Maven is a new social network that eschews likes and follows — the features of other social networks that induce stress and anxiety in users who feel compelled to grow their numbers rather than have meaningful conversations. But if brands can’t build a follower base or measure engagement on their posts, is there a use case for establishing a presence on Maven? Neville and Shel look at the possibilities in this short midweek episode.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 29.

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 [email protected].

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.

The post FIR #416: No Likes, No Follows, No Stress! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For years, agency advisors like Chip and Gini have implored agencies to be strategic and avoid being simple order takers. Owners were told that this shift was key to increasing profitability and client retention.

But has it gone too far? In this episode, Chip and Gini examine whether agencies have hit ‘peak strategy’ as suggested recently by Blair Enns.

They ask whether some agencies are overemphasizing strategy at the expense of implementation. They note that clients say they want their agencies to think strategically, but they also balk at explicit costs for strategic planning.

They maintain that agencies should incorporate strategy into their overall services without explicitly charging for it, and emphasize the need for balance between strategic planning and practical execution.

Chip and Gini also discuss proper pricing strategies, ensuring clients receive value without feeling nickel-and-dimed. The conversation highlights the necessity of delivering workable strategies tailored to client needs and the importance of understanding costs and pricing based on agency specifics. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 236: Have agencies listened too well to the “be strategic” mantra? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Three IABC members comprise the 2024 class of IABC Fellows. In this special Circle of Fellows episode, you’ll meet Andrea Greenhous, Juli Holloway, and Theomary Karamanis as they discuss their career paths and views on the day’s pressing communication issues.

About the panel:

Andrea Greenhous’s life’s purpose is to improve the world of work. For over 30 years, she has helped organizations improve the employee experience and build workplaces where people thrive. As founder and president of Vision2Voice, an internal communications agency, Andrea and her dedicated team help organizations adopt a strategic approach to employee communications to achieve results. Andrea has led initiatives and transformation projects for Fortune 500 technology companies, large government departments, and organizations as diverse as construction, biotech, finance, and higher education. This has led to a signature approach emphasizing harnessing employee voices and amplifying their insights and ideas.

Andrea is a storyteller, a PROSCI-certified change leader, and Dare to Lead trained based on the work and research of Brené Brown. She is also a certified Fearless Organization Practitioner. She uses the tools and processes developed by Amy C. Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, to build psychological safety in teams. Andrea has been named a top 10 influencer in internal communications and is a frequent guest blogger and speaker at industry events.

Juli Holloway is an Indigenous communications practitioner specializing in professional communication in Indigenous contexts. Throughout her career, Juli has been fortunate to work with First Nations and Indigenous organizations in British Columbia and across Canada to support transformative change for First Nation communities and people through strategic communications and community engagement.

Juli is the communications advisor at the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics. She leads communications, designs, and delivers a communications curriculum in university-accredited programs designed to advance Indigenous economic reconciliation. She is also an associate faculty member at Royal Roads University, where she teaches in the MA in Professional Communications program. In 2022, she earned the Outstanding Associate Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence in the MA Programs in 2022 for her innovative pedagogical methods. Juli is Haida and Kwakwaka’wakw and has been a guest on the traditional lands of the Secwépemc for 17 years. She belongs to the Skidegate Gidins, an eagle clan from the village of Skidegate on Haida Gwaii, and the Taylor (nee Nelson) family originating from Kingcome Inlet, home of one of the four tribes of the Musgamagw Dzawada̱ʼenux̱w.

Dr. Theomary Karamanis is a multiple award-winning communication professor and consultant with 25 years of global experience. She is currently a full-time Senior Lecturer of Management Communication at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and regularly delivers executive education programs in leadership communication, crisis communication, and strategic communication. She has held several professional leadership positions, including Chair of the GCCC (Global Communication Certification Council), chair of the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Academy, and Chair of the IABC Awards committee.

Her academic background includes a PhD in communication studies, a Master of Arts in mass communication, and a post-graduate certificate in telecommunications –all from Northwestern University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. She also holds professional certifications as a Strategic Communication Management Professional (SCMP), online facilitator, and executive program instructor. She has received 40 professional communication awards, including 12 Platinum MarCom awards, 7 Gold Quill awards, 4 Silver Quill awards, and a Comm Prix award. In 2020 she received the Award for Excellence in Communication Consulting by APCC (Association of Professional Communication Consultants) and ABC (Association for Business Communication). She is the author of several books and academic papers on communication, and she also regularly delivers presentations at international conferences and other business forums.

The post Circle of Fellows #105: Meet the 2024 Class of IABC Fellows appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The UK Post Office scandal is a stark example of leadership and communication failures. When a faulty computer system was implemented, it erroneously flagged financial discrepancies, leading to the wrongful conviction of numerous subpostmasters for theft and false accounting. Instead of addressing the software’s errors, the Post Office’s crisis communication strategy focused on concealment and covering up misdeeds. This approach exacerbated the situation and severely damaged the organization’s reputation and trust. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss how transparency and accountability should have been the focus of leadership and how other companies’ crises could have been instructive for the Post Office’s leaders.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 29.

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 [email protected].

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.

The post FIR #415: A Staggering Failure of Leadership and Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip talks with David C. Baker, who has been dubbed “the expert’s expert.” He leads the advisory firm Punctuation, and has worked with more than 1,000 agencies to help them get better positioned for success.

The discussion focuses on improving agency management and scalability by emphasizing the importance of understanding business fundamentals and integrating them alongside the creative and strategic solutions.

Key topics include the benefits of proper positioning, effective client communication, strategic pricing, and the importance of sharing expertise. [read the transcript]

The post CWC 101: Expert advice on putting your agency in a position to succeed (featuring David C. Baker) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the widespread apprehension about AI in the agency world, urging listeners to embrace the technology rather than fear it.

They emphasize that AI will not replace jobs but will change the nature of work, making tasks more efficient and allowing for more strategic focus. The conversation also explores how agency owners can leverage AI to create new service models and improve client offerings. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 235: AI should be your agency’s friend, not foe appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Organizations need to adopt policies and communication strategies based on the acknowledgment that remote/hybrid work is here to stay. The current state of play is rooted in an assumption that it’s temporary, creating tensions between workers and leaders and leaving pre-pandemic company cultures in shambles. In a survey conducted jointly by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the USC Annenberg School of Communication, communicators shared their views about how remote/hybrid is going four years after it was thrust on organizations and its impact on the internal communication function. These results were presented on June 26 at a session of the IABC World Conference in Chicago. A press release is set for distribution the week of July 1, with survey results available soon after.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 29.

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 [email protected].

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.

The post FIR #414: Companies Treat Remote/Hybrid Like It’s Temporary. It’s Not. appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Are you finding biz dev harder in 2024 than you expected?

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the increased risk aversion and prolonged decision-making processes among clients and prospects in the agency industry, especially in light of economic uncertainties and the 2024 U.S. election. They emphasize the importance of agencies adapting by providing project-based work and suggest looking into using AI for optimizing tasks and offering new services.

The conversation also explores the benefits of flexible, short-term engagements and the potential pitfalls of long-term contracts. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 234: Adapting your agency for risk-averse clients appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We are told, “AI won’t take your job.” Instead, “Someone who knows how to use AI will take your job.”

Tell that to the scores of copywriters who have already lost their jobs to generative AI. With ChatGPT and its competitors in the frontier LLM space being used to write more than anything else, agencies and organizations are figuring out how to craft prompts that turn out decent copy. Some copywriters are figuring out how to stay relevant, though, including taking gigs improving the copy these AI tools churn out.

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel examine these trends and wonder what they mean for other communication jobs.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 29.

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 [email protected].

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.

The post FIR #413: AI Is Coming for Copywriters appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

“If an employee is too critical to take vacation, your problem isn’t the employee.”

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of ensuring that no one in an agency, including owners and key employees, is too indispensable to take time off. They explore the belief versus reality of being irreplaceable, and provide actionable strategies for agency owners to create processes allowing team members to take vacations without disrupting operations.

The conversation touches on company culture, employee empowerment, and the benefits of experimenting with practices like four-day work weeks and dedicated days for business focus. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 233: Building an agency culture where everyone can take time off appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.