Hi everyone! Happy New Year, happy 2020, happy new decade. This is our favorite post of the year – we get to make our predictions in the public affairs arena. Today we’ve got three from Sunwest: one around government affairs, one around corporate social responsibility, and the third around PR and media relations. First, in the government relations arena, of course you can’t begin this particular new year without talking about the election. But the truth is, is we’re already seeing a lot of legislation and discussion in the media from elected officials about the year of the employee, the year of the worker. Lots of states and the federal government talking about increasing the minimum wage, increasing benefits for employees, paid time off. So expect that to be – outside of the election – a big headline around the country for the year ahead. The question of course is how will businesses pay for those new benefits. That leads nicely into our prediction around corporate social responsibility. It was just in August that the prominent business roundtable, which is made up of the largest CEOs from the largest companies around the world, said that business should be more than just about making money, it should also be about community impact – making our world a little bit better, solving some of society’s problems, and having great workspaces for our employees and workers. Those two fit together nicely. So, in the CSR arena, expect companies and individual brands to be talking a lot about being a great workplace and creating great environments for their employees. That leads into our third prediction for 2020 in the public relations and media relations space. With an election year, it’s gonna be harder than ever to get placed traditional media coverage – proactive coverage – on your brand. Of course the Bureau of Labor Statistics already says that for every one reporter there are six PR people out there pitching stories. So it’s hard as it is – already hard. But that means brands are going to have to rely more heavily on their owned media – what they put out on their social media channels, even things like podcasts. So, what should we expect brands in the PR and media relations arena to be talking about on those owned channels? Probably their corporate social responsibility efforts and how they are a great place to work. So as you can see, our predictions for 2020 all fit together very nicely, and we are expecting it to be the year of the worker. And that’s our predictions here at Sunwest for 2020. Happy New Year!