In just a few weeks we’ll be flipping the calendar and ushering in a new year. This means many news outlets will not only begin to reflect on the major news of 2013, but will also start to project major trends and news stories to watch in 2014.
Beyond being a generally interesting read, the projection stories can be useful in helping to build out your pitch calendar for the year. I like to think of them as PR Cliff’s Notes—a condensed version of major trends, news and events expected in various industries for the next 12 months.
Between now and the end of January, I scour various news outlets to see what the experts are saying about a range of topics—higher education, technology, healthcare, politics, foreign affairs—and then I plug topics related to faculty expertise into my pitch calendar, so I don’t forget major news opportunities. Doing so has helped me be proactive in my outreach and prevented the faculty I’ve worked with from being left out of stories that align perfectly with their scholarship areas.
Here are a few recent articles with 2014 projections that have implications for higher education and faculty experts:
- The Economist – “The World In 2014”
- Forbes – “The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends that Will Dominate 2014”
- USA Today – “14 political races to watch in 2014”
- NASDAQ.com – “10 Huge Technology Stories to Watch in 2014, Part 1”
Other things to keep in mind for early in 2014 include the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first album (Jan. 10), the 30th anniversary of the first Macintosh Apple computers (Jan. 21), the 25th anniversary of the death of Salvador Dali (Jan. 23), and the Winter Olympics (Feb. 7 – 23), to name just a few.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for other big stories to watch and will post them on our blog and out Twitter accounts in the coming weeks. We’d love to see what you find as well!