As the year is coming to an end, more and more PR students are starting to seriously think about their PR dissertations to finish their degrees. 

I've been getting a lot of emails from PR students requesting ideas for dissertations over the past three weeks. 

Now, I understand it's probably difficult to come up with a relevant and interesting topic but I always advise students to follow their passions - what is it really that you are interested in? What did you like the most during the past few years of studying? Surely, there must have been something that you have really enjoyed. 

So start there - with your interests. 

Then move onto the trends in the industry. Do some research. Figure out what other PR professionals are talking and worrying about. Find the opportunities of the future. Google is your best friend here.

After these two steps, just see where your interests and the industry trends collide. 

There you have it!

Still, I'll help you with the second part a bit just as I did two years ago. Below you can find 10 more public relations dissertation topics based on what I see happening in the industry. 

At the beginning of 2016 I set myself a goodreads challenge to read at least 30 books this year. 

I'm well on track, mixing the books between business-related ones around marketing, PR, strategy, and fictional novels. 

In addition, I've also noticed a trend towards books on personal development and particularly Leadership and Emotional Intelligence or the ability to recognise, understand and manage our own emotions and recognise, understand and influence those of others. 

I've written about these topics on a few occasions throughout the year so you might have also noticed that passion of mine. 

Keeping up with my books challenge and staying faithful to my latest passion, I finished two books on Emotional Intelligence last month: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Emotions and Raising your EQ by Ian Tuhovsky.

As much as I loved Daniel Goleman's insights, his work mainly covered the theory behind Emotional Intelligence (which is definitely needed and is the first stepping stone), I felt I was ready for more practice. This is why I picked the last two books as they were heavily focused on applying those learnings. 

I've found some of the exercises that were suggested in them particularly useful and relevant to my current state within my personal and professional life. 

Today I'm going to tell you a story about customer experience and how customer experience can make or break your brand. 

Last week on Wednesday, I was getting excited to fly over to Frankfurt to speak at a HubSpot User Group event organised by one of my partner agencies. I was supposed to present about Inbound PR so of course I couldn't wait!

I woke up early in the morning to start packing for this quick trip and catch my flight at 12.30pm. 

I make myself a cup of coffee, turn on the laptop to check my emails quickly and as I always proactively do, I went to Dublin Airport's website to see whether my flight would have any delays just so that I am aware of changes, if at all any. 

I saw something else, though. 

Traditional PR is dead. 

That's one of the key learnings from my Inbound PR talk at INBOUND16. 

The old way of mass mailing press releases to journalists to write good things about your brand and getting some positive coverage is gone. It's outbound and it doesn't work. (Although it still happens. Sad face.)

I'm not saying that PR isn't relevant anymore. Far from it. It's become even more important in a digital economy where basically everybody can have a massive voice and influence other people's decisions. 

So you still need Earned media but getting it today is different than some 10-20 years ago. 

Here's where influencer marketing comes in - it's the latest buzzword and for me, it's just modern PR done right with influencers that are not just journalists but bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers etc. 

But is it right for you? I'd say yes. 

Influencer marketing is right for any business that wants to generate WOM and have others share positive experiences with the brand, products or services. 

How do you figure out if that's for you? I have a really nice infographic from Shane Barker to help here. 

With 19,500 attendees, INBOUND16 was again a fantastic event for marketing, sales and communications professionals as well as agency people. 

The four days were packed with sessions and networking opportunities.

Last year, I learned a lot about the agency business and what my agency partners from HubSpot were struggling with or excelling at. I came out of the conference with eight key takeaways for agencies. 

This year, I felt like the week had three main big themes that were visible in one way or another throughout all talks and conversations with other people attending.

I want to cover these with you this week. Let's get started.

3 Big Key Learnings from #INBOUND16