really don't want to speak to owners with complaints- ... and things like that. So they've got the bot there.

Uh, and the bot answers as if it is a real person, and then you kind of go, "Yeah, this is not a real person." So you go, "Can I speak to a real person?" And the bot replied, "I'm offended that you think I'm not a real person." And I was mortified because I went, "It is clearly you are a bot, but now you're trying to mislead me in understanding that you are a bot."

But- I, I call it the [00:09:00] gatekeeper bot 'cause this one, it didn't matter what you said, how you said it, it would not put you through to a person. And it says, "I can, I can take a record and somebody will call you back," and nobody ever called you back.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Adrian: So you would get into this endless loop with this bot, and I'm going, "You know, that's convenient to organisations that don't actually want to talk to you."

Mel: Mm-hmm, yep, 100%. And it'll be really interesting to see where they draw the line too, because clearly your owner's corporation just went, "Let's just outsource this to a robot completely- ... 'cause it's too hard." Uh, but I have found with the, um, with the physio I'm talking about, if you ring to make an appointment, you still talk to a person.

Yeah. And maybe they've decided that's part of their customer journey and those sorts of things, um, as well. But anyway, we'll, we'll get more into that in a moment. We'll get into that. We've jumped ahead. I'm

Adrian: excited, we jumped straight in.

Mel: I know. But I'd love to do a bit of a history lesson- Mm ... because you did talk about the, you know, you've seen a lot of changes over the years.

Can you give us some of the ideas of [00:10:00] the big shifts we've already seen? Because I do think people forget, we have faced big change before. You know, none of

Adrian: this- Yeah ...

Mel: big change is not new in our profession. So what have you seen?

Adrian: Uh, you know, it's funny 'cause you and I both get excited about change, and most people look at us and go, "Oh, you guys, you geeks."

You love change." Um, but you know, you... I mean, if anybody looks at their career about how their workplace has evolved over the years because of big change, um... And, and, and, and let's go back. You know, I'm not gonna go back to desk phones first coming about. Um, uh, that was just slightly after my time, I'd like to say.

But, you know, I was in the workplace when computers first came about, and in fact, my first job, and this is going back a number of years, um, was working in a computer room. So to power what you would usually power on your mobile phone today was this massive room with lots of equipment and, and, you know, gadgets and spinning tapes and prints printing out.

Um, that was my first job. [00:11:00] Um, and it was this evolution now of, of computing. So computing where you could have them on your desk, and I remember having conversations with people that said, "You know, one day, we're gonna be mobile with these things," and I'm going, "I'm not sure I could be carrying one of these big monitors around," and this great big box that has all your computing in it.

But of course- That it just absolutely changed everything that we did, and particularly communication. Because y- you see the things like advent of email, for instance, um, and suddenly it was the only channel people wanted to use 'cause suddenly

Mel: we could- Yeah, and still do sometimes ... and

Adrian: still do. Isn't it sad?

Mel: Yes. That's...

Adrian: Um, it's like, "Get off email." Uh, but it's y- you know, it's that whole, whole thing around, okay, I don't need to hand write and put things in envelopes that go around the company, and then you would sign that you'd seen it or read it and, and things like that. And I remember going through this where people were quite excited [00:12:00] about the change, but they were still resistant because of the journey of learning- Mm-hmm

this new technology. And I tell you what, the learning curves were quite steep then. Um, so we have that. Then the advent of the, the internet. Um, and I do remember the first thing that the company did, and I wa- I was very fortunate because I was starting the internal comms function at the time that the internet came in.

Um, and I brought in the, the internet people, not the technical side of it, but the people that were exploring and using the internet. And I r- remember one of my, um, colleagues... I was... Again, one of those moments where it was, "I really wanna work with you." And we went, "Okay, me too." 'Cause she was working in this, what we called events technology, which was exploring the internet and how we could use it.

So we brought it straight into internal comms to say there's... And we already saw this, that there's going to be a, a steep learning curve. People are gonna have to learn how to use this internet, [00:13:00] but there's gonna be some governance in there because what is it they're gonna do with it? Mm. Because sadly, the first thing people went to in the internet

It's not hard to make the guess where they went. It was porn sites.

Mel: Of course it was.

Adrian: Um, so of course we as an organisation go, "Oh my God, we can't let people have this. They're going to be looking at porn." Um- And of course they were the first things that went onto the internet in terms of content. Yeah.

Right? But that, that balance between the education, the using of the technology and, and, and that governance that went around that very early was really important, and I think we captured that quite well, 'cause it was kind of a scary moment. But then we flip forward another 10 years, if that, um, before we saw, um, social media.

Mel: Mm. I

Adrian: mean, well-

Mel: How... I mean, that changed relationships. It changed everything.

Adrian: It changed absolutely everything- Mm ... and the way that we did things. So you've got stuff happening at real time, [00:14:00] communication that is going out there constantly on so many platforms, and this is where we moved from, certainly as a, a profession, from being the controller of communication to, to basically being the facilitator or the- Mm

um, you know, the guide when it came to communication, 'cause people were off doing it. But I think this is where we get a huge lesson for us, is we were so late to the party. Um- Mm ... because so many of us, and, and I think I was included in, in, in the early days, is this resistance to going, "It's just a fad.

It's just a trend. It's just..." But of course these channels took off and, and it certainly democratised, um, uh, information flow. So suddenly you've got these people using it. But as a profession, we were so late to the party that governance and, and, I don't wanna say control, but, but understanding and being able to navigate that technology, we were late to.

Mm. [00:15:00] Now, people again resisted it, um, but eventually said, "Oh, yes, so this is part of our mix. This is what we do with, with, um-" With our work in communication, and we started seeing those specialists arrive in social media and, uh, and so on. Um, so this is not new. But here's the thing, and it's, it's... I've, I've only been reflecting on it since I knew you and you and I were going to be talking, is that internet came in and we went into fear and went, "Right, well, how do we control that?"

Social media was kind of blissful ignorance, um, and we won't get involved with it, and then it got out of hand, and look what it's doing in our day today. Mm.

Mel: Especially with young people.

Adrian: Miscommunication is rampant, of, of misinformation, disinformation. Mm. Now we're amping that up when it comes to, to AI.

And yes, the same behaviors are there. There's some people resisting it, some people stepping into it. We've got our early adopters. All of those things that, you know, we talk about in, in change. Um- [00:16:00] But it's not new. No. We've gone through these change before, and we will survive it, but we've got to adapt, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, you know, one of my favourite books, you know, and you're probably gonna ask me this later, was Who Moved My Cheese?

Mel: Oh, yes, yeah. Yeah. John Cotter? Yeah. Just

Adrian: love that one. I love, I love those, uh, parables. Yes. Um, and it's, it's... We have to learn to adapt to find what's next for us as communication professionals.

So-

Mel: Mm.

Adrian: Bit of history there. Yeah. It's not new though.

Mel: That's it. And I do wonder too, because I think also social media got to a point where people were just so overwhelmed, and there was, there are so many social media platforms, that there are people just going, "I don't want another one for work." Right. "I don't want, I don't, I don't wanna have to deal with another one."

Yes. Um, and you know, I am seeing some people just turn off completely off social media or really minimise it down to, you know, Instagram and LinkedIn or something like that. Yeah. Um, and one of [00:17:00] the things I'm wondering about AI and communication as well is at what point do we get sick of seeing the AI generated stuff?

You know- Sure ... the, f- like, the AI slop is already... I mean, we're already sick of that. But I'm, you know, thinking about company driven comms, like- Yeah ... you know, videos and whatever it might be. When it's so obvious that it's AI, do you just tune out? And are we kind of... I'm trying to think of the word. It's almost cannibalising ourselves in that, in that respect, right?

Like-

Adrian: Yep ...

Mel: I'm trying to un- I'm trying to figure out where's the line for us where we just go, "Enough." Mm. "I just wanna talk to a human being."

Adrian: Yeah.

Mel: And know that this email was written by a human being-

Adrian: Mm ...

Mel: rather than be inundated with this AI stuff.

Adrian: And, you know, and, and it's an interesting topic, Mel, because th- there's a couple of schools of thought around this one.

Um, but I'm gonna use the analogy of having a glass of orange juice. Mm. So you've got pure orange juice. Absolutely lovely. Love the flavour of [00:18:00] it. Uh, i- it's terrific, but there's purity in it. Um, but if we don't want it too strong, we add a little bit of water, um, and it dilutes it a little bit, and we add a bit more, and it dilutes it more.

The problem with, with AI, and this is what I see, and I said we're in a lucky generation because we were producing content before AI. Mm. So if AI is becoming very vanilla in the way that it expresses, and yes, you can tell when things are AI written, um, we start adapting to this blandness in the language without the human.

So what we're starting to do is dilute. So all content moving forward has been diluted. Mm. So where did that richness come from again? So we're lucky because we've got that richness. Now, why, why is that important? Um, and I was, I was working on something the other day, is I want to teach AI- To use my kind of tone, language, words, right?

Mm-hmm. Now, it's [00:19:00] never going to be coming up with the analogies that are in your head and the stories, and I think this is why story and narrative is, is, is just so important. But you can get it to a stage where it is actually talking very much like you by using the examples that you've got. Mm-hmm. What I worry for is down the track when there is no longer those examples of authentic-

Mel: That's true.

Adrian: You've, you've

Mel: got nothing to compare to.

Adrian: And that's, that's the problem. So now is actually quite good 'cause we're in a, in a phase of teaching AI, and what we do is go, "Yeah, that sounds too much like AI. Let's teach it a little bit more." So you look at some of the, the, um, larger language modules like ChatGPT or Claude now, and they've got these skills, so you can teach it to do certain things.

You can say, "Here is examples of my work. Please understand my tone." And I'm, I... In fact, I'm, I'm flying to Malaysia at the end of the week and I'm talking about brand, um In, in, in a conference. And very much [00:20:00] one of the activities that I'm doing is identify what is written by AI and what is not. 'Cause we all say we can identify it, um, and I can tell you I, I took the test 'cause I put together this, this, this test, and AI helped me with it.

Um, and it's... When you go through it, you actually, uh, you get about 50% right what is AI and what is not, 'cause it's a really good mimic-

Mel: Mm ...

Adrian: of things. But it's that essence of humanity that then differentiates between what's written by AI, uh, because that personal experience is not there. Um, so- Yeah

there's that imperfection. There's the things that, you know, make it real. And I, and I think that's where we've, we've got to be very, very careful when it comes to, to, to AI moving forward. And this is why I'm really passionate about things like responsible AI and governance because if you think about what happened in the era of [00:21:00] social media, today's communication landscape is absolutely fraught with lying as just an acceptable thing.

Yeah. Misinformation's fine. Fake is fine. And if you th- and if it is real and you call it fake, that's fine too. Yeah. Right? And that worries me greatly because we're losing control of trust.

Mel: Mm. And, and, like, that's at the core of it, right? Like, what we do as communicators is actually we build trust in people, we build trust in brands, we build trust in the sectors that we work, and it goes out and out and out.

Um, and that can be hard to do. Like, I think it's harder than ever to do that with all- Yeah ... this stuff just lying around. And now, you know, more people are using tools like Google Gemini, um, ChatGPT, Claude as search engines. Yeah. But of course those search engines are rifling through Reddit and Glassdoor and, you know, all these sorts of things that are not curated, not [00:22:00] moderated, not checked- Mm

not verified, but it's just pulling that content. And, um, I was actually talking to Bonnie Caver about this a couple weeks ago on the, on the show. We talked about how you need to treat AI as a stakeholder because it's- Yeah ... sharing information about you. Yeah. Is it true?

Adrian: Yes.

Mel: How do you, and how do you manage that?

Like, that's a whole other piece we've h- we need to consider now.

Adrian: Oh, uh, uh, absolutely, and it's, you know... What, what concerns me the m- the most is people put it down to, "Oh, AI is hallucinating." Well, how much is AI hallucinating to it going to sources of information that is actually not correct, right? Mm-hmm.

Um, and there was ... It's really funny 'cause- I don't know whether anybody's tried this. I mean, y- you remember when Google first came out and everybody Googled their name to see what it said about them? Yes. Now you can kinda AI your name. Yeah. Um, give, give a, give a history, give, give, give facts about you so they're only facts that you should know about yourself.

And I tried that one, and [00:23:00] the amount of facts that were wrong was unbelievable. And I went, "Where is it getting this from?" So you go back to your old research methods like Google. And go back and find, find stuff, and you realise that somebody's made an error, um, and put a wrong date and, or things like that.

And I go, "Nah, that's where it's picking the data from." Mm. So it's so important to have the correct facts out there for AI to come back, 'cause it may not be AI that's hallucinating. It may be AI- Mm ... is actually pulling from sources that is already wrong.

Mel: Yeah, exactly. And again, looking at that risk lens and reputation lens, we go, "Okay, well, is part of our job now to go hunting down those sources that are wrong-" Mm

and then trying to correct the record, you know- Yep ... after the, after the fact? Are we too late to the party? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Um, but this does lead me to my next question. I mean, let's, let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Adrian: Mm-hmm.

Mel: Is AI going to [00:24:00] take our jobs as communicators?

And on that question, well, that's where we'll wrap up part one of our conversation with Adrian this week. Make sure you tune back in next Thursday for part two, where we'll get stuck into more of the impact of AI on our roles, and Adrian outlines the key skills professional communicators need to develop.

By the way, speaking of AI, I'm currently doing some research, and I would love your help. There's a link in the show notes to a short survey I'm running to get more insights into the AI use we're comfortable with and not comfortable with. Your responses are anonymous and treated confidentially, and I'd love to hear from as many of you as possible.

And of course, in a future episode, I'll share the insights of that research. But in the meantime, keep doing amazing things, and bye for now