Industry 4.0 a new challenge for communication

by Raul Bou

It´s a fact that the Industry 4.0, the concept of the smart factory, is already here, and I´m not talking only about the north-central European countries, like for example Germany where the concept was developed. Other countries have been striving themselves to be in the top of nations ready for the Industry 4.0, to implement it in their respective Industries, like Singapore, US, Japan, other European and Asian countries, etc..

Image from Wikipedia

​But that´s not the main point of this entry. I realized during these last months, being involved directly or by other resources, that´s is becoming an important point on how to communicate, and is becoming one of the most influential points to use in advertising, exhibitions, and naturally in almost any communication tool. It´s becoming a call-to-action for a lot of industry related companies.

Imagine yourself trying to show yourself like the best developer and innovator during the 1st Industrial revolution, and how to sell that concept that merely changed it everything forever. Nowadays we have internet and a lot of related tools that help the communication on this century, computers, smartphones, Apps, Social media, and tons of more concepts and tools that the communicators we need to be aware for any possible action. The grow for the upcoming years for that tools due to the IoT (Internet of Things, a must for the Industry 4.0) is overwhelming.

Image from History Channel

​For the communicators, the challenge comes to how to show yourself like "trust" innovator for the smart manufacturing. It´s something that is not tangible to explain with an image or a simple concept, I mean is not physic, the 1st was the steam revolution, 2nd mass production, 3rd automation, but now is interconnectivity, accessibility, CC (Cognitive Computing, AI). It means that now to generate a decent buzz or impact is needed to push yourself more, and that is the real challenge, the interesting point.

I had seen already several companies doing advertising about the Industry 4.0 easily, showing futuristic robots, androids, or any SciFi characters, just trying to show a modern image when the automation and robotics (in the last step) implementation was the 3rd revolution. I know that´s is the simple way to show it, but my main thought is if it´s the correct one. I´m sure that we will see in a close future so exciting communication actions regarding this topic, where the communicators will strive themselves to show it in impressive ways. And the most exciting point is that is an almost an unexplored field of the communication, I´m going to need to push myself, and I´m sure that it will come thrilling campaigns and actions.