Archives: Articles

At the time of writing, it is T-minus 12 hours until Apple CEO Tim Cook takes to the stage of the brand new Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino to proudly unveil the company’s newest lineup of iPhones. It has been ten years since Apple’s first imagining of the smartphone which, without doubt, revolutionised the way… Read More

In preparing a presentation for a recent PRIA Queensland event on the topic of how data is transforming the PR jobs of the future, it dawned on me that my education and career, across a range of communication disciplines, has mirrored the rise of the internet of things. The 90s delivered not just the Internet’s… Read More

Automation, robots, and sentience. Could a robot do your job? Your lover? Yes. (Google it yourself) But never mind that, what’s your favourite robot movie? Starting with Chris Airey, our resident multimedia guru, we ask some of the Rowland team what their favourite robot movie is, why, and, if there is any serious message or… Read More

Are we chasing the sexy things when we set about crafting smart cities? In this post, I will explore a few city ideas that are more show than go, and consider some alternatives. Smart and sexy rarely go together. Before you get too excited, yes, there are hundreds and thousands of examples of smart and sexy… Read More

We’re proud that work experience or an internship at Rowland is a sought-after gig. We love meeting some of the next gen of communicators, and giving them some real-life insights into the world of strategic communication. Bryn Moffatt, currently studying at UQ, shares his experience of his time at Rowland recently. My time doing work… Read More

We’re loving the new series of ABC’s Utopia, especially last week’s take on the smart city movement. It seems every city in Australia is talking the smart city talk, but how many are turning talk into action? We decided to glance around the globe to see how other cities have progressed with their plans. Unfortunately… Read More

You know those virtual help-desk pop-ups so many Facebook pages and websites seem to be using these days – ‘live chat’ at your fingertips? There’s been much interest in chat bots of late, and increasing use by company websites as a customer service salve. At Rowland, we’ve been dabbling in natural language processing to understand text and sentiment… Read More

For many, the writing, collation and production of an Annual Report can be a testing time — checking, double-checking, treble-checking the numbers and data before going to print or more commonly hosting the report online. As we continue to see a trend towards digital Annual Reports, the opportunity to derive data and insights from web… Read More

The annual report is a powerful touchpoint in sharing your brand story. While they remain an important tool for reporting on the financial performance of your business, this doesn’t mean they have to be boring. In fact annual reports can showcase just how engaging and innovative your company is. Over the past few years, annual… Read More

For me, the arrival of winter conjures daydreams of snow holidays, leather boots, warm coats and scarves — so many scarves! But, when the weather starts to cool, my thoughts also go to the 105,000 Australians experiencing homelessness. At the end of each day I go home to a roof over my head, a home-cooked… Read More