A friend asked me two questions yesterday, about business communication-related issues in the coming year. Both came in direct messages via Twitter.

Apart from everything else Twitter is, it’s also a tool that keeps you refreshingly focused on brevity and conciseness in your dialogue.

No wordy predictions, no long-winded missives, just an encapsulation of thought in 140 characters or less.

First question:

What do you think you’ll be talking as 2009 wears on? Key trends in the UK generally…

Answer:

Q1: squeezing value from tighter budgets and how social media can help do that, focus on building SM into trad PR practice.

Second question:

What do you think the positives will be this year, even in a time of upheaval and challenging circumstances.

Answer:

Q2: greater awareness by senior comm execs of the golden opp to take the lead in org as relationship builders.

I’ll boil it down further into the two points that I think will be the keys ones for communicators in 2009:

1. Budgets
2. Relationships

Make sense?