Dr Karen Sutherland

Name: Dr Karen Sutherland
Address: Perry Street, Coolum, QLD, 4573, AU
Telephone: +61431959510
Rating: 5

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Dr Karen Sutherland

Dr Sutherland is an award-winning social media Snr. Lecturer at UniSC & Co-Founder of Dharana Digital
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Dr Karen Sutherland is a social media and public relations educator, researcher, consultant, author and speaker with more than 20 years' industry experience in marketing, public relations and communication roles for organizations such as Monash University, ABCTV, Fremantle Media, and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. As the Best Social Media Educator of the Year for 2020 by the Social Media

Marketing Institute, Dr Karen is the Program Coordinator of the Bachelor of Communication (Social Media) at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the co-author of Public Relations and Strategic Communication published by Oxford University Press and her latest book, Strategic Social Media Management – Theory and Practice was released internationally in December 2020 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Dr Karen is passionate about demystifying social media for business owners and nonprofits and empowering them to build positive (and mutually valuable) long-term relationships with their customers and stakeholders. As a dedicated yogini, Dr Karen practices daily to deliver her clients the steadiness and focus that is Dharana Digital. Her qualifications include:

- PhD – Monash University – Towards an Integrated Social Media Communication Model for the Not-For-Profit Sector: A Case Study of Youth Homelessness Charities

- Master of Marketing (with Merit) – University of Newcastle

- Postgraduate Diploma of Arts (Research) – Monash University

- Bachelor of Communication – Monash Universty

Learn more at: https://www.dharanadigital.com/

17/06/2026

This morning Ahron Yound and I chatted about two news headlines on Ticker.
Both were about trust, control and where we get our information.

On social media overtaking traditional news:
For the first time, social media and video platforms have surpassed traditional news outlets as the dominant global source of information.

54% now use social media for news. 51% still go to traditional outlets. It's close, but the shift is clearly there.

10% are now sourcing news through ChatGPT and other AI platforms.

What's interesting:
Facebook is by far the dominant way people get news. Followed by YouTube, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Snapchat, even WhatsApp.

Yet Facebook argues it doesn't need news and won't pay for it.

The trust problem:
Only 17% believe the news from traditional outlets all the time.

Most people are critical now. That's not entirely bad. Scrutinising information wherever it comes from is healthy, but it's going to get much harder to tell what's true as AI evolves.

Sometimes the video on X is too good to believe, and it's often not true.

Who gains?
Consumers. They get news their way. From around the world. Instantly.
They get to share it, comment on it, be part of the process.

Younger audiences are creating their own news content. injecting themselves into the conversation, and talking about the housing crisis on TikTok because they're living it.

However, you still need something from a respected outlet to start the conversation.

On France dumping Palantir:
France's domestic intelligence agency ended its contract with US firm Palantir in favour of a local competitor.

They're investing more than a billion Australian dollars to build their own systems.

Why it matters:
This is about sovereign risk.

We all saw what happened with Claude Fable-5 last week.
First, people outside the US lost access. Then everyone did.

Imagine you don't own the models powering your systems.
You place all your trust in them to be consistent.
Then something happens and they're gone.

Building your own and keeping full control starts to look very smart.

University of the Sunshine Coast

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15/06/2026

Video builds trust faster than almost anything online.
So, why do we create so little of it? Well, it can take forever to produce.

Planning the idea. Writing the script. Recording.
Editing out the mistakes. Captions. Resizing.
Then turning one video into content for five platforms.
That last part is where most of us run out of time.

In my next free 30-minute webinar, I'll show you three practical ways to use AI to speed up your video workflow.

You'll see how to:
🔺 Turn a text prompt into a video using Google's Omni.
🔺 Edit video faster with Descript.
🔺 Repurpose longer videos into short social clips with OpusClip.

I'll show you what works, what still needs human judgement, and how to use these tools without sacrificing quality.

You'll leave with a simple workflow you can start using straight away.

Live at 4pm AEST on Monday 22 June.

Register even if you can't make it live. I'll send you the recording.
Link is in comments. 👇

Dharana Digital

14/06/2026

Tomorrow, a small group of communication leaders start building their AI integration strategy with me.

Three weeks from now, they'll each have a complete strategy finished to guide them on their AI journey and a certification from the AI Centre of Excellence - ACE.

While most of their peers are still asking about tools, they'll be the ones answering "here's our plan, here's the governance, here's what we do next."

That's the gap this course closes. It's not a tools gap.
It's a strategy gap.

Enrolment closes tonight and we begin tomorrow.
Link in the comments if you'd like to join us.

Have a wonderful day. 🙂

10/06/2026

Apple Finally Fixes Siri. Meta Spends $115 Million Training Workers.
These were the two stories Ahron Young and I discussed on Ticker this morning.
Both stories seem to be about tech giants trying to win people back.

On Apple's redesigned Siri:
Siri will be able to use your photos, emails and messages as contextual data to make your experience seamless and relevant.

The trust question:
Do we trust Apple with our private details?
We already do. We live our lives through this device. This isn't much of a stretch.
The difference is it's on your device. Your data doesn't get sent anywhere else.

Will people give Siri another chance?
Siri has been around for 15 years. Most people have given up on it.
There'll be power users, champions who show what can be done. Then others will follow.

It's like ChatGPT. Some people tried it early, said "this is rubbish," and never looked again. It's changed since then.
Once people realise how it can help them, they'll jump back on board.

Will this hurt OpenAI?
I don't think so. People have relationships with their AI tools now.
They use multiple tools, not just one.
It will depend on the situation and the task. The new Siri will be good for some situations and not for others.

On Meta's $115 million workforce academy:
Meta is investing in training data centre technicians to support its AI infrastructure build-out.

Free training with actual jobs at the end.

It's part of a $600 billion pledge to invest in US infrastructure and employment over three years.

The context worth noting:
A data centre in Texas will have 1,800 workers at the height of construction.
Ongoing? Only 100.

It's heartening to see investment in people, but how many will get ongoing employment, and how many just a window of time?

Two stories. Same challenge.
Apple rebuilding trust in a product people abandoned.
Meta rebuilding trust in a company that cut 8,000 jobs.
Winning people back takes more than announcements.

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06/06/2026

Flow.
🫶🧡✨💕

05/06/2026

My favourite pics from this morning. 😍
Have a magical day. 🧡

03/06/2026

Here are two stories from my Ticker interview today with Ahron Young.
Both stories are about AI creating a gap between expectation and reality.

On AI-generated videos of Western Australia's Kimberley:
Tourism operators are alarmed. AI videos misrepresenting the landscape completely.

Indigenous tourism operators say it's disrespectful. It loses the true essence and spirit of country.

When tourists arrive expecting one thing and find another, complaints flood in.

Worse: public safety. They think they can do things with wildlife they actually can't.

Who created it? No idea. Impossible to find. Impossible to hold accountable.
The solution?
Certification marks on authentic videos. So people know the difference.

On AI productivity without collaboration:
Research of 12,035 knowledge workers. 172 Fortune 1000 executives. Six countries.

89% say AI sped up work.

89% say they're not seeing ROI.

Why?
Organisations threw Microsoft Copilot at staff and said work it out.
No strategy. No team collaboration framework. No time to experiment.

Enterprise tools have collaborative features. Nobody knows they exist.
Meanwhile some companies threaten staff.
Use enough AI or it affects your performance review.

Speed without quality equals AI slop and misinformation.
Canva shut down for a week. People learned how to use AI meaningfully.

Two stories. Same gap.

AI generating content nobody asked for at scale
AI generating speed nobody measured for with no ROI.

The difference between what AI can do and what organisations actually know how to do with it keeps growing.

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27/05/2026

Here are two stories from my Ticker interview with Ahron Young.
Both about using AI to remove people from the picture.

On Meta's AI revolution:
Andrew Bosworth is spearheading Meta's AI transformation.
Meta has laid off 8,000 staff (10% of their workforce) and shifted 7,000 into AI-focused roles.

How they did it:
They've been measuring and monitoring keystrokes. Mouse clicks.
Wearable devices tracking tasks.

Not to empower staff, to automate them, and p put them out of a job.

The problems:
The cost of tokens and technology can be ridiculously expensive when you don't have guardrails.

One company chewed up their entire AI budget in a few weeks using autonomous agents.

There's no transparency about what's actually happening.
No real collaboration or empowerment conversation.
Just "track what you do so we know how to replace you."

When Meta laid off content moderators, they relied on AI to identify posts against community guidelines. AI didn't do that well.
Now imagine doing that at scale with no human judgment.

On AI-generated images of public figures:
Businesses have been using AI-generated images of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to criticise his capital gains tax reforms.

The legal risk:
Using an AI-generated image of someone isn't illegal, but using it to suggest they're partnering with you or supporting something that's not true is against the law.

You need to make it very clear it's satire, and you need to disclose it visibly.

The platforms are struggling to keep up. Take one down. Another goes up from a different account. With a big ad budget, you can run dozens simultaneously.

Two stories. Same outcome.
Meta monitoring staff to make them redundant.
Fake images of politicians pushing products nobody authorised.

Automation without ethics.
Technology without transparency. Scale without safeguards.

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22/05/2026

Sitting in nature allows my soul to breathe. 🫶🧡✨

19/05/2026

Nature is the greatest designer.
🫶🧡✨💕

Address

Perry Street
Coolum, QLD
4573

Telephone

+61431959510

Website

https://www.dharanadigital.com/, https://drkarensutherland.com/

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