FIR Podcast Network

Tennessee-based communicator and former PRSA leader Mary Beth West joins host Shel Holtz for an extended conversation on the battle she and colleague Susan Hart have undertaken to change ethics clauses in PRSA’s by-laws. Also on this week’s episode…

* Companies don’t seem to care anymore about getting good press from the mainstream media; are we abandoning the “Earned” in the Paid/Earned/Shared/Owned model?

* How the failure to explore what could go wrong derailed a feel-good story

* Papa Johns’ chairman resigned and the company posted an open letter addressing the issues. It didn’t go well.

* Dan York reports with Neville Hobson about an unusual exercise they participated in at a conference.

About This Week’s Guest

Six months after selling her public relations firm of 15 years, Mary Beth West, APR, Fellow PRSA, now describes her battle since early 2017 — pursuing PRSA National leadership’s compliance with its own Code of Ethics – as what easily might be the definitive fight of her professional lifetime.  Along with her colleague, Susan Hart, APR, Fellow PRSA, the two Tennesseans hold a combined 60 years of career experience and membership in PRSA. Together, Hart and West are pushing forward ethics-reform and nonpartisanship bylaw proposals, in ramp-up to the PRSA National Assembly, October 6 in Austin, Texas. In 2000, West was one of the youngest professionals ever elected to PRSA’s national board at age 29.  A University of Tennessee alumna, she is a past president of PRSA’s Volunteer Chapter in Knoxville, Tenn., and was named the UT College of Communication & Information’s first Public Relations Alumna of the Year in 2013.

Links from This Episode:

* ‘No Comment’: The Death of Business Reporting

* Starbucks is eliminating plastic straws from all stores

* American Airlines is latest to ax plastic straws, stir sticks

* Disability rights groups voice issues with Starbucks’ plastic straw ban as company responds

* Why Ben & Jerry’s has a corporate activism manager

* What Papa John Didn’t Get About Being A CEO

* Papa John’s CEO Attempts Damage Control But Not An Apology

PRSA Ethics Controvery Links:

* PRSA Statement on “Alternative Facts”

* PRSA Code of Conduct Note: There is no revision date on this document

* PRSA Members Target Ethics Reforms

* PRSA tension escalates as Wells Fargo comms execs face new attacks

* Censorship ≠ Civility: PRSA Deletes Me...

On this week’s episode of the Inside PR podcast: The biggest change to WordPress in ten years; the Guardian decides good enough video really is good enough; and a teachable moment in marketing ethics. It’s about disclosure, stupid!

Susan Getgood joined FIR host Shel Holtz to talk about the latest influencer marketing reports, including the Pernod’s wildly successful Malibu Games. Also on this week’s show…

* An update on the European Parliament’s consideration of draconian copyright protections that could cause the Internet serious damage

* Instagram will let users add copyright-protected music to their Stories

* Copyright didn’t help one musician much

* California’s Supreme Court ruled that Yelp cannot be forced to remove negative posts that a judge has deemed defamatory

* Another court thinks it’s okay to use copyrighted photos from the Net without permission for commercial purposes

* LinkedIn is trying to become your morning source of business news

* White Castle used Facebook Live to poke fun at QVC-like programming while promoting a new food product

* A study found glowing five-star reviews don’t work as well as moderately positive four-star reviews

* Google’s Speed Update is coming this month

* How Minecraft is helping save the coral reefs

* Dan York reports on WordPress updates, “Shortcuts” in iOS5, the new Tanzanian government imposing a social media tax while Malaysia’s new government is dumping its anti-fake news law

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About this week’s guest:

Susan Getgood connects brands with the audiences that love them through innovative marketing strategies, compelling digital storytelling, and authentic influencer endorsement. Before re-opening her consulting practice at GetGood Strategic Marketing in 2017, Susan’s most recent corporate role was Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning & Insights at SheKnows Media. She joined SheKnows following its acquisition of BlogHer in November 2014, and also served in Integrated Marketing and Influencer Marketing roles at both organizations. Before joining BlogHer in 2010, Susan was an independent consultant helping organizations integrate social media into their marketing strategies to meet their customers online, build their brands and drive revenue. Clients included HP, Kaplan University, Kraft, Goodwill Industries and CamelBak as well as PR agencies, start-ups and small businesses nationwide. She has also held a variety of corporate marketing and management roles including Senior Vice President of Marketing at Internet software company SurfControl, General Manager of Cyber Patrol, and Director of Corporate Communications at The Learning Company.

Links from this week’s episode:

* EU’s ‘internet-wrecking’ copyright law rejected: But it’s not dead yet

* Instagram Stories now lets its 400M users add soundtracks

* Musician Writes Original Track, Then Gets Copyright Infringement Notice After Someone Steals It

* California high court: Yelp can’t be ordered to remove posts

* Court Rules Images That Are Found and Used From the Internet Are ‘Fair Use’

* Why LinkedIn wants to make original journalism

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This week we take a trip down memory lane to discuss the highlights of our 60-some odd collective years of working as B2B journalists in the technology field. There are some great stories, such as Meeting Bill Gates (Paul at a press junket, David at an industry conference) and worked with Greg Gianforte, now a member of Congress from Montana after making several fortunes starting technology businesses. Being a tech journalist has its risks: Charles Wang, when he was chairman of Computer Associates, campaigned to get Paul fired from Computerworld, but the two later became friends. David’s parody of Miss Manners got him a cease-and-desist letter from the columnist’s lawyers. We both recall what the introduction of the web did for our industry and our world back in 1994, and how quickly the publishing market changed as a result. David recalls with fondness his interaction with Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and now a professor at UT/Austin.

David remembers writing about a skunk works project from IBM to use spreadsheets as a front-end to their mainframe databases, and noted how the sole programmer behind the project, Oleg Vishnepolsky, later said his career was changed by the articles. Paul recalls the “old IBM,” which once IBM mistakenly put out a press release and then disavowed what it said. 

We have lots of other memories, and hope you enjoy this episode.   

On this week’s episode of “For Immediate Release,” Shel chats with Gini Dietrich about how companies might handle the flood of negative reviews posted to Yelp and TripAdvisor for political purposes (even to restaurants that share the same name but weren’t involved in the incident that upset those who disagreed) and Jen McClure and Shel talk about whether it’s a good idea (as one article suggested) to create PR about your company’s privacy and security activities. Also on this week’s episode:

* Google prepares to test Duplex, it’s talking reservation bot

* LinkedIn thinks QR codes can help finally kill the business card

* Ricoh has introduced “clickable paper”

* Facebook has launched a print magazine

* Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has demonstrated how to apologize

* Publishers are backing away from viral videos in favor of producing TV series

* Brands are flocking to Instagram’s new IGTV

* Macy’s puts a new (and awesome) spin on employee ambassadors

* Salesforce employees are the latest to petition their CEO to stop working with a customer

* DanYork reports on Instagram’s new features including video chat, the addition of reactions to Facebook Stories, and Chrome v68 showing sites as not secure (and how Cloudflare may easily solve that problem for you).

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About this week’s guests:

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm.  She is the lead blogger at the PR and marketing blog, Spin Sucks, is co-author of Marketing In the Round, and is co-host of Inside PR, a weekly podcast about communications and social media.  Her second book, Spin Sucks, is now available! She speaks, she writes for Crain’s Chicago Business and other publications.

Jen McClure is CEO of JEM Consulting & Advisory Services. Prior to founding JEM, Jen was Vice President of Digital & Social Media and the head of the Digital Center of Excellence at Thomson Reuters. In 2005, Ms. McClure founded the Society for New Communications Research, a nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank and was President of the Board of Directors from 2005-2016, when the organization merged with The Conference Board. She now chairs the Advisory Board of the new organization.

Links from this episode:

* Shel Holtz’s Nuzzel newsletter

* I talked to Google’s human-sounding AI on the phone: Here’s what I learned

* Google Gives Its Human-Like Phone Chatbot A Demo Redo

* Google’s reservation-making AI will be making calls soon

* Turn Your Offline Conversations into Online Connections with LinkedIn QR Code

* Turn Your Offline Conversations into Online Connections with LinkedIn QR Code

* The first textbook with clickable paper

Six weeks after GDPR came into force, it’s clear that many companies haven’t really got it right. And now, California has enacted the toughest privacy law in the United States. So, if you thought GDPR and privacy rights were in the rearview mirror, think again.

Facebook left publishers in the lurch. And that hurt. But new data from Slate tells us that a better, more balanced publishing distribution and promotion network is emerging now that Facebook released its stranglehold.

Plus, Instagram releases a guidebook to make better videos for IGTV. And Headliner releases data that shows the effectiveness of audiograms when promoting podcasts.

The firing of Intel CEO Brian Krzanich last week over a single sexual harassment claim shocked some people because the scope of the crime seemed out of proportion to the punishment. This article by Agility PR makes the case that one harassment claim can do more damage to your brand than a charge of financial fraud. The Register suggests that the reason for Krzanich’s dismissal goes deeper, and if that’s true, it wouldn’t reflect well on Intel. Companies need to navigate these waters with care, making sure they are prepared for a harassment charge, rather than hoping for the best.

What you ask Google influences the results you get. That’s probably not news, but it has interesting implications when you consider the trust people put in search engines to deliver the truth. Francesca Tripodi surveyed two Republican groups in Virginia — a women’s group and a college group — during their 2017 gubernatorial election. Just by varying one word in the search box, such as using  “NFL ratings up” vs. “NFL ratings down,” proved to deliver two very different result sets. We discuss what marketers can learn from the exercise and how to craft better keyword collections and hashtags for your future campaigns. 

Neville Hobson joined FIR host Shel Holtz for the June edition of “The Hobson & Holtz Report” and conversation about these topics:

* An employee was mistakenly fired by an AI system and managers stood by powerless to correct the mistake. Was AI really to blame?

* IBM has introduced an AI designed for debate, which could mean there’s finally an unbiased devil’s advocate to point out the flaws in your business plan.

* There is no minimizing the threat to the Internet posed by the draconian copyright restrictions the European Parliament could vote into law as early as the week after next.

* A couple PRSA members are proposing an overhaul of ethics rules to make sure they apply to the group’s executive board (and making their case hasn’t been easy).

* The World Cup is using a Video Assisted Referee, which would have applications far beyond sports.

* Facebook is testing paid monthly Group subscriptions.

* Dan York reports on the impending identification by Google Chrome of all http sites as “not secure,” Google’s dedicated podcast app for Android, Instagram’s launch of IGTV (which accommodates videos up to an hour long), and an iOS update that adds some pretty cool audio editing directly from an iPad.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson was co-host of The Hobson & Holtz Report for over 10 years. For over 15 years, Neville has been a voice of experience and influence when it comes to speaking about digital technologies, disruptive change in workplaces and marketplaces, relevant trends to pay close attention to, and what it all means for your business. His experiences embrace deep understanding and subject-matter expertise in contemporary business issues that include social, digital and cognitive technologies, connecting that with a career in traditional public relations, marketing communication, employee compensation and benefits communication, and investor relations. Based in the Thames Valley some 30 miles west of London, Neville works either from his home office or from a client’s location; or from wherever he has a good network connection. Neville is on Twitter at @jangles.

Links from this episode

* Man Was Fired By His Company’s AI System Due To Human Error, As Managers ‘Stood Powerless’

* The man who was fired by a machine

* When A Machine Fired Me

* Debating AI could be devil’s advocate for business

* Europe’s New Copyright Rules Will Be Devastating to the Internet as We Know It

* This Wednesday, an EU committee voted to break the Internet: this Sunday, Berliners take to the streets to say NO!

* Article 13 of the Copyright Directive Raises Serious Questions

* Save Your Internet

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Did you hear the news? Apple and Reddit just upgraded their apps with some serious news coverage. And Instagram launched IGTV, a serious competitor in longer videos. But Google can’t be serious about the new Google Podcasts app.

Does advancing to the ranks of senior management really require you to win the battle for a coveted “seat at the table?” To make the transition to a top leadership position requires a change in behavior to advance your career and the role of communication. The June installment of “Circle of Fellows” will examine the communicator as facilitator in the boardroom, as a leader of innovation, and a unifier and ground-breaker in transformative collaboration.

On Thursday, June 21, four IABC Fellows participated in a live online conversation about leadership skill-building for communicators.

FIR host Shel Holtz (also a Fellow) moderated the panel that included James Lukaszewski, Mary Ann McCauley, and Barbara Puffer.

About the panel

James E. Lukaszewski, America’s Crisis Guru ®, is a bestselling author, national speaker, and trusted strategic advisor to FPO and NPO business operators and leaders during crises, disasters, reputation attacks, contentiousness and when the boss’s future is at stake. Corporate Legal Times listed him as “one of 22 crisis counselors to have in your speed dial when all hell breaks loose.” For more than 30 years, he has confidentially guided hundreds of company leaders thru tough, touchy, sensitive situations. Lukaszewski’s strategies inspire constructive, ethical problem resolving management behavior. A powerful and inspirational speaker, he teaches executives and managers the lessons he has learned. A prolific author, he is quoted and interviewed often as one of the most recognizable leaders in his profession. Lukaszewski is on the web at www.e911.com.

Mary Ann McCauley is committed to ensuring people communicate more effectively about their organizations’ products and services. With a specialty practice in crisis management, Mary Ann addresses sensitive issues with timeliness, dignity, and minimal backlash. “Managing communication during a crisis requires common sense folded into a structured process,” she says.

Barbara Puffer owns Puffer Public Relations Strategies, where she has served clients for nearly 20 years. Previously, she was Corporate Communications Manager at Barnes Group for 13 years; her communications management career spans 40 years, including work in banking, insurance, and telecommunications organizations. She taught communication studies for 13 years.