We only have to peek into the maw of the network of networks to find enough predictions of what will or will not be the year in our sector. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter, because no one is going to check who said what and if it was accurate or not. We are that bold. We don’t have a crystal ball either, and I don’t think that’s the goal. We try, to the best of our ability, to recreate the context in which we believe our activity will develop throughout the year that is beginning, but from there to making a plenary session, there is an abyss.
What are the challenges of 2025?
Every year, at comma we pose this beautiful riddle as a tradition to kick off our blog as the days begin. For this year, we believe that communication agencies will have to face three important challenges:
Assumption of AI.
The past year has been a year of intense debate about how artificial intelligence will impact our work. The debate will not cease but it is true that the assumption, uses and applications of AI in our day to day lives is becoming evident. The key, for Comma, is twofold. On the one hand, not only we do not deny but we are in favor of its use as a tool to support and help in different processes (especially those that have little added value but subtract a lot of work such as reports, reports, evaluations, etc.) And, on the other hand, the importance of experience and knowledge to avoid falling into the homogenization of results and projects. Our value is now more important than ever as it will make the difference with those consulting firms that only focus on the primary results of AI assistants.
Concentration of firms to gain size.
Size seems to be more in focus than ever. Quite a few acquisitions and mergers materialized in 2024. Customers are looking to unify their communication services in a single provider so that they do not have to use resources to manage different teams. Although it may seem contradictory, at the same time, it will increase the value of those small and very specialized companies so that they have a premium service for very specific and high quality tasks. Working with these boutiques will be a hallmark of distinction in itself.
Labor flexibility and productivity.
With the reduction of working hours that seems to be starting soon and the increasing demand for 100% remote jobs, the debate is still on the table about the need or not of the presence or not: advantages, disadvantages, opportunities… Hybrid models are still the most numerous, but there are more than a few consulting firms that are questioning whether productivity is not being affected too much and insisting on the need to return to the office every day and feeling that the essence that made them their trademark is being lost.
Two commitments for 2025
This time, if you will allow us, in addition to this brief approach to what we believe will be some of the keys to the year ahead, we propose two commitments that we want to consolidate over the next 365 days.
Taking care of words
Be impeccable with your words’. This is the first of the 4 agreements determined by Dr. Miguel Ruiz based on Toltec wisdom. In his book, The 4 Agreements, Ruíz already advances that it is one of the most difficult to fulfill, but it is tremendously powerful. I believe so. According to the RAE, Impeccable means “exempt from blemish” (correct, irreproachable, neat, spotless…) and “incapable of sinning”. Through our words we manifest, create or destroy… Depending on how we use them, they will liberate or enslave us. In a world as infoxicated as the one we live in, in which content is reverberated without limits, without conscience, without shame… this commitment becomes even more imperative if possible. But not only outwardly, but also inwardly, being aware of how we use words with ourselves. In this sense, Ruiz points out in her book that “the amount of love you feel for yourself is directly proportional to the quality and integrity of your words”. Therefore, she adds: “use your words appropriately”.
Words are magic, they are power, they have a life of their own. In 1994 the Japanese alternative writer and physician, Masaru Emoto, author of Messages from Water, showed an experiment (reviled and considered pseudoscientific) in which he exposed water to different words (he also did it with music and drawings) AND that, once frozen, the aesthetics of the resulting crystals – photographed microscopically – varied considerably if these were positive or negative words (or dissonant music or unpleasant drawings).
Whether Emoto’s evidence is questionable or not, we have all experienced firsthand how words impact us. A few days ago, during lunch, talking to a colleague, he told me that his team had already been told that the year ahead was going to be “very complicated”. I was alarmed and asked him if they were having problems. No,” he replied, “not at all”. Then I asked him: “Do you mean that it is going to be a year of challenges, of reinvention, of projects? He confirmed that he did and it was then that I asked him to be aware of the words he was using to convey what he really wanted because the message I had perceived had nothing to do with what he wanted to say and thought he was conveying to me.
But make no mistake. I am not talking about magic. Saying “that’s a lie” is not the same as saying “that’s not true”. It is not the same to say “we are in danger” as to say “we are in a complicated situation”. You can do a little exercise. Notice what feeling comes over you when you hear the word ‘CRISIS’. What did you feel? Nerves, anxiety, nothing…? Obviously, not all of us perceive in the same way, but we can (and should, especially those of us who are dedicated to communication) be aware of the raw material we are working with.
I sometimes have discussions with my team because they reproach me for always having the dictionary in my hand. I just try to convey to them that each word has an intrinsic power of which we must be aware, because sometimes we can achieve a different effect than the one we are looking for. Words should not be used in vain.
And it is not about manipulation but about being impeccable in our words. Buddha said: ” Watch your thoughts, for they will become your words. Watch your words, for they will become your actions. Watch your actions, for they will become your habits. Watch your habits, for they will become your destiny.”
Responsibility
A few days ago Ignacio Jiménez Soler wrote an article on his Substack channel about what communication is not. We invited him to our podcast El elefante verde to talk about it, but I think it also comes up in this corner especially for one of the points of his text, when he says that he understands communication “as a tool that promotes transparency and good governance from within organizations; as a vehicle for direct connection with the public, occupying the massive space, the information mainstream, only when there is content of value“.
I underline this last sentence because it seems to me fundamental: “when there is content of value“. How much noise are we collaborating to generate? How much infoxication is also part of our responsibility? The debate in his Linkedin post was wide-ranging and the references to the role that we communication agents play in this regard, recurrent. It should not be that quantity outweighs quality.
And here, colleagues, we have to make a mea culpa. Look inward and analyze if everything we send, create, cure… is really valuable. To do a self-analysis of our authority. There are moments in which it is appropriate to say: “no”, without blushing, without fear, without complexes. Because it is this unnecessary excess that collaborates, to a great extent, in that pandemic that, silently and without vaccine, is spreading like a great grease stain in the ocean of everyday life: misinformation.
So we face the new year, rather than guessing what will happen, setting the framework in which comma intends to move this year. And it makes no difference whether we start with one or the other, because each is a consequence of the other.
Welcome 2025!
