FIR Podcast Network

FIR Podcast Network

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FIR Podcast Network episodes

  • FIR #389: Bloated C-Suites (and Some Alternatives)

    The list of CXO titles is proliferating. The addition of chief culture officers, chief AI officers, chief data officers, chief wellness officers, chief diversity officers, chief learning officers, chief experience officers...the list goes on...has increased the size of C-suites across industries. There is strong evidence that larger executive teams can be less efficient than smaller ones. They result in increased complexity and bureaucracy, communication and coordination challenges, reduced accountability, and greater opportunity for conflict. Neville and Shel discuss a BBC report on the issue and explore some alternatives to traditional structures in this short midweek episode.
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    16 min
  • FIR #388: Watch Me Get Fired

    GenZers are recording their firings and layoffs, and the videos are going viral on TikTok and elsewhere. This is shining a harsh spotlight on organizations' approach to letting people go, and it's not pretty. What's worse is how some companies plot to avoid being subjects of these videos. Also, in this episode:

    • Bluesky has taken its first big steps into the fediverse as two protocols battle it out for supremacy in the 21st century of the VHS-Betamax wars, but there may be alternatives in play.
    • Most big legacy news organizations are blocking the crawlers OpenAI sends out onto the web to collect content to train its models. This has implications for AI's ability to deliver news in response to prompts, but it also has implications for journalism.
    • The ethics ratings of virtually every profession have fallen in the U.S., regardless of the industries in which these professionals might work. Does this put the onus for strengthening ethical behavior on professional associations, and what, exactly, can they do about it?
    • LinkedIn offers users an "Open to Work" badge to let others know you're seeking new employment. Does it work, and are there other consequences for showing so blatantly that you're looking for a job?
    • The Apple Vision Pro is out, and while marketers are exploring ways to deliver their messages in mixed reality environments, a lot of people are sending their headsets back to Apple and looking for a refund.
    • In his Tech Report, Dan York shares his thoughts on the Bluesky announcement. He also discusses how Google is killing independent websites, Google's $60-million payout to Reddit so it can train its models on Reddit's content, Reddit's plans to go public, and WhatsApp's introduction of markdown-style formatting.

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      1 hr 31 min
    • FIR #387: Sentiment Analysis, Risk Mitigation, or Big Brother Surveillance?

      A long list of A-list companies from across the spectrum of industries have embraced Artificial Intelligence in a way that is raising eyebrows: monitoring employee emails and posts to messaging and collaboration services like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Privacy experts are raising red flags over the trend. When CNBC reached out to these companies about how they're using it, only two replied, suggesting the others would rather avoid public attention on disciplinary actions taken as a result of the AI's surveillance capabilities. Meanwhile, research finds that employees who work for companies that engage in surveillance suffer mental wellness consequences. Neville and Shel discuss the trend in this short midweek episode.
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      17 min
    • EPISODE #76: POPPULO WEBINAR REPLAY – UNLOCKING 2024 IC TRENDS

      Let's face it: The world of internal communications is anything but boring. If you're anything like us, the thrill of navigating through ever-changing landscapes -- like hybrid work, AI and channel management, to name a few -- is what gets you up in the morning. That's why we're diving into the big picture of what's shaking up our field and the cool trends that are shaping our work in 2024.

      In this episode, we’ll replay a Poppulo webinar, “Employee Trends for 2024,” featuring insights from Mark Dollins, President of North Star Communications Consulting, Ashley Tobin, Poppulo's Director of Customer Success and Sharon McIntosh. 
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      49 min
    • ALP 221: Avoiding time-wasting in your agency

      In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to get your agency's time under control and offer advice on managing business development and project management to avoid the unnecessary and focus on real value creation.
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      22 min
    • Circle of Fellows #101: More IABC Fellows Share Their Best Insights and Advice

      In the 100th episode of “Circle of Fellows,” Brad Whitworth and Shel Holtz presented short video and narrative contributions from many Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators, each of whom will present their best advice, most meaningful insight, useful observation, significant memory, or whatever they felt like sharing. The program of short Fellows contributions wraps up in episode 101 with more ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and guidance for communicators from this group of skilled and experienced professionals.
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      1 hr 5 min
    • FIR #386: Is AI Too Generic A Label?

      In a LinkedIn post, internal communications thought leader Monique Zytnik wonders if there is not enough specificity in the "AI" label. "It's like trying to have a conversation about different animals and only being able to use the word animal. One person is talking about lions and tigers 🦁and the other about cute chicks 🐣 but you're only using the word animal," she writes. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel tackle Monique's question and explore some real-world business uses of AI that were included in a Microsoft article Monique shared in her post, examine the pending European AI regulations Monique mentioned, and look at some other recent AI developments.
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      17 min
    • FIR #385: Amazing Search Results That Drive Little Traffic

      Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing all manner of things. It should be no surprise, then, that it is bound to revolutionize online searching, which has been dominated by Google. A new search engine, Perplexity, threatens Google's dominance by delivering answers in narrative form with links to the resources from which the narrative was derived in two forms: annotations without the text and tiles that appear above it. Nowhere in evidence are the paid (and often lower-quality) links that occupy most of the first search engine results page these days. But how often will you click one of those links if Perplexity gives you the information you need? Neville and Shel have both become devoted Perplexity users and discuss it in this short midweek episode.
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      19 min

    About FIR Podcast Network

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    For Immediate Release: Podcasts for Communicators