FIR Podcast Network

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the prevalent issue of burnout among agency owners. They explore the different types of burnout, including cyclical and long-term burnout, and offer strategies to identify, cope with, and prevent it.

Key recommendations include taking regular breaks, understanding personal energy drains and boosts, and adjusting work habits accordingly. They emphasize the importance of self-care, realistic time management, and the necessity to avoid making major decisions while burned out. Chip and Gini also share personal experiences and practical tips to help agency owners manage their workload more effectively. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 268: Identifying and managing agency owner burnout appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

A Columbia University student was expelled for developing an AI-driven tool to help applicants to software coding jobs cheat on the tests employers require them to take. You can call such a tool deplorable or agree with the student that it’s a legit resource. It’s hard to argue with the $5 million in seed funding the student and his partner have raised. Also in this long-form monthly episode for April 2025:

Links from this episode

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, May 26.

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.

Raw Transcript

Neville Hobson: Greetings everyone, and welcome to for immediate release episode 462, our monthly long form edition for April, 2025. Neville Hobson in.

Shel Holtz: I’m Shell Holtz in Concord, California in the us. We’re thrilled to be back to tackle six topics that we think communicators and others in business will find interesting and useful.

Before we jump into those topics, though, as usual, in our monthly episode, we’d like to recap the shorter episodes that we’ve recorded since the last monthly, and we’re. Neville over. I think we’re,

Neville Hobson (2): yeah, I think we are. Shell, uh, episode 4 56. That was our March monthly recorded on the 24th of, or rather, published on the 24th of March.

Um, a lot of topics in that one, they addressed variety of issues. Uh, for instance, uh, publishing platform ghost enabling the social web by employees quitting [00:01:00] over poor communication in companies, the UK newspaper launching AI curated news. And there were three or four other topics in there too. Plus Dan York’s tech report as usual.

So that’s a mighty episode. And.

Shel Holtz: We did on the topic of whether artificial intelligence will put the expertise of practice by communicators at risk. Julie MayT wrote, it’s not about what we do anymore, but how we think, connect and interpret. Human value isn’t disappearing. It’s shifting, isn’t it? The real opportunity isnt doubling down on creativity, context and emotional intelligence by communicating with kindness and empathy.

Looking forward to tuning in. And Paul Harper responded to that comment saying, my concern is that AI, for many applications completely misses emotional intelligence, cold words, which are taken from the web, which does not discriminate between good and bad sources, truth or fake. And Julie responded to that saying, good point, Paul.

When it comes to important [00:02:00] stuff where it really matters whether AI is giving us something real or fake, I usually ask for the source and double check it myself. Chachi PT also has a deep research function that can help dig a bit further.

Neville Hobson (2): Okay, so our next 1, 4 57 that was published on the 28th of March.

And this I found a, a really interesting discussion, very timely one, talking about communicating the impacts of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. And we talked about that at some length. Our concluding statement in that episode was communicated should counsel leaders on how to address the impacts of those tariffs.

And I believe we have a comment on that show

Shel Holtz: from Rick Murray, uh, saying So true business models for creative industries are being turned upside down, revenue and margin streams that once fueled agencies of all types don’t need to exist now and won’t exist in three years.

Neville Hobson (2): Well said Rick. Well said 58, which we recorded or published on the 3rd of April.

This was, I thought, a [00:03:00] really interesting one, and we’re gonna reference it again in this episode. This was about preparing managers to manage human AI hybrid. Teams, um, a lot of talk about that and that how, uh, uh, uh, that we are ready or not for this, it’s on the horizon. It’s coming where we will have this in workplaces, and we talked about that at some length in that episode.

Uh, looking at what it means for managers and how far businesses from, uh, how far it is from enabling their managers to succeed in the new work reality. We also added a, a kind of a, a mirror or a parallel element to this, that it’s also helping employees understand what this means to them in the workplace if they got AI colleagues.

So, um, I don’t think we had any comments to that one. She, but it’s got a lot of views, so people thought about that, just didn’t, didn’t have any comments at this point, but great topic. Uh, I think

Shel Holtz: left, left them speechless if we did.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, exactly. So, uh, maybe we’ll get some after this episode in nine that we publish on the 9th of April that [00:04:00] looked at how AI is transforming content from passive to interactive.

We discussed the evolving landscape of podcast consumption, particularly in light of Satya Nadal, the CEO of Microsoft, his innovative approach to engaging with audio content through ai. So not listening to the podcast, he has his, uh, chat bot of, uh, his favorite chat bot, not chat, GBT of course, it’s co-pilot that, uh, talks to the transcript and ge he engages that way.

Interesting. Uh, I’ve seen comments elsewhere about this, that, that say, why on earth do you wanna do this? But you can listen. Well, everyone’s got different desires and wishes in this kind of thing. Uh, but it seems to me a feasible thing to do it the, for the reasons he describes why he’s doing it. And I believe it attracted a number of comments.

Did it not show.

Shel Holtz: We did, starting with Jeff Deonna, who wrote, to be honest, I find this approach deeply disrespectful to podcast hosts and their guests. It literally silences their human voices in favor of a fake conversation with a solace [00:05:00] algorithm. Now, I responded to that. I thought that Cliff notes would be a reasonable analogy.

People rather than reading Silas Marner, uh, read the Cliff notes where some solace Summarizers outlines the story and tells you who the key characters are so that you can pass a test and it silences the voice of the author, author. And yet we didn’t hear that kind of objection to Cliff Notes. We’ve heard other objections.

Of course, you should read the whole damn book. Right? But I think people have been summarizing for years. Executives give reports to their admins and say, write me a one page summary of this. And now we’re just using. AI to do the same thing. I don’t know if you had any additional thoughts on Jeff’s comment.

Sure.

Neville Hobson (2): I left a comment to his, uh, comment. I just reply to his comment as well, saying that, uh, I didn’t say these words, but effectively it was a polite way of saying I disagree. Sorry, you’re not right with this for the reasons you’ve, you’ve outlined. I don’t have the comment open on my [00:06:00] screen now, so I can’t remember the exact words I used, but I thought I couldn’t let him get away with, with that, without a response.

Shel Holtz: Well, we had another comment from Kevin Anselmo, who used to do the Higher Education podcast on the FIR Podcast Network. He said, I asked chat GPT to summarize your podcast transcript. After receiving the below chat, GPT provided practical advice on actioning the takeaways in my own projects. Interesting exercise, and I will not read everything he pasted in from chat GT’s analysis of the transcript of our podcast.

But I’ll, I’ll tell you what the five key takeaway labels are. Transcripts are becoming essential. A ai AI makes podcasts interactive. Most people still prefer passive listening. AI is going multimodal. And then there’s a notable quote from the podcast, so that was, uh, turnabout. I mean, we’re talking about what would happen if people didn’t listen to the authentic voices.

Well, you know, Kevin didn’t have to listen to us. I’m fine with that. If he [00:07:00] walks away with actionable items based on hearing or reading a summary of our transcript, one more way to get to it. I agree. And Mark Hillary wrote, why would you need a transcript for chat GPT though? Just feed it the audio and it could work out what is being said.

Anyway, I.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, I replied to him as well. We had quite an interchange. I can’t remember if it was on LinkedIn or on on Blue Sky, I can’t remember which, which service now. Um, but um, he was gonna go and experiment himself with something else. Uh, ’cause what he described, and someone else was left to comment about this as well.

Actually, I think that was on Blue Sky too, that, um, talked about, uh, you know, why would you wanna do this a bit bit like GE actually, not like Jeff. It wasn’t just alleging disrespect, it was saying, why would you wanna do this? Um, when I, you know, it was actually Mark who said he’d uploaded an MP three. And, uh, it had done the job.

It actually hadn’t, uh, chat. GPT got the MP three, created the transcript from it, and then it did what it [00:08:00] needed to do. So the transcript is essential to.

Shel Holtz: Whether you created Issa. Nevertheless,

Neville Hobson (2): these, these, yeah, these, these great comments are, are fab to have these I must have been extends the conversation.

Okay. So then four 60, which we published on April the 14th. This one talked about layoffs in the United States primarily, and the return of toxic workplaces and the big boss unquote era. Uh, the tide is turning. We started off and assessed that I mentioned. We’re seeing not, not the same and not layoffs per se, but people quitting here in the UK for different reasons.

But this turmoil in this and toxicity in the workplace is part of the reasoning. So we explore the reasons behind the layoffs in the US are the impact of CEO Tough talk and how communicators can help maintain a strong non-toxic workplace. So that was good. We have comments too, don’t we?

Shel Holtz: We do.[00:09:00]

Starting with Natasha Gonzalez who says something that stood out for me was a point that Neville made about employees in the UK who are resigning from jobs due to toxic workplace culture, rather than being laid off as in the us. I imagine this isn’t unique to the uk. And then Julie MayT, who was the first comment she’s going to bookend our comments, wrote that organizations in the US are starting to see we cracks in psychological safety and trust disappearing.

Then all those folks who keep everything ticking along will start to quietly disengage. It’s up to us, calms people to be brave enough and skilled to say on a wee minute, that message isn’t landing the way you think it is. While the big wigs are busy shouting, spinning, and flexing, it’s us who need to rock up with the calm, clear human communications, no drama, ram, just stuff that makes sense and actually help folks to figure out what the hell is [00:10:00] going on and what to do next.

Neville Hobson (2): Good comment Mr. Bit. And that takes us to the last one before this episode, episode 4 61. We published on the, on the 24th of April that looked at trends in YouTube video two reports in particular that really had interesting insights on virtual influences and AI generated videos. And the bit that caught my attention mostly was, uh, news that every video uploaded to YouTube.

So you take your video, you upload it, um, uh, can be dubbed into every spoken language on the planet, uh, with the, with the speaker’s lips reanimated to sync with the words they are speaking. I mean, this is either terrifically exciting or utter nightmare that, uh, that is approaching fast. So, um, we talked about that and uh, we haven’t had any comments to that one yet, but this is a topic I see I’m seeing quite a bit being discussed online in various places.

So this is just a start of this, I think. [00:11:00] So that takes us to the end of the recap show,

Shel Holtz: so I didn’t see it. Okay. Lemme talk about that.

Neville Hobson (2): And last but certainly not least, I want to mention a new interview that, uh, that we posted on the 23rd of April. This was with Zoa artists in Australia who we interviewed on an article she wrote in the populous blog on bridging AI and human connection in internal communication. It was a really, really good discussion we had with, uh, it’s definitely worth your time listening to this one.

You will learn quite a lot from what or Zoa has to say on this topic. What did you think of it? She, it was good, wasn’t it?

Shel Holtz: It was fascinating and I read that, that post in the popular blog and also was engaged in a conversation with Zuora at the Team Flow Institute where we’re both research fellows and she raised it and it led to a conversation with all the fellows [00:12:00] and this notion of what would a board of directors do if AI was in the room with them right now?

What would they use it for? How would they take advantage of it to some fascinating discussion. So worth a listen. Also up now is episode number 115 of Circle of Fellows, the monthly livestream panel discussion that people who watch live are able to participate in in real time. This was about communicating amidst the rise of misinformation and disinformation.

Brad Whitworth moderated this installment of Circle of Fellows with panelists, Alice Brink, Julie Holloway, and George McGrath. Sue Human was supposed to participate, but woke up feeling ill, but did send in some written contributions that, uh, were read into the discussion. So a good one. I’ve, I’ve listened to it.

You should too. It’s a very timely topic. And just to let you know about the next Circle, circle of Fellows, episode one [00:13:00] 16 is scheduled for noon eastern time on Thursday, May 22nd. The topic is moving to teaching. This is something a lot of communicators do is become adjunct professors or full professors, or even tenured professors.

And we’ll be having a conversation with four IABC fellows who have done just that, Cindy smi, John Clemens, mark Schumann, and Jennifer W. And in fact, I’m speaking at Jennifer W’s class via Zoom pretty soon, so that’ll be a fun one too. You can mark that one on your calendars May 22nd noon eastern time, and that’ll take us to the start of the coverage of our topics for this month, but only after we turn things over to an advertiser for a moment.[00:14:00]

As we have been discussing for some time, AI agents are coming and to a degree they’re already here. Ethan Molik, the Horton professor, and ai, I guess you’d call him an AI influencer. He posted this observation to LinkedIn a few days ago. He wrote, I don’t think people realize how much, even a mildly agentic AI system like chat PT oh three can do on its own.

For example, this prompt works in oh three zero shot. Come up with 20 clever ideas from marketing slogans for a new mail order. Cheese shop. Develop criteria and select the best one. Then build a financial and marketing plan for the shop, revising as needed, and analyzing competition. Then generate an appropriate logo using the image generator and build a website for the shop as a mockup.

Making sure to carry five to 10 cheeses to fit the marketing plan. With that single prompt in less than two [00:15:00] minutes, the AI not only provided a list of slogans, but ranked and selected an option, did web research, developed a logo, built marketing and financial plans, and launched a demo website for me to react to the fact that my instructions were vague and that common sense was required to make decisions about how to address them was not a barrier.

And that’s an open AI reasoning model, not an actual agent. Built to be an agent to take on autonomous tasks in sequence multiple tasks in pursuit of a goal with agents imminent. HubSpot shared a list of seven types of agents in a post on its blog, and I thought it would be instructive given what Professor Mooch wrote to, to go over these seven categories or classes of agents and where they intersect with what we do as communicators.

Now I, I’ll give you the caveat that. Somebody else may develop a different list. Somebody else may slice and dice the [00:16:00] types of agents differently, but this is the first time I’ve seen this categorization, so I thought it was worth going through. They start with simple reflex agents that operate based on direct condition action rules without any memory of anything that you may have interacted with it about before.

So in PR, we could use this for automated media monitoring alerts set up agents that trigger. Instant alerts based on keywords that, uh, appear in news articles or on social media that lets you respond quickly. Uh, you could have some basic chat bot responses, you right, simple chat bots on internal or external platforms that will answer frequently asked questions with pre-programmed answers about things like, I don’t know, office hours, basic company information, dates of upcoming events.

And then you could filter inbound communication, automatically flag or filter incoming emails or messages based on keywords that indicate urgency or specific topics and route [00:17:00] them to the appropriate team member to respond to it. The second type of agent is a model-based reflex agent. These maintain an internal model of the environment to make decisions considering past states as well as what you’re asking it to do right now.

So you could use a contextual chat bot to develop these chat bots for websites or, or internal PO portals that can maintain conversational context. It can remember previous interactions, and then provide more relevant information or support when the employee or the customer comes back for, for a follow-up or for additional information.

Do sentiment monitoring with that, that historical context. Agents that track media or social media sentiment over time can identify trends and, and give you historical context to current conversations. So you know, something’s being discussed around the organization. It can say, well, you know, two weeks ago this conversation happened then that weighs on what’s going on in these [00:18:00] conversations today.

And then there’s automated information retrieval, uh, agents that can access and synthesize information from internal databases or external sources based on what you ask it. Uh, providing more comprehensive answers than you get from the simple reflex agents. Goal-based agents make decisions to achieve a specific goal, planning a sequence of actions to reach that objective.

This is what most of us think about when we’re thinking of agents, automated press release, distribute distribution, social media, campaign management, internal communication, workflow automation. This is all possible here. I think I, I referenced on an earlier episode that I used an agent, a test agent that I think was Anthropic had set up, and I had it go out to my company’s website, identify our areas of subject matter expertise, and the markets we’re in.

Then go out and find 10. Good podcasts with large audiences where we [00:19:00] could pitch our subject matter experts as guests and it would be an appropriate pitch. And I sat back and watched while it did all of these things. So this is what we’ve got coming. Fourth are utility based agents that choose actions that maximize their utility or a defined performance measure considering various possible outcomes.

Uh, we can use these to optimize communication channel usage, right? Analyze how audiences engage across different communication channels and recommend the most effective platforms for specific messages or, uh, desired reach or desired impact. I can use this for crisis communication, simulation and planning.

Personalized communication delivery. Fifth is learning agents that improve their performance over time by learning from their experiences. You can use this to refine your message targeting, to improve, uh, the, the natural language understanding of chatbots that are engaging with customers or employees or whoever.

And to predict [00:20:00] communication effectiveness. They can analyze a number of factors like message, content, timing, audience demographics. To predict the potential reach and impact of your communications, letting you make adjustments. Sixth are hierarchical agents that break down complex goals into smaller, more manageable sub goals.

Here you’ll have higher level agents overseeing the work of lower level agents, so you’ll have a human manager managing an AI agent who manages AI agents. These for large scale communication projects, multi-channel campaigns, and and streamlining the approval process or use cases. And finally, there are multi-system agents.

These are multiple agents interacting with each other to achieve a common goal or individual goals. Integrated communication, planning and execution. Managing online reputation with agents, monitoring different online platforms, analyzing sentiment, coordinating responses or engagement based on a unified strategy, and then [00:21:00] cross departmental communication coordination.

So we need to understand the distinct capabilities of these different types of agents, and if we do, we’ll be able to leverage them to automate, to gain deeper insights, to do better personalization and better achieve our objectives. And I think, I think this is also a, a, a good point to mention. I have not had a chance to, to read it because you said you saw it and commented on it today.

It’s still early here where I am. But Zora Artis, our interview guest posted something that kind of fits in here too, right?

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, she shared a post from LinkedIn, which I found quite intriguing. Uh, written by, uh, Jade Beard Stevens, who’s the Director of Digital and Social Innovation at YMU in London. Brief post, but it says it all, I gotta read it out.

It’s quite, quite short. Uh, she says I wasn’t shocked, but still had to share. This rumor has it that open AI is quietly working on a native Shopify checkout. Inside chat. GPT apparently leaked code shows Shopify checkout, [00:22:00] URL Buy Now product offer ratings. No redirects, no search, just chat compare and buy in one flow.

If this happens, Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change. This isn’t just another e-commerce update. This is the merger of search and checkout. This is AI becoming the new storefront. Brands will need to optimize for AI’s first visibility, not just SEO. This could be bigger than TikTok shop, and it’s already happening.

Now, is this a agent ai? I don’t know. Shell, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of fits somewhere in, in this overall picture of, uh, tools, emerging methods emerging. Uh, look at the seven things you, you read out. Uh, there’s some real interesting stuff in there to, to deep dive into, but what Jade mentions is definitely something to pay attention to, even if you’re not in retail or in e-commerce or any of that.

There’s a huge, not huge kind of developing conversation on Reddit about this, which has some more, in more detail on what’s happening. I did a quick search on [00:23:00] this. This is generally this topic to see, you know, anything else talking. I did find something, which isn’t this, this is gonna replace this other thing that I found, I think, which is a Shopify AI chatbot via chat, GPT as the title of the app goes, uh, put out by, um, uh, not, not Shopify beg, pardon?

Shockly. A company called Shockly that, uh, builds, uh, tools to, for, for vendors on Shopify to, to sell their stuff. This isn’t it, but this has been around since September of 2024, and it is actually quite interesting. It’s an app you install. I see it’s got, uh, just under 30, uh, ratings, all five out of five stars from vendors.

Um, it is all to do with, uh, enabling your whole, uh. Storefront using a, a tool from chat chat, GPT. What, um, Jade’s article talks about is this sort of [00:24:00] thing happening natively within Shopify. So that’s a slightly different proposition, but something like this is coming, so you’ve already got third party apps doing this.

Now you’re gonna have a native app doing this. And if it is, um, well, I don’t wanna get hung up on the word digic here, but if, if this is, uh, uh, enables you to, to complete the whole buying process, from interest to purchase, to signing up and paying for it all within chat GPT, that will, uh, a appeal to quite a few people.

I think if it’s offered something better, faster, or less stressful, less hassle, easier than doing it otherwise in, in, uh, in Shopify, it’ll attract attention. So add this one to the list of things to pay attention to as well.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, and whether that’s part of an agent or not, I think depends. It could absolutely be, uh, I could see how that would work in an agent tech environment.

I’m thinking of giving the, the agent the [00:25:00] assignment of buying me a new mirrorless camera, as long as I provide it with the criteria, my price limit of the features that it needs to have, how soon it can be delivered, which brands I don’t want you to consider, uh, but go out and do comparisons of the different models, uh, from different manufacturers that meet my criteria.

Then do price comparison to find the best price. Once you have found the best price, buy it and have it delivered so that I don’t have to do anything else. That’s an agent. So again, you know, if there’s price at the end, what can communicators do with that? I don’t know how much the PR folks can do with that, but the marketing side of the house can probably do a ton with that.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah. So one more to pay attention to. I was looking through the HubSpot article you referenced, and I, it’s a couple things in there that I, that struck me, uh, their views. Uh, one where they talk about under the, uh, autonomous AI agents paragraph, it’s always a good idea to keep a human involved in any AI operation.

Absolutely [00:26:00] agree with that. Um, a lot of very useful, uh, information in HubSpot’s piece. Uh, some good explainers of what some of this stuff means. And then, um, uh, the answer to the question about preparing for an agent, ai future experimenting. I think the concluding sentence is probably the kind of, okay.

Summarize the whole thing into this. The future is agent. Will you be ready now? That’s what we asked in 4 58 when we talked about this topic, and I wonder if we’ll be asking it again after this one. We’ll see.

Shel Holtz: Undoubtedly we’ll be asking this for some time because even after the agents. Have fully arrived and are available.

Uh, I think there’s going to be a lot of people in our profession and across industry who are not ready

Neville Hobson (2): opportunity for.

Shel Holtz: And we’ll talk about that more when we cover another story later.

Neville Hobson (2): We will. Yeah. So let’s take a look at something quite interesting that popped up in the last few days. [00:27:00] Imagine an AI tool that promises to help you cheat on everything from job interviews to academic exams.

That’s exactly what clearly offers. Created by two former Columbia University students, Chung and Roy Lee and Neil Han Mugham clearly acts as an invisible AI assistant that overlays realtime support onto any application a user is running. It gained attention and controversy after Roy Lee was suspended from Columbia for using an early version during a job interview.

Despite this, clearly has just raised $5.3 million in funding from investors promoting its vision of true AI maximalism, where AI can assist in any life situation without detection. The tool is designed to be undetectable, providing realtime suggestions during interviews, exams, writing assignments, and more, much like an augmented reality layer.

But for conversation and tasks, supporters argue it could level the playing field for those who struggle with traditional [00:28:00] assessments, but critics warn it crosses a serious ethical line, potentially devaluing qualifications and undermining trust in recruitment and academic credentials. Realtime interview assistants raises questions, not just about competence, but about honesty and disclosure.

Rarely happens. Interestingly, the Verge tested it. Their real world testing found that clearly is still very rough around the edges. Technical issues, latency and clunky interactions make it more proof of concept than polished products, at least for now. And did I mention they just got over $5 million in investor funding?

The founders defend the provocative framing. They describe cheating as a metaphor for how powerful AI assistance will soon feel. Much like the early controversies over calculators or spellcheck, as they say, not quite the same thing. I don’t think Shel, but so are we looking at the next Grammarly or are we opening the door to a darker future where nobody can be sure what’s real anymore?

So question for you then Shell is what does this tell us about the [00:29:00] blurring lines between assistance and deception in an AI driven world?

Shel Holtz: Well, I think there’s a couple of ways to look at this. I did hear Lee interviewed on Hard Fork. Uh, it was a great interview and he made a couple of points. First of all, he said that having been through these types of interviews, this is, uh, the kind of interviewing you do for a coding job.

That the tests that they give you have absolutely no relevance to the kind of work that you’re doing. You’re gonna do this once for the interview, and then you’re never gonna do it again. So he doesn’t think that helping people. Figure out how to do that particular exercise is, is all that much of a cheat.

But he also said that everybody programs with the help of AI these days and he says it just doesn’t make sense to have any kind of interview format that assumes you don’t have the use of AI to help you code. I absolutely see that point, but on the other hand, I think this is [00:30:00] just one instance of the kind of thing that AI is going to enable.

And there will be times that it can be very problematic, much more problematic than in this case if somebody can cheat on, say their legal exam or their medical exam, then you’ve got a problem. Somebody who’s not prepared to go out there and and operate on you past the boards because they had help from a program that was written to help them cheat and pass.

So it’s the type of thing that society needs to be thinking about and isn’t yet.

Neville Hobson (2): So if I get this right from what you said, Roy Lee thinks it’s okay to cheat in coding ’cause it’s a stupid question to ask and you’re only ever gonna do it once. So therefore it’s okay to cheat. Meaning you actually pretend you do know how to do this even though you don’t.

I mean, that is bullshit, frankly, truly. Don’t you think?

Shel Holtz: Well, his his point is that, yeah, you, you don’t know [00:31:00] how to do it, but you don’t have to because you’re never going to on the job.

Neville Hobson (2): So don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t even take the exam and don’t apply for that job. That’s what I would say.

Shel Holtz: I guess then you don’t get any jobs, right?

Well, cheating is

Neville Hobson (2): cheating

Shel Holtz: His point is that you’re, well, yeah, it’s cheating. Yeah. But he says his point is that the cheating in this instance isn’t going to affect your ability to do the job. Whereas in other instances, well, I’m still cheating. I’m not defending it. Understand. I’m just telling you what he said.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, sure. Yeah. But it’s still cheating. I, I would say, I mean, it is, to me, this is the same as saying, or someone’s a little bit pregnant or, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, that kind of stupid kind of defensive argument. This is an indefensible situation in my view that

Shel Holtz: of course, it used to be considered.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, but no, no, you can’t. You can’t do it by degrees. She, I don’t believe, honestly, I don’t. You are cheating or you are not. And in this case, again, from how you describe what Roy Lee said, effectively it’s saying, well this is a dumb question to ask and [00:32:00] I’m never gonna do this again, so I’ll get this thing to do it for me basically.

And that they won’t know this. That’s the other thing. They do not know this. They think, are you’s a smart guy? This fell, let’s give him the job. What a ridiculous outcome. And the other ones you mentioned in degrees, you know, taking legal exams or, or you know, passing to be a surgeon. Yeah, they’re serious too, but they’re all the same.

They’re cheating. But I then kind of flip a bit by saying that this is society as we are. I’m afraid this is humans doing this. This will be out there. And this makes it even more difficult to know what’s true and what’s not, and who you can trust and who you can’t. So, you know, welcome to the new world there.

Shel Holtz: I think the adaptation that has to happen has to happen on the part of the people conducting the interviews, not the people taking them. And the reason for that is, I mean, if you think about it, it used to be considered cheating to, to bring a calculator into, well, they mentioned that’s

Neville Hobson (2): the argument he gives.

Ridiculous.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. Well, I mean, everybody’s allowed to use a [00:33:00] calculator now because the people that was 60,

Neville Hobson (2): 60 years ago. Yeah. So maybe in 50 years this would be normal. Yeah.

Shel Holtz: Who conduct the tests came to realize that the people who do the work are able to use calculators. So they should have been part of the test all along.

So I think that’s a legitimate argument, not a, not a legitimate argument for cheating, but for updating the testing so that people don’t feel like they need to.

Neville Hobson (2): So in the meantime, that’s not the landscape. So they need to develop it. So maybe the simplest way to do this is send your AI agent in to take the exam for you.

Has that,

Shel Holtz: well, there are people doing that for job interviews. Yeah, of course. They, they’re probably pretty close to that. Yep. We’ve seen some interesting developments recently with two platforms taking different approaches to verification, and I think some of this may be a little backlash to X, where now you can just buy the blue check mark and it doesn’t actually verify anything other than that you pony up the money for it.

But LinkedIn and Blue Sky [00:34:00] have taken steps with their verification programs. Let’s start with LinkedIn, which is allowing verified identities to extend beyond its own platform. This change means your verified LinkedIn identity can now be visible on other platforms designed to enhance trust and transparency across the internet.

The system leverages open standards and cryptographic methods to ensure authenticity and security. What makes this particularly interesting is how it integrates with Adobe’s technology. Adobe’s content credential system is one of the tools supporting this cross-platform verification. So when you verify your identity on LinkedIn, that verification status can essentially travel with you to other websites and services that support these standards, including Adobe’s Behance.

Now, this is a site that helps creators and people who need to hire creators connect. Now, this is a fundamental shift in how verification works rather [00:35:00] than a siloed verification system on each platform. LinkedIn’s embracing an interoperable approach that lets your verified status function as a digital passport of sorts.

Now, while it’s too bad, this isn’t tied directly to the fedi verse protocols, the significance for communications professionals can’t be overstated. As content creation becomes increasingly distributed across platforms, having a verified identity that travels with you simplifies your ability to establish authenticity in multiple spaces.

For organizations managing multiple spokespersons or content creators, this can streamline verification processes considerably. Meanwhile, blue Sky has taken a different but equally innovative approach to verification by introducing a new Blue Check system just last week. Uh, they’re implementing what they call a user-friendly, easily recognizable blue check mark that will appear next to verified accounts.[00:36:00]

The platform will proactively verify authentic and notable accounts while also allowing trusted verifiers select independent organizations that can verify accounts directly. Now, what’s really interesting about Blue Sky’s approach is how it distributes verification authority. Under this system, organizations like the New York Times can now issue blue checks to their journalists directly within the app, and Blue Sky’s moderation team will review each verification to ensure that it is what they say it is.

This creates a more decentralized verification ecosystem rather than putting all verification power in the hands of the platform itself. Blue Skies verification system has transparency built in. Users can tap on someone’s verified status to see which trusted verifier granted the verification. This adds a layer of context that helps users understand not just that the accounts verified.

But who [00:37:00] vouched for it? Now, before this update, blue Sky had been relying on a domain based verification system letting users set their website as their username. For example, NPR [email protected] and US Senators verify their account with their senate.gov domains. This method is gonna continue alongside the new blue check mark system, and this gives users multiple ways to establish authenticity.

Now, the evolution of these verification systems comes at a critical time with scammers and impersonators on the rise. A recent analysis found that 44% of the top a hundred most followed accounts on blue sky had at least one doppelganger account attempting to impersonate them. For those of us working in organizational communication, these developments signal a series of important trends.

First. Verification is important and it’s becoming distributed and contextual rather than a single authority declaring who’s authentic. We’re moving toward [00:38:00] ecosystems where multiple trusted entities can vouch for identity. Second Cross platform verification is emerging as a solution to digital fragmentation.

LinkedIn’s approach particularly shows how verified identity could function seamlessly across digital spaces rather than being siloed within individual platforms. Third, transparency about who is doing the verifying is becoming important. Blue Sky’s approach of showing which organization verified an account recognizes that the source of verification matters almost as much as the verification itself.

For organizations, these trends suggest that we really ought to be thinking more holistically about verification strategies. Rather than just get verified on each individual platform, we are really gonna need to start thinking about establishing verified digital identities that can travel with our content and our spokespersons across the net.

Neville Hobson (2): Very interesting development. So I [00:39:00] hadn’t familiarized myself much with the LinkedIn one, but that’s e equally very interesting. Uh, blue Sky though, to me is definitely moving ahead in a very interesting area. Unlike XI think you mentioned Shell, but some people are seeing this as like a slap in the face to Musk.

That’s probably a very tangential way down the, the priority list, but yes, I bet they are. But I found it most interesting the way in which they’ve gone about this in terms of the, the levels of verification. You’ve got your little blue check mark looking slightly differently depending on the verification system.

And by the way, this is, I think it’s a smart move to follow the blue check, although technically it’s not a blue check, it’s a white check in a blue background, but whatever people call it a blue check mark because, uh, it’s familiar thanks to Twitter as was and the who. Trashed it completely. ’cause the only verification means you’ve paid Musk so many dollars a month fee and therefore you verified.

I mean, that’s Twitter’s def or X’s definition of what verification means. No value to it, in my view, shall frankly. But, uh, this though, [00:40:00] I think is, is far more interesting. Particularly the transparency about who has verified you. Um, I’ve used my own domain, a domain I acquired back in 2023 for the purpose of this is to verify my handle by domain.

Neville Hobson xyz, YXYZ. You might ask because that’s because at the time the Metaverse was a big deal. NFTs were hot, and everyone who was, everyone had a domain ending in X, Y, Z. So hey, that’s a bandwagon I’ll jump onto, which I did. So I’m now using it have been, and it’s only used for that purpose currently.

So, um, you can’t request verification. That’s another thing to mention with Blue Sky, uh, it’s not much you are invited. Is that suddenly that you might get a, not from saying they have verified you or one of these other organizations might, if you excuse me. On a domain with your employer, they can verify you.

And there is something equally interesting on this. I’m not quite sure if this is just a sample, it’ll stay around or not. But you can actually verify yourself. I’ve [00:41:00] seen some people doing that. I haven’t done it. So because I can’t see the point. Uh, ’cause the point of verification to me is trust in someone else has verified you, not you doing it yourself.

So maybe that will disappear or it’ll have some other function, I don’t know. But the transparency thing, according to the screenshots in Blue Sky’s, uh, announcement posts about this are, are great. A very clear so-and-so is verified. Uh, it says this account has been verified. It has a blue check because it’s been verified by trusted sources.

Then it lists who those sources are and the date they perform. The verification adds lots to the trustworthiness that you perceive rather than just some simply say, yep, you verified, you a blue check. If you’re an organization verify, you’ll have a different style check. And these will all become quite familiar.

They, they’re not complicated at all. So I. You are right at what you said earlier, which is about, verification isn’t just a casual thing anymore. You need to have a strategy about who in your organization, if you are a, a large organization in particular, who gets [00:42:00] verified for what purpose by whom, and we’ll see that emerging as this picks up.

But this is a great start. They do say, and this is going back to the domain, you can self verify with a domain. That’s the only thing that makes sense, because to do it, you’ve got to make changes at your registrar in the in DNS settings and, and a few other things. And also engage with blue sky to do this.

So it’s uh, uh, they say during this initial phase, they’re not accepting direct applications, as I mentioned. Uh, but they do say as this feature stabilizes, so I guess all the excitement’s dying down and people see how it’s all working, they’ll launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts interested becoming verified or becoming trusted verified.

So during the course of 2025, we’ll see this develop and maybe, um, uh, maybe it will, uh, become the kind of benchmark standard for verification on social networks like this. So it’s interesting. I.

Shel Holtz: We need a standard and I’d like to see that [00:43:00] standard. Yeah. Integrated with the fedi verse standards, because these all ought to be infra operable.

We, we really ought to be able to share a post in one place where we are verified and have that post show up wherever people have chosen to follow us from and have that verification show up with us. And people should be able to click on that verification and see who vouched for us. Uh, they should be able to see that the spokesperson for my company was verified by me or by the CEO and it all works together.

Neville Hobson (2): I think that will emerge, uh, thinking about this cross. Posting idea that’s in been in place in a couple of places, but it’s very, very flaky. I’m talking about things like, for instance, it’s been for a while, at least a year, if not longer, where a plugin on WordPress lets you publish your post and it will then share it across, across the Fed us via connection, uh, with Mastodon.

And you’ve then got threads doing the same thing, [00:44:00] but they’re not. They require tweaks to your platform. Uh, the, probably the one that shows you, if I can use this phrase again, the direction of travel is ghost. The, uh, the new platform, which I joined the beginning of this year that has just enabled, um, or recently just enabled the ability to share your posts with Blue Sky Now ghost.

Has invested a lot of time, effort, and probably a bit of money too, I think, into its social web offering, which is in beta. And that’s all to do with the activity pub protocol because Blue Sky has a different protocol at Proto yet that works from ghost to blue sky via a bridge. And that’s a little technical and that has got to be just immediate term usage whilst this, this plays out further.

So someone like Ghost is making big inroads into doing, into enabling this kind of thing. And I would say we’re gonna see a lot of activity [00:45:00] during 2025 from Mastodon in particular, as well as people like Ghost and others to connect up these, these disparate elements of the Fedi verse so that we we’re becoming more cohesive.

But it’s gonna take time.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, the fedi verse is, is nascent, but it’s also, I think, inevitable. We’ve been talking for quite some time now about what is the successor to Twitter now that X has become what it has become. And I’m not sure that there is a successor. I think that there are a number of places that people are attracted to.

It could be ghost, uh, could be for its newsletter functionality as much as for its blogging functionality. It could be threads it, it could be blue sky, it could, you know, whatever. But as long as where I am, I can follow who I want to follow and have that appear in the network that I have chosen, I’m good.

So I think this is where things are, are headed inevitably since I think the days of somebody being able [00:46:00] to come along and say, I’m the new 800 pound gorilla of social networking. Everybody’s coming here are over. I.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, it’s been apparent like that, that that’s likely to be the case for, for a bit, I believe very much that the time is gone for, for monolithic centralized social networks like Facebook, for instance.

No, this is the time for niche networks. Uh, people can set things up themselves. Uh, it doesn’t matter. You, you’ve got 50 people on there or 50,000 people on there, doesn’t matter. And indeed, the the recent, uh, outage on Blue Sky is a, is an interesting indicator of the fragility of all of this. And, and Dan’s gonna talk about this a bit later in his report, but this is an interesting time.

We’re now, it’s almost like things are maturing, it seems to me. And I think you’re right when you say that, that people aren’t, aren’t so much attracted by the idea of a centralized place where, Hey, we’ve all gotta go here after the experience on X. You’ve got more about people saying, I want to get outta here, where do I go?

So, um, we’re still at that phase, and you’ve got. Something interesting with Trump’s, uh, not Trump Musk’s, uh, GR [00:47:00] network, developing chatbots for it and all this stuff. So that’s something interesting in that area of this. So it’s all at a time for communicators to pay attention closer to what is happening here and the implications of it just as you and I are doing.

And if you don’t wanna do that, that’s fine. Just listen to FIR ’cause we’ll help you understand it.

Yep. Okay. That’s a really good report, Dan. Thank you. Good topics. You’ve talked about, uh, blue sky. I mentioned just before your report actually the outage was unfortunate, but is it not an indicator precisely of that fragility? I mentioned previously different definitions of decentralization that you mentioned.

I think that’s. Possibly a communication issue because people seem to be latching onto, Hey, it’s decentralized when actually it’s more like, it’s going to be decentralized. ’cause that’s our aspiration that we’re working towards, which is the case with, with Blue Sky. That’s very good on threads move to.com and web improvements.

I must admit, I, I was a bit yawny about [00:48:00] that. You know, dot net.com. Do I care as a user? Well maybe I should because I then read somewhere else that the move to.com enables meta to do things that they can’t do with ANet domain. And I’m sure you’ll know more about that than me Dam at the internet Society.

Again, interesting developments with what’s happening with all of this. So thanks for the report, Dan. This is really, really a good one.

And let’s cha shift gears slightly. I don’t think this story’s got AI in itself that I’m gonna talk about. Oh

Shel Holtz: my God.

Neville Hobson (2): Gotta have one gonna be

Shel Holtz: fined.

Neville Hobson (2): So. Let’s shift focus, as I mentioned, something that’s critical for every business, uh, but often overlooked how we bring new people into our organizations and set them up for success.

It’s called onboarding, right? The topic of onboarding is particularly timely right now, especially in digital marketing, where the pressure to deliver results is higher than ever with digital marketing at the heart of [00:49:00] business communication strategies, every new hire represents not just an addition to a team, but a critical investment in how a company presents itself, engages customers and drives growth.

Effective onboarding therefore isn’t just about helping someone settle in. It’s about ensuring they contribute meaningfully, quickly, and sustainably to an organization’s broader success. A recent feature in Search Engine Journal caught my attention as it explored how digital marketing agencies are rethinking the onboarding experience.

But whatever your business and where the agency or client side hiring great talent is only half the battle, keeping them as where the real challenge begins. The article highlights the critical role of structured onboarding in enhancing employee retention, productivity, and satisfaction within digital marketing agencies.

One strong theme is the importance of starting onboarding before day one. Christie Hoyle, the COO at Kaizen Search explains Our process begins two weeks [00:50:00] before their official start date to ensure employees feel informed, prepared, and welcomed. This early engagement helps build confidence and sets expectations well before a new hire walks through the door.

Zoe blog director of operations at the SEO Agency reboot highlights the importance of immersion during the first weeks. She says, our process is designed to give new hires time to truly absorb how we work before they’re expected to contribute. Human support systems play play a key role too. Phil Dukowski, client services and new ex director at SEO Sherpa and Emma Welland, co-founder of House of Performers, both emphasize mentoring.

As Emma puts it, we assign everyone a mentor as well as a manager to make sure they have multiple people to check in with and speak to. Technology is also critical. Agencies like Vivant use platforms such as Asana to structure onboarding flows. Beth and Ranford, general manager and head of paid media at Vivant says we use Asana across the [00:51:00] business and have a comprehensive onboarding flow, which all new starters enroll with it.

Meanwhile, Olivia Royce, operations director at SEO Agency Novos explains how their structured 30, 60, 90 day onboarding plan breaks the early months into clear milestones aligning with probation periods. She says, we have a clear onboarding process in our task management system, which outlines who is responsible for what during the onboarding process.

Beyond tools and tar timelines, emotional connection matters most. Emma Wellen says, I fundamentally believe a good onboarding is judged by how you make someone feel for us. Making sure expectations are clear from day one is a big part of this.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, I mean onboarding new hire orientation, call it what you will.

It’s vital. There is data that suggests that people tend to leave a job somewhere between one and three years into it, and you have to believe that if the onboarding had been effective, those numbers [00:52:00] would drop. And there is so much wrong in what I see in so many companies doing with their onboarding. I mean, the typical thing is you have a new hire orientation the day you start, and then you’re just.

Thrown into the deep end and how much can you really retain on your first day? You’re overwhelmed, your first day, you’re lucky. If you remember what day payday is, how I record my time, what work hours are, and what the deal is with the parking lot. So I, I like the 30, 60, 90 day approach. In fact, where I work, we are in the process of migrating to a, a new internal communications platform.

We’re consolidating several separate tools in, into one tool. But one thing that it lets you do is target individuals to a different homepage to start with. And one of the things that we’re going to do in phase two is have a homepage for people. Are there. From their first day to their 30th day. Another [00:53:00] homepage for people who are there from their 30th day to their 60th, and a third one for people who are there from their 60th to the 90th, just surfacing those milestones and the kind of information that they need while still providing them the navigation to the same resources that everybody else needs.

But yeah, I, I’ve heard so many different great approaches to this. I think it was Coca-Cola that had essentially a report card and it had a list, and it said, in your first week, you need to go talk to these three people about these three things. And when you did, the people you needed to talk to signed off and you had to have everything.

Signed off at the end of a 90 day period, meaning you’ve met all of these people, gotten to know them, they’ve gotten to know you, you’ve learned from them, and have built that connection and started the relationship, and that speaks to that emotional connection that the report you referenced, addressed.

Companies need to invest the time, energy, and [00:54:00] money in onboarding if they don’t wanna lose these people after they’ve been around for a year or two. That’s what it comes down to because replacing somebody is, I guarantee you gonna cost a whole lot more than what is going to cost to do an effective new hire orientation period.

Neville Hobson (2): And this is talked about a lot, isn’t it? Shell, such as the examples I’ve mentioned from those individuals at those digital marketing agencies. But as you pointed out that, that so many companies don’t do anything beyond, Hey, welcome. Here’s your desk, here’s your password for your email stuff. Off you go.

Uh, there’s some great approaches here and so. If someone says, why, why do we need to talk about this? Well, I think we just explained why we need to talk about this. This is key. If, as people keep saying, people are the most essential resource in our company, you just read the general newspapers to get a feel for the, the kind of dilemma across the board.

Literally. This is not just to do with digital marketing agency. I mentioned that at the beginning. This applies to almost any organization that you [00:55:00] wanna retain people who need to, obviously the package, they get remuneration and benefits. All that is part of that, of course. But how you treat them, make them feel valued.

Uh, I’m reminded my only experience this in in recent relevance. Was when I went to work for IBMA decade ago now, and I started at the beginning of 2016, but I had two months prior to that, a lot of contact with, with HR and others in, in IBM to familiarize myself with at the time how IBM worked. And boy, that was difficult to figure that out at that time, but they, they were on the, on the ball very much with this back then, a decade ago.

And many company you mentioned Coca-Cola. I’m sure this is not alien to many companies, but it probably is alien to lots of companies as well. So, um, I, I hope this helps people if they’re. Looking ask and set their procedures and processes where there’s some good tips here from these folks that I mentioned.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, yeah. There’s so many good ideas you can research on, on how to do a, a, a a a, a [00:56:00] good onboarding program. You referenced the idea of a mentor being assigned to every new hire. I like that in companies that are large enough where there’s a cohort of new hires, there may be 10 per month or or 20 per month.

Uh, to have them go through all of these things as a cohort so they get to know each other and they become a resource to one another. You know, it can be embarrassing to reach out to somebody who’s been with the company for 18 years and, and ask something really, really basic that you think sounds stupid, but to reach out to somebody who started within three or four days of the time you did, have you figured this out yet?

That’s just fine. And I know that. When I worked for the pharma that I used to work for after you’d been there a year, that cohort got together in a meeting with the CEO and the president who talked about, you know, things that we want you to know about now that you’ve been here a year in terms of culture and direction.

But we also want to answer your questions and hear [00:57:00] your concerns. And I gotta tell you, that goes a long way toward building that relationship. It does, and building that trust in the leadership of the organization. And I think, I think it’s a, a, a, a really good idea. There is an opportunity for communicators to inject themselves in what is usually seen as an HR process, because this is all about knowledge transfer and information sharing.

Neville Hobson (2): Good stuff

Shel Holtz: don’t abdicate the responsibility that the communicators have to participate in this process. Well, I’ve been digging into a new global communication report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Public Relations. You’ll, you’ll like the title of this one, Neville.

It’s, it’s called Mind the Gap. The gap referenced is, is the one that exists between generations, even though the logo is the one that’s used for the tube and, and London. It’s not like we haven’t had a ton of research about generational differences, but this one had some revelations. Well, lemme start with the big picture.

The PR industry is [00:58:00] experiencing what the report calls unprecedented upheaval driven by four major forces, artificial intelligence surprise, a hybrid work, the changing media landscape, and political polarization. Those are all topics that we address pretty routinely here on FIR. The report examines these forces through a generational lens, looking at how perspectives differ across Gen Z Millennials, gen X and US Boomers.

Neville. Uh, the researchers surveyed over a thousand public relations professionals this past January, and despite all the disruption we’re facing, 74% of respondents expressed a positive outlook on the industry’s uh, prospects. Only 11% had a negative view. Uh, the optimism spans all generations. That was encouraging.

But dig a little deeper and you start to find those gaps in how different age groups are approaching these changes. Let’s start with ai, which the report ranks as the most impactful trend. [00:59:00] About 60% of respondents believe AI will positively affect pr, but the confidence level varies dramatically by age.

Nearly three quarters of Gen Z professionals say AI will make their jobs easier compared to just over half of Gen Z and X and boomers. So the older you get, the more skeptical you get about the new technology. The gaps get even wider When you look at specific predictions, 24% of Gen Z practitioners strongly believe AI will generate most of the content currently created by humans compared to just 8% of Gen X and 4% of boomers.

That’s a 20% gap. One thing that struck me was a, a story in the report about a grad student who developed a business plan for an AI only PR firm that would charge clients just $15 and 99 cents a month. And most agency veterans and, and people who’ve been around a long time like me, are inclined to dismiss this as fantasy.

Pretty clearly, [01:00:00] it’s a reminder that the next generation sees AI’s potential very differently. Now when it comes to hybrid and remote work, we’re seeing another significant divide. 72% of Gen Z says remote work makes their job easier compared to just 39% of boomers. That’s a 33% gap. And guess which generations all those CEOs demanding return to the office belong to?

What’s really telling is that 47% of Gen Z practitioners would take a pay cut to work from home while only 25% of Gen X and 22% of boomers would do the same for young professionals today, flexibility isn’t a perk, it’s an expectation. Despite these personal preferences, 74% of PR professionals in mid-level or higher positions say they would hire talented candidates regardless of location.

This suggests remote work is here to stay, however, uh, older executives might personally feel about it. [01:01:00] The changing media landscape presents maybe the most fascinating generation gap. Gen Z’s, the only generation that feels more positive than negative about how media changes will affect their day-to-day work.

They’re also far more bullish on podcasts, social media, and influencer marketing than their older colleagues. The report points out that 65% of Gen Z believes social media will be very relevant to PR by 2030 compared to just 47% of boomers. When asked about the most effective marketing strategies, a viral social media campaign tops everyone’s list, but Gen Z places far more value on traditional, I’m sorry.

Is it a Gen Z? I’m gonna make a time.

But Gen Z places far less value on traditional newspaper coverage than older generations. I found particularly striking the reports finding about credibility when asked which generation is best informed about [01:02:00] political, social, and current events. Every age group ranked themselves first. This kind of mutual skepticism presents a real challenge for for cross-generational collaboration.

The report’s findings on corporate purpose and social issues are especially noteworthy. Over the past three years, the percentage of PR professionals who believe companies have a responsibility to address social issue. Has nose dive from 89% in 2023 to 52% today. But here again, there’s a stark generational divide.

Three quarters of Gen Z still believes in corporate purpose, while less than half of older practitioners do. As the report puts it, younger communicators are still serious about corporate purpose while the older ones are losing their conviction. This plays out in job preferences too when deciding whether to work for an organization.

Gen Z values inclusion initiatives at nearly double the rate of Gen X, and they hold much [01:03:00] stronger opinions about refusing to work for companies with negative environmental impacts. So all. What does all this mean for communications? Well, the report concludes that PR is entering a period of major disruption that will redefine it over the next decade.

But as the report suggests, we don’t have to close the gaps. We just need to recognize that each generation reacts to change differently based on their own life experiences. For those of us who have been in the business a while, this means we need to be open to new approaches. The report offers that this advice to foster innovation and collaboration in this new world order.

Older generations will need to embrace change more rapidly, find common ground more easily, and get out of the way more often. Meanwhile, for the up and comers in our field, the report recommends developing proficiency with AI tools, mastering content creation, honing soft skills, and preparing for polarization by vetting ideas with people who hold [01:04:00] different opinions.

I think Fred Cook, uh, the director of the Center for Public Relations, summed it up perfectly. Here’s what he said. The future of the PR industry depends upon how tomorrow’s leaders tackle the critical issues we’re beginning to face today, not bound by tradition, gen Z seems equipped and eager to confront those challenges.

If we educate and support them on this mission, our profession will be in good hands.

Neville Hobson (2): And that’s the, the burning topic, isn’t it, to support people. I mean, glancing through the report as I was when you were, when you were talking about the findings, it’s quite clear that the younger you are, the more you are likely to embrace new thinking, new ideas.

The older you are, less likely

Shel Holtz: I. Yeah, the more set your ways that plays out.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah. I mean it probably plays out well against traditional political divides too, I would imagine. So for instance, I’m, I was really just glancing at the part about organizations taking a stand on issues that aren’t necessarily directly involved [01:05:00] with their business and making statements about what they think about this event happening or this idea that’s wrong or right or whatever.

And there, there’s a huge majority of Gen Z saying this is very important, they do this. How does that play out in reality? And particularly thinking about this survey that was conducted prior to its publication in March. And since then we’ve had all this, um, uh, uh, kind of metaphorical nuclear explosion with Trump’s tariffs that are still, um, unclear what’s gonna happen next and the stock markets and everything else.

The stuff you see visibly in the, in your daily news consumption. Share prices up, share prices down The market conditions here are not good. These, these, they are, uh, what companies are gonna do. What does it mean for us? People are, are pausing in so many areas and it’s basically uncertainty. As to what earth is going on and the effect it’s gonna have.

People, I wonder, would [01:06:00] that have made a difference if they’ve been asked these questions? Now, I don’t know is the answer. And there is so much in here that is typical of what we have seen in the past in generational comparison type surveys. Yet as they say in the financial community, past performance is no guarantee of what’s gonna come in the future.

So it might be worth looking at this through that lens that this is worth. Analyzing and examining to see, particularly to pay attention to that tho those segments of the generations who are more willing to accept new ideas, to drive forward new thinking. Uh, that’s what needs more support. Now that, I don’t know how we do that though, because, uh, reality is that in most, let’s say, agencies certainly I, I would say, but also an organization where there is a PR function, that the more senior you are, the more older you are and are many of those older generations, not necessarily the boomers, but the ones prior to that, the millennials certainly willing to change.

I’d like to think they might be not as a mass thing, but [01:07:00] more than not, perhaps. So this could, this, this to me suggests almost like a blueprint, if you like, a, a kind of a, a, you know, kind of a, like a building blueprint of where, where things need to go, how they need to change and what you need. What tools have you got, meaning the people to help you implement that change if you are in fact gonna be the catalyst for change.

Tricky one. Difficult, but it’s, we’ve gotta do something, have we not

Shel Holtz: It, it’s gonna be a long eight months for the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer. Uh, because remember for the last several years, the Trust Barometer has pointed out that people expect business to deal with societal issues because they’re the only ones they trust enough to do that.

Is that still true in the increasingly polarized environment we’ve seen just since January of this year, and of course, the report that was issued in January of this year, all the research was done before Trump took off. So, is there still that expectation, or as we see, for [01:08:00] example, the big tech companies accommodate Trump in order to avoid regulation and the other problems that result from bucking the Trump agenda, do they still have that degree of trust in business and do they still have that expectation?

And if businesses just back off of conveying their views of societal issue and, and the actions that they think need to be taken and the actions that they take in support of that, if they back off of that, are, are people gonna stop doing business with them or is it simply a matter of if nobody’s out there doing it, or only Ben and Jerry’s is doing it and, and Patagonia, then we have to buy from somebody?

Yeah, that’s the time. I remember though, that, you know, David Armo writing frequently about you need to take, put out a stake in the sand about what you believe in and what you stand for. It matters. It’s still gonna matter with Gen Z, where they go work. Unless the, the market changes to the point where it’s, it’s, it’s completely a buyer’s market [01:09:00] and you feel lucky to get a job offer from anybody.

Short of that, that purpose is still important if you want to get the best people coming up outta school.

Neville Hobson (2): Yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent. So it’s a time of great uncertainty, but taking a stand isn’t necessarily what. People will want to do, but they need to articulate and express what they’re thinking may be different ways than taking a stand.

That, that, that always, to me sounds confrontational. I’m gonna take a stand about something, but there are other ways to do this that are perhaps less likely to meet resistance. Trouble is the polarization, certainly in the United States seems to me to be almost beyond the point of fixing. Um, I was reading a, a report, uh, over the weekend, um, and I’ve forgotten the magazine.

It was in, it was long. I mean, it was a 15 minute read. They advertised, uh, it analyzing, um, uh, Trump’s press Secretary, um, uh, Catherine leave it 23 years old. She’s 25 years old, so she was born [01:10:00] this century. But the analysis of that article of her as representative of her. Generational cohort is striking.

It truly is. And the, the, the, um, the passion she has for the political journey she’s on is quite clear and she is confident and able to convince people. I’m looking on a much smaller scale over here in this country. In the uk we have a, a local elections next week, um, where polling is suggesting that the attitudes of, uh, people who’ve been polled, and again, these are small numbers, they’re not national.

These are for the local councils, the mayors and, and so forth and cities I is, is almost like people are saying. I don’t care who I vote for, as long as not anyone connected with a major political party. So you’re looking at the independence and the small ones who never really are ever gonna win power, but they could be the, the kind of linchpins in, in who does.

And you think, okay, we, we’ve heard that before a lot, but this is the first time it seems to be [01:11:00] coalescing around an ideal that many people can buy into. That says a lot for the political structure. You are seeing similar things happening in some other European countries. So this is a, it gives like a wave everywhere and in the US it’s, it’s manifest itself.

What we’re seeing here, Canada, look what’s happening there. They have federal elections Monday. That’s tomorrow as we’re recording this. And so what impact will that have if the political structure doesn’t shift from the liberals in Canada to the conservatives, which is more aligned with Trump? They don’t seem to like Trump either.

So, I mean, one thing you could say Trump has succeeded in, in literally uniting everyone who are in disunity. So Trump’s tariffs have forced the UK and the EU closer together than otherwise would’ve been the case. Interesting. I think Shell, so who knows what’s gonna happen? Uh, the rest of 2025? I don’t see, uh, peace and quiet descending anytime.

So,

Shel Holtz: no.

Neville Hobson (2): Okay, so let’s get back to ai. So this topic is related to [01:12:00] what we’ve talked about to before, and I’ll mention that as I, as I outlined the story here. So, the idea of AI tools supporting workers is nothing new. We’ve been talking about this quite a bit, but what about AI agents acting as workers themselves?

And yes, we have talked about that, but this is about Jason Clinton, the Chief Information Security Officer at Anthropic, the maker of the Claude Chatbot, who believes that’s exactly where we’re heading. He told Axios that within just a year, we could see virtual AI employees embedded inside organizations complete with their own corporate accounts, passwords, memories, and defined roles.

Clinton warns that this will force companies to rethink cybersecurity and access controls, raising difficult questions about visibility, accountability, and responsibility. If AI agents go rogue. That’s a hell of a picture he is painting here. I must admit. He says in that world, there are so many problems that we haven’t solved yet from a security perspective that we need to solve.

Meanwhile, anthropic, CEO Dario [01:13:00] Ammo added another bold prediction that we are only three to six months away from AI writing 90% of software code, and within 12 months, AI could be writing nearly all of it. His remarks reported in ink have drawn skepticism with some suggesting that while AI will certainly reshape coding, it won’t replace human developers entirely.

Still the direction of travel is clear. AI is moving from a support tool to something much more autonomous. If AI employees take on real responsibilities, who manages them? Who is accountable if they make mistakes? Well, this builds directly on the conversation you and I had earlier this month. She, in episode 4 58, which I’ve mentioned at least twice in this episode so far, where we explored the challenges of preparing managers to lead human and AI hybrid teams.

Managers will soon be asked to lead not only people, but also AI agents that autonomously perform multiple tasks. It’s not just about leadership. [01:14:00] Organizations must prepare their employees too. Helping everyone understand what it means actually to work alongside ai. Colleagues in meetings, projects, and communication and communicators will have a vital role to play shaping the narrative.

Guiding expectations and making the future tangible for everyone. However fast this transformation comes, it’s clear that the future of work won’t just be about humans adapting to ai. It will be about organizations adapting their cultures, structures, and expectations too. So let me ask the question. We pose in our FIR four five and that we’ve mentioned in this episode too, are we really ready for a workplace where AI isn’t just assisting, it’s acting as a full team member?

Shel Holtz: Yeah. Clearly we’re not ready. I wrote a whole post about this on LinkedIn, an article about what managers are going to have to do to prepare for all of this. It was based on the question you asked during the episode, Neville, you said, we’re talking about the fact that we’re not ready, but we’re not talking [01:15:00] about what we need to do to get ready.

So I, I gave that a lot of thought and, and wrote an article in response to that. But. I also question whether we need to be all that ready right now, because the fact that AI agents that are capable of performing the duties of a full-time employee are going to be available in a year, doesn’t mean that you’re gonna see a rash accompanies suddenly hiring them.

You are going to see a fairly normal progression look. There was a, there was an essay that was published just on April 15th, not that long ago. Uh, this was written by Arvind Nu and a Osh Kaur. It was published by the, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. That university that fired the student who did the cheating program with ai.

Yeah, but I love the title and the subtitle of this article. It’s AI as Normal Technology, an alternative to the vision of [01:16:00] AI as a Potential Super Intelligence. This is a very long, very long essay. I heard one of the co-authors interviewed on a podcast and and he said it’s going to be blown out into a full book.

But they have one chart here that that really tells the, the story and, and it is that you have the invention and then you have innovation that emerges from the invention. And then you have diffusion. And diffusion has two parts, and that’s early adoption and adaptation. And this takes time. And it takes time.

They say it doesn’t matter what the technology is, it doesn’t matter how. Earth shattering the technology is consider electricity, right? I mean, look at what electricity did for the world, but how long did it take to diffuse through society? I mean, there’s people who are going to be adopting and adapting these things, and we tend to do that over time.

So as employees that are, you know, a, a collection of AI [01:17:00] agents are offered by these companies that are, are, are going to be providing this service. What you’re gonna see is testing a very tentative, it’s not going to impact real world operations. You’ll probably end up with a team of people doing a simulation with an AI employee to see how it goes, to identify the areas of risk and those things that it does well at and doesn’t do well at.

Then you’ll probably see one introduced to one low risk team doing real world work and slowly it will be. Employed by the organization, uh, across all departments, but that’ll take years. So when they say that these are gonna be available in a year, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna be used in a year. I think there’re gonna be very, very few companies that are gonna say, yeah, we’re just gonna stop hiring, or we’re gonna start firing and we’re gonna have AI employees come in and do all this stuff.

I mean, who wants to do that with any first model of any technology? [01:18:00]

Neville Hobson (2): The early adopters and the people who, uh, don’t care about the consequences, I suspect. Yeah.

Shel Holtz: I think one, one of the things that this chart points to is, this goes back to Jeffrey Moore in crossing the chasm, right? I mean, it’s the same kind of timeline and when we think about AI as normal technology as, as amazing as it is, and as much as it can do curing diseases and, and identifying novel drugs and, and all of these things, it’s diffusion into society.

Going to take a lot of time.

Neville Hobson (2): And I think the, the picture people miss or rather don’t, don’t interpret correctly, is a lot of what you see being discussed online or written about in, in journals is you don’t realize it, but they’re talking about the mass adoption of all of this. When, when they talk about the timeframes, it’s a bit like, uh, you know, the Gartner hype cycles on various things.

Talk about the, the plateau and, um, the, you know, use widespread use in, in society. And that is mass [01:19:00] adoption. We’re not talking about that here. I don’t think we should, if I were in a large organization, use yours as example. She, you’ve got an AI kind of task force there. What I’d be looking at amongst the other things, but the focus would be.

What is relevant to us? What do we need to do for us right now? Yes, I’m aware of this big picture, all this stuff and predictions and so forth, but how do we get ready in our timeframe to do these things based on what we know now? So experimentation, clearly what you gotta do. What does that actually mean in practice to, to execute on something that’s described like this, an AI virtual system?

Well, maybe you could actually, we need to think for ourselves is really what I think is the important thing for organizations with groups of people who are looking into where all this is going in the, in the, in the near or far future. But it’s really what it means to you in your organization, more importantly than.

Shel Holtz: I think the process of getting ready is not something that you have to do overnight. Uh, I think the process of getting ready [01:20:00] is going to come from that experimentation is going to come from the processes that organizations implement. Now. I think you’re gonna have problems with organizations that decide, we’re not going to pursue this, or we’re not going to commit the resources necessary to do it well or do it right.

But by and large, I think that organizations will tackle this as they tackle any technology. Just, I mean, look how long it took the web to infiltrate business, but everybody’s there now, so it’ll happen. It will. And that’ll wrap up this episode of Four Immediate Release. Our next monthly episode will drop on Monday, May 26th.

We’re planning to record that on Saturday the 24th. In the meantime, uh, man, I just loved all the comments we got for. Terrific. This episode. We would love your comments on the stories we’ve reported today, as well as those shorter midweek episodes that will coming, will be coming between now and May 26th.

You can [01:21:00] send us an email to fir [email protected]. Send us up to three minutes of audio and we’ll play it. You can record that audio by clicking the uh, send voicemail tab on the right hand side of the.

Website. You can leave comments on the FIR Podcast Network website. The show notes has a place where you can leave a comment and you can also leave comments on Facebook or LinkedIn or Blue Sky or Threads where we share links to the show notes. And we also appreciate comments coming on Facebook to the FIR community.

One other place that you can leave those and your reviews and ratings are also deeply appreciated. It helps people discover this show. So until next month, that’s a 30 for four immediate release.

The post FIR #462: Cheaters Never Prosper (Unless They’re Paid $5 Million for Their Tool) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Videos from virtual influencers are on the rise, according to a report from YouTube. And AI will play a significant role in the service’s offerings, with every video uploaded to the platform potentially dubbed into every spoken language, with the speaker’s lips reanimated to sync with the words they are speaking. Meanwhile, the growing flood of AI-generated content presents YouTube with a challenge: protecting copyright while maintaining a steady stream of new content. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel examine the trends and discuss their implications.

Links from this episode:

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 [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.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 461 of four immediate release. I’m Shell Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. This month marks 20 years since the first video was uploaded to YouTube, a 19 second clip that launched a global platform now at the Center of Digital Media as the platform. Reflects on its past.

It’s also looking sharply ahead. And what lies on the horizon is a bold AI powered future highlighted in two reports published in the past week. According to YouTube’s leadership, we’re five years away from a world where every video uploaded to the platform could be automatically dubbed into every spoken language.

More than that, the dubbed voice will sound like the original speaker with AI generated lip movements tailored to match the target language. It’s a vision of seamless global accessibility where creators can invest once and reach audiences everywhere. [00:01:00] This isn’t speculative. YouTube is already piloting dubbing tech with hundreds of thousands of creators and experimenting with voice cloning and lip reanimation.

But with that ambition comes a fair amount of controversy. Underpinning these features is Google’s Gemini AI model trained on an ocean of YouTube videos, YouTube. Many from creators who weren’t aware their content was being used this way. Some have pushed back arguing that a license granted under YouTube’s terms of service doesn’t equate informed consent for AI training.

At the same time, YouTube’s 2025 trends report highlights the rise of virtual influencers, synthetic personas, who are building large audiences and changing what authentic content looks like. For a growing number of viewers, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the face on screen is real generated or somewhere in between.

What emerges is a picture of a platform trying to empower creators with powerful tools while, while quietly shifting the [00:02:00] ground beneath their feet, culturally, ethically, and. On one hand, a report by Bloomberg paints a picture of YouTube as a tech powerhouse using AI to expand creative reach, drive viewership, and reshape media, but not without controversy over how training data is sourced, especially from creators unaware that content fuels these advancements.

On the other hand, social media, today’s take focuses more on the cultural shift. AI generated influencers, fan created content and multi-format storytelling are changing the rules of what audiences find compelling and raising questions about the very definition of authentic content. Both views converge on the same point, AI is here to stay, and whether you are excited or concerned, it’s reshaping the creator economy from top to bottom.

So is this YouTube fulfilling its mission to de democratize creativity through technology? Or is it becoming a platform where the line between creator and content becomes so blurred [00:03:00] that the original human touch gets lost? We should unpack this. There’s quite a bit here to talk about. Isn’t.

Shel Holtz: There is, and it seems to me a relatively natural evolution for YouTube.

Uh, as long as creators are able to upload what they want, I think you will find plenty of authentic content. There’s going to be no shortage of people who want to talk into a camera and share that. Uh, people who. Themes, uh, that they think people would be interested in? Uh, I, I love hearkening back to a story I read about a, a physics grad student, uh, who started a YouTube series, uh, called Physics for Girls.

Uh, and it was aimed at the K through 12. Cohort of of students and trying to get them interested in the STEM sciences and it became very popular and she was [00:04:00] making, I think I read a million dollars a year in. Advertising revenue. I don’t think that’ll stop. I think people will be able to continue to do that.

What you see is in a platform where there’s no limits, there’s no constraints. How many gigabytes of of video data can be uploaded? They just. Keep expanding their data center capacity, uh, that there’s room for all of this other stuff, including the AI generated content. And as long as it’s entertaining or informative, if it serves a purpose, people will watch it.

And that’s the thing, if it’s crap, people aren’t gonna watch it. It’s not gonna get recommended, uh, it won’t find its way into the algorithm. And. Spending time creating it if it doesn’t produce the kind of results that they’re looking for. But we’ve already seen that influencers. Work, uh, on both sides of the equation, you [00:05:00] can tailor them to be exactly what you know your audience is looking for.

So it’s great for the consumer. Uh, and in terms of the brand or the advertiser, uh. You don’t have these loose canon celebrities that you’re, uh, using or, or somebody who’s just a professional influencer who goes off the rails. You’re in complete control. So, uh, you know, it’s not my favorite concept, but I don’t see any way to slow it down.

And I think the people behind them are gonna continue to, uh, find ways to make them. Resonate with, with the people that they’re, uh, aiming them at. And in terms of the training of AI models on all of this, you know, right now you have a, an administration in Washington DC that is agreeable to the approach that the, uh, the AI companies, uh, open ai [00:06:00] and like.

Want the government to take, which is to, uh, just put an end to this whole intellectual property thing and say, AI can train on anything it wants to. Uh, so I, I think that’s probably coming, uh, God knows Elon Musk is, is training grok on all of the content that is shared on X. And if you have an account there that’s, that’s your.

Implicit permission to let him do that. It’s one of the reasons that he went ahead and bought X in the first place was knowing that he had access to that treasure trove of data. So I don’t see it. I don’t see that slowing down either, and I don’t see the fact that people are unhappy, that their content is being used for training, being an impediment to having that content used as training.

It’s gonna continue to happen.

Neville Hobson: That’s part of what worries me a lot about this. I must admit, if I took, if taking the Bloomberg report, um, which [00:07:00] is, uh, this, this idea of auto dubbing videos into every spoken language. We’ve talked about this before, not what YouTube’s doing, but the notion of. The example, you often give the CEO of a company giving an all employee address and he’s an American or a native English speaker.

Uh, and yet there’s a version in 23 other languages like Urdu or Hindi or, or Spanish even. You know, you then talk about Mongolian, perhaps if they have offices in Learn Battle or something. Um. That, uh, shows him fluent in talking in all of those language, which is, I’ve always believed and I still do.

That’s misleading. Uh, unless you are very transparent, which is fact adds to your burden of, of engage with employees. If you’ve gotta explain every time he’s not fluent, and this is not really him speaking Hindi. It’s, uh, an AI has done it or however you might frame it. So that’s not gonna stop though easier.

Uh, your point I agree with as well [00:08:00] that most people won’t really care about, about this Probably. Um, I mean, I’m a, I count myself as a creator, uh, uh, in terms of the very tiny bits of content I put up on my YouTube channel, um, which, uh, isn’t a lot, uh, it’s not a regular cadence, uh, is now and again. Uh, and if I found versions in, uh, you know, in, uh, uh, in native, uh, in, in a native language on Bolivia, for instance, would I care?

Well, only in the sense of is, is it reflecting exactly what I said in English and have to, you have to assume that it’s gonna be doing that, but that’s not to me the point really, they’ve gone ahead and done it without permission. There will be people who don’t want this happen to content. Ts and Cs saying they can do this.

If you don’t like it, you’re gonna have to stop using YouTube. And that’s the reality of life, I think. But there are a couple of things though. Uh, I, I think, you know, Google wants creators to use its ai IE Gemini, uh, to, uh, create, edit, market and [00:09:00] analyze the content that they create and, and, uh, uh, that’s, you may not want to use Gemini.

Um. You’ve got, uh, uh, the training element that Google is assuming they’re okay to use your content to do things like that. Uh, it aligns with their terms of service, they say, but trust isn’t in that equation as far as critics are concerned. The voice cloning and lip animation, the technology is amazing, I have to say.

Uh, and according to Bloomberg, YouTube’s already testing multilingual dubbing in eight languages with plans to expand that. Well, yeah, there’s cloning and lips. To mimic native language speech are in pilot phrases. So all this is coming without doubt. So I think it is interesting. There’s some downsides on all of that.

According to Bloomberg, dubbing will reduce, uh, CPMs when moving from English to other languages. You’ve got that to take into account too. But expanding reach to new language audiences may ultimately increase total revenue. If it’s a monetization thing you’re looking at. Um, so [00:10:00] YouTube says they think quality content, to your point, will still rise above the growing flood of AI generated deepfake material.

I guess that’s part of what we call AI slop these days, right? So there’s that, which of course leads you straight into the other bits about virtual influences, uh, and, uh.

Just a casual look. And I was doing this, uh, this morning, my time before we were recording this, uh, uh, coming across examples of what people are writing about and publishing, uh, with photos and videos of people that you, you get it in the highest resolution you want. I swear. You cannot tell if it’s real or not, if it’s a real human being or an AI generated video.

Will that matter? At the end of the day, I, I think it probably comes down to do you feel hood wicked when you find out it’s an ai when you thought it was a person? And there’s a few surveys out recently, and, and this is kind of tangential connection to this topic, but of people who are [00:11:00] building relationships with ais, they’re, they’re getting intimate with them.

And, and I don’t, I don’t mean the, obviously meaning what we might think intimate means, but developing emotional bonds. With an AI generated persona. And so, uh, there’s great, uh, risk, I think there of, uh, misuse of this technology. So, you know. Going down the rabbit hole or, or even the, the, the, the, the idea of it’s all a conspiracy and they’re out to steal our data and confuse us.

No, it’s not that. But there’s great risk, I think, of opacity, not forget about transparency. This is, this is completely the opposite of that. Uh, and it’s, it’s got, uh, issues in my view that, uh, uh, we ought to try and be clearer than just give. The likes of Google and others, uh, literally can’t blanc to do what the hell they want without, uh, without any, uh, uh, any regulation, which, uh, unfortunately that seems to be aligned with, uh, Mr.

Trump and his gang in Washington as to what, they [00:12:00] don’t care about any of this stuff at all. In which case, um, uh, tech companies, if you listen to some of the strong critics are rubbing their hands with glee at what they’re gonna be able to do now without any oversight. And therein is the issue. But I’m not saying that’s something we should therefore, you know, get out our pitchforks and shovels of March on Washington.

But it’s a concern, right? I mean, this is a major development. Um, the virtual influencers I think is, uh, is is exciting idea. I. Um, but the risks of of misuse are huge in my view. So I just having the yes but moment here basically. And I normally not, I don’t normally do this shell, I’m normally embracing all this stuff straight away, but there’s big alarm bells ringing in my mind about some of the stuff that’s happening.

Shel Holtz: Well, I think a lot of it is going to be contingent upon what we become accustomed to. Uh, yeah. As, as you become accustomed to things, they just become normalized and you don’t give them a second thought. There was a TV commercial. [00:13:00] I’m gonna have to. See if I can find it. They must have it on YouTube. Uh, even though this had to be 20, maybe 25 years ago, I believe it was an IBM commercial.

It was a great commercial by the way. This is why I remember it so many years later. Yeah. Uh, it was either black and white or, or sort of CP toned. Uh, it was in a dusty old diner out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a waitress behind the counter, uh, and there’s nobody there. One guy wanders in and sits down.

And he, I don’t remember what he asks for, but they don’t have it. They don’t have this, they don’t have that. And then he sees the tv. He says, uh, what do you have on tv? And she says, every movie and television show every ever made in any language you want to hear it in, uh, and talking about the future of technology, right?

If you get to a point where anything you wanna see. Is available in your language [00:14:00] then, does it continue to be an ethical question when you see your CEO who doesn’t speak your language speaking to you in your language? Or is this just something that we all accept that the technology does for everything now and it doesn’t matter whether he speaks your language or not, he can because of the technology.

Now, I’m not saying that. Promoting as an approach to take today from an ethics standpoint, I think you do need to let people know, uh, we think it’s gonna be a lot easier and more meaningful for you to hear, uh, the CEO speak in your native language. Mm-hmm. But he doesn’t speak it. This was AI assisting with this, but in five years when everything.

Is handled that way, it will it even matter. I, you know, I, I suspect that it won’t, I suspect it won’t matter whether somebody speaks that language when you know that any media you consume can be consumed in your native language thanks to the technology that we all [00:15:00] take for granted at that point.

Neville Hobson: Hmm. Uh, that’s a sound assessment.

Uh, and you may well be right and I, I suspect that much of what you said will likely come to pass. I just think that there’s. Concerns we ought to be paying more attention to than we seem to be. It seems to be. So for instance, uh, one big thing to me is, is um, I guess it’s kind of related to the ethical debate, but what does real mean anymore?

I. In this, what does authenticity mean? Now, it doesn’t mean what it meant yesterday. If you’ve got virtual influencers, uh, creating videos, you don’t know that that’s not, that’s not a real person. Things like that.

Shel Holtz: That’s, that’s keep in mind that I was, I was sold, uh, sugar Frosted Flakes by Tony the Tiger, uh, who was not a real person, uh, or even a real tiger.

But they,

Neville Hobson: they weren’t pretending it was, or, or making you assume that it probably was. That’s the only different, but this is. Thing.

Shel Holtz: This is, uh, uh, the, the modern equivalent. Uh, and well, Tony the

Neville Hobson: tiger. [00:16:00]

Shel Holtz: Yeah. And yeah, the, the virtual influencers I’ve seen so far, uh, are obvious. Uh, I have not seen one that they have worked really, really hard to convince you that this is anything but a virtual influencer.

And on Instagram, at least most of them, I see the disclosure, uh, that, that they are, uh, I just don’t think people care. Uh, no. If, if, if they’re getting good information, if they’re being entertained, you know, are you not entertained? If you are, you’ll continue to watch. And, uh, if somebody says, you know, that’s ai, your answer’s gonna be okay.

So

Neville Hobson: I get that, but I think we have a responsibility to, uh, to point out certain things, whether people care or not. That’s part of our Oh, that question. Our responsibility is communicate. Yeah. So yes. So, so hence my point about, uh, what does real mean? What, how do we defining real now? Uh, and I think the, um, the, the, the kind of, uh.

Bigger worry. Waiting in the wings is [00:17:00] the fakery that we see everywhere. It’s getting even easier to, uh, to do this kind of thing. Um, deep fakes, whatever they’re now called. Um, that’s been off the radar for a bit now, but suddenly you’ll see something and to, for what I mean, I read, I haven’t seen anything myself, but I did read this morning that already there’s videos around of Pope Francis who died, uh, on Monday, uh, that he is not.

Actually, uh, according to these videos, he’s out there speaking and, and doing all these events and so forth, um, that will confuse some people. And th this is the, this is, I think the gr the, the grave risk, uh, of not the technology, um, because. It’s what people will do with it. And that’s not, I’m not suggesting for a second that because of that, therefore we shouldn’t do X and y and so forth.

Not at all. But we need to, uh, address these concerns and indeed the, uh, the unspoken concerns, uh, before they become a problem, uh, or at least make people aware [00:18:00] and that that is a lot. Not to do with the awareness that we’re already seeing from governments everywhere. Like here in the uk for instance, I see government ads across every social network now and again about, uh, checking the very, checking the authenticity of things and people, uh, and products that people are pitching and so forth.

Uh, and that will ramp up, no doubt, in which case opportunity for communicators then for that kind of education. So, um, it, it, it perhaps will come down to, uh, to that the, uh, the, uh, the ethical debate on training, on consent, uh, on people’s rights, intellectual property, whatever. Governments in Washington, DC I mean, that.

Uh, the situation with Trump and his, uh, um, his psycho fence, as I call them, really, uh, is only, um, uh, is well, it’s more than a blip. It’s, it is made a huge change around the world that no one could have predicted. Whatever you think about Trump, you gotta give it, give it to him in one sense that he [00:19:00] has forced huge change on almost every country around the world.

So, uh, I see here things that people are discussing now, we’re gonna. Would never have dreamt that these politicians would be suggesting that if Trump was not on the scene. So that is a big impact in all of this, and it’s hard to predict what effect that’s gonna have on something like this. But, um, I think the, uh, the concerns of people about training, for example, using their content without permission, uh, human beings, again, this is a, a related thing to what other conversations are worried about being replaced by the.

That’s not, not, not a separate or a suddenly new thing, but it just reinforces in my view, certainly that we need to address all of these things. We need to show that we have people’s backs in their concerns about this, and we’re gonna help kind of understand it if we can. That’s our job as communicates, it seems to be.

Shel Holtz: Yes. In addition to creating some of this content.

Neville Hobson: Oh, indeed. [00:20:00]

Shel Holtz: That’ll be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

The post FIR #461: YouTube Trends Toward Virtual Influencers and AI-Generated Videos appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Zora Artis is a leading voice in strategic internal communication with a passion for how IC can lead the integration of AI into the workplace in ways that reinforce, rather than replace, human connection.

In this FIR Interview, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz speak with Zora about how artificial intelligence is reshaping internal communication, prompting a strategic transformation in the profession.

The conversation builds on Zora’s article on the Poppulo blog in March 2025, “Bridging AI and Human Connection: What’s Possible for Internal Communication,” and draws on her experience facilitating a global roundtable debate of senior communicators in The Hague.

Zora challenges the narrative that AI erodes empathy or replaces people. Instead, she explores how AI, when used intentionally and ethically, can support personalisation, amplify employee voice, and help communicators focus more on strategic value and less on repetitive tasks.

The discussion also examines examples of AI in action: from internal GPTs (large language models that use deep learning to generate human-like text and content) trained on leadership content, to custom AI advisors embedded in daily workflows.

But with opportunity comes risk, and Zora highlights the need for governance, inclusivity, and ethical clarity in how AI is used within organisations.

Discussion Highlights:

Zora Artis, GAICD, IABC Fellow, SCMP, is a strategist, advisor, and coach specialising in alignment, communication, and leadership. She is the CEO of Artis Advisory, co-founder of The Alignment People, and a partner in Mirror Mirror Alignment.

She helps leaders and teams cut through complexity to build clarity, cohesion, and high performance.

Zora is a passionate advocate for responsible human–AI collaboration and the evolving role of communication professionals in the way we work and the value we create and deliver.

Follow Zora Artis on LinkedIn

Links from This Interview

The post Zora Artis on Bridging AI and Human Connection in Internal Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Misinformation and disinformation aren’t just problems for the news media—they’re also becoming critical concerns for corporate and organizational communicators. Whether it’s a viral post spreading false claims about your company, a deepfake video targeting a leader, a cloned voice trying to trick employees into transferring funds, or AI-generated content muddying the information landscape, today’s communicators must be equipped to navigate a world where truth competes with convincing fiction. In this live-streamed conversation, Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) explored how generative AI is accelerating the spread of false and misleading content—and what communication professionals can do to identify, counter, and prepare for it.

About the panel

Alice Brink is an internationally recognized communications consultant. Her firm, A Brink & Co., works with businesses and non-profits to clarify their messages and communicate them in ways that change people’s minds. Her clients have included Shell Oil Company, Sysco Foods, and Noble Energy. Before launching A Brink & Co. in Houston in 2004, Alice honed her craft in corporate settings (including The Coca-Cola Company, Conoco, and First Interstate Bank) and in one of Texas’ largest public relations firms, where she led the agency’s energy and financial practices.  Alice has been active in IABC for over 30 years, including as chapter president, district director, and Gold Quill chair.

Sue Heuman, ABC, MC, IABC Fellow, based in Edmonton Canada, is an award-winning, accredited authority on organizational communications with more than 40 years of experience. Since co-founding Focus Communications in 2002, Sue has worked with clients to define, understand and achieve their communications objectives. Sue is a much sought-after executive advisor, focused on leading communication audits and strategies for clients in all three sectors. Much of her practice involves a strategic review of the communications function within an organization, analyzing channels and audiences. She creates strategic communication plans and provides expertise to enable their execution. Sue has been a member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) since 1984, which enables her to both stay current with, and contribute to, communications practices. In 2016, Sue received the prestigious Rae Hamlin Award from IABC in recognition of her work to promote Global Standards for communication. She was also named 2016 IABC Edmonton Chapter Communicator of the Year. In 2018, IABC named Sue a Master Communicator, the Association’s highest honor in Canada. Sue earned the IABC Fellow designation in 2022.

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.

George McGrath is founder and managing principal of McGrath Business Communications, which helps clients build winning corporate reputations, promote their products and services, and advance their views on key issues. George brings more than 25 years in PR and public affairs to his firm. Over the course of his career, he has held senior management positions at leading strategic communications and integrated marketing agencies including Hill and Knowlton, Carl Byoir & Associates, and Brouillard Communications.

The post Circle of Fellows #115: Communicating Amidst the Rise of Misinformation and Disinformation appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip talks with Rachel Sales from the PR agency Enunciate about managing client communications in a chaotic world.

Rachel discusses the importance of empathy and strategy in addressing news and its impact on clients. They explore whether brand leaders should comment on current affairs, emphasizing the need for authenticity and aligning with business goals. Rachel shares a process for determining when and how clients should respond to news events.

The conversation also covers the evolving media landscape, the shift towards contributed content, LinkedIn strategies, and the importance of humanizing client messaging in turbulent times. [read the transcript]

The post CWC 108: Helping PR agency clients navigate a challenging communications climate (featuring Rachel Sales) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The tide is turning.

For several years, workers have enjoyed a seller’s market. Unemployment has been low, and companies have competed for the best employees. Now, for a variety of reasons, we are experiencing a surge in layoffs, exacerbated by sizable staff reductions in U.S. federal agencies. With so many newly-unemployed workers on the street, employers now have the advantage as we shift to a buyer’s market.

Emboldened by the flood of potential recruits on the market, and anxious to be on the good side of the current U.S. presidential administration, some CEOs are trading in their supportive servant-style leadership for old-school tough boss talk. And while they may be able to justify this behavior in the short term, the impact on the culture — and what that will do to the employer brand — could deter the best potential recruits from taking that job, which will be filled by a mediocre performer desperate for employment.

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel explore the reasons behind the layoffs, the impact of CEO tough talk, and how communicators can help maintain a strong, non-toxic workplace.

Links from this episode:

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 [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.

Raw Transcript:

Raw Transcript

evillehobson (00:02)

Shel Holtz (00:08)

As we know, business goes through phases. Right now, we’re entering into a reality that’s reshaping organizational communication. It’s a new phase in corporate America that’s going to demand a lot of communication, including counseling leaders with messages they may not want to hear. Let’s start with what’s happening. Layoff announcements have surged to levels we haven’t seen since the pandemic. According to CNBC earlier this month, we’re seeing cuts across a broad range of industries and companies

suggesting something sort of systemic is at play. And it’s not happening in isolation. It’s coinciding with a shift in tone that CEOs are using when they talk to employees. What we’re seeing is a shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. You may remember it hasn’t been all that long since executive messaging was all about bringing your whole self to work and prioritizing mental health and building workplaces centered on empathy and inclusion.

Those days are fading pretty quickly. Axios recently dubbed it the return of the Big Boss era. CEOs are dropping that therapeutic language of 2020 and embracing what one commentator called masculine energy. It’s less, we’re all in this together and more, step it up or step out. This isn’t just about bravado. There’s calculation here. This new tone serves multiple audiences.

not just employees, but investors, board members, and political stakeholders. This is, remember, Trump 2.0, where radical transparency and performative toughness are in vogue. Some CEOs see value in being leaked when they talk like this. It’s internal messaging with an external target. But let’s dig a little deeper on these layoffs. An analysis from the Wharton School points out that what we’re seeing isn’t just a response to economic turbulence or pandemic

era over hiring, companies are bracing for long-term changes, slower growth, productivity gains they anticipate they’ll get from AI, and increasing shareholder pressure for efficiency. Some organizations are trimming fat, others are actually cutting muscle and hoping automation or restructured workflows can pick up the slack. Neville, before I list some of the things communicators should be thinking about,

What are your thoughts on these trends? I read recently the companies in the UK are laying people off and UK firms are planning more, though I don’t know if CEOs have shifted their tone in their conversations with employees.

@nevillehobson (02:42)

will likely pick up a bit as events shift and change globally. But the main reason I see being mentioned, a couple of pretty good articles recently point this out to toxic workplace culture is the big driver behind employees quitting, not being laid off. There’s a big difference. They’re resigning. So

Not quite the same landscape shell, but it seems that the result is similar, i.e. people are going to be without jobs.

Shel Holtz (03:34)

middle managers revert from the coaching and mentoring style that’s been in vogue for good reason for the last several years toward that just be the boss and tell you what to do and yell at you when you don’t do it right or fast enough. So the toxic workplace could be on its way back to the U.S.

@nevillehobson (04:13)

Yeah,

I wonder though, the reality of that, given what you mentioned is on the decline since 2020 was was how you framed it, the kind of more kinder concern for employees well being and all that kind of stuff. And it’s gone out the window in America, I see this being talked about quite a bit. Not yet here in the UK. And I put I insert the word yet because

I think it’s likely to be the case, I wonder, it’s people we’re talking about, right? So you’re looking at, and what you said is absolutely correct. It starts at the top and filters down. So behaviors are influenced by the leadership behaviors, et cetera. And so the manager for a team in an office, that’s not the head office, it’s a branch office somewhere, but the manager there, or even the big department.

is not, I would say, correct if I got it wrong, but it seems to me they’re not going to suddenly, there’s a sudden shift in behavior. This is a gradual thing. Right. So it’s going to be very difficult for some. You could almost equate it to things I’ve seen in the news recently, for instance, in relation to Trump in laying off federal workers. So for instance, people who

Shel Holtz (05:10)

@nevillehobson (05:27)

over what’s happened just over the last few months, that we do have a change that is huge. And I often say to people when we have these conversations, they are increasingly happening even with friends. The first two decades of this century are the golden years when money was cheap, freedoms were huge, you could get on a plane and travel anywhere. And again, in the European context, that’s a big deal. Get on a plane at London and go for the weekend in Prague.

all you got to do is buy your etiquette and accommodation. That’s it. Didn’t need visas. need. Well, you have passport checks if you come to the UK because even within the EU, the UK insisted on that. They really don’t like foreigners, the Conservative Party in this country, seems to me. So they were in charge during nearly all of this time. But I think that those days are gone and we need to be getting used to this. And it is a time of great uncertainty.

in the workplace. So we hear about uncertainty in stock markets and people thinking, how do I price my goods? Do I have to increase it or what? Here we’re seeing something else that is likely to be of concern to people. It’s a very uncomfortable time for everyone. And indeed, I don’t envy the kind of middle manager in an organization who’s responsible for a team of 20, let’s say, and he’s being told to do certain things that are against his beliefs. What’s he or even she going to do about that?

There is the dilemma.

Shel Holtz (07:09)

And I think that’s a real consideration here for communicators as they think about how they’re going to navigate through all of this. What’s going to happen is you’re going to see as, mean, imagine being a meta employee right now, because say what you will about Mark Zuckerberg. He did champion liberal causes and he created a workplace culture of, I mean, it was a culture of trust. He and Sheryl Sandberg,

used to tell deep secrets in all employee meetings and they never leaked because employees knew that if that information leaked, they’d stop having this information shared with them. Now he’s embraced this, know, masculine culture. He’s obviously pandering to Trump. And what is that tone going to do to the way he perceives employees, the way he treats employees?

how it affects the culture. The best people in any organization are the ones who can say, I’m done and find a job somewhere else. The mediocre people in the organization are the ones who can’t find a job anywhere else. They’re the ones you end up stuck with. So I think the short-term benefits these CEOs may see from becoming the tough boss again.

could evaporate when people aren’t going to continue working for you who you need and you can’t recruit because your employer brand has gone down the toilet.

@nevillehobson (08:59)

I saw a news story today in one of the tech journals that made the comment that Zuckerberg had done the deal with the devil and what has he gotten in return? Absolutely nothing. So what does that mean? So this uncertainty continues in this area, but I think trust is evaporating fast from big companies. And equally, I did read something a week or so back.

It’s actually very relevant to what you said about Zuckerberg and the culture he developed with Sheryl Sandberg. He got rid of Sheryl Sandberg. I think he threw her under the bus, if you remember. Right. And say the DEI stuff was all her. He didn’t agree with it, blah, blah, all that kind of talk. So would you trust him? I certainly wouldn’t if an employee. So you’re going to get people right. So this is likely to be the case in many more organizations. And that’s a very alarming picture, I think.

Shel Holtz (09:47)

No, not even a little.

So let’s take a look at what this means for organizational communication professionals, because I hate to throw a cliche out there, but it presents both a challenge and an opportunity. We are the voice of the organization. We keep the narrative and we facilitate the internal dialogue if we’re doing our jobs well. So what role should we be playing in navigating these particular waters? Well, first we need to be advocates for transparency and clarity.

This is nothing new, but when layoffs happen, the way they’re communicated is paramount. is, we’ve been talking about this for probably 50 years in terms of communicating layoffs in such a way that it leaves the workforce that remains productive and optimistic about the future. Employees deserve more than legal precision when they’re told what’s happening. They need context.

They don’t need vague, you know, we’re realigning with strategic priorities language, but actual explanations. Why are we doing this now? What’s next? What does this mean for us who are still here? know, ambiguity breeds anxiety and erodes what? It erodes trust. Second, we have to be sense makers. The survivors of layoffs are likely feeling a mix of emotions, fear, uncertainty, guilt.

We need to actively listen to their concerns and provide channels for them to voice these feelings. This isn’t a doom and gloom message. It’s a reality check. Workplace toxicity, as we mentioned earlier, is creeping back into the workplace. A recent Investopedia report showed a significant number of employees feeling that work environments have become more hostile, less safe to speak. That is, no psychological safety or reduced psychological safety. And they become more cutthroat.

If we’re not creating channels to surface those feelings, we’re not doing our jobs. Third, communicators have to coach leadership on consistency. As an article in Axios points out, employees are remarkably attuned to tone. If we’ve gone from we support you to produce or perish, then leaders need to own that change. They can’t pretend the vibe hasn’t shifted. When the tone of leadership changes overnight and this tone from leadership has changed overnight.

People start wondering, who is this person? Is this the same guy I signed up to work for? That disconnect can unravel trust faster than a layoff could. Fourth, we have a crucial role in shaping the internal narrative. In the wake of layoffs and the shifting leadership tone, it’s easy for negativity and toxicity to creep in. We need to find ways to preserve culture when leadership is, intentionally or not, undermining it.

That might mean emphasizing peer stories, championing middle managers who are under enormous pressure, or quietly maintaining the threads of the pre-layoff values the company once celebrated. And let’s not forget about Gen Z. They’re watching all this unfold and they’re drawing conclusions. A Fortune article from late last year pointed out that many young professionals are actively avoiding middle management roles. They don’t want to become managers.

It’s not because they’re lazy, it’s because they see those positions as stressful, thankless, and misaligned with their values. In an environment of layoffs and perceived shifts in leadership attitudes, retaining talent, especially younger generations, is going to require a more nuanced approach. This is the time to reaffirm that communication is not just a soft skill, it’s a strategic imperative.

@nevillehobson (13:38)

Shel Holtz (13:41)

The way we approach these challenges will have a lasting impact on our organization’s reputations inside and out, but let’s not shy away from having those difficult conversations. Neville, thoughts?

@nevillehobson (14:17)

Caroline Levitt, Trump’s press secretary, who is so, it’s like a mini me of Trump in behavior. Black is white, white is black. the most untrustworthy individual I’ve ever seen with a blonde hair and a nice demeanor, but I wouldn’t trust that person at all. You would be very worried if your CCO was like that. Also, if you’ve got a CEO like Jamie Dimon, remember we talked about him.

in episode 451 when the speech, the rant peppered with bleeped out expletives on a, what do call it, a meeting with employees was leaked, basically saying, my way or the highway, he didn’t give a damn. And if you got CEO like that, yeah, you’re in trouble.

Shel Holtz (15:16)

wanting to be leaked and heard by the president, right?

@nevillehobson (15:22)

by leaders and organization leading to employees being let go. So layoffs, redundancies, as we call them here in the UK, because the distinction here, of course, is you are not fired, your job has been eliminated, therefore there’s no role for you anymore. So your job has been made redundant, you’re gone. So we’re likely, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this sort of uncertainty continuing and worsening.

communicators. Yeah, all those things you mentioned, Shell. I think when I was looking at what’s happening here in the UK, I mentioned that I did encounter one report that was in HR director magazine that was just a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, talking about toxic workplace culture are the main reason behind staff quitting, I resignation employees resigning and going somewhere else.

So there’s a kind of the flip side of all of this is the employee taking the initiative and saying, I’m gone from here. That’s on the increase. So if you tie that with then layoffs and redundancies, the workplace is not looking very secure at all for anyone.

Shel Holtz (16:43)

their employment. So lots of reasons for communicators to be listening, to be sharing what they’re hearing with leadership and counseling leadership on how to communicate through all of this in a way that maintains a level of productivity, but also maintains that employer brand so that people want to work for you.

@nevillehobson (17:27)

I would argue is where they are with setting policy and setting behaviors and communicators communicate that and maybe help shape the messaging around that. So in addition to that list of things you mentioned, I would add you need to be hand in glove with your HR side because they will know things you don’t know and you need to know and they may not be proactive. They may be all scared sitting in a corner of cells even. So there’s that, that’s key to it. And the other thing I would argue is that

all you’ve known so far on how you address these sorts of issues probably needs rethinking now in light of what’s happening. Because all the stuff I read and that I know of and you will be the same, I’m sure, is to find and fine tuned over years in times that are not like this at all, where trust is gone completely. And again, just reflecting back on Edelman’s trust barometer.

we’ve seen kind of warning signs in some of the research from that recently, that this, you know, things like, for instance, how leaders can shape workplace culture, the company’s ethos and leadership training, all those things are great. But for circumstances like this, there’s something else needed more than that, I would say. They talk about a thriving workplace is where toxicity is neither tolerated nor ignored. Difficult.

if the leadership is involved in that, eg, Jamie Diamond, JP Morgan, instance, who is fostering a climate of toxicity, then then that’s real tricky. So this is where going back to the role of the communicator. That’s where some very creative thinking and behaviors need to be put in place, which may not be something you’re used to. So communication leadership is the key to that, I would say. So interesting time. I mean, you mentioned

The cliche, know, threats and opportunities, this is opportunities, I see it, but it’s an interesting time we’re in and it’s going to be especially interesting in the coming months.

Shel Holtz (19:37)

and need communications help in explaining why. mean, there are things that happen in the workplace that employees don’t like and there’s things you can’t do about that. Your job isn’t to make employees happy, it’s to help them understand why this is happening, where they fit in a solution, where we’re going from here. communicators can’t just be sitting on their hands, know, cranking out articles about the company picnic. We need to be in the thick of this strategy.

@nevillehobson (20:21)

Shel Holtz (20:24)

@nevillehobson (20:27)

The post FIR #460: The Return of Toxic Workplaces and the “Big Boss” Era appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the latest quarterly SAGA owner survey, which provides a mixed bag of results for agencies.

They explore key findings, including the cautious optimism displayed by respondents, concerns about economic conditions, and the impact of government policies. Despite the varied performance of agencies, many are still managing to move forward.

The discussion also delves into the benefits of project work, the size of client bases, and the lack of mergers and acquisitions activity. Chip and Gini encourage agency owners to stay informed about macroeconomic trends but also to focus on positive strategies to navigate uncertainties. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 267: Agency owners review 2024 performance, assess outlook appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson discuss the evolving landscape of podcast consumption, particularly in light of Satya Nadella’s innovative approach to engaging with audio content through AI. They explore the significance of transcripts, the potential for AI to facilitate interactive experiences, and the challenges that come with adopting these new technologies. The conversation highlights the future of podcasts as a medium that can be both passive and interactive, reshaping how audiences engage with audio content. Neville and Shel also examine how these same generative AI tools can make other content interactive and the ease with which users will be able to take advantage of it as LLMs become multi-modal.

Links from this episode

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 [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.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz (00:03.168)

@nevillehobson (00:10.742)

@nevillehobson (00:38.72)

His comment was, there’s no going back. This shines a spotlight on a crucial, but sometimes overlooked asset for podcasters, the transcript. Providing a transcript isn’t just about accessibility, although that’s a critical benefit. It’s also about discoverability, repurposing, and now enabling new ways of engaging with content. Transcripts can enable a number of things, such as improving SEO, helping your podcast get found in search.

makes your content more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, enable content repurposing into blog posts, social media or newsletters, and as Nadella demonstrates, allow AI tools to analyze, summarize or even hold conversations about your content. In a world where attention is scarce, transcripts are no longer just a nice to have, they’re becoming essential infrastructure for how audiences, including high level business leaders, interact with audio content.

So here’s the primary discussion point for our conversation today. Could Satya Nadella’s model be the future for busy professionals where AI acts as a bridge between long form audio and actionable insights? And if so, what does that mean for podcasts and communicators in how we produce a packaged content? What do you think, Cheryl?

Shel Holtz (02:23.167)

And a lot of people don’t want to work in their car. They’re driving, they’re relaxing. Asking questions is not on their bingo card for their for their drive to or from work, for example, or or during a road trip. So I think people will continue to take the easy road for the most part. But for people who are trying to learn a lot or glean information.

related to current events or emerging science or whatever the theme of the podcast they listen to is. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is going to be a popular approach and there are more than one way to do it. For example, you could put that transcript into Google’s Notebook LM. I don’t think you can talk to it yet, but you can. can you? OK, great. Well, there you go.

@nevillehobson (03:40.267)

Shel Holtz (03:49.226)

Yeah, exactly. But if the transcript has been loaded into the notebook, then the conversation, obviously, you can listen to the podcast with the two hosts talking about it. But at that point, you might as well just listen to a podcast, one or the other listen to the original. But the whole idea of Notebook LM, even before they introduced that podcast feature, was your ability to query the notebook based on everything that’s in it. You could have 50 episodes of a podcast or you could load

the transcripts of the most recent episodes of 20 different podcasts on the same theme and just start querying it. And it’ll give you answers to your questions. This was what makes it so powerful a tool. think there’s also, by the way, I’m using a tool now. This is not for podcasts, but along the same lines, it’s called Drip Drippp, three P’s. what I do here and it’s a paid service is

I take all of the AI email newsletters that I subscribe to, and I subscribe to probably 12 or 13 of them, and it gets all of them and sends me one email summary of what’s in all of them. So I’m now reading my one daily drip rather than all 13. Email.

newsletters, which is particularly useful because there are days I don’t have time to read any of those newsletters, but I find the time to read that one drip. this being able to repurpose, which is kind of what we’re talking about here, content to make it more consumable for you in the circumstances that you’re in. This is, I think, one of the powerful uses that we’re seeing a lot of people start to adopt AI for.

@nevillehobson (05:39.17)

Shel Holtz (05:49.931)

@nevillehobson (06:08.333)

And that was the one we talked about on AI being a part of your team, an AI chatbot and all that. So I uploaded the whole thing and asked it a couple of things and you’ll hear that in the transcript in a minute. But it got me thinking that the interview with Satya Nadella is worth a read. It’s quite concise, but you can project out your own thinking as to what this might mean and what Satya Nadella talks about his experience with it and particularly the multimodal element.

Your point about driving got it entirely, although if you’re commuting on a train or a bus, no big deal. You can just do it like that. But I think the idea of being able to tell the chat bot, give me a summary of the episode 458 and it’s got, it’s uploaded and it tells you that that might prompt further things. Tell me, you you and I talked about such as a topic. Give me the key takeaways that we discussed.

So it’s literally as fluid as that. It’s not more structured than that even. And the experiment I did, which may or may not be an indicator of wow or not, worked extremely well. There are some big downsides with this. And this I wondered about what Satya Nadella is doing about this, because the work in preparing the transcripts and uploading it to the chat bot, each time for each episode is severely not.

good from ease of use and all that. There’s big barriers that you’ve got to be really keen to do this. I did it. One thing I found, Nadella used Copilot. I knew few people using Copilot actively, but I know tons of people using ChatGPT. So I asked ChatGPT, can you do this? To which it replied, seriously, confidently, yes, of course I can.

@nevillehobson (08:28.755)

engagement function. But I did discover that the web app, the PWA on Windows 11 does support that. And so I engaged with the chatbot via the PWA, the personal web app on Windows 11 on my desktop computer, not the mobile. But it was an interesting experiment in my engagement with chat GPT that way, very conversational. And I was actually very impressed indeed with with how it performed.

So let’s include the clips so people can listen to it, Shell, because it was well done. It’s lightly edited to edit out some of the gaps in it to make for a better listening experience. And I’ve amplified the chatbots audio a bit because I was doing this on my microphone, the desktop, and the sound was coming out of the desktop speakers, which had to amplify a bit. But I think you’ll get the idea here. When I asked it to summarize, then I asked it specific questions about one of the segments we discussed. So let’s take a listen.

@nevillehobson (10:01.899)

Shel Holtz (10:24.711)

of the transcript. this is just going to get easier and easier as time goes on. The other thing that you mentioned having to create the transcript, a lot of podcasters are including a transcript in their show notes for SEO purposes, and we are among those. I don’t edit it. I don’t go in and fix all of the errors. I don’t have time. It’s raw. So that at least somebody searching for some keywords might find us. But all you would have to do with

@nevillehobson (11:14.391)

Shel Holtz (11:20.743)

@nevillehobson (11:27.241)

but that doesn’t scale. this isn’t, in my view, this is not a prime time tool for everyone to think, wow, I can use this. This is if you’re keen, if you’ve got the patience and the time to go through the prep. So you prep 10 episodes, let’s say, or even your transcripts. Let’s say you speak, you’ve got the ideal audio environment in which you’re recording, in which case the recording software will pick up everything about 99 % correctly, like Riverside that we do, for instance.

And that’s got a method to smooth some of the stuff. Or you’ve got Descript. I mean, there are tools you can do this. The point, though, is there are still separate tools you’ve got to use to get this into the state before you can upload it and share it with the chatbot. That may well be a barrier too much for people. The idea is fabulous, I think. I love this idea, which is why I was so keen on trying it out myself. And I think it is going to be part of the landscape pretty soon, just without all the barriers, hopefully.

Shel Holtz (12:52.009)

@nevillehobson (12:59.925)

Shel Holtz (13:20.595)

@nevillehobson (13:29.335)

Sure. I think this is in that area, of course, this is just another method of engaging with the content. It isn’t intended to do this instead of listening to the podcast. Not at all. If you want to do that, like you said, get a summary, whether it’s 20 minutes or five hours, that could be handy. It might work good for if you’re the kind of person who likes trying out new things. There is a new podcast. don’t know. Let’s get it. Let’s upload the transcript and get a summary. mean, that’s maybe not, you know.

daily activity. But all of this will be part of the landscape to make things a lot easier. And I could even imagine that one of the chat bots, you’re not going to go through all this stuff of uploading files and editing, you’re going to tell the chat bot to do that. Look at the file, get the transcript, see if it’s okay, share it with your colleague at ChatGPT. We’ll take it from there. But it’s a neat idea. I’d keen to know anyone listening, one of our listeners has done this with

Copilot or are you thinking about it? Who’s using Copilot? ChatGPT were hurdles. I wonder how that would be with Copilot. I did ask ChatGPT to compare this feature with Copilots, which it did. And it came back and Copilot excelled in areas such as complete integration with all your typical software apps you’ve got on your PC. Whereas ChatGPT, this is not integrated in the same way. That’s today. I suspect that’ll change.

Shel Holtz (15:02.582)

The post FIR #459: AI Transforms Content from Passive to Interactive appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The most common refrain we hear about society and the rapid advances in Generative Artificial Intelligence is, “We’re not ready.” We’re not ready for Artificial General Intelligence, and we’re certainly not ready for Artificial Superintelligence. Yet both are approaching uncomfortably quickly.

Business (along with government) is near the top of the list of unprepared entities; in business, managers lead the list of employees who need to get up to speed…fast. It could be as soon as this year that managers will be asked to lead hybrid teams of human employees and AI agents that autonomously perform multiple tasks — emulating what a skilled employee can do sitting at a computer, but much faster and perhaps more accurately. This will need to result in a new approach to managing. In this midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel look at what this means for managers and how far business is from enabling their managers to succeed in this new work reality.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, April 28.

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.

Raw Transcript:

Neville Hobson: Hi everyone, and welcome to four immediate release. This is episode 4 5 8. I’m Neville Hobson.

The post FIR #458: Preparing Managers to Manage Human-AI Hybrid Teams appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.