Exploring AI’s Future in PR with Martin Waxman

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Last summer, something monumental happened. One of Uncuffed's founding producers, Greg Eskridge, came home after more than 30 years in prison. In this episode we’ll bring you back to that emotional day last summer when he walked out of the San Quentin gates, free at last. Our work in prisons is supported by the California Arts Council, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, independent foundations, and donations from listeners like you. Learn more, sign up for Uncuffed news, and support the program at www.weareuncuffed.org Follow us @WeAreUncuffed on Instagram and Facebook Transcripts are available within a week of the episode coming out at www.kalw.org/podcast/uncuffed…

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In this FIR Interview, recorded on 19 December 2024, Shel and Neville chat with Martin Waxman about the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on public relations. From relational AI and synthetic personas to crisis management and ethics, the discussion highlights opportunities and challenges for PR professionals. Martin shares insights from his academic research and LinkedIn Learning courses, offering practical advice for integrating AI into communication strategies while maintaining trust and human relationships.
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Exploring AI’s Future in PR with Martin Waxman

The FIR Podcast Network Everything Feed

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The post Exploring AI’s Future in PR with Martin Waxman appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

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#Tech #Tech News #News #News Talk #FIR Podcast Network Everything Feed #Thought Leaders

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In this episode, Chip talks with Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro about the challenges faced by solos and small agency owners in the current chaotic environment. They discuss the impact of economic, political, and societal issues on public relations and communications, emphasizing the need for adaptability in business strategies. They highlight the importance of diversifying communication tactics beyond traditional media relations, focusing on owned and internal communications, and the value of continuous business development. The conversation also covers managing anxiety among employees, clients, and agency owners themselves, and the importance of peer support and professional community engagement. [ read the transcript ] The post CWC 105: Communicating in the face of chaos, confusion, and conflict (featuring Karen Swim) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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Steve Rubel on AI, Media Analytics, and the Future of PR 40:30

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For nearly 20 years, Steve Rubel was a key figure at the global public relations and marketing consultancy firm Edelman, shaping its approach to media strategy and digital communication. A pioneer in blogging and digital PR from the early 2000s, Steve has long been at the forefront of emerging media trends, helping businesses navigate the ever-evolving landscape of content, journalism, and corporate communication. In December 2024, Steve’s journey at Edelman came to an unexpected close when he was affected by a reduction in force at the agency. He has embraced the transition as an opportunity to reconnect with industry peers, reflect on the broader PR profession, and explore his next chapter. His announcement on LinkedIn in December drew an overwhelming response, reinforcing the deep connections he has built throughout his career. Now, Steve is focused on one of the most untapped opportunities in communications: using AI and analytics to uncover hidden patterns in media. He believes that by leveraging these insights, PR professionals can craft smarter, more mediagenic narratives, improve media engagement, and redefine the future of thought leadership. He plans to help agencies adopt AI-powered media analytics and drive innovation in communication. His advice for PR professionals: stay curious, experiment with AI tools, and learn how to extract real value from data. In this FIR Interview, Steve joins Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz – for the fifth time in an FIR Interview – to discuss the role of AI in modern communication, how data-driven storytelling is transforming PR, and why agencies must adapt to survive in an AI-driven industry. About Our Conversation Partner Steve Rubel is a media analyst, innovation catalyst, and communications strategist with a proven track record of identifying emerging trends and delivering actionable insights to help organizations thrive in the dynamic media landscape. Over a 19-year tenure at Edelman, he advised hundreds of global corporations and nonprofits, shaping strategies that drove meaningful impact. Beyond providing strategic counsel, he played a key role in advancing Edelman’s competitive edge by championing innovative capabilities, accelerating the adoption of new services, and positioning the firm as a leading authority on media. Follow Steve on Social Networks LinkedIn Bluesky Video Version on YouTube Verbatim Transcript @nevillehobson (00:02.766) Hi everyone and welcome to this FIR interview. I’m Neville Hobson in the UK. Steve Rubel (00:03.279) you Shel Holtz (00:09.072) And I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California, and we have a very special guest with us today. Steve Rubel is joining us. Steve is one of our more regular guests on FIR Interviews, having appeared as we counted five times, the last one in 2013. So it has been a while. Welcome, Steve. It’s great to see you. Steve Rubel (00:31.692) Thank you, it’s an honor to be part of the Five Timers Club. So that’s an SNL reference for those who may not know. Shel Holtz (00:34.998) It is, the jacket’s in the mail. I asked ChatGPT to tell me about you, Steve. Just curious to see how accurate it would be and where it would focus. So I’m going to read these three paragraphs and you can let us know how ChatGPT did on this. says, Steve Rubel is a prominent public relations executive and professional blogger known for his expertise in media trends, digital culture and content strategy. He has held significant roles at Edelman. the world’s largest public relations firm, including serving as chief content strategist. In this capacity, Rubel has been responsible for advancing Edelman’s thinking on the evolving media ecosystem and helping clients develop innovative programs that blend paid, owned, and earned media. Throughout his career, Rubel has been a thought leader on the future of media consumption, advising clients such as Adobe, Starbucks, Samsung, and GE. He has emphasized the importance of companies operating in real time, like media organizations, leveraging technology to create compelling content and synchronize communications across various channels. In recent years, Rubell has focused on the potential of analytics and artificial intelligence to uncover hidden patterns within the media landscape. He believes that these insights can benefit communications professionals, the organizations they represent, and the press. By analyzing untapped data, companies can craft more compelling and mediogenic narrative platforms, develop content strategies, Steve Rubel (01:55.15) Amazingly accurate, maybe a little over the top in the flattery. And I would say just the one part that was wrong. Shel Holtz (02:08.231) and established thought leadership. So Steve, how’d Chachipiti do? @nevillehobson (02:19.726) Thanks for watching! Steve Rubel (02:21.696) He says that it was a prolific blogger. am a prolific blogger. I mean, it’s not true anymore. I was for many years, but not recently, but certainly at one time. At one time I was. Shel Holtz (02:30.867) Yeah, Yeah, media persuasion was a very influential blog in this day. Micro persuasion. @nevillehobson (02:33.676) Yeah. Steve Rubel (02:35.822) Well, micro persuasion and then later and then later for the later for adage and so forth. Yeah. @nevillehobson (02:38.51) Yeah. That was that was the the start of things back in those early days 2005 2004. Yeah. So in December, you wrote a post that really caught my eye like Whoa, on LinkedIn, announcing that you were leaving Edelman. And that you’ve been there nearly 19 years. Steve Rubel (02:45.454) Oh yeah, a long time ago. Steve Rubel (02:57.682) @nevillehobson (03:04.526) And you’ve received, I left a comment I know you did as well, Shell, but you’ve had like 200, nearly 300 comments from people on that post. It’s quite extraordinary outpouring of well-being, I think, and warmth all around. So that’s two months ago, and here we are having this conversation. I’m just curious, as Shell is, we both are really, what’s your journey now and leaving after 19 years? How was that? So, you know, what’s happening? Steve Rubel (03:37.381) Yeah, well, mean, first of all, I just want to say, just, you know, put a flag here that just it was a remarkable privilege to work for such a quality organization for for almost 20 years. And so I have nothing but love and respect for the Elman family. I was caught in a reduction in force that they made in the beginning of December. it was just shocking and disappointing, just it’s a business decision. And so I don’t in any way take it personally. like I said, I’m just grateful for every minute that I got to spend there. As you guys may or may not know, I was… I was very vocal and active online for many years and then about six, seven years ago, kind of a deliberate decision to step back and to really focus much more on element client work and teams. There’s no story behind it. I just kind of got tired of it and wanted to really do something different. I’m of the belief that the internet has a short memory. I put that up just to have something on the record, just to say that I wasn’t there anymore. And I was really blown away just by how people just were responding to that post, but also just the outreach I got. had people contact me from 30 years ago I worked with, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago. It was staggering. And from all ways, from LinkedIn, from email, from text messages and so forth. And that was something I totally did not expect at all. I just really wasn’t, I wasn’t ready for that. So I took some time and I said, okay, look, I’m going to use this time to just catch up with people because that’s something I really hadn’t done in the last few years. And so I just said, I’m going to book myself silly. I’m going to have one to three Zooms a day with people just to catch up and see what they’re doing. Steve Rubel (05:50.502) to kind of poke my head above ground and really kind of get a better understanding of the profession and where the profession’s at beyond Edelman because as great as Edelman is, it’s one view. And I really wanted to have a little bit of a broader perspective. So I took the time to do that. And then I took the time to also think about kind of what I want to do next, which we can talk about. And then Just to kind of, I mean, I had no infrastructure. mean, just to give you an idea of how, where did I was and planning to stay with Edelman for the run. I had no CV, had no, my LinkedIn was completely out of date. It was a mishmash of stuff. So I had to take time to go through the process of just emotionally and mentally coping with a layoff. And the community was just incredible. in helping me do that. And then also just had to kind of start to think about what’s next and which we can get into. so, and it was just, in their case, it was just a business decision and I have nothing but respect for them. Shel Holtz (07:04.457) Well, let’s talk about this issue that you’ve embraced, I guess, later in your career at Edelman and since then you’ve been doing more than just holding Zoom sessions because we know that you did a session for Muckrack on this topic of analytics and AI and their ability to transform the way communications professionals understand and engage with the media landscape. Can you elaborate on that? Because Certainly most of the people in PR and communications that I talk to about generative AI are trying to figure out how to write with it. Steve Rubel (07:40.26) So this is just absolutely what I’m most excited about today, So where I am in my AI journey was at, know, so ChatGPT launched in November of 22. I didn’t sign up at first because I was a little thrown off by the fact that the only way you could sign up was by giving your cell phone number. And I, you know, it was a little… And they were an unknown company at the time. so I, you know, you know, by some measures. And so I kind of felt weird about that. And I was like, and I viewed it as a, as a search tool, which I think I honestly, in my, know, I spent two years in Edelman’s AI task force working with and working with Edelman’s own media team on helping to kind of accelerate their use of, of, of AI. And I saw that a lot of people like me used it that way. And, you know, we had in the @nevillehobson (08:25.07) You Steve Rubel (08:37.091) The winter of 23, we had a freezing cold week here in New York. And I got a text message over the weekend from a colleague saying, hey, have you thought about using AI and what you do with analytics? And which I had been already doing for a couple of years at that point. And I said, hmm, no, I hadn’t thought of that. And so it was freezing. I didn’t want to go out. It was like 10 degrees Fahrenheit here or whatever it was. And so I stayed in the whole weekend and just started to… try different things. And I was like, wow, this and everyone has one of those moments I think was used one of these tools, but wow, this is such a powerful tool for helping me understand patterns in the media environment. So here’s what I do. I pulled down massive amounts of metadata out of MuckRack. know, the MuckRack, know, full disclosure, I got a license to MuckRack in exchange for some, you know, some promotional work, basically writing on LinkedIn with their content. So just full disclosure on that. it’s not a paid relationship per se. The data, though, I’ve just become a fan. I’ve known Greg Gellant for a million years. He’s the CEO. But the data is so rich. And I started to pull down the data out of MuckRack, the article data and the metadata, and began to use a whole bunch of different AI tools. analyze it. And what I found was, know, are, know, earned media remains the bedrock of PR. I mean, PR has, you know, and communications as you both know and have chronicled, has become so much more multifaceted now. It’s so much more diversified. It’s so many different types of activities. But earned media remains the bedrock of it. I mean, I find, you know, it’s often the starting point for a lot of client relationships that extend out in other ways. And, you know, everyone is challenged with trying to break through in this environment because it’s just, you know, it’s getting, first of all, less reporters, less outlets in some cases, you know, a lot of topics that are just, you know, high volume and drying out the news environment, know. Steve Rubel (10:57.759) big rocks, you will, whether it be Trump or sustainability or DEI or whatever, pop culture. I there’s just so many different things that the media is writing about that often the aperture for clients can be narrow. And that’s evergreen problem. And so I, in the last several years of Edelman and now on my own, as to stay fresh as I explore different opportunities, is I’ve just seen that you can… @nevillehobson (11:05.644) Hmm. Steve Rubel (11:25.887) Take that data and you can bring it into AI and manipulate it and really understand patterns such as to really kind of quantify, for example, what are the themes that a particular writer is writing about, an outlet is writing about, an index of outlets or around a topic. So you could take a topic like for AI, for example, pull down thousands of stories, not the full text, but the metadata and use the AI tools to manipulate that to really understand the patterns. and then compare different quarters and different periods. So you can start to understand where a story is going or a single reporter to understand where that particular reporter is going. And what I found is not only is that useful for nuts and bolts kind of, know, brass tacks, earned media applications, but so many companies, you know, want to develop executive visibility programs or thought leadership programs or narratives that are consistent with the media environment and Mediagenic. And when you look at that data set and use AI to manipulate that, that stuff gets to be so powerful because in theory, it’s a triple win. It’s a win for your stakeholder, whether that’s an internal stakeholder or a client. It’s a win for the press because you’re creating a better story that’s consistent with what they’re writing about on the mark, which has long been a complaint of theirs. And it serves you because you’re going to be much more successful. And so I am just so bullish on the use of AI and analytics to understand the media environment at a very granular or a very wide aperture. And I find that this is completely untapped in the industry right now, completely untapped. And it has the potential if applied at scale. to be incredibly useful, probably more so on the agency level, but certainly on the corporate level as well. @nevillehobson (13:30.782) That’s very interesting. It makes me think that the broad topic of AI is featured in every episode of our podcast for at least a year and half, literally. And new angles are emerging every time we have a conversation. This is the latest one. And I’m reminded, Steve, actually, the interview we did prior to talking to you today with Sylvia Camby a couple of weeks back that was published last week, she talked about this very topic, finding patterns. She talked about the kind of move from beyond generative AI to what she calls curation AI. And she talks a bit about how AI can provide communicators with better insights, deeper insights, and how messages are received and acted upon. She reckons that communicators who’ve worked with enterprise social networks like Yammer and so forth back in the day have very transferable skills as a result of that. So it got me just to direct, I guess, the question that arises in my mind. If, and I’ve heard listening to what you’re saying, if AI driven analytics reveal the hidden patterns in media landscape, what, what do you think are the biggest opportunities for communicators generally? And I’m wondering what they need to shift to kind of get a handle on this is something you absolutely need to pay attention to. And so how do you think this shifts the role of PR pros and shaping narratives? Steve Rubel (15:00.11) Hugely. so, I mean, the inspiration for this, I mean, started for me during the lockdowns of the pandemic, when my role changed, just the nature of just the way, you know, the travel stopped and so forth. And I’ve just been, I think you both know that I’m and forgive me here for the Europeans, but I’m a huge sports fan, particularly a baseball fan. And we’re not getting too wonky there. You know, I’ve just been fascinated how analytics have come around and revolutionized any sport, whether it be football, know, NFL football, know, soccer, football, you know, baseball, golf, tennis, you name it. I’ve completely revolutionized it because teams or individuals understand the statistics and the analytics about how their opponents behave. The media is not our opponent, but the media is certainly a gatekeeper. And so one of the things that I think is most powerful here, so I just looked at that and said, what did they do that we could be applying in our world? And one of the things that I think about with the press is that They’re really good at writing about analyzing and writing about the problems in a particular, know, or what I would call the critical issues in a particular field. know, one of the critical issues around AI, one of the critical issues around DEI, mean, you and those are changing every week, every day. And it may not be, you know, the entire totality of what they write about around that topic. They’re writing about the solutions as well. But I find that if you are able to identify and quantify the patterns in the critical issues, what are the problems that they are writing about regularly? And you can position your organization, your solution, your intellectual property as solutions to those particular issues. Or you have a point of view or some way of bringing something Steve Rubel (17:14.974) some more perspective around those issues. And those issues are written about at scale. You’re going to be way more successful because you are, you’re not, you know, so much of, of earned media for the 35 years I’ve been in this business is trial and error. It’s knocking on doors. mean, it’s relationships, it’s understanding people, but it’s a lot of trial and error. It’s a lot of waste. It’s necessary waste. but it’s waste. How do we reduce that? How do we reduce that? Well, I mean, that’s where if you use the analytics to quantify and the AI is useful because it’s able to read huge volumes of information and statistically make patterns out of this. And I’ve mastered the prompts required and the different tools required to do that. But I think that has a transformation in helping us. in communications. And even if your output is not media, your output is social media, your output is content for your website or LinkedIn or whatever it is. There’s a lot of work done in social listening to understand what people are talking about online. There’s a lot of great tools for that that are advancing every day, but there’s not a lot of work being done to look at what’s going on in the quote unquote professional content creator community and what working journalists are doing. and using that signal set in addition to the others to helping to really shape content strategies. And so I just think that that is just absolute, probably one of the biggest opportunities with AI right now for communications professionals. Maybe not the biggest, but one of them for sure. Shel Holtz (19:01.973) Steve, pictures and catchers report tomorrow. Steve Rubel (19:05.614) I’m going, I’m going, I can’t wait. @nevillehobson (19:08.142) You Shel Holtz (19:09.845) You gave some great examples of how analytics can shape a pitch, for example, to a journalist. I think what a lot of people are going to be inclined to do is what you have recommended. And then the next step would be to have the AI produce the pitch. And there are a lot of people out there who are talking about AI slop. Chris Penn talks about it. Jeff Livingston, Greg Verdino. It’s a real prominent topic right now that the internet is being overtaken, overwhelmed by AI generated content. How can organizations balance the use of data-driven insights with that need for having a human in the loop? And what are the ethical considerations around? Steve Rubel (20:03.065) Yep. So I don’t think there’s any ethical concerns about the analytics in helping you form the strategies. The ethical concerns are in the content generation after that. Shel Holtz (20:05.877) leveraging AI and analytics in developing these strategies. Steve Rubel (20:21.584) I don’t think there’s any kind of ethical concerns necessarily around using AI to analyze mass quantities of data unless I’m missing something. But on pitching side of things, I think you can’t let the AI take away your humanity. look, mean, sorry, another baseball metaphor, but it still requires, no amount of statistics is going to substitute for talent. And Aaron Judge has to go up and hit a baseball. Yes. Yes. You missed the big one in the World Series, but that’s another story. so the talent and the expertise and the humanity is still absolutely necessary. Knowing journalists, having relationships, building those relationships, none of that goes away. Shel Holtz (20:54.773) has to catch one too. Steve Rubel (21:18.394) So to me, it’s use the analytics and the insights, which I would generate for teams. And then they would then, and with prescriptive advice on what to do with it, I still think you have to write your pitch the same way you always write your pitch. You might take a line here or there, but I really wouldn’t recommend it. I think the way to do it is to write your pitch in your own voice, the way you’ve always have done it because it’s worked for a long time, in some cases, whether it’s five years or 20 years or whatever it is. Even if you’re new to this, it’s a year. It’s your own humanity and building those relationships are still absolutely necessary. But then I think, you know, taking the pitch and bringing it into an AI tool, whether that be Microsoft Copilot or, you know, chat GPT, or I’ve actually been using the writing tools built into the Apple intelligence writing tools that are built into the iOS and the Mac, not for pitches, but just, for emails I’m writing and so forth. And just having it, you know, clean up, strengthen it. One of the things I like to do, for example, is to use the AI to improve the subject lines. Because I will bring in the pitch, you know, or would recommend to teams that they bring in the pitch into an AI tool and ask it based on email marketing best practices. How would you tailor my subject line, which I’ve already provided to make it stronger? Right? And look, you might look at that and you’re going to say, it’s too much written like an e-commerce email. But you might pick up a trick or two that maybe there’s a word ordering where you move one word up, so it’s a little bit earlier in the preview, or some sort of optimization that augments what you do. So I think the use of AI to augment, to take your work from a five or a six to a seven or an eight, which I did with the analytics. three years ago, definitely took my work, not to a 10, but certainly took it from, I would say from a six to an eight. And the same thing applies. And I think that to me is the opportunity with teaching teams how to do that. And to do that, so, I think you could, depending on the size of your organization, you could do that at a corporate or team level, but it works best in an individual level where you sit down with one or two or three people. @nevillehobson (23:22.766) you Steve Rubel (23:44.545) And I did this at Edelman and say, what do you do all day? And to then provide expertise and advice on how to use the AI to augment that work to make it even stronger. @nevillehobson (24:03.406) interesting. think we talked recently, Shailena, in I think our monthly episode, the last one we did, the long four-monthly one, about the evolution of generative AI within the profession, in the PR profession, where surveys are showing that take-up and use is in the 70-plus, 80-plus percent. The days are gone, I think, when we saw a couple of years back a survey that where a quarter of those surveyed. Steve Rubel (24:20.301) . @nevillehobson (24:30.476) said they would never ever under any circumstances use artificial intelligence to PR work. That’s vanished, thankfully. Common sense has really prevailed, but people have, I think, acquired a better understanding of some of these tools. And what you’ve explained there, what you mentioned there, Steve, is something that I see happening. I do it myself. AI like chat GPT, Microsoft co-pilots, all the ones that we know of, are great at research. So I tend to regard them as my research assistants, the same for search as well. Providing the skill, if you will, to do, to trawl through and make sense of huge amounts of data, structured and unstructured, doesn’t matter, and present you the results. Your job is still to make sure it’s accurate. And that’s a whole different, I think, conversation that we probably still need to have because… I see this coming up a lot in conferences that I have with people that you can get all this input and great, you write your report. No, you’ve got to sift it. You’ve got to understand it yourself. So in the context of this latest idea of revealing hidden patterns in the media landscape, cetera, do you think, you know, AI, the tools are now detecting trends directly themselves and with limited Steve Rubel (25:26.955) . @nevillehobson (25:56.847) prompting, no, you don’t have to write a lengthy script to tell it what you want it to do for you. The predicting new cycles, what do you think about the effect on companies? What rethinking do organizations, including our profession, if you like, the approach to media relations, and indeed the whole notion of concept of thought leadership, what changes need to be front of mind there? Steve Rubel (26:05.526) Okay. So first of all, I think that some of the uptake, what people may not appreciate is that some of the uptake, the reason why it’s jumped so much has been the acceleration of enterprise ready tools, whether it be ChatGPT Enterprise or Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini for Workspace or Claude having an enterprise ready tool. So I think the enterprise, some of the concerns in the beginning were because the technology was nascent, but some of it also was because the tools weren’t really necessarily there to protect corporate information in the beginning, and there was a lot of concern about that. I think some of that, each day that goes away and there’s more more adoption of those tools. And so I think that’s part of what drove some of the uptake. In terms of… So I guess you’re asking more about workflow, Neville, and like, how do you, you what does this mean for, you know, for corporations overall? @nevillehobson (27:28.47) Yeah, I would say because some of it can seem a little esoteric, I think, at times when we talk about patterns in data and the average communicator is looking at a report they got to do, or the pitch they got to prepare, or the workflow on their desk right now, how would this impact them and what do they need to do to do it? Steve Rubel (27:35.922) Yeah. Steve Rubel (27:46.266) So I think the most important thing is that, when people first start using these tools, there’s a hope that they can just be the oracle of everything. And go in and help me identify the 20 most important people who are writing about AI in public relations. Help me understand the storylines. And I always tell people that the AI tools will always give you an answer. They won’t say, don’t know, right? If you try to get them to say they don’t know, sometimes that’s a fun exercise. They often will not say that they don’t know. They are programmed to give you an answer. And that’s extremely enchanting and also extremely deceiving. When I find where it works best, is when you take something that you have, either something that you have collected on your own, in my case it’s data, or something that you have already an inventory of, whether it be PDFs or speeches from an executive or content from a website or a whole bunch of, it could be a large corpus of text or it could be something small, or it could be a pitch, a press release. you know, a short term piece of content that you’re going to be creating. And when you bring that information into the AI tools and ask it to improve it and ask for prompts and ask it to, you know, get you to think of things that maybe you haven’t thought of asking. I think that’s a really important thing is to really not just go in with your own, you know, ideas on what you want to get out of it, but to be a little bit more open-ended. and to bring it in and say, could you tell me about this? How can I improve this? right now, today, that’s all in the prompts. It’s just getting, which I’m sure you guys have talked about all the time, is getting the prompts right. In the future, that won’t be the case. I don’t know how long exactly, but whether it’s a year or two years or whatever it is, especially through agentic AI and things of that nature, it’s gonna start to understand and personalize. Steve Rubel (30:02.947) those requests for you and bring that to you. So I find that for the most part, the AI tools are best when you bring in your own lunch, so to speak. There are a couple of exceptions. I have been extremely impressed, and I’m gonna write about this on LinkedIn, with Google’s deep research. I think it’s called deep research. Shel Holtz (30:29.173) Mm-hmm. Steve Rubel (30:29.348) which has the same name as what ChatGPG just launched a couple of weeks ago, which I haven’t, I’m not paying for the pro version yet, so I’m not forking over $200 a month yet. But I have the plus version, but I’ll wait for that to come out. as I go out and I’ve been, no secret, I’ve been actively interviewing with agencies. And we talk about the agency business. I have been using Google Deep Research to prepare for interviews. @nevillehobson (30:29.422) you @nevillehobson (30:38.478) Thank Steve Rubel (30:57.027) And so I will say, am interviewing with such and such company, because I have to be honest, I haven’t really talked to other agencies for many years. I mean, and I’m going in and I’m meeting with the CEO of this agency or CEO of that agency, write a 3000 word report for me or whatever it is that helps me understand that agency’s priorities, their business, their culture, what the CEOs have been talking about. And I found that that stuff is extremely extraordinarily useful and you know, and it’s and it’s worth the you know, the 10 or 20 bucks I think I I got some kind of deal that I’m paying for Google Gemini advanced to do that. And so I think there are situations like that where you can it can act as the Oracle where you go in and you ask an open-ended question and you get back research with a lot of links so you can go verify everything and you know, less risk of hallucinations. That’s one aspect of it. But the whole other aspect of it is bringing in your existing assets, ideally in an enterprise protected environment, if you’re in an organization of any size, even if you’re not in a small slice firm too, you probably want to do that too. And begin to ask that questions and improvements on that piece of content. That’s where I think the power right now is today for the most part. @nevillehobson (31:58.061) Hmm. Shel Holtz (32:21.145) Well, Steve, it’s great having you with us. You may recall from your five previous appearances here that we always ask the same final question, which is what question didn’t we ask that you wish we had? Steve Rubel (32:37.86) Well, I don’t know if this is really more too wonky for you guys, but I think that just the nature of the agency business right now and where that’s at. so there, and I’m not sure how much you cover that, but the, know, there’s four major holding companies and, you know, two of them are larger, two of the largest ones are merging, you know, later this year. And so there’s going to be three holding companies. And so it’s going to be WPP, it’s going to be Omnicom and PulvoSys. And then you have Edelman, which is a large independent and the largest. And then you have a whole array of smaller and mid-sized firms. And there’s questions overall about AI’s impact on the agency business. There’s a business model that is largely, yes, it’s retainer in some cases, but it’s often it’s built around billable hours. Yes, those retainers are calculating against billable hours. And this is not just in public relations. It’s gonna be very important on the advertising side as well on the media buying side and so forth. It’s gonna be highly disruptive. AI is gonna be highly disruptive. So I would say that I am extremely bullish though about the future of the agencies because I think there’s still a absolute need for shared expertise, whether it be, I mean, I saw the abundance of resources that I don’t have on any topic. could find anybody in the network who knew something about the most esoteric thing, they were there. And even in a mid-size firm, the same thing, you get that benefit. In a small firm too, because they tend to specialize. So I think that the agency business is gonna go through some serious disruptions with AI. The business model is gonna have to change, but the opportunity to… to train and develop people and young people to me. I’m very excited about that in my next role. And so the things I’m looking at doing are, one is taking this media analytics approach and bringing it somewhere else and to really build on that with their expertise. Two is to really work as an innovation catalyst and help them really accelerate with their adoption and use of AI and not just generative, but overall, I would say augmented AI, if you will. Steve Rubel (35:00.134) And three is just to be a calm strategist. think that there’s never been a greater time in need for that given the chaos in the world right now, not just in the United States, but worldwide. So I think that the future of the agency business is bright and I’m looking at everything, but I’m excited to be staying and to be coaching and to stay in the agency world. @nevillehobson (35:24.11) terrific. So I’ve got a final question. That, yeah, yeah, it might seem an odd one, but there’s a kind of hit you in the the immediacy for a quick answer, which is, look back over the last 20 years since Micro Persuasion Days, since that Businessweek cover on blogs, from there to now, how would you sum up your journey in those 20 years? Steve Rubel (35:27.086) Sure. I mean, we could talk forever, I’m sure. Steve Rubel (35:45.722) my goodness. Less hair, does that count? I mean, I didn’t have a lot of hair then either. How would I sum up my journey in 20 years? Well. @nevillehobson (35:55.791) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Shel Holtz (35:55.797) Hmm Steve Rubel (36:06.908) I would say I’ve always been, my whole life, well, mean, for most of my life, I was always fascinated by two different things. I was fascinated by technology and I was fascinated by news and journalism. I was a journalism major. And then I became fascinated with public relations and the communications in the early 1990s. And so I’ve been just, those three, the Venn diagram of those three things has just fueled my entire career. And the reason why I ended up in Business Week, which was incredibly fortunate and certainly catapulted me into an amazing role and introduced me to Richard Edelman and so forth, was because I just saw that I was reading blogs by people like Dave Weiner or Robert Scoble years ago. I said, know, or Docs for Alls. And these are all names that people may not know, but certainly you should read up on them. Oh, yeah, you guys know that for sure. Shel Holtz (37:03.007) We know. Steve Rubel (37:05.74) And I said, you know, this is unbelievable that these writers have their own voice, that they’re acting like journalists and not journalists. They work for corporations in some cases. And what’s going on here? And that’s scratched an itch. And I just started to mess around and that led to blogging and that led to, you know, becoming, you know, pretty well known in my industry at the time. And then, you know, I chased that later on with understanding shifts in the media business and just how sponsored content was coming in and really disrupting stuff. So I was looking at, at, you know, native advertising and also brands becoming content creators and said, okay, what does that mean? And that scratched a niche to just know more and more and more about that. And then now it’s AI, right? And analytics. And look, I mean, I, I didn’t touch Excel for the first 30 years of my career. And I, know, two, two, three years ago, I sat by the, you know, by the pool and I, and I, you know, I read a book on how, and so I’m 55 years old. And so. If I had to, so yes, it’s those three things, but if I had to sum it up is I have an insatiable curiosity. I am always trying to learn. I’m always nervous about what I don’t know. And I’m not expecting anybody to teach me. I’m expecting for me to just learn as much as I can through reading. And so I am constantly reading and trying new things just to stay at the edge of the trends. and what’s happening and to anticipate what’s next. And so I think that where I, mean, those skills, which I think anybody can do have allowed me to really be good at understanding what I think is going to be next and what may not be, what might just be a fad. Shel Holtz (38:46.825) Sounds like great advice for anybody in this industry, For listeners who would like to read your writing and be in touch, how can they find you? Steve Rubel (38:49.228) It absolutely is critical today, yes. Steve Rubel (38:58.146) So I’m going be doing more. got time. And at least for the moment until I get scooped up, hopefully. I am going to be active on one and only one channel. That’s LinkedIn. And I mean, I might do some stuff on Blue Sky. You can follow me there. I mean, I haven’t posted anything yet. mean, I’ve engaged a couple of people on some sports stuff, but that’s it. And, you know, but I would say right now you could follow me on LinkedIn and I will be, you know, I’m going to be posting. be doing different analyses there using the MockRack data. I’m going to be sharing tips and techniques on how to be more effective as a communicator and staying ahead of these technologies. And I’m open to ideas. But I just see the power of that channel. took it for granted. And I think that’s where I’m going to be doing things. It’s linkedin.com slash en slash steve. Shel Holtz (39:51.487) Great. Well, Steve, thanks very much for your time. It’s been great. Steve Rubel (39:53.921) Thank you. Thanks for having me. @nevillehobson (39:54.329) Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. The post Steve Rubel on AI, Media Analytics, and the Future of PR appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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Circle of Fellows #113: Ethics in Communication 59:40

منذ 5 أيام59:40

59:40

As the digital age continues to evolve, communicators face unprecedented challenges in maintaining ethical standards. Recent incidents, from a PR agency spreading false stories about a client’s rival through social media channels to a New York Times reporter’s alleged breach of privacy within a private WhatsApp group, the challenges to ethical behavior are mounting. Add to that the ethical implications of using artificial intelligence in content creation, with discussions focusing on the balance between innovation and ethical responsibility, and the need to define our ethical foundations couldn’t be clearer. Our panel fellows explored these timely issues, offering insights and guidance for communicators striving to navigate the complex ethical terrain of today’s communication environment. About the panel: Diane Gayeski is recognized as a thought leader in the practice and teaching of business communications. She is Professor of Strategic Communications at the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and provides consulting in communications analysis and strategies through Gayeski Analytics. Diane was recently inducted as an IABC Fellow; she’s been active in IABC for more than 30 years as a featured speaker and think-tank leader at the international conference, the author of 3 editions of the IABC-published book, Managing the Communications Function, and the advisor to Ithaca College’s student chapter. She’s led more than 300 client engagements for clients, including the US Navy, Bank of Montreal, Fiat, Sony, Abbott Diagnostics, and Borg-Warner, focusing on assessing and building the capacities and new technologies for workplace communications and learning teams. Todd “Tosh” Hattori — Leveraging 20+ years of leading in-house communication functions within a variety of organizations and industries, Tosh shifted his career focus toward helping organization leaders address business challenges by setting and implementing organizational excellence strategies. He is currently the continuous improvement lead for F5, Inc. where he leads Lean Six Sigma practitioners who collaborate with cross-functional teams to eliminate waste and establish consistencies that deliver exceptional employee and customer experiences; and organizational change management practitioners who help employees navigate shifts in organizational processes and practices to achieve functional and enterprise success. As a passionate advocate of his rich Japanese heritage, Tosh serves as the F5 Asian & Pacific Islander employee inclusion group co-chair, raising awareness of the rich and diverse Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, beliefs, and perspectives within the F5 workforce; and helping members and allies advance awareness and understanding within our communities to achieve support, safety, and success. Jane Mitchell ’s career began at the BBC in London on live TV programs. She moved on to producing award-winning films and videos for public and private sector organizations and developed groundbreaking employee engagement programs. Since 2006 when she formed her own consultancy, she now guides organizations, (some of which have experienced cultural trauma), with embedding values and ethics through understanding culture and leadership and their link to high-performing sustainable organizations. She has worked with Top 100 companies across the world, is a regular conference speaker and writer, and is a Director of two highly successful UK-based agencies. Jane has been a member of IABC since 2008 and has had the privilege of serving on local, regional, and International IABC Boards. She is currently Chair of the 2021 World Conference and was awarded the honor of IABC Fellow in March. Caroline Sapriel is the founder and managing partner of CS&A International, a specialist risk, crisis and business continuity management firm. Focusing on helping multinational organizations build crisis resilience, she works with multinational clients across industry sectors globally. With 30 years’ experience in risk and crisis management, she is recognized as a leader in her profession and acknowledged for her ability to provide customized, results-driven counsel and training at the highest level. Caroline is an accomplished trainer, facilitator and coach in risk, issues and crisis management as well as in communication skills. A Fellow of the International Association of Business Communicators, Caroline is a regular speaker on risk and crisis management at international conferences. She has published articles and co-authored two books on crisis management as well as contributed the chapter on crisis communication to IABC’s handbook of Organizational Communication. She lectures on crisis management at the University of Antwerp and the University of Leuven in Belgium as well as the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Caroline is fluent in French, English, Spanish, Hebrew and Mandarin. She holds a BA degree in Chinese Studies and a BSc degree in International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The post Circle of Fellows #113: Ethics in Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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ALP 262: What freelancers should know before they become agency owners 16:58

منذ 5 أيام16:58

16:58

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the transition from being a freelancer to an agency owner. They delve into the common fears and challenges associated with hiring employees and emphasize the importance of having structured processes and systems. The episode also explores topics such as the strategic direction of a business, handling pricing models, and the significance of building a team that you trust if your goal is to eventually sell the agency. Chip and Gini highlight the need to evolve business plans based on life phases and market demands, enabling freelancers to effectively scale their operations. [ read the transcript ] The post ALP 262: What freelancers should know before they become agency owners appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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FIR #452: Communicating in Chaos 1:29:16

منذ 6 أيام1:29:16

1:29:16

“We are once again at a moment in time where things will not — and cannot — be the same again. However it unfolds, the only certainty is chaos will follow.” So wrote global PR practitioner Catherine Arrow in a post on LinkedIn. In this monthly longform episode, Neville and Shel discuss Catherine’s observation that communicators are caught in the thick of conflict in which division is actively cultivated and truth is disputed and weaponized. Also in this episode, YouTube viewing has shifted from mobile phones to television sets, with implications for the way communicators and marketers produce video for YouTube; there is much for communicators to consider when engaging on platforms that have shrugged off content moderation (part of the chaos Catherine Arrow referenced); Gallup’s Global Leadership Report is out and we’ll share what people want from their leaders; you can now create personas using AI — does that mean it’s a good idea to ask them questions instead of convening a panel of humans for your research? And LinkedIn is de-platforming the value of hashtags — does this spell the end of hashtags on LinkedIn? In his Tech Report, Dan York discussed Mastodon Quote Posts, Apple’s ending of end-to-end encryption in the UK, and WikiTok, a TikTok alternative that delivers an endless scroll of Wikipedia. The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 24. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com . Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog . Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine . You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog . Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Links from this episode: CEO Says TV Overtakes Mobile as “Primary Device” for Viewing I was watching YouTube on my TV before it became more popular than phones – here are 3 reasons why it’s better on the big screen There’s a Good Reason Most People Prefer YouTube on TV Welcome to the Age of the Chaos Communicator The Global Alliance’s Melbourne Mandate What loosened restrictions on social media content moderation means for B2B communications leaders Perplexity search on impact of loosened content moderation on communication and marketing Global Leadership Report: What Followers Want The Case Against AI-Generated Users Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated “Research” User research. Without the headaches. FAQ: What Are Synthetic Panels? What is synthetic sample – and is it all it’s cracked up to be? And can GenAI be used off-the-shelf to create one? The end of the road for LinkedIn hashtags? Links from Dan York’s Report Bringing Quote Posts to Mastodon Apple removes Advanced Data Protection for iCloud in the UK after the government ordered it to build a backdoor, something the company says it will never do Apple pulls iCloud end-to-end encryption feature for UK users after government demanded backdoor Developer creates endless Wikipedia feed to fight algorithm addiction <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> Raw transcript: Shel Holtz: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 452 of four immediate release, our long form episode for February, 2025. I’m She Holtz in Concord, California. Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson in Somerset in Ingot. Shel Holtz: And we have six really interesting topics to share with you today. Some serious implications for communicators that we’re going to help you navigate. Before we get there, though, we have our usual monthly rundown of housekeeping to take care of, starting with a look at what we have reported in our short midweek episodes since the last monthly show in January. Neville. We’ve got quite a few episodes four we’ve had since the last episode. Neville Hobson: And they’ve been great topics. I think we’ve we’ve covered some pretty interesting areas. The first one since the last monthly, that’s episode 4 48, we recorded on the 29th [00:01:00] of January was riffing on a couple of LinkedIn posts that looked at change management and enterprise social networks is at the end of the line for these things written by Caroline Keeley and Sharon O’Day respectively. And they did a good job of setting out the case. So we talked about that. Worth a listen, we have a comment right on that one. Shel Holtz: We do, we have two comments on that one. The first is from Natasha Gonzalez, who says, definitely agree that internal usage may be a reflection of a change in external social usage and that the Godspeed approach has never worked well. And then Sharon O’Day, who was one of the people who. Was the source of the material that we riffed on in that episode said great discussion. Thanks. Shell and Neville. I agree with most of the points you bring up here. People need clarity on what channels are for and how they should use them, but that’s more of a challenge than you might expect. Very many comms reviews. I do reach the conclusion that even the comms team don’t know what their ESN their, employee social network is really [00:02:00] for and with trust on the decline. As you discuss, it’s understandable that employees might be reluctant to share. Will people look through my past contributions to our employee social network and conclude my disagreement is disloyalty. No wonder people are retreating to smaller forums or choosing to check out active discussions in a world where Elon and his ilk are in the ascendancy, having an opinion on your employee social network may be, may mean putting your neck on the line. I was tempted to title my piece. Did Elon Kill the Employee Social Network? If leadership are active, authentic on social themselves, it creates psychological safety, which will encourage people to participate. But the reality is very few leaders really do this, and if comms are using employee social networks as another broadcast channel, then long term they contribute to their decline as they’re no longer positioned in audience’s minds as a place of listening, debating, or sharing. Neville Hobson: Good comment. [00:03:00] So then episode 4 49 on the 5th of February. This is a topic we’ve talked about before. The title of our episode was Employees Use of Shadow AI Surges. We talked about shadow ai. I’ve forgotten the date show. It was about a year ago, I think quite a while ago. And this looked at an aspect of this that’s not decreasing. If anything, it’s increasing. On the risk side people are using these tools still in organizations and not telling anyone that they are, particularly where there is prohibition in place. So as a stealth approach to using generative ai, we said, but there are plenty of risks. So we looked at the data. There’s data now on this and discussed various approaches companies can take that will benefit both them and their employees in four 50 on the 13th of February. That was a really good topic where we discussed recent research that shows senior leaders in organizations have doubts about [00:04:00] communicators abilities. And that’s a that’s a pretty bleak assessment. It talked about complexities in the worlds of business, medium politics, and where you’ve got that situation. The concern of senior executives. The confidence is not high. It decreases. Our people up to the task is what they’re asking. And you and I outline the research results and discuss ways communicate, can reverse this troubling trend naturally. We had lots of suggestions in that area, and we have a comment on this one too, don’t we? Shel Holtz: Two of them here, actually three here. First from Amy Santoro who says, this saddens me, but I’m not surprised still since I started in communications in the nineties, we’re not valued and struggled to get a seat at the table. Patrick Edwardson says, great conversation. Think you’re absolutely right when it comes to communication professionals needing to be more proactive in offering solutions and perspectives to leaders, rather than ending up in a reactionary mode, which is easily done given [00:05:00] the current volatile external environment. More on that to come in this episode. And finally, Steve Renzo sums it up pretty well, saying that’s depressing. Neville Hobson: Good ending to that one. Then in episode 4 51 on the 17th of February we talked about return to office. Obsessed executives are minimizing the employee voice. This is the now infamous and widely known behavior of the CEO of JP Morgan Chase. The bankers Jamie Diamond, who unfortunately for him had a severe rant during an employee meeting that was recorded. And of course, the recording leaked. It’s, the expletives are dreadful. It is seriously someone who really doesn’t care. What did employees want to do or think? They need to do what he tells ’em and just get into the office and be there. So we talked about that. And I see that we’ve had on LinkedIn, certainly a lot of people who’ve who’ve who, who liked it and stuff like that. We provided mostly you shall evidence that productivity, morale [00:06:00] higher with remote workers. We did cite a lot of that research. But if it comes down to, or when it comes down to a leader who behaves like this, your work is cut out to to, to show the benefits of a hybrid approach to the workplace or any other method that splits the get into the office or work from home. It’s a never ending debate, it seems to me. But I’ve seen others talking about this too since that episode. IE other behaviors not leaked recordings, but leaders of big organizations saying, I don’t care. You gotta get in the office. So this is an argument that has still got a long way to run, I’d say. So that was yeah, sorry. We got comment two, haven’t we? Shel Holtz: We have three. Starting with Stuart Bruce who says, if it’s a simplistic back to the office mantra I’m against it. Simply having people sitting behind a desk in an office is counterproductive. However, if it’s managed intelligently by rethinking office layouts, what people do when they do it and more, then there’s value. The osmosis effect is [00:07:00] invaluable. Junior people, learning from senior people simply by being around them. The spontaneous sharing of ideas. The problem is that too often in offices, there isn’t a lot of those two things happening. If people are to be back in the office, it needs to be benefit, both the employer and the employee. That means rethinking what being in the office really means. And I have to say, I, I really agree with Stewart. It’s why I favored the hybrid model over a fully remote model. Although there are cases where an employee, it makes sense for them to be fully remote, but not as a routine. Be at home, be remote when you’re gonna be nose down, doing. Individual work and be in the office when there are things happening that are gonna put people together, interacting, engaging, collaborating, sharing. That’s what makes sense to me. Jesper Anderson also commented he asked, did you hear Richard Edelman on Provoke Media’s new PR agency leader podcast? He’s very much in favor of mandatory returning to the office, saying people [00:08:00] are at their best when they are together. And finally, Steve Neruda says, having read a couple of discussion threads on LinkedIn on this subject, what stood out to me were the comments that one’s employees couldn’t be trusted, which read to me like a very Trumpian every accusation is a confession. People projecting their own faults and failures externally. Neville Hobson: Good comments. All of them. Great. Yeah. So that’s a hot topic. No doubt. We’ll be talking about it again in the future. Shel Holtz: I also wanna let you know that the most recent episode of Circle of Fellows from January is up and available on the FIR Podcast Network. Was a really good discussion on creativity, on how to get that creativity sparked, especially in the busy corporate environment. Zoa artists, Diane GSKi, Andrea Greenhouse, and Martha Mka joined me for that episode. And then coming up this Monday an unusual day to [00:09:00] record. Circle of Fellows. That’s usually the third Thursday of the month, but this month it worked out for Monday at noon Eastern time. We’ll be talking ethics because it is communication ethics month at IABC. And that conversation will involve Diane GSKi again two months in a row. Todd Hattori Jane Mitchell and Carolyn Riel. Should be a great discussion on communication ethics, especially in light of some of the communication we’ve been seeing in the last few months. Neville Hobson: Definitely. And also just to let you know, we have a new FIR interview that will be published next Wednesday, the 26th of February. Those of you who’ve been in this game for a long time in terms of digital and social will recognize this name. Steve Ruble. Steve has longevity in this. He is a hugely influential voice and kickstart a lot of the developments that happened from 2005 onwards. He spent nearly 19, [00:10:00] 20 years at Edelman and he’s now looking at new pastures, new ideas, new ventures. New adventures. I would say we had a great conversation with Steve, just a week or so back. And we’ll be publishing that, as I mentioned on Wednesday. So that’ll come out in the morning, GMT, so you can catch it when you wake up. And also that same day, we’re recording the next FIR interview, which we’ll publish sometime in March with Sam Michelson, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Five Blocks. That is a digital reputation management agency among other things. He’s involved with his company, which is how I came to know. Sam also runs a server, offers a service called Wiki Alerts which lets you track. Pages to Wikipedia pages, and I’ve been using that service myself for probably five years. But Sam and I connected, we had a long chat. He’s based in Israel. The company’s based in New York. And looking [00:11:00] forward to exploring Sam’s thoughts on a topic. Both you and I have talked about quite a bit the letters, AI feature in there in terms of digital reputation management. So we’ll get some insights from Sam on what he thinks about where this is going and in, in the context of organizational communication. So that’s all coming up. New interviewing published on Wednesday the 26th of February. The following interview will come out in the first half of March, I reckon. Shel Holtz: Looking forward to that interview on Wednesday. Sounds like it’ll be an illuminating session. And now it’s time for us to start reporting on our six topics of the month after this. There is a major shift in video consumption Communicators need to pay attention to. YouTube is now watched more on TVs than on mobile devices. For years, YouTube has been synonymous with mobile viewing, but according to YouTube’s, CEO Neil Mohan TV screens have [00:12:00] overtaken smartphones as the primary way people watch YouTube. In the US viewers now watch over a billion hours of YouTube daily on their TVs. This trend isn’t just happening in the us it’s in the UK too, where 34% of YouTube viewing already happens on TVs and among kids aged four to 15, that number jumps to 45% in the uk. Clearly, this is something that’s not slowing down. So why is this happening? There are several factors driving this transformation, and it starts with the evolution of smart TVs and streaming devices because YouTube is now pre-installed on most of them on the Sony TVs and the Samsung TVs, those smart TVs they come with the YouTube already pre-installed. Same with the Roku and the Apple TV box just makes it easier than ever to watch it. On your tv. It’s also not just for short clips anymore. YouTube is just teaming with documentaries in-depth, explainers and [00:13:00] episodic series. I think it’s interesting that Epi episodic series are thriving on YouTube and it’s turned into a shared viewing experience with more people watching YouTube together. Just like traditional television. And I know I do most of my YouTube watching on the computer, but if I see something I think my wife would be interested in, I pull it up on the TV and we watch it together. So there’s that. For communicators using YouTube, this shift has some pretty big implications. If audiences are consuming YouTube like tv, then we need to adjust the way we create this content. So what do we need to do differently? First you need to optimize for TV screens and most of the YouTube videos that are up there. Now were designed for mobile. And if your audience is watching on tv, you’re gonna need to adapt. First of all you need that 16 nine aspect ratio, the wide screen format, because vertical videos suck on tv. And I can tell you that from personal experience, [00:14:00] you need to make your text and graphics bigger. What works on a phone that is a few inches from your eyes might be unreadable from across the room. And you also need to make sure your audio is high quality because poor sound is a lot more noticeable on your sound bar or your surround sound system, even your native TV audio than it is. Listening to it on your phone. Next thing you need to do is think more like a TV producer. They’re watching YouTube more like tv, so you need to lean into longer content. Viewers on TV are a lot more likely to watch content that is 10 plus minutes. You need to invest in better production, quality lighting, sound and editing matter more on a large screen and consider episodic content because as I mentioned, recurring series and repetitive formats, episodic formats encourage you to come back and watch the next episode, so you get people hooked on your content. It’s no longer just a one-off, oh, I saw this, I [00:15:00] watched it, it was interesting, and I’ll never see anything from you again. Third, it’s important to leverage the second screen experience because viewers may be watching YouTube on tv, but their phones are still in their hands. YouTube is expanding features in order to accommodate the fact that people are watching on their TV with their phone in their hands. They’re doing QR codes and videos because it’s a simple way to drive viewers to take action, and they’re offering phone-based interactions. They’re making it easy to comment or engage with the video on your mobile phone while you’re watching the tv. If you want viewers to sign up, comment, share, you have to make it easy for them to do that from their phone. Because they really aren’t gonna use their remote to do that on the tv. And if you are advertising on YouTube, you need to consider your ad strategy too. They are rolling out TV specific ad formats. Three of them are interesting. One are pause [00:16:00] ads. These are ads that will appear when you pause the video. So what kind of ad would you like people to see when they pause a video? Next is non-intrusive overlays that are better suited for passive TV viewers. And finally, is high quality skippable ads. If you can skip the ad, you will, unless it draws you in. Viewers are a lot more willing to watch if it’s a well made, interesting, compelling ad. Now, if you’re using YouTube ads, these formats could be more effective than traditional pre-rolls. The takeaway from all this is that YouTube isn’t just another social platform anymore. It’s the new television. If you’re using YouTube for communication, it’s time to start thinking like a broadcaster. Neville Hobson: Listening to what you’re saying there, she I just said to her, my God, the manipulation is dreadful. Truly. But I watch, more t more YouTube content on TV than any other device. In fact, the worst device to watch YouTube on is a mobile phone. Frankly I, in my experience, horrible not only is [00:17:00] it a small screens, it’s squeezed in, the vertical you mentioned, okay. But all the popups and all the ads and all the kind of and particularly the ads that break in the middle of something you’re watching. So it’s a dreadful experience in my humble opinion. Maybe not so humble, but that’s my opinion. So I tend to watch YouTube on TV for stuff I’ve saved that I found elsewhere. I actually quite and this is not like I see something, I think, oh, my wife and I would like to watch it together. We don’t do that with YouTube. We do that with Google movies. That’s a fact. Now that’s not YouTube. That’s a separate thing, but it’s the same company of course. But I like to watch things I’ve found elsewhere that I’ve saved. I can watch on a big screen, and it could be an ad, it could be something else, anything. Even yet, that experience is not brilliant no matter what device you’re using, simply because of the int inclusivity of the advertising, other messaging that interferes with what you’re watching. So you could say. If you take the premium account, pay for it, you don’t get the ads. That’s actually not quite [00:18:00] true. You do, but maybe not so badly as this. So I think your point is a key one that you mentioned towards the end of what you were saying, which is if an ad is done really well that draws you in, you wouldn’t object. Utterly agree with that. But I’ve yet to find any on YouTube in the uk. The worst ones are, the kind of over fifties life insurance plans. Maybe that’s the algorithm looking at me and serving up that rubbish, wor, badly made, I mean everything. I better stop me now, shall I get you on a rant yet? So I think TV’s great. It’s a better medium to watch it, but you don’t always have time to do all of that. So the next option I think I would agree with you is a big screen monitor in your office attached to your desktop computer. Definitely not a phone tablet. Okay. If it’s a large one, but I think. The rest of what you said makes sense from the, from the content writer’s perspective and the medium that people are shoving this content out there. I just don’t think anyone’s really doing that very well on YouTube. That’s my take. The feeling I [00:19:00] get often is that you’re there and you will be interfered with intrusive advertising, whether you like it or not. And often there’s no skip. You gotta watch the damn things. In some cases not all. So I don’t have a very good perception of YouTube. So I’m not the target audience as much of this stuff and I’m totally fine with that. Lemme tell you that Shel Holtz: I don’t see any ads on YouTube ever because I pay the premium fee. Oh, I don’t to avoid the ads. Yeah. Oh yeah. It’s worth every penny as far as I’m concerned, to not see those ads. Sure, Neville Hobson: I get that. Shel Holtz: Yeah. But the fact that more people are watching on TV now than mobile doesn’t mean people aren’t watching on mobile. So you have to know who your audience is and where are they more likely to be watching. I didn’t see any demographic breakout except that number for kids four to 15 in the uk watching more than the overall population on their TVs. So yeah, I think it’s partly recognizing where [00:20:00] you’re. Audience demographically is likely to be watching, but it’s also what kind of content are you thinking of producing? If, if you’re looking for a TikTok like video if you’ve made it for TikTok, I, there’s no reason not to repurpose it for YouTube. The more places it, it is, the better, as long as you’ve made whatever adjustments need to be made for the differences in the formats. But on the other hand, and I know I’ve talked about this on the show before, there are businesses now companies that are making documentaries and YouTube is now a good place to host those because people will sit and watch a documentary. I’ll tell you the truth, Neville, michelle and I wanted to watch a movie. There was a remake of the movie that was about to come out, and the original starred one of Michelle’s favorite old time actors, Tyrone Power and we wanted to watch the original before we saw the new one and checked every streaming service and nobody had it. I was, oh my God, this movie has to be somewhere. Where it ended up being, it [00:21:00] was YouTube. So that’s what we did. We pulled up YouTube because it’s on both our Apple TV box and our Samsung tv. So we just pulled up YouTube, did a search for the movie, and sat there for an hour and 40 minutes and watched a movie. So that’s a new behavior and I think people, who produce content have gotta get accustomed to that and start factoring that into your thinking about what kind of content are you gonna produce. Neville Hobson: I would agree with you. I would, the only thing I’d say to what you, the kind of pace you outline, I don’t do any of that with YouTube other places I do that. Not a place I naturally look to, to spend time on except, as I mentioned, as I saved, I wanna catch up with a concert a clip of an ad that I really thought was impressive, things like that. I don’t watch movies, I don’t watch documentaries. There, there are other places I go for that kind of content, but we’re all different and that’s why there’s so much choice out there. I just get, find so much choice. I gotta limit it to something. So I don’t pay [00:22:00] for that. I pay for other servers, but not pay YouTube. So I tend not to use it. That much in that regard. But it the point though, you are making, I think I would agree with that. You’ve gotta get your aunt together, offer content in a way that’s compelling to the viewer that keeps them around. And they might then look at other stuff. And that’s why I’m reading the Gizmo article that you shared on this, talking about the revenue that has been steadily increasing. The writer of this piece, by the way, has a a scathing review of YouTube’s mobile app, . I agree with him. He talks about the brain brot of the YouTube mobile app turns me off more than it turns me on. If I truly wanted dumb quick hits to shock my brain with numbing dopamine, I would turn to TikTok . But and he also makes a comment too which was in my mind, strange to consider YouTube’s popularity on TV when the company keeps raising the price. Obviously YouTube TV service. That’s an interesting point. So in the US he says YouTube TV now costs [00:23:00] $83 a month. That’s a lot of money. Wow. Shel Holtz: Might as well just pay for cable. Neville Hobson: Gosh. Yeah. That’s crazy. He says, if I’m gonna be forced to watch ads because I can’t afford a premium subscription, I wouldn’t wanna do it on my TV or phone. Okay. That’s his take. But it’s an interesting topic. Shell and I think content creators really should think this through better than they do to make it a more compelling experience for the viewer. Shel Holtz: Yeah. And by the way, one of the reasons I watch a lot of YouTube is because jam bands tend to upload their concert videos, to YouTube, and I am a jam band fan and one reason I can watch them on my phone is that I did get the pixel fold okay. My phone is now it unfolds into a mini tablet and it makes that experience a whole lot better. Neville Hobson: Is it any good? Shel Holtz: I love it. Yeah, it’s great. It’s a little heavy a little heavier than I’m used to for a phone, but I got used to that pretty quickly. I like it. I like it a lot. Neville Hobson: Cool. Okay next we’re going to talk about a different world in an age of chaos. And this [00:24:00] stems from a post on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s coming up a lot in my research when I look for topics these days. And that’s a good thing. There’s some great content there. I’ll tell Shel Holtz: you, I’ll tell you, I’m saving more and more LinkedIn articles to my Tumblr feed which is what I use to look for articles to write about or to talk about on the show. So I agree with you. Neville Hobson: Sure. I use pocket for that, and it’s chock full of LinkedIn content, but I also save on LinkedIn as well. But now picture this. Imagine a world where reality itself is contested, where facts are no longer agreed upon, and truth bends under the weight of disinformation. Does that sound familiar to what’s happening right now? It could be some familiarity there. This is the world we find ourselves in today, and as communicators, our role has never been more crucial or more complex. Five years ago at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic communication had some semblance of order governments held daily briefing scientists stood alongside officials, and even as chaos unfolded, there were still structures in place to [00:25:00] make sense of it all. Fast forward to 2025, and that coherence has all but vanished now. We find ourselves in an era that Catherine Arrow calls chaos communication. A time when public relations professionals, journalists, and communicators, are no longer just sense makers, but active participants in an information war, in a thought provoking post on LinkedIn. Welcome to the Age of the Chaos Communicator. Arrow. Arrow warns that we’ve entered a new phase of public discourse, one where truth is deliberately distorted. Polarization is a strategy, and neutrality is no longer an option. We face a world shaped not just by geopolitical tensions and economic upheavals, but by deliberate attempts to reshape reality. She critiques the role of public relations and communication professionals pointing out that they are no longer just mediators, but often find themselves entangled in battles over truth itself. Some uphold ethical standards while others willingly participate in disinformation [00:26:00] for personal or political gain. Arrow warns at the stakes are now higher than ever. . As those in power actively work to reshape narratives for their own benefit in this environment, neutrality is no longer an option. Communicators must take a stand, push back against misinformation and act as defenders of truth, even at personal or professional risk. As communicators, what role should we play? Do we amplify messages regardless of the truthfulness, or do we take a stand knowing that speaking up could come at a cost? Arrow argues that we are now one step beyond traditional crisis communication, and we must embrace the uncomfortable reality of chaos communication, where defending the truth is not just an ethical responsibility, but a battle in its own right. Ultimately Arrow calls for a redefinition of the communicator’s role in this new era, urging professionals to move beyond traditional PR functions and embrace the responsibility of countering manipulation, upholding integrity, [00:27:00] and ensuring that history is not dictated solely by those with loudest megaphones. This age of chaos raises important questions for communicators. How do we ensure that ethical communication remains at the forefront? How do we counter disinformation without adding to the noise? And most critically, if we don’t take a stand for truth, who will? Shel Holtz: Well, the question I have is, are we doing this on our own using platforms like LinkedIn or are we doing this on behalf of our organizations? Because if we’re doing this on behalf of our organizations, we certainly can’t just go off and do it on our own. A lot of organizations are grappling with the chaos that is coming out of Washington, DC right now and making some tough decisions about what they’re going to say and what they’re not going to say in order to protect their business. Good god look at Elon Musk right now and specifically thinking of Twitter or [00:28:00] X where he is suggesting not in so many words, but everybody is . On top of this interpretation that if you advertise on X and you don’t increase your ad spend, you could end up being the target of a government investigation, your organization. You talk about the weaponization of government and the administration is doing that. If you don’t tow the line on DEI policies, you’re, you could end up being the target of an investigation by the Department of Justice. These are pretty serious threats. And I think organizations that have employees they need to pay so that they can feed their families and, keep a roof over their heads. They need to keep their vendors working. They need to keep their investors happy. That’s a tough call to take a stand. I think there are fewer and fewer organizations, frankly, that are doing that be because of the threat. Now I. Absolutely agree. And I am taking a stand [00:29:00] individually, online, wherever I can as, as well as through other community activities. But I think it’s interesting if she’s talking about, as an official spokesperson of your organization, you are speaking for your organization. You can’t make that up as you go. . Neville Hobson: I’m not sure she’s talking about that. Although that may be part of what she’s saying. She doesn’t state it, but it is more of a general thing, it seems to me. And I think it makes sense. Like you I could see the risk element of this but perhaps more significantly to your prime point, which is you can’t just go out and do this if you are talking on behalf of the organization. Of course not. I don’t think she’s suggesting that. It does make you think when I read her article, this was before the news rapidly emerged about the thousands of people that Trump and his psycho fence are firing in public sector or the federal employees. I read today, I think the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta is letting go some thousands of employees. The big [00:30:00] one is the 10,000 or so that have been let go in. I’ve forgotten which government department shell, do you remember? It was in the news? Yeah, Shel Holtz: it was the US agency for international development. Neville Hobson: Is it that one? Okay. Because I think Department of Defense is coming up next. So I was reading Generals this morning. They had about Shel Holtz: yeah, chairman of the Neville Hobson: so I guess in the context of that without this conversation just focusing on all this stuff going on in America, I think. In my mind it’s been why aren’t we seeing more people pushing back on, on stuff like this? But the wider picture would be generally what the US is, the current administration in the White House is doing, broadly speaking across the board, the threat of tariffs and this kind of deal making in Ukraine. It’s all about mining these precious metals that’s all Trump wants. He wants a deal, and he’s talking about how much money everyone can make on this. Good grief. He’s all about the transaction. And, uh, cozy up to Putin and so forth. No one’s really saying a lot about that. And I [00:31:00] can understand that. Part of me understands that, the high risk element of that. But I think it’s more why do that? No one has a clue how to respond to this yet. That’s what it looks like to me. Whether you are in a European government, whether you are in a global multinational corporation, let’s wait for. Someone some company that’s a big global enterprise is gonna get in the cross hairs of either Musk or Trump and have to go through some kind of serious accusation. So what are we gonna do about that? So I would imagine what Catherine Arrow is pointing out is already on the discussion tables of large organizations. I would think the what if, and this is what would you call it? Chief says, we’re beyond crisis communication. This is chaos, communication planning. So that is already going on, and maybe we’re in the, to use a second World War analogy, this is the phony war. There’s not real war broken out yet. These are little skirmishes. These are the . Probing and the pushing. That’s what it seems to me. And yet the consequences of these actions are dreadful and dreadful. They’re dire, [00:32:00] they are gonna affect all of us. So you mentioned about, in a company people have gotta, look after their employees, they can feed their families or totally. Right. Maybe that’s what’s influencing the lack of things as well. So we’ve got all that. This then is the, almost like the game plan for this is what you’ve gotta decide as a communicator in the organization. And by the way, thinking about that, the communicators. What about those folks who are in those organizations that have fired all those federal employees, the communicators, assuming they aren’t amongst the fires. I’ve seen a couple of people talking on threats who are communicators who’ve been let go in, I’ve forgotten which agency? So it’s across the board. And we are gonna see some dreadful consequences of all of this. In the meantime, we’ve got what c Catherine Arrow is pointing out to us that we need to decide ourselves. How do we ensure that ethical communications at the forefront how do we counter disinformation? Listen to everything Trump says, and the fact checking [00:33:00] guys are hard at work on everything he says and almost. The majority of everything he says is not true most of the time. So how do you counter that? Because it’s like we’ve often talked, if you don’t respond to stuff like that after a short period of time, it becomes the truth to most people. ’cause no one is saying different and there’s a big risk. If we don’t stand for truth, who will is her concluding point. That’s a very good statement. But we should adapt that to the real world, to the reality of the circumstances in our own situations. There is risk doing this without doubt. I don’t have the answers to these questions I’m asking too. I’ve been thinking about this as I read Katherine’s post and just observing what’s going on as Musk with his chainsaw at a conference. Goodness me Trump, who. I just wonder, is he, does he think this is all a joke? Do you think so? Is he just letting Musk have his way until something goes wrong and then he fires him and then we see a conflagration? Who knows? But this is a dangerous time. This, I, [00:34:00] in my view, is a good clarion call for us to think about some of these things and indeed this kind of conversation you and I are having, others should be having these conversations too, because we are at a time of grave peril. It seems to me, in this age of chaos. And chaos is right. Shel Holtz: Absolutely. And when Catherine Aero says that we need to take on a new role, I would argue it’s not a new role. It is something that was suggested maybe 10 or 12 years ago by the Global Alliance for Communications and Public Relations. Yeah. This is the organization whose membership is made up of communication associations. I-E-B-C-P-R-S-A CPRS. They’re all members of the Global Alliance, and they met in Melbourne way back when and drafted what they called the Melbourne mandate. I don’t even know if you can still find that online. But at the center of the mandate was that the communicator’s role at the center is to be the conscience of the organization and to help guide. The [00:35:00] doing of what’s right and the rejection of what’s wrong. And that’s exactly, I think what she’s talking about here. Just more speaking up than providing counsel. But as communicators I think that they were right in the Melbourne mandate that because we have that view, not only of all of the organization’s operations, but everything that’s going on externally, we’re in the best position to say, look, this is how people are going to react to our taking this position. I look at Target the gr the department store chain as an example. They dialed back their DEI, they dialed back the pride month celebrations. They used to have a lot of product from gay L-G-B-T-Q designers and the like in the store. And they’ve dialed that back because of the pushback they were getting. But now there’s been a suit filed against them customers who supported their DEI initiatives and their supportive Pride month are boycotting and making a lot of noise. They’re being torn apart by both ends. And [00:36:00] you have to wonder how an organization is going to deal with that when half of the people want you to do one thing and half of your customers want you to do another. And they you can’t have it both ways. So I’m, these are difficult times. Neville Hobson: They are. And I’m thinking something you mentioned about the Melbourne mandate is a good point. But I think we’ve got, we’re at a time now where nothing at all is black or white, is very nuance’s. Lots of dreadful shades of gray. Much more than that movie talked about. Lemme tell you that. And you’ve also got something we can observe which she references that some people uphold ethical standards. And I would like to think the majority of communicators do, while others willingly participate in disinformation for personal or political gain. That’s not a new thing, of course, but at a time when things are not what they appear, particularly when. In the kind of good old days, an authority figure, like the [00:37:00] president of the United States, you could almost literally say, if he says it’s it is. So, now you’ve got Trump doing that kind of stuff. If he says it’s it ain’t, that’s a fact, but what are you gonna do about it? And it gets worse every time he talks. I think this presents a, this kind of adds to the dilemma confronting communicators because it is not black and white, the old rule book that you may not apply the way it was intended back then. So you’ve gotta think fast on your faith, be pretty agile as the word goes and look at how do you convince your leaders, your colleagues and others that of a certain course of action when evidence, quote unquote out there suggests it’s not that, it’s this, how do you deal with that? So it’s, it is a time of chaos. Shel Holtz: We’re gonna stick with this topic. We’re just gonna zero in on one element of the chaos, and that’s the upheaval we find ourselves in. Thanks to this trend of loosening content moderation policies [00:38:00] on major platforms, notably X and Metis platforms this shift has profound implications for communicators, especially in the B2B sector. So if you’re working the B2B sector, pay attention MET is transitioning from third party fact checking to a community note system that’s similar to the approach that X formerly Twitter took under Elon Musk’s leadership. If you care to call it that Zuckerberg is framing this move as a commitment to free expression, aiming to address concerns about over enforcement and perceived biases and content regulation. But this relaxation of content controls has really sparked a lot of debate. Critics argue that reducing moderation can lead to increases in misinformation and harmful content, posing risks to public disclosure and brand safety. Really interesting to be having this discussion. Right now. I’m reading the book, the Sirens call by Chris Hayes, which is about the attention economy. And we only have so much attention to give. It’s being commoditized, [00:39:00] but there is an endless supply of information out there and people are working hard to draw your attention. To their content. And if you spend your time with disinformation and misinformation, that means there’s less time for you to hear the countervailing opinion on all of this. So what are the implications for communicators for those of us in communications, these changes require a strategic reassessment. Here’s what to think about. First, brand reputation management With fewer moderation controls, there is a greater risk of misleading or harmful content proliferating. You may find that your brand’s messages is right up against something that’s controversial or offensive, and that can damage your brand’s reputation and ERO trust. So it’s really important to monitor social channels vigilantly, and respond quickly to any content that could negatively impact your brand. Then there’s navigating misinformation. The [00:40:00] potential rise in unchecked information means communicators have to be proactive in combating false narratives, developing clear factual content and engaging directly with your audience to correct misperceptions, misconceptions, and disinformation can help maintain your brand’s credibility. Also, educating your audience on how to identify reliable information and information sources can empower them to navigate the digital landscape more effectively, and they may even be grateful to you for that. Next is evaluating platform strategies. As platforms change their moderation policies, we may need to go so far as reassessing where and how we engage our audiences. There are already people pulling their X accounts and telling people you, and you’ll now find us on Blue Sky. That’s because X is among those platforms that have become less conducive to your brand’s values and messaging. Due to an increase in harmful content, diversifying your digital presence and considering alternative [00:41:00] platforms with moderation policies that align with your brand standards can mitigate potential risks. Finally there’s enhancing internal policies that we need to consider internally. Revisiting your social media guidelines is imperative. Ensure that your team understands the importance of responsible content sharing and the potential implications of engaging with unmoderated content. Providing training on best practices can help maintain a consistent and positive brand image across all channels. So by staying informed and being proactive, we can navigate this complex environment effectively, safeguard our brands, and continue to engage our audiences in a meaningful way. Neville Hobson: Yeah, it sounds so wonderfully. Let’s do this the way you say it, shell, um, it’s good to link it to Catherine Arrow’s assessment of the Age of Chaos, because this is part of that. I agree. I find it almost incomprehensible to, to understand why [00:42:00] anyone would want to, um, eliminate content moderation in this day and age notwithstanding Trump and Musk even, and Zuckerberg for that matter talking about, because moderation restricts freedom of speech. That’s the kind of overriding argument that I understand they’re saying is that’s why they’ve done this, because they want to give. Better freedom of speech without these impediments of government censorship, which is really what it amounts to. So all this pushback in Trump’s style against the the European Union and their efforts to provide safeguards for people online and so forth, all that’s gone by the wayside basically. So brands generally the people running those brands have serious difficulties. Now with this in being present on any platform that doesn’t have moderation, which is where ones like Blue Sky really do stand out with what they have, and they’ve ramped up their their safeguarding teams significantly. Trouble is. The likes of X in [00:43:00] particular with what, 600 million users and Facebook with what are they got 3 billion users. The numbers are staggering that, that’s like a drop in the buckets. But maybe this, again, the extension of the conversations that we’ve had in prior episodes, which is that maybe this is something that brands who. Do not wish to literally give up on their content and their messaging being overwhelmed by stuff that they abhor and does not represent their brand values at all. Being associated with a place that has stuff like that. Maybe this is another nudge to get going with, considering other platforms, which comparatively, in terms of user numbers are niche right now. But that’s more honest it seems to me. And it’s not saying that, oh, great, we can have them to moderate all the content that, that’s one we can say, but we want not at all. This then becomes a far more strategic approach to this, and it actually sets in place, I think. [00:44:00] The beginnings of a framework for this is how it’s going to be in the future. That these monolithic networks that are controlled by a single corporation or one crazy individual who changes things on a whim now and again, and it is more like again and now would not matter. It takes power away from those people and you then are more honest and truthful to yourself and your audience. So that is the future though. ’cause what we got now is the age of chaos and it ain’t pretty. Shel Holtz: Yeah. And I find the argument that this is all about free speech to be a little disingenuous. , honestly, if you’re looking for unfettered free speech there’s always four chan. It’s still there. Last I heard. And anything goes on four chan. There are places that do that. But yeah it’s getting uglier and uglier. I am seeing stuff in my Facebook feed that I have never seen before. People I have not followed, I have not commented on, I haven’t even lingered on these posts. And I [00:45:00] find them objectionable and offensive. And why are they in my feed? What is it about the algorithm that is injecting this stuff into my feed? You, I think what makes TikTok so addictive is that it. Figures out pretty quickly what you like and just automatically starts giving you more of that. In fact, in his book, Chris Hayes says he had a, an evening at home one night. So he he was alone which is rare. So he decided to have a half a gummy an edible and play with TikTok. And he said after an hour he realized he had just been scrolling through videos of people making sandwiches lovingly and carefully and cutting them in half, one after another. And he said, oh my God TikTok knows I’m stoned , so, why can’t Facebook do something a little more like that? Why is it loading me up with this content? And it is, I think this shift toward a more . Conservative approach to [00:46:00] what we see. And I’m actually blocking a lot more on Facebook these days than I ever have. And I think it’s all because of this accommodation of the new administration and a desire to stay outta their crosshairs. That could be. I also think it’s the algorithm responds to what you post yourself, the content you post, and the volume of your posting. So I don’t do much on, on Facebook. I hardly ever maybe it’s probably less than 1% of my time there, less of that even engage with anyone who’s not a friend at all. Neville Hobson: I spend all my time purely in my friends. The equivalent of the timeline. I don’t engage much now and again, I’ll have a look at what’s going on and I quickly go away because I don’t see anything there that interests me at all. But that’s just me. I know others who are completely the opposite to that. TikTok I gave up on TikTok about six months ago. It’s just full of utter bilch. That’s how I see it. I have no interest in that at all. It’s a shame. But I think, [00:47:00] this is the landscape we have and it is not gonna improve. I shell I’m certain it won’t ever improve be, it’s getting worse, if anything. And now with what’s happening it’s I despair that this is ever gonna be a pleasant place. So I’m still on Facebook. I’m still not a hundred percent decided whether I’m gonna completely shut it down, but I’m leaning that way. And that doesn’t sound like ridiculous fence setting. I dunno what does, but that’s where I’m at still right now. Shel Holtz: I just finished reading a book. I can’t remember the author’s name. There are people listening, I’m sure, who would are shouting it at me. As soon as I tell you the title of the book it, it is called Nexus. And it is a history of information networks from the Stone Age to ai. And one of the points the author makes he’s a historian something of a philosopher an Israeli he wrote a book called Sapiens that I think was a bestseller. But he says, what enables democracy is information networks that allow people to engage in [00:48:00] discussion about the issues that affect. The society and to arrive at some kind of consensus. And we’re losing the ability to have those conversations because of this chaos and because of this flooding of the zone with misinformation and disinformation and people latching onto conspiracy theories and whatever suits the tribe that they belong to. And that’s worrisome. That is the conversation the authentic conversation seems to be drying up in favor of commenting on and sharing of misinformation and disinformation and, the spread of this stuff. I think, you’re paying attention to what is being shared about how to address all of this in unmoderated communities where your organization, your brand may be active. Listening to Catherine Arrow’s advice all of this is important because, yeah, we gotta do what we can. Dan York: Greeting she and Neville and FR listeners all around the world. It, Stan, you are coming at you from a [00:49:00] snowy Vermont USA, where we have about 20 inches or 50 centimeters for you, Neville, of that white stuff on the ground. It’s beautiful out here. Cold, but beautiful. So this month I wanna mention first something that people have long requested for the Mastodon platform, which is the ability to have quote posts. If you think about that, we used to call them retweets back in the day of Twitter, but they have since been called many other things in different platforms. But quote posts is certainly one topic, or quote, tweets, we used to say different ways, but a lot of platforms have them, and this is of course, the ability to go and take somebody else’s content and share it in your content, in your stream with your own feedback and comments and things. When Mastodon was first being created back in the mid 2010s, it was around 20 16, 20 17 that it first got started. They, the developers chose very specifically not to [00:50:00] include quote posts. I. And one of the rationales they had at the time was really that one of the ways in which quote posts can be used is to be negative about somebody, process often referred to as dunking or something where you are going and Taking somebody’s quote and saying, oh, look at what an idiot they are, or something like that. In much , much more profane words perhaps, but really, trashing somebody and doing it so in the wrong usage it can be a very unsafe kind of thing. And so the developers of Mastodon, when they were first creating it were against this. And so they didn’t implement it. But over the years, they have of course noticed that a lot of people like quote post, and there are very many other very positive uses of how it can be used to share something, amplify it, work with that. And many communities like using quote posts in different ways, and also that people coming to Mastodon from other platforms, were finding, [00:51:00] wait a minute I can’t do quote posts. Then, I don’t wanna be here and trying other things now because Macedon and the broader Fedi verse is an open environment, there have been a number of clients, including one that I use called Ice Cubes that have implemented a form of quote posts where it is basically taking the original post and forwarding and it sharing it very much like we used to do before the retweet mechanism was something that was created in Twitter. There’s been a need for a better way. So Mastodon, the team there at the developers of it, the Mastodon team put up a post earlier this month that talked about how this could be potentially implemented and what they looked at was basically creating a quote post mechanism, but providing additional controls. So what will happen as they implement this is that you will be able to choose whether your posts can be quoted. So [00:52:00] you’ll have a configuration if you don’t want people doing that, if it’s something you’ve seen abused for you or something, you can just not enable that. You will also be notified when someone quotes you, which other platforms allow as well. And then interestingly, you’ll be able to withdraw your post from the quoted context. So if somebody were to go and take your post and forward it and say, you know what an idiot you could choose to have it withdrawn from that quote. Interesting idea about how to go and do it. They rightly point out in their post that there is no standard for this. And so that’s one of the pieces of work that they’ll be doing is to bring it through the W three C or the process, a standards process. There’s now a fedi verse enhancement proposals kind of process that will go and write an extension to activity pub that will allow this to happen. So if you’re interested in the fedi verse and Mastodon, this is something that is working its way through and and we’ll see where this goes. I’m looking forward to having that capability as I spend more and more of my time [00:53:00] in the fedi verse these days. Second topic this month, I wanna just comment on the fact that, in your world, Neville, the the UK government was being very assertive to Apple, that they wanted the ability to go and have a backdoor to be able to get into any and all encrypted backups of UK citizens in Apple’s iCloud. They were demanding this under the UK’s Investig Investigatory Powers Act or the Snoopers Charter, as some people call it. They wanted to be able to go and get access to end-to-end encrypted files everywhere. So they were demanding that Apple put a back door in its system. I. If anybody has been watching the news, security news over here in the United States back doors, they never just stay for the government. We’ve watched here in the United States where a group of Chinese hackers apparently have been able to use back doors in a telecom system to be able to go and get in into [00:54:00] all sorts of conversations and things all over the world. Back doors are an incredibly bad idea. So there’s a lot of concern about what would Apple do. And what they chose to do is that they’re gonna stop offering their encrypted cloud storage offering something called advanced data protection to users in the uk. So now, as of this time or when this is happening here, UK users will have a less safe experience than anyone else in the rest of the world because they will not be able to have their data protected. So any of the data, the photos they store, the family photos, the documents, anything else they put in the iCloud. Will not be protected anymore because the UK government wants to go and be able to hack into it or look at it. So, let’s be careful here a little bit about what’s going on. FaceTime, some of the messaging will still be end-to-end encrypted, but the difference will be that the backups will not be, and so you will not have that protection with, if you turn on the advanced data [00:55:00] protection, your data is end-to-end encrypted. And so Apple can’t see it. A government can’t see it, nobody can see it. It’s protected with it turned off the government or others could see it. So UK users will be less secure than the rest of the world. We’ll see what happens, whether the UK government relents and agrees with everyone else that back doors are bad or or what will happen. Stay tuned. I wanna end with kind of something a little bit more fun if we’ve been doom scrolling through whatever your service may be, threads, blue Sky, Mastodon, or even those other ones out there. If you want an alternative, a developer Del Deliver, develop something called Wiki Talk. Yes, it’s a play on TikTok and if you go to their website, which is wiki to W-I-K-I-T-O-C-T-O-K, just search on that with your search engine, you’ll find it quickly. It is something where you can just go and do vertical swipes and like you would in TikTok or something, and [00:56:00] you’ll swipe through random Wikipedia articles. It sounds hokey, but you know what, it’s . Fun, just looping through and seeing whatever different things are. It doesn’t have videos. It’s not like TikTok in that way. It’s just random articles, which then you can go and be able to click a button and read more. But it’s just something fun. If you want an alternative to doom scrolling through all the news these days. With that, I’ll turn it back to you guys, shall Neville. Thanks for including me here and I look forward to this listening to the show. The outline you’ve got looks fantastic. So that’s all for me. You can find more in my audio in writing at Dan York. Me. Thanks for listening back to you guys. Bye for now. Shel Holtz: Thanks very much, Dan, as always a great report and I cannot wait to go take a look at Wiki talk . It sounds like so much fun. The idea of doom scrolling through Wiki the endless scroll of Wiki articles just sounds wonderful. I gotta give that a try. Neville Hobson: Leadership is at the heart of everything. I think most of us listening to [00:57:00] this would agree from the highest levels of government to the smallest of communities, but what do people truly want from their leaders? What makes someone worth following? Gallup’s latest global leadership report offers some fascinating insights into this question. Based on an extensive survey of more than 30,000 people across 52 countries, the research identifies four essential needs that followers expect from those in charge, hope, trust, compassion, and stability. Hope is the most crucial element, said 56% of survey respondents, leaders whose visions for the future inspire confidence and optimism are the ones who leave the most significant impact. Trust is not far behind. It’s 33% ensuring that people believe in the integrity, honesty, and reliability of those who lead them. Compassion and stability round out the equation, reinforcing the importance of care, empathy, and consistency in leadership by focusing on what leaders contribute to people’s lives. [00:58:00] Gallup’s study highlights the evolving dynamics of leadership and the critical role of understanding people’s expectations, but here’s where it gets even more interesting. 57% of survey respondents said they’re more likely to name family members as their biggest daily influences, followed by their managers or workplace leaders. At 18% political and religious lead leaders came in at 7% each with celebrities trailing at just 2%. Leaders in the workplace have significant potential to improve lives with 34% of employed individuals, citing a manager, workplace leader or colleague, as having the most positive impact. And while hope is the primary need in every region, its emphasis varies. For example, in Europe, people place relatively more importance on trust. While Latin America shows a greater need for compassion, younger people aged 18 to 29 are more likely to seek hope from their leaders compared to older individuals. [00:59:00] The report highlights that when leaders fail to provide hope, trust and stability followers experience higher levels of stress and dissatisfaction, which impacts overall societal wellbeing. It also suggests that leaders who recognize and act on these needs will foster greater engagement, productivity, and resilience in their communities and organizations. It all means that leadership isn’t just about politics or public figures. It’s about the everyday decisions made in homes, workplaces, businesses, and communities. Gallup concludes that modern leadership requires self-awareness and understanding of the expectations of followers and the ability to provide clear vision and guidance. Above all, hope is the defining trait that separates influential leaders from the rest. In an era of uncertainty, and dare I say an age of chaos, how can leaders better serve those who look to them for guidance? How can they cultivate hope and trust in an age of skepticism? And what role do [01:00:00] communicators play in helping leaders connect with their audiences effectively? These are big questions. She . Shel Holtz: These are huge questions. And how do you convey hope when people are feeling hopeless? That is a skill that is not something that you can just tell your leader they need to do if they don’t. Already have the character or the experience or just the foundation to, to be able to do that? This is why I think having a leadership coach can be so useful to a lot of leaders. There are people out there who are certified executive coaches. I know a few. In fact I also think it’s worth reexamining the key styles of leadership. There are, I, you can get master’s degrees in just servant leadership for example. And that’s one of the styles of leadership. It’s the style where you are humble and protective of your people, but you’re also there to serve them. What do you need from me to help you get your job done? So [01:01:00] the organization can achieve its goals, but there’s also coach. Leadership style, visionary leadership style? Certainly autocratic. Think about Jamie Diamond. If you wanna peg his leadership style, it would be autocratic. There’s laissez-faire, which is hands off, just I’m gonna let people do what they do. Democratic transformational, transactional, bureaucratic, there’s all these styles and the idea that you can latch onto one of these and beat just that these days, especially in light of the Gallup survey results. I think it’s absurd. If you are primarily a coach, that’s great, but you also need to be Visionary, and you also need to be a servant to your people. Yeah. So which one of these is your foundational style, and then which other ones do you integrate into your leadership style? And as communicators, especially executive communicators, the communicators who work with. The leaders of the organization. I think it’s important to work with them on this so that they are able to [01:02:00] pull out the type of leader that is needed in the moment. And, that progressive progress focused inspirational leader, that, that visionary style needs to come out in these days because people need to see that you have a clear vision of where we are headed and how we’re going to navigate through these chaotic times. And if a leader’s not doing that and it’s certainly not what I’m seeing from the Jamie Diamonds of the world then your employees are going to feel disengaged and nervous. And you’re going to see. Productivity drop, you’re going to see client relations erode. All kinds of bad things happen when your employees don’t feel that they’re being led by people who are in a position to, to get us through this. Neville Hobson: Yeah. Yeah. That’s about, it’s very valid. I think when I was reading the the global leadership report when I first got a copy last week popped into my mind quite early on that what I thought of hope as the most crucial element, [01:03:00] according to what the survey respondent said I thought of Barack Obama who actually introduced this. In a memorable way to people globally, not just in America. Do you probably remember back in the first, when he was first elected we had people creating these kind of bits of code. You could get a badge with Obama’s face, you create your own, with your own. They proliferated everywhere across social media back at, back in the time, or blogs mostly as they were then. But that is enduring what he did. No matter what’s happened since then or since he left politics effectively it, it resonates still with people. And that’s born out in this survey. And there we’re talking about leadership from a national figure in a country, not just a boss at work. This is embracing society as a whole and that element I think is key to ensure we don’t. Lose sight of that big picture when we talk about, in the workplace and so forth. Yes, that’s important of course, but this is the bigger picture overall. And I think at a time, like where [01:04:00] we’re at now and this has been the thread of this entire episode we’re discussing, is that this is the age of chaos without any question. And this, we add this then to the list of questions we are asking of communicators. How are you going to help your organization, your leader or boss, your CEO, whoever it might be, navigate this. The rest, the landscape that we’re currently strolling along. And you apply that then to your family. The pressures I think are immense, particularly on communicators who’ve never really had to really stand out in areas outside their own niche areas. And this, ’cause this is definitely that. There’s no easy answers here, there, there aren’t. There’s just simply this is something to think about and that too take into account and so forth, which is really what we’re doing. But it is a difficult time. And I think our role. It is precisely as communicators to help leaders be better be the best they can be. Oh God, that’s a [01:05:00] Gillette slogan. I saw an ad for that the other day. the best, best demand can be. That’s the one. Yes. That’s the role basically. And you gotta add all this to everything else we’ve discussed here. It sounds a horrible laundry list of dreadful things you’ve gotta be aware of. That I am afraid is the landscape. So you don’t need to sit and look at it. Oh my God, having a deal with this. You just need to deal with it. And that’s very easy for me to say. But look at them individually. Don’t think of everything all at once. That’s the old trick where you wake up at three in the morning and your brain says, okay, here comes everything that you’ve got locked away you are worried about or concerned about. It’s all coming out right now. Don’t do that. I. You need a plan. Coaching is great. That’s a good one. But there’s so many things to think about that you, you need help. And that’s what professional associations can can really play a big role in that kind of thing. So it’s a bad time we’re in. That’s effect. Shel Holtz: Yeah. And when Catherine Aero talks about this new role for the communicator, I think this is an, just a perfect [01:06:00] example because first of all, if you’re doing internal communications, presumably you’re listening to employees have a voice and you’re able to distill what you hear into some core messages that you can take to your leaders and say, look it’s fine to say employees need hope, but what do they mean by that? And how can we craft your messaging and your interactions so that they feel that sense of hope and work with the leaders to project that that’s an ideal role for a communicator in the organization. Neville Hobson: So bottom line is as the survey points out, hope is the key attribute, let’s say that people look for in leaders to give them hope. And so our job is to enable the help our leaders do exactly that. Shel Holtz: Let’s get off of these depressing topics and talk about something that we enjoy talking about, and that’s ai. A relatively new use of AI is con generating considerable buzz in the research community. And this is [01:07:00] the use of AI generated users or synthetic users as research panelists. As more companies offer these AI driven solutions, we need to weigh their advantages and limitations, especially for communicators and user experience. That’s UX engineers. Synthetic users are AI generated profiles that are designed to simulate real user behaviors, thoughts, and experiences, leveraging large language models. These artificial . Personas can participate in interviews, surveys, usability tests, panels, providing immediate feedback without it having to engage actual human participants. There are platforms like synthetic users that’s the name of an organization that offers tools to create these AI driven personalities profiles with the goal of streamlining the research process. Now, there are benefits to doing this that start with speed and efficiency. Synthetic users can be generated and [01:08:00] deployed quickly, accelerating the research timeline. This immediacy is particularly beneficial in fast-paced environments where timely insights are crucial. You don’t have time to go out and recruit a panel and schedule a time for them all to be together, right? Then there’s cost reduction. Traditional user research. Usually involves considerable expenses related to recruiting participants incentives for them to participate and logistics, especially if you’re gonna pull a focus group together face to face, getting them all into town. At the same time, AI generated users eliminate these costs, making research more accessible, especially for organizations with limited budgets. Then there’s accessibility to hard to reach demographics. And this is I think one of the more compelling uses of synthetic users, because you can tailor them to represent a specific demographic that can be challenging to recruit. This could be a niche market sensitive population. And now these synthetic users can provide insights that might be harder to [01:09:00] obtain otherwise. And there’s also, and I’m not sure this is necessarily a good thing, but I guess some researchers like consistency in responses. AI driven personas offer standardized feedback, reducing variability, and enabling clear comparisons across different studies or product inter iterations. But don’t, kick back and think, wow, this is great, I’m gonna start using synthetic users for my research. Because there are downsides and limitations that start with the lack of genuine human emotion and behavior. As human behavior is complex and context to dependent, synthetic users are data-driven, so they may not capture the depth of real human emotions, spontaneous reactions, or the nuanced decision-making processes that genuine users exhibit. Then there’s the potential for inaccurate or overly positive feedback. Studies have shown that AI generated responses can sometimes be overly positive or fail to reflect the critical perspectives that real users [01:10:00] might provide. That’ll skew your data. Relying solely on synthetic users raises questions about the authenticity of the data and the ethical impli implications of making decisions based on artificial feedback. There’s a risk of missing out on genuine user voices, which are crucial and empathetic and user-centered design. And then, AI generated users may lack the ability to provide context rich insights that come from personal experiences, environmental factors and cultural backgrounds. And these often are critical in understanding user needs and behaviors. I. We don’t come to you with problems and no solutions. So here’s the advice for communicators and UX engineers first. And this makes me think immediately of Mitch Joel who said it’s not, instead of, it’s a long with use synthetic users as a supplement, not a replacement. While AI generated users can provide quick and cost effective insights, they should compliment, not replace research involving real users. [01:11:00] Balancing both approaches makes sure that the depth and authenticity of human feedback are preserved. You need to validate your AI generated insights with real user data before making significant decisions based on synthetic user feedback. Cross-reference the findings with any data that you can find from actual users to make sure that it’s accurate and relevant. Be transparent about the methodologies that you used. This is really important from an ethical perspective. When you’re presenting your research findings, be very clear that you use synthetic users in your methodology. Transparency builds trust and allows stakeholders to understand the context and potential limitations of the data and stay informed about the ethical I implications of synthetic users. Keep yourself educated, keep your team educated about the ethical considerations surrounding AI and research, and come up with some guidelines to ensure that your use of synthetic users aligns with your organization’s values [01:12:00] and respects user dignity For communicators and UX designer, the key lies in integrating synthetic users thoughtfully into a broader research strategy, ensuring the technology enhances rather than replaces the individual perspectives of real users. Neville Hobson: That’s a lot to digest in that shell, I think starting with how much, I hate the phrase synthetic user, but it’s part of the lexicon. I get it. I. The main thing I would say is really to, what kind of echo what you said there, that to don’t use just this should compliment what you’re doing, which is how I have always approached using generative ai. Generally speaking, it doesn’t replace, it compliments things that I’m doing. It enhances what I’m doing. This is surely how we should be looking at this. I think though, that there are big alarm bells. I’ve read a couple of articles that all they talk about are the cons. And I agree there are definite pros to doing this speed. Ideally accuracy, [01:13:00] but assuming that it’s been fed accurate. Input to give the accurate output. It’s is part of the landscape and it is likely to increase in that way. But there should be big guardrails on this. And I think the ethical question is one that comes in there that it is really important to, to behave ethically and transparently. And there we come against the age old human element. ’cause a lot of people don’t do that. It is part of the landscape and responsible people responsible communicators and others will do, use it wisely. We’ll take advantage of the benefits of this that will enhance and improve perhaps what they’re doing without using a tool like this. And those who don’t, aren’t going to benefit and they just muddy the overall landscapes. You’ve gotta be aware of that, but this is part of what is evolving. And you just gotta be. Sure. Really sure of what you’re doing and how you’re going about it. That doesn’t leave any doubt in anyone’s mind about your own honesty and transparency.[01:14:00] Shel Holtz: Yeah. What worries me is that there are going to be research reports released that are based on. What was gleaned from a panel of synthetic users. And you won’t know that, and we’ll be making decisions based on this when the data could be really flawed. Now I’ve been aware of synthetic users for a while. It’s not a new idea relatively speaking because, I’ve talked to people. Yeah, the idea of employee personas is certainly not new that’s been around for, 30 or 40 years at least, maybe even longer. The idea that we have created a persona to represent this cohort of employees in the organization that helps us craft our communication if we know it’s largely meant for that portion of the audience. And I have been aware that people have been translating their employee personas that they may have had around for years to ai, because now you can query. The persona, which is nice, [01:15:00] right? Yeah. And I think I’ve mentioned on the show once before, I was talking to an executive communicator. His team has trouble getting to the CEO just because of his schedule and unavailability. So they’ve created a persona, an AI persona of their CEO based on all his speeches and all of his writing and everything that they could throw in there about him. And now if he’s not available and they’re writing a speech and they need to know what he would think about this they’ll query the AI version. Now, that’s not the final say. Obviously the CEO’s gonna review the speech before he delivers it. But it’s an interesting approach. What I hadn’t thought about was assembling a group of these as a focus group or using them for something as. Seriously research focus as testing this user interface and telling us if it works for you based on the fact that you are from this region or are in this age group. So that [01:16:00] worries me. That, I think the advice that was here about blending real humans with this research, using it as a supplement, as good advice, there are people who won’t take that advice. They’re just gonna take the cheap and easy way out. Neville Hobson: Yeah I’m just reminded of one of the concluding points I read in one of the articles you shared from a company called IDO id o.com the case against AI generated users, and you’ll love this or not maybe, but one of their researchers says, using synthetic humans for direct research is like naval gazing, but not at our own navels , but into the great, messy, cluttered, and often disgusting naval of the internet with a capital I, Dan will like that. The capital I, the solution isn’t to make up fake people. It’s getting better access to real people. I’ve been toying with that in my mind because I’m not sure I agree. The solution isn’t to make up fake people. It’s getting better access to three people. That’s actually not what’s happening. So that’s not, I don’t believe [01:17:00] a valid criticism, but it’s a, it’s like what I have heard from other people. So again, that’s what you’ve gotta deal with when you’re trying to sell this idea internally. Shel Holtz: Absolutely. I remember going out to Dell in Round Rock, Texas, and I was there with a group of social media folks in the early days. And I learned while I was there that they found the people who were making the most negative comments in the Dell forums online and convened basically a panel of them brought them, actually flew them out to Round Rock and had meetings with them. What is it that drives you crazy about us? Because they figured that if they could solve some of these problems, they’d make a lot more people happy than just them. If you tried to. Encapsulate them in a synthetic persona, are you going to get the same level of information as you would from these people who are really pissed off at you? And I have to say, I doubt it. It, you might get the basics, but it’s gonna be [01:18:00] sanitized. And as the research shows probably a little more positive than your real critics would be. Neville Hobson: That’s a good point. So that was probably not long after Del Hell. I would’ve thought that in those earlier days where Jeff Jarvis was the star of that saga is great Wikipedia page if you’re interested in knowing what that was all about. Because that’s 20 years ago now. Shel Holtz: Yeah, I remember that. Neville Hobson: Me too. Shel Holtz: Tell hell . Neville Hobson: Goodness me. That was a nice little diversion in, into a cul-de-sac away from all the terrible stuff we’ve been talking about. Le let’s get back to the terrible stuff. , look at our final story, which is at least it’s not politics. No, this one is definitely not politics. Is it the end of the road for LinkedIn hashtags? Great question. For years social media managers, marketers, and content creators have relied on hashtags to increase reach, improve discoverability, and categorize their posts. But what happens when a platform like LinkedIn starts pulling back on their importance? Luke, [01:19:00] Brendan Jones raises this very question in his LinkedIn post the end of the road for LinkedIn hashtags where he explores LinkedIn’s shifting stance on this once powerful tool previously using three to 10 hashtags in the LinkedIn post would significantly increase reach as the platform relied on them for categorization and discoverability. However, LinkedIn’s improved natural language processing now allows it to determine a posts topic without the need for hashtags. Some reports suggest that LinkedIn is gradually making hashtags irrelevant with some even predicting they’ll become unclickable within the next year. It is a significant reversal considering that LinkedIn only introduced hashtag support in 2018. So what does this mean for communicators and marketers? Are hashtags officially dead on LinkedIn, or do they still hold value? Bernie Jones argues that while hashtags may no longer be a discovery tool, they still serve as visual markers helping readers quickly understand a post’s theme. They [01:20:00] also remain valuable for branding, categorization, and campaign tracking. The shift also reflects a broader trend across platforms. Instagram, for example, has recently imposed limits on hashtag use while X, formerly Twitter and TikTok continue to rely on them. Blue Sky supports them as does threats, although in the latter case, a thread message will only enable one hashtag out menu if you include more than one. There is real value in using them strategically said one reader on LinkedIn to Brin Jones’ Post, there’s still a useful tool for our B2B client. She says to ensure primary keywords are covered, especially in a thought leadership strategy, when you may have a post that focuses on a secondary topic rather than thinking of them as a way to be found. It’s more about reinforcing relevance within a niche. Another reader said, I think unless LinkedIn is actually starting to penalize hashtag use this key point in your article will remain very true. Even denuded of their discoverability power [01:21:00] hashtags provide strong visual labels for your content to flag it as to flag it to relevant readers at a glance. So should we abandon hashtags on LinkedIn altogether or simply rethink how we use them? Bri Jones says, in my view, the LinkedIn hashtag hasn’t reached the end of the road. Just a consequential fork. What do you think she. Shel Holtz: I think it’s sad that we’re not gonna be able to use ’em for discovery anymore. And I agree that they are visual cues, but it’s important to remember that hashtags like the at symbol to designate a, an individual were user generated tools. These were not innovations from the social networks themselves. It was users going, Hey I think this would be a great way for people to be able to find posts, comments that deal with this topic. I gotta tell you I am currently at work. Going through the transition from one intranet provider to a provider [01:22:00] of an integrated internal communications platform. Our current intranet, I won’t name the vendor because I don’t wanna say anything bad about them, but I don’t like the platform. If we wanna tag an article so people can search for the article, we have to go into SharePoint and go through this rigmarole to establish a tag that now shows up on the intranet. And when I want to tag the article, I have to go to the tag page and find the tag and click it. It’s a process. The one we’re switching to, the tags are all based on hashtags. Anybody who creates a hashtag, that now becomes a searchable term and. The reason this user generated approach to coming up with the searchable label for this kind of content is that the people who are in charge don’t necessarily know what’s important to a group of users. I. I am not a construction superintendent. I don’t know what the issues are that they are grappling with, but if there is something that has emerged and over the course of [01:23:00] the next month or so, they need to have a conversation about this and it’s going to be intermingled on teams or down the road in a community on the intranet. Once we get this thing launched all they need to do is establish that hashtag and now the system will be able to group all that content together. We could even put it all in one widget if we want to, and it’s in their control. And that’s what I like about this. If this is a user focused environment in the social space losing that control I think is not a good thing. But even with LinkedIn making this decision I do agree just being able to see that pound symbol at a glance, I can say, oh, this is of interest to me. I’m gonna go ahead and read the rest of this post. Neville Hobson: Yeah. By the way, we never call that a pound symbol. Here in the UK we call it a hashtag. A hashtag Hash symbol. Yeah, hash symbol. Hashtag you call it pound symbol because it means pound weight, right? Is that why you call it that? Because here, I have no idea. I just know that Shel Holtz: it’s no pound time. [01:24:00] Sound sign and we quote the hashtag design too, but Neville Hobson: yeah, you do. I know, I was just teasing. It reminds me this does of Chris Messina, who is the guy who invented the hashtag this was about gosh, getting onto 18 or so more years ago now. And I interviewed him actually on an episode when you were traveling and I was doing one, one solo and I interviewed him. This was September, 2023 in episode 3 55, as the numbering was then. And he was talking about that it’s time for an upgrade to the hashtag that was his big argument at a time when it was under threat from being hijacked for nefarious purposes on the negative side, but it wasn’t delivering what he thought it ought to have been doing. And I’m wondering what he would think of this idea on just one platform, but it could spread to others. This discoverability element is not is not so strong. If that vantage is linked in, I think that would be a shame. Um. I think Luke Briney Jones was, had a good post and the people who [01:25:00] left comments there had good points to make. So there’s no kind of solution of answer to the question. Are hashtags done and over with on LinkedIn? I don’t think the other commenters made that play in their view. So maybe it largely comes down to usability by users to keep it going. Maybe Shel Holtz: would be if users adopt something it tends to find its way into the mix from the social network owners. We’ll see. Also I do see them on blue sky, so Neville Hobson: yeah, they’re alive somewhere. blue sky is Twitter was back in the day where you could actually pepper your posts with hashtags. Sensible use doesn’t suggest that. But that’s still embryonic, relatively speaking. It’s still small, but I search for hashtags like I used to on Twitter, and that’s one way of surfacing content. So there’s no sign or signal that, as far as I know from Blue Sky, this is gonna stop. So I hope it doesn’t I hope LinkedIn doesn’t abandon support for it the way it seems that it seems [01:26:00] to be going, and that’ll be a shame if they do. Shel Holtz: Yeah. And the other thing is, so you remember, they haven’t been as, as prevalent lately as they once were, but hashtag campaigns and on LinkedIn for B2B organizations to run a hashtag campaign I think people are gonna miss being able to do that. Neville Hobson: I agree. Shel Holtz: And that’ll wrap up this episode of four immediate release, episode number 452 for February, 2025. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. Our next episode is scheduled to drop on Monday, March 24th. That’s our. Long form monthly episode. We’ll be back with midweek episodes here in a little bit. Until then, we hope that you will comment as so many people did. And I have to say, all of the comments that we shared in today’s episode came from LinkedIn. They were comments left to the posts announcing the availability of an episode on LinkedIn. That’s not the only way to comment. You can comment by sending an email to fir [01:27:00] comments@gmail.com. I scroll scrolled through 227 emails in that account and not one of them was a legitimate comment. Most of it was spam . But you could do that. You can attach an audio file up to three minutes. We would love to play a clip of your comment. We haven’t had one of those in a long time. It would be great. You can leave a comment directly on the show notes at FIR. Podcast network.com. You can leave a comment in the FIR community on Facebook. There are lots of ways that you can get your comments to us wherever we share an announcement, we do it on Facebook, we do it on threads, we do it on Blue Sky. Wherever you’re following us, leave a comment. We’ll find it and share it here on the show. And we also appreciate your ratings and reviews wherever you’re inclined to do that. And until our next episode, that’ll be a 30 for immediate release. The post FIR #452: Communicating in Chaos appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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FIR #451: Return-to-Office-Obsessed Execs Are Minimizing the Employee Voice 23:41

منذ 12 يومًا23:41

23:41

Leaked audio of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon reveals an executive who has dug in his heels and has no interest in listening to the voice of the employee. In the clip, he essentially tells employees, “My way or the highway.” While the return-to-office mandates don’t represent a majority of businesses, they have been high-profile, as have employee responses, most of which plead for continued accommodation of remote or hybrid work schedules. Executives, of course, are empowered to make the final decision, but ignoring the voice of the employee comes with high risks, including the loss of top talent and disengagement among those who remain. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that productivity and morale are higher with remote workers, but that ultimately depends on the culture the organization has established to support it. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel listen to Dimon’s rant and offer their thoughts on the state of work in this volatile era. Links from this episode: Leaked Audio: Here’s What JPMorgan CEO Dimon Said About Hiring and Remote Work “I’ve had it”: JP Morgan boss rails against Gen Z in expletive-laden outburst Meta CTO says employees who think ‘everyone has to like’ its policy changes should ‘quit’ and ‘consider working elsewhere’ Meta censors internal dissent over Mark Zuckerberg cozying up to Trump: report Dimon Says He’d Be Cutting ‘Stupid’ DEI Costs Even Without Trump Terry Szuplat on LinkedIn: Wow. Zuck just gave every CEO a masterclass…in how NOT to announce layoffs Meta’s recent layoffs take an unexpected turn Gen Z Wants More Face-to-Face Interaction in the Workplace, Survey Finds Meta employees question the company’s removal of posts on its internal forum: ‘This is a free speech issue’ Remote work is now the top requested workplace accommodation The Big Four are sticking with hybrid work. Here are the RTO policies of Deloitte, KPMG, EY, and PwC. Returning to the office? Focus more on practices and less on the policy In-person work doubled over the past year, survey finds ‘Hush hybrid’: When some employees work from home despite in-office policy Hybrid And Remote Work Still On The Rise, Despite Misconceptions, Study Shows Opinion | The unexpected impacts of ending remote work Hybrid Work Reigns Supreme, Despite Leadership Doubts Hybrid working has benefits over fully in-person working — the evidence mounts WFH isn’t going anywhere: 1 in 4 active job listings offer full-time hybrid; remote arrangements Hybrid/Remote Isn’t Going Anywhere. It’s Time to Stop Treating It like an Interim Arrangement (Shel Holtz’s blog) The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, February 24. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com . Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog . Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine . You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog . Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw transcript: Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 451 of four immediate release. I’m Shel Holtz. Neville: And I’m Neville Hobson. Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase made headlines last week when a leaked recording of a staff meeting captured him delivering an expletive filled tirade about remote work. His frustration was clear. He’s had it with hybrid working bureaucracy and what he sees as employees slacking off on Zoom. We’ll dive into his rant next. In his rant, diamond dismissed work from home Fridays as a fast. He claimed Gen Z employees are being left behind due to remote work and accused staff of wasting time in meetings and approvals. He made it clear JP Morgan employees should be in the office or find another job. It is a stark example of the growing divide between corporate leaders trying to enforce [00:01:00] return to office policies and employees who have embraced flexibility the way Diamond delivered. His message raises bigger questions, not just about the future of work, but about leadership itself. Here’s a clip of the last 20 seconds of diamond’s remarks where he lays into remote work bureaucracy and his expectations for JP Morgan employees. Bear in mind the tone and included expletives, so put your earbuds in if you’re listening in the office. Jamie Dimon: Now you have a choice. You don’t have to work at JP Morgan. So the people of you who don’t wanna work at the company, that’s fine with me. I’m not, I’m not mad at you. Don’t be mad at me. It’s a free country. You can walk with your feet, you know? But this company’s gonna set our own standards and do it our own way. I. And, and I’ve had it with this kind of stuff and you [00:02:00] know, I, I come in, you know, I’ve been working seven days a goddamn week since Covid, and I come in and I, where’s everybody else? Are they here or there? And the zooms and the zooms don’t show up. And people say they didn’t get stuff. So that’s not how you run a great company. We didn’t build this great company by doing that, by doing the same semi disease shit that everybody else does. Neville Hobson: Well, that’s quite something. Shell really quite extraordinary. His remarks are a, a high profile example of the ongoing struggle between executives pushing for office returns and employees who value flexibility. His outburst may energize some traditionalists, but at risks alienating younger workers, harming employee morale and reinforcing jps Morgan. Morgan’s image as an inflexible employer, it serves as a strong [00:02:00] example of executive missteps in workplace communication. broader debate on remote work’s future undoubtedly continue, but diamond’s handling of the issue may not win. JP Morgan, the hearts and minds of its workforce. shell, what’s your take on his approach? Shel Holtz: His approach suck. Is my take on his approach. Yeah. It, it’s, it’s made headlines, but the reality of the workplace tells a, a different story despite all of the skepticism from some executives. And I think it’s worth pointing out that something like 60% of organizations are sticking with their, their hybrid or remote arrangements they, they continue to thrive in this. Configuration and the data overwhelmingly supports the staying power of, of hybrid and remote work arrangements. You have studies consistently show that nearly one in four active job listings still offer full-time hybrid or remote options. And this aligns with broader trends across [00:03:00] industries. A lot of companies recognize flexibility is a key factor in attracting and retaining talent. I saw one study very recently that said retention is higher. In organizations that allow remote and hybrid work and, and the cost of replacing employees is high. And we, we see a lot of employees disaffected in the current work environment and even in sectors where leadership is pushing return to office, employees are resisting requests for remote work accommodations have searched, is one of the most sought Workplace benefits, but the tension between employees and executives just keeps growing. There was a McKinsey report that highlighted the successful return to office strategies, focusing less on rigid policies and more on. Effective workplace practices, companies that force mandates without addressing employee concerns, risk disengagement, and attrition. Deloitte [00:04:00] EY formerly, formerly Ernst and Young PWC, formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG are all experimenting with different hybrid models. Acknowledging that one size fits all doesn’t work. The firms recognize that employees expect some degree of autonomy in their work arrangements. In fact, autonomy. And purpose are among the key intrinsic rewards that employees seek in the workplace. And all of this is reinforced by findings in the Washington Post, which point out that businesses rigidly enforcing return to office policies are facing, push pushback, higher turnover, and decreased productivity. There’s also a major contradiction at play. Many executives are lamenting a lack of in-office collaboration. Yet employees report feeling unheard in workplace decisions. Internal communication best practices emphasize two-way dialogue, yet a lot of leaders out there like Jamie Diamond. Are failing to listen, engage for success. This is a an [00:05:00] employee engagement initiative over there with you in the uk, Neville, they’ve long identified employee voice as one of the four enablers of engagement. When workers feel like their concerns are being dismissed, whether it’s about work flexibility, productivity measures, or broader company policies, then they disengage. This recent internal backlash at Meta that we’ve seen is a case in point. Employees questioned leadership decisions only to have internal discussion forums, censored that deepens mistrust. So you have this widening gulf between employees and leaders. I. Interestingly, while Gen Z employees express a desire for more face-to-face interaction, it’s not necessarily about being physically in the office five days a week. What younger workers want is meaningful connection, mentorship and clear career progression things that aren’t automatically guaranteed just by bringing people into the office. If anything, research shows us that hybrid work when done right, can enhance [00:06:00] collaboration rather than hinder it. There was a report in the magazine nature that underscored how hybrid models improve efficiency while maintaining work-life balance. And then there’s morale Studies are emerging around hush hybrid. This is a phenomenon where employees pretend to comply with return to office policies while actually working remotely as much as possible. It’s their supervisors who are enabling this. So we get a major disconnect between leaders and employees. One that can erode trust and weaken workplace culture. Companies like JP Morgan Chase that fail to acknowledge this risk. Alienating their workforce, particularly when there’s clear evidence that hybrid and remote work aren’t just popular, but effective diamond’s, broader fru frustration isn’t just about hybrid work. His comments about cutting what he calls stupid DEI costs reflect a larger mindset shift among some corporate leaders. But whether it’s workplace flexibility [00:07:00] or diversity initiatives, executives who ignore employee sentiment do so with their own peril. Companies that succeed in this evolving landscape will be the ones that balance leadership priorities with genuine employee engagement. The world of work has changed whether leaders like it or not, the smartest companies are fighting against. These aren’t fighting against these shifts, they’re adapting to them. Neville: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. Listen to what you’re saying. I mean, seen a lot of these surveys too in these reports, and the thing that I just wonder you know, surveys indicate time and time again that workers value flexibility with productivity studies, Showing mixed results on whether remote work hinders or enhances efficiency. many executives are struggling to enforce office attendance post pandemic, leading to tensions between leadership employees, as you point out. But this, this, we, this kind of surfaces with regularity. Every week almost seems to be, there’s another survey saying, here are the benefits, and [00:08:00] yet people like Jamie Diamond Say what they’re saying on one you know, on one level or another, a rant like his edicts about, you’ve gotta come to the office or the unspoken part, find another job. So what is it you think then that is going to, I guess. Make the common sense view as I see it according to the surveys the ascendant in all of this, and not the other way around. Because what I see almost every time I look at a business journal or the business section of the newspaper is another company’s trying to enforce you gotta come back to the office. That’s relentless. So is that, do you think? Shel Holtz: I think it’s a combination of detachment and arrogance. I think the, these leaders are not close to their workers. They’re not listening. They’ve, they’ve shut down either their own ability to listen or the listening channels. I mean, Facebook meta, I. Has done this by censoring their internal [00:09:00] channels. So employees can’t talk about this stuff with each other. And I think it was the, was it the CTO? I can’t remember his name, but he was reported at meta telling employees you called it the quiet part. He came right out and said, you don’t have to work here. I think Diamond said the same thing out loud too. Neville: Oh, a number, a number of times in his rent. Yes. Shel Holtz: Yeah. And that’s what’s happening in a lot of these return to office initiatives is that the best employees, the, the, the greatest talent in the organization, they’re the ones leaving they value the ability to have greater work-life balance that comes with a hybrid arrangement. And they’d rather work for an organization that appreciates that and accommodates it. Rather than one that puts its foot down. Yeah. And, and there are some other issues that are emerging out of this as well. I mean, in addition to attrition, I was reading that Amazon, which has required all employees to come back to the office, finds it doesn’t have enough office space for them. So where are they gonna put ’em? You know, I’ve probably, in [00:10:00] of the US federal government offices that are now Neville: Well Shel Holtz: I. Neville: I was gonna, I was gonna mention that in, in the context of what is happening since Trump took office the firing of thousands of of public sector workers in the us. Is that, do you think I. Emboldening those companies with leaders like Jamie Diamond to really go hard on this. You’ve gotta come back and you can always leave if you don’t like the idea. stimulating, I guess more fear, more panic, more alarm about your own career and your, whether you’re gonna have a job or not. And, and so. The kind of stories that are part and parcel of the reporting, I suppose that people are leaving in droves. The best ones are going and finding work elsewhere. Are they really? Is, is this perhaps another indicator of the you know, goodbye to the first two decades of this century? That was the golden time really of, of travel everywhere. Easy money, no low interest. Ideas people could start. the idea of [00:11:00] DEI took roots and suddenly that’s all in retreat in the face of this, this literal relentless authoritarianism we’re seeing that the US is certainly promoting and that’s having repercussions elsewhere in Europe, certainly so. Is this the end of, these choices that you better buckle down if you want to keep a job because you will not find it easy to get another one? Is that, is that what we’re looking at? Do you think? Shel Holtz: At least the pendulum has swung that way for now. eventually swing back again, as it always does. But yeah, I think you have seen this kind of behavior from people like Mark Zuckerberg, who I think I. Initially felt like they needed to accommodate Trump in order to stay out of his crosshairs, and then found that this bro alpha male sort of approach to leadership appealed to him. This is somebody, of course, who did not go to management school [00:12:00] or work his way up through an organization to learn how cultures work. He built a company from the ground up. He’s always been in charge and doesn’t know any better. He, he used to have Sheryl Sandberg there to sort of moderate him. Now he’s saying she was the problem, her, her influence, led them to do all of these woke things. But you know, the job market is definitely tightening right now, but the best people will always be able. To find a job and the data that I shared, one in four job listings is either full-time hybrid or full-time remote. Those people are gonna pick those best who are out looking for companies that accommodate that. And. You’re gonna end up with the companies like JP Morgan Chase are gonna be left with a workforce characterized by mediocrity and who wants to do business with that. I anticipate that if employees listen and say, yeah, I don’t wanna work here. I can go get a job, I. Where I can have work life balance [00:13:00] and I can be productive and I can do great work, and I will come in when there’s a reason to come in. I, I just wrote about this today, by the way. I think face-to-face is vitally important. You just need to do it. As a mandate when there’s something going on where people are gonna be able to interact, because I gotta tell you, Neville when I am working in an open space I usually have an office with a closed door. When I go to one of our offices, the other office I, I. Sit out in the open office environment. If I am nose down writing articles or preparing a report or editing video, I have my earbuds in so people won’t bother me. And this is really common in those environments. So bringing people into the office when the work they have to do is individual contributor work doesn’t create collaboration. It doesn’t create innovation. It just creates frustration and isolation. Let people do that work at home, and I’m, of course I’m talking about [00:14:00] the people who can, there are obviously many jobs out there that don’t work from home. I, I work in the construction industry. Buildings can’t build themselves with workers working from home and. What we need to do is acknowledge that hybrid remote is the way of the world these days, and start to train managers to manage hybrid and remote teams so they understand how to do that in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise, disengage Those full-time onsite workers who feel like they don’t get to take advantage of a benefit that other workers do. This is, this is a consequence of treating it like. It’s an interim solution to a short term problem as opposed to a tectonic shift in the way work is done. Neville: I think another thing that got me thinking as well, listening to to diamond’s rent [00:15:00] he highlighted things. I see other people talking about other leaders and organizations, the ones who . Argue for a return to work. So Diamond’s example in this case was talking about the, the Zoom and the Zoomers who don’t show up. I mean, I’m in on a Friday and where is everyone? They’re not here. he talks at the beginning of his rent. And this is where most of the. His expletives come in about people on Zoom calls, who all they do is is chat with each other and, and, and, you know, insult others, of what idiots they are and stuff like that. I, I, I refuse to believe that’s completely common practice in his organization that’s tells me there’s something seriously wrong in that organization. If that is the case. Shel Holtz: What you’re looking at, there is a, a leader who is trying to force a. In the office culture on a workplace that is now hybrid and the culture has to change to accommodate it. The, the problem here is [00:16:00] not solved by making everybody come back to the office. It’s by implementing policies and building a culture in which people understand that this is the way we do things on Zoom, and this is, is not acceptable. I mean, there to consequences for that kind of behavior, right? Neville: Sure. I mean, he, he’s got a wholly different view to that, in which case I would argue just, if this is an example, nothing’s gonna change there at any time soon. As long as he’s the CEO Shel Holtz: No, I don’t think anything’s gonna change there as long as the CEO is Jamie Diamond and the dinosaurs like him who look up in the sky and, and see the asteroid coming and say things don’t have to change, you know? Let’s see what happens to JP Morgan Chase’s earnings over the next couple of years as he continues alienating his workforce or building a workforce of people who, you know, are content to come into the office every day, and, you know, is that the workforce that’s gonna produce the kind of bottom line results that the shareholders [00:17:00] are looking for? I doubt it. I, I don’t think so. Neville: So what’s your, what would you say to communicators in an organization where this, not necessarily the CEO, but senior leadership or people in positions of power have this attitude. What would you say to them? Shel Holtz: I think we need to as internal communicators serve as a conduit for information to move up. Jamie Diamond’s not listening to his employees beyond the messages that they are sort of inflicting on him petitions and the like. And he has said he doesn’t care. You could do as many petitions you want. I don’t care Contextualized. By the communications team to say, look, these are the issues. This is what’s happening. Let’s look at the data. Let’s look at our attrition rates. Let, let’s look at who we’re losing and what the pool is like out there of people who are willing to come work for an organization where they can’t be. Hybrid or, or, or [00:18:00] remote. And, and to present the scenarios that can make all of this work so that he is satisfied. I, he, he began his rant talking about young employees, right? But a young employee being in the office head down with an earbuds, with the earbuds in their ears so that they can focus on their work. They’re not getting the mentorship. Or the exposure to the culture or the other things, you know, the, the, the clear career paths that, that they crave. And there’s no reason that that has to be . Limited to an in the office experience. I, I am a big believer in face-to-face. I have repeated a line for years I heard at a conference, which is that we we’re hardwired for face-to-face communication. And anything that isn’t is, is a corruption of face-to-face communication. I mean, this, this goes back to, you know, the days of our lizard brains with fight and flight reactions, right? It’s all face to face. I do think that that’s important and I think . [00:19:00] A corporate or an organizational identity a sense of shared common purpose face-to-face in the real world, not on Zoom. I is important and I think that organizations should create the opportunities for that. This, you know, you, you might. Chuckle at the idea of the company picnic, but getting everybody together for a casual non-work event where you can have exposure to the leaders of the organization in that kind of, you know, casual setting where you can. Engage with a lot of people that you don’t see all the time and have a sense, wow, this is, this is the company. It’s not just my team that I interact with and my internal clients that I interact with. I get a sense of this broader team. The same thing with town hall meetings. Get everybody together, have a social hour before that with, with some beverages and, and some hors d’oeuvres, and then let people mingle for an hour after the town hall is over and have this interaction and have [00:20:00] this opportunity. To see the whole organization or your part of the whole organization together. Bring people into the office when there are big meetings to be had or, or celebrations, or recognitions reasons to have everybody in the same place at the same time. Focus on the reason. For having people work from home or come into the office rather than they need to be here five days a week, or they need to be here three days a week, even if they are gonna jam earbuds into their ears and, you know, focus on their, their single, you know, individual contributor work. Neville: Yeah. I find it very surprising that that we’re, you know what you just outlined, here we are in 2025. I remember this kind of thing in the mid nineties talking about this town halls, picnics, or get togethers with everyone in an informal setting in the organization. So here we are 25 to 30 years later and we’re still talking about that. Something’s not right here. It seems to me. Shel Holtz: [00:21:00] No, I agree. And, and I think it’s intractable leadership that is to blame here. They’re not listening, they’re not engaging, they’re, they’re not collaborating. Something that they’re telling everybody that they’re bent on is, is more collaboration, but they’re not doing it. And, and again, this is a minority of organizations, most are still. Embracing hybrid and remote. But they’re gonna continue to have conflict. They’re gonna continue to have disaffected, disengaged employees until they wrap their minds around the fact that that hybrid and remote are here to stay. Either that or, you know, they die and are replaced. Neville: Yeah. Well, it’s a, it’s a huge topic and we’ve touched on something that’s made the news headlines last week. it makes us think about this. And indeed listeners, if you have any thoughts on this topic, any experiences you wanna share, we’d love to hear them. So let us know. I. Shel Holtz: We definitely would, and the link to the full rant as it was recorded in a leak will be in the show notes and that’ll be a 30 for this episode of [00:22:00] four immediate release. The post FIR #451: Return-to-Office-Obsessed Execs Are Minimizing the Employee Voice appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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ALP 261: How to get your team the mentorship they need 19:16

منذ 12 يومًا19:16

19:16

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of mentorship for small agency employees. They explore various approaches including informal and formal mentorships, organic development of mentor-mentee relationships, and bringing in external consultants for mentorship. Gini shares her personal experiences, highlighting the challenges of forced mentorship and the benefits of organically developed relationships. The hosts emphasize the need for managers to support and mentor their employees, leveraging both internal and external resources, and the value of making time to mentor individuals outside one’s own organization. [ read the transcript ] The post ALP 261: How to get your team the mentorship they need appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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FIR #450: Senior Leaders Doubt Communicators’ Abilities 20:52

منذ 16 يومًا20:52

20:52

Listen to communicators talk about their impact on their organizations and you would be forgiven for thinking that executives find their communication teams to be indispensable. Recent research says otherwise. As complexities mount in the worlds of business, media, and politics, less than 20 percent of senior executives are confident their communicators and public affairs professionals are up to the task of navigating the current environment. Neville and Shel outline the research results and discuss ways communicators can reverse this troubling trend. Links from this episode: CEO confidence in communications dwindles, new report Study: Only 17% of Executives Have High Confidence in Their Comms Function The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, February 24. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com . Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog . Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine . You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog . Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw transcript: Hi everyone, and welcome to episode four 50 of four immediate release. I’m Neville Hobson. And I’m Shell Holtz. And there’s a very troubling trend emerging one that might be surprising given all the rhetoric we’ve heard about how communications Star Rose during the CO pandemic four years ago. What we’re seeing today is. Kind of the opposite of that the declining confidence that CEOs have in their communication leaders and teams. This isn’t just an anecdotal observation. There’s a new study from Weber Shandwick and KRC research that finds that only 17% of senior executives have high confidence in their communications and public affairs functions. That means more than 80% of executives feel that their comms teams aren’t where they need to be. That’s a striking statistic, and it suggests that many CEOs and senior leaders don’t see their communications teams as ready to handle the complex challenges that [00:01:00] those leaders are facing today. We’ll dive into this research right after we try to sell you something. So what’s driving this lack of confidence among CEOs in their communicators? One factor is the sheer complexity of the business landscape. The environment today is unpredictable. Geopolitical conflicts, economic uncertainty, social movements, misinformation, campaigns, and other things may get harder than ever for companies to. Consistent and trusted messaging. At the same time, digital transformation and AI driven automation are changing the way companies engage with employees, customers, and the public. Executives who participated in this study ranked delivering economic value as the highest priority. At 41%, functional value came in second at 24%. Almost half the number of executives who ranked economic value as most important ethical, societal and emotional values ranked significantly lower each with [00:02:00] less than 15% of executives saying they were top priorities. And that says something. It suggests that many leaders are still viewing communications primarily through a financial lens, how comms supports revenue growth, investor confidence, market performance. While that’s understandable, it also reveals a gap in how communications is valued as a strategic business function. I. Take stakeholder priorities. For example, the study found that while 79% of executives say it’s very important to consider all stakeholders, there’s a big gap in which stakeholders actually get attention. Customers and shareholders remain the top priority, but only 45% of executives see employees as key stakeholders in decision making, and just 22% consider the communities where their businesses operate to be essential. That’s a problem I. Employee engagement, company culture and corporate reputation are all directly tied to communication effectiveness. If leaders don’t see employees as central to [00:03:00] the company’s success, they may also fail to recognize how critical internal communications is in shaping workforce alignment, motivation, and retention. This desk this disconnect extends to what CEOs expect from their communications leaders. The research shows that many CEOs are looking for a T-shaped communicator, someone with broad knowledge across multiple areas, but deep expertise in a specific function. Sustainability. For example, finance or employee engagement. That makes sense given the complexity of moderate business. But it also suggests that communication professionals need to move beyond traditional PR and corporate messaging to embed themselves deeper into business operations, risk management, and strategy. That’s interesting. In light of the study we reported just a few months ago that found more and more CCOs, chief communication officers are in fact seeing their roles expand beyond communication. Another issue is the rapid rise of AI and automation, [00:04:00] which is reshaping communication workflows, and executives may not be seeing their communication teams leading the charge on these innovations. If comms leaders aren’t proactively demonstrating how AI and digital transformation can improve corporate storytelling, employee engagement and crisis response, CEOs may assume they’re not adapting fast enough. The study also reveals that in large companies, that’s companies with more than 50,000 employees operating in 20 or more countries, executive confidence and communication teams is even lower. This suggests that as organizations scale, the ability for communication teams to maintain strategic alignment and influence across global markets becomes much harder. So what should communication professionals be doing to rebuild confidence? First, comms teams need to demonstrate their business value more directly. That means tying communication outcomes to clear business metrics, whether that’s revenue impact, employee retention, or brand trust. Leaders who speak [00:05:00] the language of business finance risk operational efficiency, we’ll command more credibility in the boardroom. Second, communicators need to play a bigger role in shaping corporate decision making. The fact that employees and communi communities rank so low as stakeholder priorities suggest that communication leaders need to advocate for a broader view of corporate responsibility. A company’s reputation today is shaped by form, far more than just financial performance. It’s about trust, credibility, and how well an organization engages with its employees, partners, and society at large. Third communication teams must embrace emerging technologies like AI and automation. If CEOs feel that their comms teams aren’t adapting quickly enough to the modern landscape, that could be another reason for the declining in confidence. Communicators should be at the forefront of leveraging AI for content creation, crisis monitoring, and data-driven audience insights. And finally, it’s [00:06:00] time for communication teams to prove their ability to navigate uncertainty. Today’s CEOs face unpredictable challenges from regulatory changes and political instability to generative AI disruptions and cybersecurity threats. Communication leaders who can help companies stay ahead of these issues rather than just react to them, will be the ones who earn their seat at the table. Neville, what did you take away from this report? A lot actually, and you covered most of it. I think your last point is the starting point. I would look on this, and this is reflected in other surveys we’ve commented on, which is agility. It’s being able and willing to go hand in hand to pivot, react, adapt, whatever you might wanna call it, rapidly and confidently. That means you need to know a lot more than you. Possibly are know about today. And therefore you need to be very proactive to ensure that you do know literally everything possible that is related to what you need to do as a [00:07:00] communicator. That’s probably something many of us are doing now anyway, but if you’re not, you really do need to do that. It doesn’t surprise me. It’s troubling a lot of this. That headline figure only 17% of senior execs have confidence that their communicators are well prepared to tackle the current volatile environment. And a lot of this relates to the shifts we’ve seen in the last month led in the United States. By the actions of new President Trump on his second term and the executive orders and all the stuff he has as we see literally almost daily on the TV news. This phenomenal signature on these executive audit documents that he physically signs and weighs ’em at the camera. They’re having repercussions everywhere. It’s actually quite extraordinary. She, frankly. The Trump effect that is global, that’s taking place every single country is impact or paying attention to wondering what is he going to do next. So this is truly quite extraordinary, I think. So that’s part of the environment. And the tariff wars that are about to [00:08:00] begin by all accounts are definitely gonna have an impact on global business. We’re already seeing. Effects in the financial markets in stock markets, we’re seeing that in interest rates that are they gonna go up and go down or whatever it might be. And the nervousness that is derived from that, we’re also seeing which is mentioned here a real change in DEI initiatives in organizations. And in fact, we’re seeing I have to say mostly American companies that are backpedaling like crazy to. Ditch these that’s gonna have a big impact on perceptions. And they we’re not yet seeing exactly what that impact’s gonna be. ’cause it’s only been the last week or so that this is impacting people’s perceptions and opinions and therefore their behaviors perhaps. But that is part of the landscape. Whether it’s temporary, pardon? That we don’t know. I just was just reading a story literally before we, we got together to record this episode about what Disney. Is decided to do, which is literally pull back completely on [00:09:00] DEI and speculation now about what impacts that can have on their animation studios and therefore perceptions of kids. You could project this out in a big way. So 17% of senior execs don’t have comp, or only 17 have confidence that communicators are up to it basically. The other thing I think just to mention was. And maybe this goes hand in hand with DEI, I don’t know, but the the metric talking about how employee communication is way down the priority list on the stakeholder total of who you’re paying attention to, customers, et cetera. Employees aren’t as high as I would’ve thought they should be. So there, there’s lots here that is concerning the provoke media story. Talks about, in fact, it’s not provoked, it’s the exo story talks about. So it’s some interesting things I think that are worth paying attention to. Particularly their concluding point about no scenario plan is ever gonna survive contact with the amount of volatility that’s out there. And that [00:10:00] again. Be prepared, be make yourself agile, get to know exactly all these various things that are happening and try and understand what they mean. So you need to be paying attention to that. So 70% according to S’S interpretation of of Weber Sandwick survey, 70% are anticipating heightened volatility in the year ahead, and very few of them feel prepared. That’s not a good. At all? No, as I said at the top troubling and I think DEI is probably an excellent example to elaborate on a little, because as you look at what has happened in just the three weeks since Trump took office and began his executive assault on DEI, what have we seen? We’ve seen some. Companies, several companies do what Disney has done and many others, especially those in the tech industry although I saw a statistic the other day that said 65% of companies are not changing [00:11:00] their DEI programs, and of those 22% are actually planning to invest more in 2025. So they’re defiant. But among the companies that have. Scaled back, they’re starting to see blowback from their customers. Take target for example, the retail giant here in the us. Target said that they were going to scale back their DEI in response to the administration’s mandates and customers revolted. There has been a sell off of their stock. Their share price has. Taken a precipitous drop. There has been a considerable fall off on sales as customers have called for boycotts of the organization, and they have actually reversed themselves as a result of this. So public pressure brought to bear has created a whiplash at Target. Now, how good are their communicators at reading the marketplace and advising leadership on what [00:12:00] stakeholder audiences are saying and thinking in order to help them with their decision making? I would say based on what I’ve seen from Target, not very well. So I think it’s vital that communicators understand the issues that are roiling out there. In the media space, in social media, in the business world and be doing environmental scanning. This is a term I learned from IABC research Foundation’s excellence study, years and years ago. What was that like 19 86, 87, around then. But environmental scanning means that you are on top of. What the trends are and what the thinking is and what the sentiment is around these issues. And essentially you’re doing an every morning intelligence briefing like leaders of countries do so that you can let management know what’s going on. I woke up. Some mornings ago to the news that the Trump [00:13:00] administration was going to impose 25% import on all imported steel and aluminum. I work in the construction industry. We work with a lot of imported steel. We set prices for the buildings that we’re building based on what the price was of steel at the time that those. Deals were made. If those prices go up 25% the building’s gonna cost more. Are we prepared for that? Do our employees know what’s going on? If they’ve heard about these tariffs, are they worried about our ability to be profitable? We need to tell people. So the first thing I did is fire off a message to one of the senior executives saying, we need to let employees know where we’re at with this. He thought it was a good idea. This is the kind of thing communicators need to do in order to build that confidence at the leadership levels. You can’t just be reacting to things and reporting what the leaders say. We need to be counselors who are advising them based on our read of what’s going on out there. Yeah, you’re right. And one other [00:14:00] point related to all of this that struck me as well, was the metric in the report that leaders of larger companies and those operating in more than 20 countries are more likely to report a loss in comms and public affairs confidence. It got me thinking that much of the examples that we might. Discuss or read about or in the us not outside the US yet. I wonder some of these larger global multinationals, whether they’re American or whatever they might be with operations in other countries, what’s the effect gonna be if the US company, the owner, the kind of parent company rolls back on DEI and that meets with fierce resistance in, in, in some of their subsidiaries or associated companies elsewhere around the world, then what? What are we gonna do about that? I did read, and I don’t have the details in front of me, so I can’t remember the name of the company. One company has already experienced that with employees in Germany, France, and the UK saying, no, we, we refuse to implement this and this big turmoil going on internally in that organization. So [00:15:00] will we see a lot of that? I would suspect we will. In which case, what’s the impact? Project out what the questions are we need to be asking that if we are communicate is what does this mean? To what do we need to do? What do we need to advise? How do we prepare for this? So that you’ve gotta have that in your planning list. If you are in that position with a company in that situation. You’ve then got larger Italian companies. What about in the in the Arabic speaking world, out in Asia, et cetera how does this impact those? Is this a ripple effect? We’ll see from DEI. ’cause you are seeing. Again, it’s largely in the US according to Axios, they talk about several CEOs are tripping over themselves to appeal to the new Trump administration. I call that sucking up like big time. Really, it’s embarrassing seeing some of the behaviors by these CEOs, yet pragmatism, I suppose you might call it the effect on the share price if they’re publicly listed. All these things. Are very distasteful, but this is reality. What do you do [00:16:00] about this? And what about the values you profess, this is a long discussion. We’ve talked about this before. Yeah. You say these things, we stand by this. And I remember that conversation we had in a recent episode. She, and that particularly did a total reversal and said what we said then is not the case anymore. We don’t believe in that. So where does all that fit into this overall landscape? So the volatile. Picture is very wide. It’s a very large landscape to look at. Yeah. You, I had not heard about this company that had the the uprising from among employees in other, I’ll see if I can dig out the note on it. Yeah. Good. But I think one of the things and. Ties directly back to the results of this survey is that A CEO sees this happening in their foreign subsidiaries or affiliates, and they say, our internal communicators aren’t doing their job because they didn’t create alignment around this decision. Yeah. As opposed to counseling the leadership to say, this is how you’re going to [00:17:00] experience a response from our. Subsidiaries in Germany and France and Italy and the like, based on the fact that we have employee profiles that, that cover our geographic regions and we can project based on, it could even be AI analysis of our employee sentiment data from. Everything that we’ve done in Teams and Slack and email and the other channels that employees are engaging in, we can come right out and say, this isn’t gonna fly. You’re going to have some unhappy people and that’s gonna affect productivity. Let’s rethink this. That’s the kind of counsel that we need to give, not, oh, yes sir, we will communicate that we’re doing this even though we know you’re gonna run into resistance. The other thing I’m seeing and this is really interesting and I’m seeing this mostly on LinkedIn, is. Experts in DEI who are providing counsel on the difference between legal and illegal DEI as defined in the Trump administration’s executive orders saying that [00:18:00] basically illegal DEI is anything that elevates somebody. Because of their protected class or background or what have you, which frankly, that’s not D-E-I-D-E-I does not do that. D that, that’s equality, not equity. Equity is creating a level play playing field that gives everybody the same opportunity and that they’re saying is legal. DEI under the definition, who’s. Reading all of this and going to their leaders and saying, we can continue to offer DEI that is in compliance with what the Trump administration is asking. If we do A, B, and c based on my reading of what the experts are saying, again, this is proactive rather than reactive, and it’s what we need to be doing. It is. So a lot to pay attention to with this, I think. And the DEI, I guess is the hot one on everyone’s radar because of the rolling back on it as per an executive order. But all the other [00:19:00] elements, indeed looking at what Axios is interpreting from the port, from the from the survey on the share of CEOs who say they plan to expand specific functions, top of the list marketing and brand building or marketing communication and brand building. And that I think, does reflect what you said at the very start, that the focus is external on this and employee communication is actually second on that list, but there’s quite a big gap between the numbers. And then all the other functions, investor relations, public relations, crisis, et cetera. But marketing, communication and brand building is number one. So if you’re a marketing communicator, pay close attention to that one. Absolutely. And of course DEI was just an example. Yeah, there, there are tons of issues out there that could be affecting your organization, that could be challenging your leadership. You need to know what those are, and you need to be monitoring all of those and providing counsel on how stakeholders will react and what the impact of the business will be from the wrong messaging. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode [00:20:00] of four immediate release. The post FIR #450: Senior Leaders Doubt Communicators’ Abilities appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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CWC 104: How agency owners can avoid scope creep (featuring Steve Guberman) 31:56

منذ 17 يومًا31:56

31:56

In this episode, Chip talks with Steve Guberman of Agency Outsight about coaching agency owners through problems that they universally face. Steve shares insights into setting realistic expectations with clients, avoiding over-servicing, and adjusting scopes and pricing appropriately. Key topics include continuous communication, team involvement in the sales process, and the value of postmortems to learn from both successes and failures. Additionally, they discuss the benefits of asking questions, remaining curious, and leveraging referrals and testimonials for business growth. [ read the transcript ] The post CWC 104: How agency owners can avoid scope creep (featuring Steve Guberman) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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ALP 260: AI no threat to agency employees learning fundamental skills 18:45

منذ 19 يومًا18:45

18:45

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the complaint from owners that AI is preventing junior employees from learning how to do their jobs the right way. They refute arguments that AI is detrimental to learning the fundamentals, comparing it to outdated technologies like fax machines and card catalogs. They advocate for embracing AI, citing its efficiency and evolving intelligence in completing tasks. They emphasize training teams to use AI effectively, focusing on editing and verifying AI-generated content rather than doing things ‘the old way.’ The episode concludes with practical advice for integrating AI into agency processes and improving productivity. [ read the transcript ] The post ALP 260: AI no threat to agency employees learning fundamental skills appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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Silvia Cambie on AI’s Overlooked Role in Communication 32:16

منذ 23 يومًا32:16

32:16

How AI is transforming communication beyond content creation to curation AI, including predictive analytics and sentiment analysis, is at the heart of this FIR Interview with Silvia Cambie, an independent communicator with deep expertise in journalism, internal communication, and AI-driven change management. Much of the conversation around AI in communication has focused on generative AI... Continue Reading → The post Silvia Cambie on AI’s Overlooked Role in Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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FIR #449: Employees’ Use of Shadow AI Surges 13:47

منذ 24 يومًا13:47

13:47

Employees everywhere are using AI to save time and be more productive. The thing is, many of them are using tools their employers have not approved and they're not telling anyone. Companies are benefiting from this stealth approach to using generative AI, but there are plenty of risks, too. Neville and Shel look at the data and discuss approaches companies can take that will benefit both them and their employees. Continue Reading → The post FIR #449: Employees’ Use of Shadow AI Surges appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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ALP 259: The value of getting satisfaction from client work 20:31

منذ 26 يومًا20:31

20:31

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of satisfaction from the work you do for clients, both for agency owners and their teams. Continue Reading → The post ALP 259: The value of getting satisfaction from client work appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .

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FIR #448: Has Night Fallen on Change Management and Enterprise Social Networks? 23:08

منذ 4 weeks23:08

23:08

Change leadership consultant Caroline Kealey thinks change management is dead. Communication leader Sharon O’Dea thinks Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) is dead. That’s right: It’s time for another installment of “X is Dead.” In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel outline the cases these two communication thought leaders make and offer our own thoughts. Links... Continue Reading → The post FIR #448: Has Night Fallen on Change Management and Enterprise Social Networks? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .…

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ALP 258: Should your agency pivot to a new focus amid economic shifts? 18:04

منذ 5 weeks18:04

18:04

In this episode, Chip and Gini address the topic of pivoting for small agencies in response to changing economic and political climates. Continue Reading → The post ALP 258: Should your agency pivot to a new focus amid economic shifts? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network .

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