As communicators, there is obvious fascination with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement – so much so, that it became the focus of several discussion, among many other topics, during last week’s annual PRWeek NEXT Conference. Below are some themes and thoughts that emerged.

Overstock.com CEO and founder Patrick Byrne observed that the OWS movement is leaderless and suffers from a “message vacuum. It needs to get back on message. Right now it is just becoming a pool of discontent.” Janet Rolle, EVP & CMO at CNN, and Terrence Samuel, deputy national political editor from The Washington Post, concur. Rolle pointed out that “[OWS] has no clear definition of the antagonist and no clear message of what they are trying to enact or change.” Samuel observed that the initial story was a “rag-tag gathering of intense grievances but now the story is that it’s not going away.” He posited that it was “better that it wasn’t covered by mainstream media [initially] because that allowed it to become a huge social media frenzy.”

When the topic shifted to information and influence, much discussion naturally centered around online communication. Peter Rojas, co-founder of Gizmodo and gdgt, noted that the Internet has really brought a “democratization of authority and a fragmentation of influence.” This has allowed anyone to access the “collective wisdom of this community.” So, as he explained, even if your friends are not into whatever subject you are, you still have the ability to “tap into actual user experts.” No longer is communication just about reporting, but the online community is “helping people figure out what to buy and how to use it. It is a very positive community, not just fighting it out on news stories.” Yet, Bill Holstein, president of the Overseas Press Club remarked, “the advent of online has brought about a decline in quality and standards.” This is likely central to the fact that consumers now need to see a story four, five or more times before they believe it.

The topic of democratization of information and news was central to the speech by Dan Abrams, legal analyst for ABC News. “Mainstream media no longer dictates what the public gets to see. Consumers have more of a say in the brand now – brands are a democracy, not a dictatorship.” And, CNN’s Rolle agreed. “Brand is the most overused word in the English language. A brand is a tribute that is paid to you by consumers. The emotional relationship between you and consumers is the brand.”

When the future of tablets took over discussions, Gizmodo’s Rojas felt that the tablet’s “place” is still settling out. “While smartphones are ‘out and about’ and laptops are about work, the tablet can be just anywhere. It has people engaging in different ways. For example, tweeting reactions while watching TV, shopping in real time as something is viewed elsewhere.” The long-term challenge as marketers figure out how to capitalize on the tablet is to see where it lands – is it a personal device, like a smartphone, or a shared device, like a PC? Is it more in-home or equally out-of-home? In a similar vein, Duane Bray, a partner at IDEO, observed, “the distinction between online and offline is really going away, consumers don’t think that way anymore.” The tablet will likely contribute greatly to that, as the smartphone already has, allowing simultaneous online and offline interaction. Witness folks tweeting about conferences while attending and following others' comments and threads – online interaction supporting offline activities.

How consumers are being communicated to by brands, and the distinctions between owned, earned and paid media, comprised a good portion of the event. Simon Lowden, CMO of Pepsi Beverages Co., declared to the room of PR professionals that “The 30-second ad is here to stay, but US consumers don’t trust it anymore.” This has contributed to Pepsi looking at its marketing not as TV-centric, but as idea-centric – and not as control, but as collaboration. Sean Cochrane, senior analyst at Forrester Research, reported that “in 2009, 500 billion word-of-mouth impressions were made by people to other people. WOM is now a trackable earned media.” But with the advent of online communication and networks like Twitter, “six percent of adults create 80 percent of conversations; so short-term data needs to be balanced with long-term measurement.” We need to be careful not to rush to judgment when relying solely on very short-term topics and trends.

Where is this all headed? Forrester tells us that mobile is the next big battleground for agencies. But, as yet another form of communication in this increasingly blurred world of online and offline, it only makes sense that public relations and communications professionals take the lead. Carry on!

--Cici Gordon, Senior Brand Strategist