Ellen Gunning
People often ask where did the idea for Mettacomms came from. It’s a great question. In this blog, I’ll try to explain the birth of this awesome idea!!
Communications Background
My background and expertise is firmly rooted in the world of PR. I’ve been working in the industry for 30+ years now. I’m a happy communications geek. I‘m fascinated by how people communicate, what they choose to say, and how they choose to say it, or show it or communicate it.
Because I’ve written the core text in PR that is studied around the world (Public Relations, a practical approach -Macmillan London, 2018) I am regularly invited to speak at conferences, internationally. I love travel – so no hardship there!
When I travel, I am usually alone and generally look to find others working in PR, in that same geographic area, that I could meet for coffee and a chat to find out what is happening in their part of the world. I also love learning!
When Covid struck, my travelling, obviously, ground to a halt. Because I had more time, I began to wonder about what I was learning and, specifically, if there were any common threads, globally, which I could identify in the industry.
Identifying the Industry Challenge
There were two. The first was the lack of sufficient time/hours in the day (that is not specific to PR, it’s across all industries I believe). The second was the volume and speed of data and the challenge of finding the relevant insights from all of the information available.
I began to think about this, and the wider question of how consumer purchasing patterns had changed over the years. I realised that there are a lot of tools currently available which will explain consumer behaviour and give PR professionals access to good data, but there is nothing available which can give you sight of the future. No one can tell you what consumers are likely to be concerned about in 5-, 10- or 15-years’ time.
Birth of Mettacomms
Once I figured out what we needed, and how it would be used, I assembled a brilliant technical team that could design and build the product. It’s been a phenomenal learning curve. I’m still in the communications industry – but now I’m in Comms Tech.
This is the first platform ever built, with PR knowledge and expertise, for the PR industry, by a tech company. What a thrill!
