As an industry, communication practitioners have reason to feel reassured. Reassured by today’s opportunities, and in turn, reassured by the true thought leaders who are every day working to secure the comms industry’s future as a critically important function in business.

This week we celebrated 25 years of AMEC, the International Association of Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, a global body which cares more about championing the cause and shifting the discussion, than arguably any other organisation.

Truescope CEO John Croll recently spoke to Johna Burke, the Global MD of AMEC in a recent edition of Truescope Talks, and when asked about the future of where measurement is headed, she replied “the future is now”. And rightly so. The future is now, the new normal, and this week has demonstrated how pertinent that is.

Not only are we recognising this AMEC milestone, but it was marked by the annual global Summit which is two days of online (for the second year running) learning and industry members coming together to talk about and debate trends, share best practice case studies and advice in measuring media effectiveness. The conference theme was Communication Accountability: Planning, Purpose and Proof and while the importance of planning was adequately prominent, two additional streams of simplicity and technology are worthy of a shout out.

We’ve said many times that the key to effective measurement and evaluation is simplicity. In fact, it is true that the most simple methodologies are often the most successful; as Ben Osborne from Siegel + Gale said in his Summit presentation “committing to simplicity means brands continue to win”.

While technology enables us to deliver real time, real information, we also know that the deeper insights are technology led, and human verified and validated. Brands need to be patient with brand measurement and in fact that good measurement is worth waiting for. Media intelligence agencies are continually innovating to do more with more data, yet the technologies that focus on accelerated speed and deliver clarity will see the most support and value from communicators.

So while the AMEC Summit was taking place abroad and the Mumbrella CommsCon conference was underway in Australia, all practitioners have the right to feel encouraged by our consolidated progress and what the next 25 years of accountability looks like.