In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the importance of empathy in agency management. They emphasize the need for agency owners to put themselves in the shoes of clients, prospects, and employees to improve communication and relationships.

Key points discussed include handling difficult client conversations, managing scope creep, billing practices that avoid perceptions of nickel-and-diming, and providing constructive feedback to employees without micromanaging.

They also advocate for regular, honest communications with clients and creative solutions to financial challenges faced by both agencies and their clients. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 254: Agency owners need to put themselves in other people’s shoes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

There is a common thread among many of the predictions and trends posts that typically blossom across the web as the year draws to a close: AI agents are poised to revolutionize (a word we don’t use lightly) work in 2025. The frontier AI models — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Llama, and a few others — have captured imaginations and led to various uses throughout the business world. But these chatbots, which deliver answers to natural-language queries, will pale compared to agentic AI, which sets off to complete tasks that require multiple steps autonomously. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel delve into agentic AI and its possibilities for communicators, along with five other digital marketing trends.

Links from this episode:

• Top 2025 digital marketing trends: AI, MMM, and more
• Greg Isenberg’s list of agentic AI possibilities on LinkedIn

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 23.

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:

Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 439 of four immediate release. I’m She Holtz. And I’m Neville Hobson. We are close to Christmas, the time of year when marketers, communicators, and everyone comes out with predictions and trends for 2025, the come following year which is that year, we have one here.

We’ve talked about a couple recently, and this one’s actually quite interesting. Last week Google celebrated 25 years of they say transforming how we search and discover and shared its vision for the top marketing trends shaping 2025. From smarter tools like AI powered marketing mix models to the rise of shoppable video, Google says, the future promises more intuitive, ethical, and consumer centric approaches.

We’ll explore these trends right after this. We will also see AI agents simplifying complex workflows and mindful [00:01:00] marketing addressing consumer decision fatigue. These trends reflect a pivotal moment where technology meets responsibility, paving the way for a more sustainable and inclusive marketing future.

Google’s insights highlight six key digital marketing trends poised to shape 2025. Let’s look into what this means for businesses and marketers alike. The first one, the evolution of marketing mix models and is a statistical analysis tool that helps marketers evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and determine how different marketing tactics impact sales.

Media fragmentation and budget constraints, mms are becoming smarter, faster, and more granular. Tools like Google’s Meridian, a highly customizable modeling framework enable realtime transparent insights into cross channel performance. Second, AI agents as simplifiers. These will revolutionize data management enabling seamless integration of [00:02:00] multimodal information for business operations.

These chief Simplifier offices as Google dubs them simplify complex workflows and improve efficiency. This slots right into all the buzz and the hype and the talk in recent weeks about AI agents and how that is crucial in 2025. Third rise of shoppable video. Social commerce continues to grow with shoppable YouTube videos offering consumers seamless purchase options.

Brands are encouraged to integrate product feeds, turn ads into storefronts, and partner with creators. Fourth, mindful marketing for decision fatigue with consumers. Overwhelmed by information brands should prioritize hyper-relevant consented data to create meaningful, simplified marketing experiences that alleviate decision distress.

I was actually conscious shell when I was looking into this, all the buzz phrases that pop out in this decision. Distress. Great one, isn’t it? That’s a new one to me. Fifth AI driven app [00:03:00] marketing. The focus shifts from app installs to in-app engagement with AI powered features, enhancing user experiences and driving specific actions such as purchases and content discovery.

And sixth ethical and sustainable marketing. Ethical imperatives, including sustainability. Transparency in AI generated content and inclusivity are essential for long-term consumer trust and brand loyalty. So these trends reflect a shift towards more personalized, ethical, and technologically integrated marketing practices.

These are themes that are threaded through some of the conversations we’ve had in recent months in previous episodes of this podcast. You can take a look a bit more closely at some of these. One that strikes me as pretty key. I perhaps, based on my focus on what others have been talking about, AI agents as 2025 is the year forward, as I mentioned, is precisely this AI agents as [00:04:00] simplifies.

It strikes me, that is a nice phrase, chief simplify officers that you can really. Equate that to, as Google calls it, a representative advance transformative advancement in 2025, building on the foundation laid by large language models in 2024. So that’s one I think that we ought to be paying very close attention to.

What’s your thinking shell about these trends? I think they’re all spot on. I don’t disagree with any of them. The marketing mix model, I think is inevitable just based on the fact that this is data that’s available and it’s really just a matter of having the AI tools that can analyze it and, prompting them or setting them up to analyze effectively all of the different inputs against the output.

There’s so many different. Marketing elements that can be factored into these models. It can deal with time, it can deal with place, it can deal [00:05:00] with content. Just all kinds of different inputs and which ones are having impacts on the company’s sales. And the company’s bottom line yeah, is, it’s pretty clear that AI can simplify that and speed it up.

I the age agentic AI is what really excites me. These days. And as you probably know, Google launched Gemini 2.0, the first model in that family of models yesterday. And it is AgTech. That’s the whole point of the 2.0. And there was a post on LinkedIn. I don’t remember who shared this.

I copied it and. Saved it without noting who it was. I only saw it because our friend Jeremiah Ang was commenting on it. But it was just a list of some of the things that Agentic AI is going to do for you. And it’s things like imagine your acquisition agent runs 50 meme accounts simultaneously, testing hooks across different niches, including a thousand posts daily until it finds.[00:06:00]

What hits your research agent analyzes a hundred thousand tweets per hour. Finding unmet needs and feature requests that no one’s building for your content agent creates 200 unique hooks daily across X, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Learning from each response and optimizing for what works. And this list goes on and on.

The idea that you can assign. A task to an AI and it just goes out and does it, regardless of how many steps it takes and how much time it takes. Some of these things you’re probably looking at hours, days. Some of them could take weeks and it’ll come back to you if it has a question as it’s going through this process.

This is. Probably the most dramatic change that we’re going to see computing bring to work and life since the introduction of the pc. This is going to be huge and a among these trends that you listed this is the big one. This is the one that think people are gonna be latching onto.

Now think how quickly it’s going to [00:07:00] change is. Going to be a question of how quickly adoption happens in organizations and based on what we’re seeing so far. Probably not overnight, right? Because you’re still gonna have people dealing with the governance of these things and the security issues and the like.

But ultimately this is a really big deal. Yeah I Google talk about that at length and in fact the use of the word agentic. I saw a number of people talking last week and I was actually chatting with some folks on this very topic that’s predicted to be, you know how things are the word of the year for 2025.

I was curious myself even that I, I realized I knew the word and the use that’s being applied to now is apt for, its. Definition of, what is the word agentic. And according to many dictionaries including this one dictionary, which is actually the one that writes it in the most simple English something that behaves like an agent able to express or expressing agency or control of on one’s own behalf or on the behalf of another.[00:08:00]

That’s pretty good reference. I think there are though it surprised me, many who think it’s a made up buzzword. No, it’s not, no, it actually says it quite well. And a, an ai an agent ai, but Google there’s one man who contributed to this particular topic. Guillaume Rockets. He’s Google’s senior director of marketing for Google Cloud in emea, Europe, middle Eastern Africa.

He says, these intelligent systems, process multimodal information, that’s text, voice, images, video, and enabling them to reason, adapt and manage complex workflows. And in marketing, and this was a key focus of what Google’s talking about. They addressed the challenge of siloed data across disparate systems.

So AI agents simplify tasks like creating data lakes and streamlining operations. That’s an enterprise perspective. He gives some examples which I thought, yeah, this makes total sense. So many others will be doing this. Kingfisher he talks about, that’s an international home improvement company with 1900 stores owns brands like BNQ in the uk [00:09:00] screwfix integrated enterprise data with AI powered search tools.

And so created a system that improves access to critical information, both in customers and employees. Sounds very straightforward, that simple description, but. As you pointed out, and indeed as they referenced earlier these agents have characteristics that enable them on their own to reason, adapt and manage those workflows, and that you can’t underestimate how phenomenal that would be.

Set aside concerns people express, which I’ve seen being talked about on LinkedIn quite a bit. Is when they go outta control. This is some, this is a kind of a common strategy, not if, but when we have a problem. Be prepared for sorts of weird stuff to happen. But the reality is that the benefits are huge from this if you are able to implement and execute on this quite carefully.

Rock is Google’s Rockus says that ar ai agents are becoming increasingly accessible. To allow organizations to integrate advanced [00:10:00] intelligence seamlessly into their operations without overhauling existing systems. So they’re expected to play a central role in enhancing efficiency and adaptability across industries during 2025.

It’s a very optimistic view. I think you are right. There’s this, none of this is suddenly gonna happen, but you are seeing. The Kingfisher example being replicated and not being, horns being tooted, just casually you see references to this. If there’s now gathering momentum that is focused on these trends then you’ve got a lot more people paying attention to it, a lot more learning what others are doing.

And would like to hear a lot more about this during 2025, I’d say. Oh, absolutely. And going back to this, list of examples that this LinkedIn contributor shared. I’ll find out who it was. Credit him appropriately in the show notes. I just can’t get to it. Right now. But he makes the point in this post that what previously required 20 people and 2 million in salary now [00:11:00] happens automatically with 2000 in agent costs.

One founder becomes as powerful as a fund startup. Customer acquisition becomes predictable, growth becomes systematic. And I don’t think any of that is is incorrect. One thing to keep in mind about AG agentic AI is that it has computer vision. That means it can see your screen and it can take control of your mouse and your keyboard.

And it can sign into applications and. Create things and post things. One of the things that he offers here as an example is your content agent. Your community agent welcomes every new user personally. Handles support tickets in seconds and turns feedback into feature priorities.

Your email agent writes and tests 50 different sequences, personalizing every message based on user behavior. Your analytics agent spots trends before humans could adjusting strategy in real time. This is all stuff that you’re gonna be able to do. This doesn’t require [00:12:00] hiring an outside agency or.

Working with your IT team, these are things that, that, you know if you just take the time to learn how to use these and, if you have access to the tools, which, let’s face it. Yeah. Some of them are gonna be part of your $20 a month Gemini Pro account or your $20 a month Chachi PT Pro account.

You can start creating these agents and running them. So. The benefits that you’re gonna accrue from this in terms of your own productivity and the efficacy of your efforts is, it’s to be right there on a plate in front of you yeah. It’s vital to learn this.

We talked when OpenAI first released Chat, GT 3.0 that, uh. People are worried about whether this is going to take their job and the standard answer was no, it’s not going to take your job. But somebody know who knows how to use it will. That’s more true now than ever with the rise of the agents.

Because if it can do the work of [00:13:00] 10 people that took 40 hours before you don’t wanna be one of those 10 people. You wanna be the one who’s controlling this. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure we’ll see that kind of concern being articulated more and more during 2025. But I’m equally sure that we are gonna hear more from companies experiments.

We’ll hear what they’re getting, and they’re likely to be the large enterprises more than not. More often than not. But I would see. News emerging more than we’ve seen on the on the professional services side of businesses such as finance definitely communication, advertising, public relations, et cetera.

I’m intrigued to know something I read last week, and I didn’t bookmark it unfortunately, so I can’t remember which company it was talking about, was an experiment on an employee communication. Using AI agents on a limited scale in one division of this company. We’re gonna hear lots about that, I’m sure.

It’s all good. I think [00:14:00] though, the thing I would pay attention to is amongst the critiques and the critics, as it were, is the ones that are really informed opinion rather than. Would you call it worse than click bait, attention grabbing, negative stuff. We’re gonna see a lot of that too. So misinformation as I would describe that.

So latching onto the people who are informed. And I’m hoping that we’re gonna see more public speaking about these events, seminars, webinars, you name it, on the progress of all of this. Not from, just from the likes of Google, ’cause I’m sure we’ll gonna see lots of that, but from people actually at the coalface.

Implementing this stuff. So I’m keeping a close eye on LinkedIn, in particular, what people are saying there about this kind of topic. But I agree with you that this is the big one of all the ones that Google mentioned the mms, I think are key shoppable video. I’m not convinced about that, but I’ve not looked into it.

That’s. To me haven’t, isn’t that what we’ve been seeing all along? They talk about YouTube [00:15:00] and I’m sure that’ll play a big rubble. What about some of the other players, TikTok being one notwithstanding the potential of them not being able to be used in the US sometime quite soon. Newer ones, niche.

Video channels are emerging. So mindful marketing this phrase for decision and fatigue and decision distress. Yeah. The people are overwhelmed, so they need hyper-relevant data that absolutely is the case. So if that, we see that. I improving in 2025. That’ll be a damn good thing. I would say AI driven app marketing.

So shifting from app installs to in-app engagement. Yeah. So not just go and install our app. It’s what does it give you when you have done that? So focus on the, you’ve got it. This is what it’ll do for you. So AI featured AI powered features. I saw something the other day. I have a Samsung phone running every.

Everything’s the latest versions of everything. And I keep now getting these emails from Samsung about check out this AI feature in your Galaxy phone. [00:16:00] And I’ve been experimenting with some of it, and some of it is, whoa, really interesting. Others is okay, if I was a gamer, I’d really be interested, but I’m not.

Point is though that these things are happening. So the ethical and sustainable marketing, that to me fits right into the thing we’ve talked about quite a bit. Which is precisely that ethical approaches to business that people are interested in doing business with, an organization that has an ethical approach, a sustainable marketing.

Absolutely no more. I read a story the other, just the other day about a vegetable or a fruit grown in I think Argentina. It might, was a South American country that’s then air freighted to Thailand for processing and wrapping and packaging, and then shipped back or to the US for selling in supermarkets.

That to me is insane. Think of the carbon emissions apart from else, but the inefficiency of that. Oh, I guess it’s the most cost effective way currently to do that. But is it sustainable? No, it’s not. Is it ethical? Arguably, I probably say it probably isn’t. So [00:17:00] those are now issues in the midst of all this.

So maybe agent AI or AI agents as chief simplifier officers will play an even bigger role in businesses. I remember being in a gift shop in Hawaii and looking at a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts and seeing that they were packaged in Torrance, California. So they shipped to the macadamia nuts, grown in Hawaii to California.

They put the chocolate on it there packaged it up and sent it back to Hawaii to be sold in the. Probably the most cost effective way of doing it, but sustainability, ethical, et cetera. Sustainability, yeah. When it comes to sustainability and decision quality and things like that I, again, I think the agen AI is going to play a huge role here.

Because if you look at the decision quality and decision fatigue, think people, the way people are thinking about that now is based on the chatbot AI implementations that we see where you can share some data with it and it’ll do some analysis. I think [00:18:00] that’s great, but I think that it can also, perform the tasks that the communicator or the marketer has been assigned to do or needs to do.

From the outset with guidance from the marketer rather than just, yeah. Oh, I’m at this stage now where I need to analyze some data. Just start at the beginning of the project and tell the agent to do it, and then you can make adjustments along the way. You can tell it to check in. Each key milestone so that you can assess what’s done and ask it to make adjustments if necessary.

But, using the agents in these situations I, I think that’s what’s gonna turbocharge. All of this stuff, not just pouring more data in and doing the analysis that we’ve been able to do for the last couple of years. Yeah, I agree. Looking forward to 2025 in that case. Yep.

No question. And that will be a 30 for this episode of for immediate release.

The post FIR #439: Agentic AI Tops Digital Trends for 2025 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the complexities of pricing strategies for agency engagements.

They explore whether agencies should charge more upfront for initial work, the importance of consistent revenue, and creative approaches to managing client expectations and financials.

The conversation emphasizes understanding client perceptions and the necessity of knowing one’s financials to ensure profitability.[read the transcript]

The post ALP 253: Should your agency charge new clients a startup fee? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It doesn’t seem to be a big deal at first glance. A Google AI Overview answers a search query at the top of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Beneath it, all those traditional links and snippets are still there. However, analyses reveal that many people are reading the AI Overview and calling it quits — they never click a link to visit a website. That’s concerning to organizations that have relied on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to drive traffic to their pages. In this short midweek FIR podcast episode, Neville and Shel look at the data and the trends and recommend actions communicators can take to ensure their web properties still get attention as the shift to AI search continues.

Links from this episode:

• How brands can stay competitive as AI Overviews transform search
• New Report Shows AI Overviews Trends Are Stabilizing
• How Google’s AIO Is Affecting SEO
• How to monitor brand visibility across AI search channels
• Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)’s AI Overviews Impact: Traffic and Engagement Drops for Publishers
• Will AI search suck the personality out of your brand?
• The impact of AI on keyword research and SEO optimisation

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 23.

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:

Hi everyone, and welcome to four immediate Release. This is episode 4 38. I’m Neville Hobson. And I’m Shell Holtz. Search engine optimization. SEO has been a foundational activity for marketers and PR practitioners for decades now, but there’s a transformative development that’s reshaping how organizations communicate online.

Google’s AI powered search results known as AI overviews. It’s having a profound impact on search and SEO. We’ll jump into this in detail right after this. Let me set the context. In May of this year, Google launched AI overviews in the US fundamentally altering the search landscape. These aren’t just featured snippets or knowledge panels like the ones we’ve been seeing for a few years now.

They’re sophisticated AI generated summaries that appear at the top of search results providing comprehensive [00:01:00] answers. I heard this referred to once as one true answer when. Amazon’s Echo was first released and I think we did an episode on that. But these are answers to users queries. While this creates a smoother user experience, it’s presenting really unprecedented challenges for brands, for publishers, and for communicators.

Google’s testing a new ad format with AI overviews that’ll create opportunities for brands to reach users. At the moment they need information, but. Those aren’t available just yet, and the impact of AI overviews has been significant. Early data reveals that publishers are experiencing five to 10% decreases in traffic since AI overviews launched.

This might not sound dramatic, but some news outlets are reporting substantial drops in engagement, and the trend is expected to grow as the technology becomes more widespread. We’re seeing the acceleration of what’s known as the zero click phenomenon. Users getting the answers directly [00:02:00] from Google’s AI summary without ever visiting a website.

Now, I know we’ve discussed this before, but here’s a wrinkle that makes this a relevant opportunity for communicators. Right now. When brands are cited as sources in AI overviews, they frequently see increased click-through rates and longer site visits. This suggests that while overall traffic might decrease the quality of traffic is.

Improving. That’s quality over quantity. Users who do click through are more engaged and interested in deeper insights. Now, this shift is forcing organizations to rethink their digital communication strategies. The traditional SEO playbook is being rewritten. Smart brands are adapting by creating comprehensive, authoritative content that AI systems recognize as valuable sources.

They’re moving beyond keyword optimization to focus on establishing genuine thought leadership and authority in their space. To maintain [00:03:00] visibility in this new landscape, organizations need to consider a multifaceted approach. First, focus on creating high quality, brand aligned content that offers unique insights and genuine value.

Second, invest in digital PR and authoritative mentions. Third, develop sophisticated monitoring systems to track performance across AI powered search channels. Fourth, diversify your digital presence beyond Google to include other AI powered platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest to reach your audience.

Fifth and perhaps most critically build strategic relationships with key industry publications that AI systems frequently cite as authoritative sources. That’s a new approach to media relations. Sixth, take advantage of AI powered ad solutions to ensure your campaigns remain effective in the changing search landscape.

Finally explore alternative methods to engage consumers like interactive content and personalized [00:04:00] experiences to make up for potential declines in traditional website metrics. Now, here’s what’s particularly fascinating. We’re seeing the emergence of a new specialized role in communication teams. AI Search Channel Specialist.

These professionals work at the intersection of SEO Digital PR and content creation, understanding both the technical aspects of AI systems and the strategic elements of brand communication. Now the need for this expertise is clear, given that AI overviews synthesize information from multiple sources, which can dilute individual brand identities and make it harder for users to attribute content to specific brands.

Ensuring clear attribution within AI generated content is crucial to maintaining brand identity. Something an AI search channel specialist should be able to do. The implications extend beyond just search visibility. The shift is fundamentally changing how organizations need to think about their [00:05:00] digital footprint.

The era of creating content primarily for search engines is giving way to an age where authority, authenticity, and genuine expertise matter more than ever. Looking ahead, organizations that will thrive are those that embrace this change while maintaining their authentic voice. The goal isn’t to gain the AI system.

It’s to genuinely provide valuable enough information that AI systems NASH naturally recognize and amplify your expertise. Yeah. Interesting. That’s a good way you’ve explained that. I think, we have talked about this before, and I think the reality is, as I understand it certainly is that the the likelihood of more zero click searches is not a likelihood, it’s an inevitability, I believe.

Why would you click through to the website if you’ve got. Your answer right there in the search results. You’re not gonna do that, in which case you will see the brand owner is definitely gonna see a drop [00:06:00] in visits from search to the website. So the limited attention I’ve given to this topic actually shall shows.

That the people I’m seeing in the SAO business in particular talking about this actually presents new opportunities. If you tailor your search texts and everything else that shows up you’ve got to do things very differently to how you were doing things before. And in fact one of the articles you shared on this smart company as firm in Australia talks about that, and you actually mentioned it, I believe, create for users, optimized for Google, not create for search, create for the people searching.

That requires a rethink. And it talks this piece talks about the long-term, SEO, addressing the user experience and investing in high quality brand-led content. Sounds great. When you read a text telling you this how do you do that? That’s where you need people such as that expert you mentioned and SEO.

Savvy people who can advise you on this kind of thing, but there’s more to it than that [00:07:00] though, although that is quite essential, I would say so I, I think maybe this is one of those things that is on the very close horizon that no one’s really paying too much attention yet, that now is the time to do this.

I would say. Yeah, definitely. Now is the time to do this, given the fact that the acceleration of all of this is pretty rapid. I think the other thing that is really important to consider here and that I mentioned in the introductory remarks is the need to. Take the same approach to AI that we’ve taken with search engine optimization.

We studied what the keywords were that people were searching on. Now we have to study what are the sources that AI systems that people are using are routinely going to When they’re sharing information, I’m sure that eventually there will be a service that will help with that, but right now I think we’re on our own to figure out which.

Media outlets, which [00:08:00] influencers are being cited by. Chat, GPT by Perplexity, by Gemini, and by Claude. And the open source models like llama from Meta because those are the places where we’re going to have to direct content. And as I said, this is a shift in our media relations mentality.

It’s not just a matter of how many, column inches we get. There’s a. Blast from the past, call ’em engines, how much share of voice we get. It’s in which publications. It’s through which services. Because if they’re not the publications and the services that are finding their way into the answers that these AI systems are providing, then it’s not going to be as useful to you.

It’s not gonna produce the kind of results that you need. If you were investing time in SEO before so I. Recognizing where we want to get our information published who we want distributing it is something that’s gonna require a, a lot of thought. [00:09:00] Yeah, I think so. You are already seeing this.

And this is on a simple basis. I think just from my experience I see in chat GPT, but Plex has always been like this since it started, which is citations that’s now in chat, GPT, and I’m not meaning just the specific search. It’s in everything. You give it a prompt, tell yourself or do something and come back with a result.

It includes. Links to the sources. Perplexity does it better. In that it’s a lot easier to find that. I think though. Maybe this brings to the fore then that there needs to be ’cause it’s just from a user point of view, greater care in checking out the sources. So for instance, don’t just that blindly.

Oh, this link, it’s got links there. Great. It’s okay. Check the links. I had the experience just a couple days ago where I did something and I checked the link and had nothing to do with the question. So I think. How do they come up with an answer then? If you’ve got a bad source in there that it’s citing, it’s not perfect.

We know that it’s not perfect, so you need to check it. I’ve never [00:10:00] stopped doing that. Even if I’m happy with a result, I will still check it. Search, actual search I. I don’t tend still to do that. With chat. GPTI do that definitely with perplexity. Gemini not so much either, but I tend to stick with perplexity in chat GPT from my gender AI use typically.

But this is, this has a new dimension to it and I’m thinking that, you are searching for something. And again, thinking back to previous discussions on this topic, we’ve had that what does it mean to you? You need something that you are searching for and there’s gotta be something that’s gonna stimulate you to click through to the website, which is not.

The future. That’s not the future scene. I don’t see it. So maybe what brands need to consider in addition to what we’ve discussed, is how to and maybe this is at the heart of the content that, that they need to create. How do you present your information that satisfies the user? That still gives you.

A value from [00:11:00] that which traditionally you’d count on a visit to your website or whatever the destination is that you choose, you’ve gotta find another way of doing that now. And that’s at the heart of doing this for the user, not for Google. So maybe this is another challenge for the SEO business as a whole on this is a radical change that’s approaching us, it seems to me.

And they don’t seem to be ready for that. No, I don’t think they’ve caught up with this at all, frankly. I think they’re still in that mode of protecting their existing business model. But I think that there’s a, there’s just so much going on here that organizations that remain mired in the old world of search engine optimization are gonna be scratching their heads at this lost.

Traffic. Yeah, I worry about media organizations that rely on visits for revenue. It’s somehow organizations are gonna have to find new ways to entice people to their sites in [00:12:00] addition to the work that they’re gonna need to undertake in order to show up in these. Snippets these AI overviews that Google is presenting.

Now, the other thing is that if these don’t produce the kind of results that people are looking for, we may see greater uptake of perplexity and chat GPT search. And if that happens, it’s the same result. We need to get into AI results as opposed to the 10 link search engine results page that we’re so accustomed to.

I think that is exactly what’s gonna happen. Shell, I think perplexity and Chat, GPT and others who are coming on board with this this approach are going to be major beneficiaries of the shift that’s started already. They’ll refine their models to make it even more attractive from a user point of view.

I think Perplexity has probably got the edge on that right now. Track GPT is still from, again, anecdotally what I hear, not seen as the [00:13:00] kinda replacement for Google, whereas perplexity definitely is seen that way. I haven’t really used it except when it first is announced that it had the search capability actually for search.

So maybe I’ll try it again to see what benefit it gives me. I think they perhaps need to differentiate the. In the interface box because it’s not clear. Yeah. Basically there’s just a new little button there that says search that you have to click and that’ll give you a search result. Yeah. And it’s not quite clear why so that needs to be better, better done, I think.

But perplexity is definitely ahead on that. So if I want to search and I’m doing something in chat, GPTI tend to switch to perplexity to do that. I do too. Although I have used the search on chat GPT and I’ve been fairly pleased with it. Happy with it. It’s much better than the early reports were when it was delayed in its launch.

Because it wasn’t producing really good results. So the work that they did paid off, yeah. Okay. So there’s definitely work ahead for SEO folk, I think. Yeah. But also brands. And I would say for the brands it’s also gonna be harder work because [00:14:00] loading a blog post with keywords is one thing.

Creating really valuable thought leadership content is harder and will take more time and more effort. But that’s really what’s required. If the AI’s gonna pick it up and say, this is good, valuable content that I’m ready to share in response to this query that I just got. Yeah. Yeah. We’re still, this is still early stages we’re at with this, and it’s not polished from what Google’s doing and certainly not polished it by any means.

It’s still being developed these features, this overviews feature. So it’s still, I think. Anyone’s guess what, what’s gonna happen with this? But I would say that the longer this uncertainty goes on or this kind of volatility stage wreck goes on, the more the user, people like you and me, for instance, or anyone for that matter, is literally in charge now because you can go someplace that offers you what you want, like perplexity, [00:15:00] for instance.

It’s, as the, as one article I was reading says, fortunately, SEO industry is quite adaptable and is, and can change rapidly. They’re gonna have to do that, I would say. And sooner rather than later. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

The post FIR #438: Google’s AI Overviews Are Upending SEO appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The communication function offers practitioners a rare opportunity. It is one of the few roles in any organization involved in every aspect of the business. In this Circle of Fellows panel, you will hear international perspectives on how the role of communication extends beyond the exchange of knowledge and information. Tune in as the panel shares thoughts on how communication fosters organizational collaboration and can be viewed as a cornerstone upon which professional success is built. Learn how the fundamental principles of strategic communication excellence can apply across different business sectors, underscoring its value in any professional context, and how effective communication not only enhances teamwork and innovation but also drives organizational growth, builds trust, inspires change, and helps achieve results. A communication role can position the communications professional to influence, impact, and potentially lead other business areas. (Did you know that the late Intel CEO Paul Otellini was a marketer before ascending to the company’s top job?)

Shel Holtz, SCMP, ABC, IABC Fellow, will moderate the panel that includes Neil Griffiths, Russell Grossman, Martha Muzychka, and Jennifer Wah. The panel will stream live via YouTube at noon EST on Thursday, December 19. Join us and be part of the conversation by sharing your questions, comments, experiences, and observations. If you can’t make it during the live stream, you will be able to watch the video replay or listen to the audio podcast shortly afterward.

About the panel

Neil Griffiths, ABC, Chart.PR, IABC Fellow, is the Global Head of Diversity, Equality & Inclusion at ERM, the world’s largest sustainability consultancy, where he is responsible for the global DE&I strategy and engagement plan. Neil’s background is varied, having spent the better part of 20 years in a series of external, brand, strategy, and internal communication roles before moving into DE&I. Neil has held leadership roles in several public, private, and non-profit organizations. In the volunteer space, Neil has held multiple leadership positions within the IABC and the Company of Communicators (CoC), one of the City of London’s modern Livery Companies. Volunteer highlights include being an inaugural Global Communications Certification Council member, Career Roadmap Committee member, Chair of the 2018 IABC World Conference (Montreal), Past Chair of IABC’s EMENA region, and, as of November 2020, Junior Warden of the CoC. Neil is a recipient of the IABC Regional Leader of the Year, Rae Hamlin, and IABC Chair’s Awards. In 2019, Neil was named IABC Fellow, the highest honor bestowed on an IABC member. With co-author Deborah Hinton, Neil has published two studies on the current and future state of the communication profession and advocates for channeling your best communication self regardless of where and how you work.

Russell Grossman, DipPR, ABC, FRSA, FCIPR, FCIM, IABC Fellow, has been a communications practitioner for nearly 40 years and a UK Senior Civil Servant since 2006. He’s the Director of Communications at the UK Rail Regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, and head of the Government Communication Service (GCS) internal communications profession. He’s a non-exec director of the “ Engage for Success ” movement to advance employee engagement and sponsor for both the GCS Fast Stream and GCS Talent. Russell and his long-suffering wife of 38 years are blessed with four children (one of whom also works within GCS) and five grandchildren.

Martha Muzychka, ABC, MC, speaks, writes, listens, and helps others do the same to make change happen. Martha is a strategic, creative problem solver seeking challenging communications environments where we can make a difference. She helps her clients navigate competing priorities and embrace communication challenges. Martha offers strategic planning, facilitation, consultation services, writing and editing, qualitative research, and policy analysis. Her work has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally with multiple awards.

Jennifer Wah, ABC, SCMP, MC, IABC Fellow, has worked with clients to deliver ideas, plans, words, and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. Her agency has won over two dozen awards for excellence in strategic communications, writing, and consulting; Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist. She has worked in industries from healthcare to financial services to academia and is passionate about the opportunity for stories to inspire actions and reactions within organizations. After serving as faculty with Royal Roads University, Jennifer was named an Adjunct Professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she teaches business communication to future business leaders. A lifelong IABC volunteer at all levels, Jennifer most recently served as past chair of the Ethics Committee and is looking forward to welcoming all to the World Conference in Vancouver in 2025.

The post Professional Communication as a Leadership Foundation appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Research finds that corporations no longer see AI as a novelty; it’s a full-blown business tool, one that is so critical that its development is mostly being done in-house. In the November long-form episode of “For Immediate Release,” Neville and Shel review new research about AI’s place in the business world and among employees. Also in this episode, we take a look at social media in 2024 — a consequential year — and what to expect in 2025. Beutler Ink has published its principles for ethically engaging with Wikipedia. Companies will twist themselves in knots deciding whether, and how, to respond to social and political issues that arise during the next four years of the second Trump Administration. Bluesky’s growing popularity, and an open API, has led to a burgeoning collection of third-party apps. And Coca-Cola misfired with an AI-generated holiday commercial…or did they? In his Tech Report, Dan York looks at the post-Twitter social media world, Bluesky’s looming challenges, X’s reminder that it owns your account; the impending court decision on the TikTok ban, and Australia’s new law banning social media for children under 16.

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 23.

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.

Links from this episode:

• How Are Companies Really Using AI? A New Report Has Answers
• How generations feel about AI at work
• Employees Are Open to AI, But Want Businesses to Support AI Literacy
• The Year Ahead in Social
• Think Forward 2025
• Trump’s return sparks a high-stakes communications test for corporate America
• Kim Clark on LinkedIn: Axios affirmed why Janet M. Stovall, CDE and I wrote our book, The Conscious Communicator
• Setting the Standard: How Beutler Ink Champions Ethical Wikipedia Consulting — Beutler Ink
• FIR Interview: William Beutler on PR and Wikipedia – FIR Podcast Network
• Ethics Statement | Beutler Ink + Wikipedia | Beutler Ink
• The Ultimate Directory of tools and applications for Bluesky
• Autoblue – Easily add Bluesky to your WordPress site
• Adding Bluesky-powered comments to any website in five minutes
• Chat Catcher lives on – NevilleHobson .com
• AI Ads Can Look Weird. Coca-Colka Keeps Making Them Anyway.

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report:

• Bluesky adds 1m new members as users flee X after the US election
• Bluesky user count hits 20 million and continues to grow: What to know about the platform
• Exclusive: Threads adds 35M new sign-ups this month
• Bluesky now displays replies by ‘hotness’
• How decentralized is Bluesky really?
• X’s Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts
• TikTok Ban Ruling Expected Soon
• Australia passes law to keep under-16s off social media – good luck with that, mate
• Techmeme coverage of Australia’s social media ban

Coca-Cola’s AI-Generated “Holiday Magic” TV commercial

Decision Tree for Public Statements on Social and/or Political Issues

Transcript:

Hi everyone and welcome to for Immediate Release. This is the monthly long form edition, episode 4 3 7 for November, 2024. I’m Neville Hobson coming to you from crew Kern Somerset in England. On a time when the weather’s weird as usual. We have high temperatures at the moment compared to snow.

We had a week or two back, but here we are with another episode. And boy do we have topics here. We do, I’m Shell Holtz in Concord, California. It’s California. It’s sunny and nice. That’s why I live here. Yeah. Nice. We do have a great episode for you today. We will be talking about social media in the year that is wrapping up and the year ahead.

We will look at the realities of generative artificial intelligence in the workplace today. Get beyond the hype and look at where things actually are ethical. Wikipedia editing is on our docket [00:01:00] today, as are the challenges the companies are going to face speaking out about social issues in the next four years.

Gosh, I wonder what’s happening in the next four years. We’ll also take a look at the growing ecosystem of apps for the social network, blue Sky and Coca-Cola’s advertising disaster. Dan York is here with terrific report and we will get into all of that after we do a quick rundown of the short midweek episodes that you ha may have missed since our October long form monthly episode.

Indeed, and we’ve only done three since the last monthly. But, and we’ve been busy. Yeah, there have been some time pressures, I must admit. But three’s good. Some great topics we talked about. So the first one, episode 4 34 that we published in November the 13th, was looking at the reports and what people have been saying about the.

The analyses following the US presidential election [00:02:00] and that fact emerged, or a view emerged that mainstream media and social media willed of far less influence than they have in the past and influences and podcasts helps sway. So we talked about that and the impact on communicators way for way beyond the election.

In fact, interesting topic we talked about. Episode 4 35 on November the 20th that talked about that topic. That is a recurring topic these days it seems, which is return to work. But this was the mandated returns was the theme of this one. And talking about the reasons executives give to their employees why this is important.

Talked about the serendipitous opportunities people miss if they don’t come back to the office and they need to boost productivity, which coming back to the office does. And of course there’s alternate views on that. That’s one of the reasons we talked about this. And indeed you had the example of a financial services company that has seen IPOing increases in performance metrics since listening to its employees and adopting a puzzle.

Let [00:03:00] it’s them, choose where they want to work. No mandated back to the office. That was a good one, and I think you’ve got a comment on that one, Cheryl. We do from Diane K, who said that the episode was timely. Given the move to return all federal employees to full-time in office, I suspect that’s a way to reduce the ranks more than anything else.

She wrote in a comment to the LinkedIn post on that episode. Interesting. So then episode 4 36 that we recorded just a week ago actually. That again Blue Sky. We’re gonna talk about Blue Sky, as you mentioned Shell at the beginning in this episode. And this was a midweek short episode just on Blue Sky.

That it was an interesting one that talked about what they’re trying to do how they’re growing it what’s important to them. And we looked at the potential of Blue Sky and whether communicators should consider establishing a presence for the competitor for other companies or clients and why they should do that.

A timely topic without [00:04:00] doubt, that’s the reason we did it. ’cause I keep seeing nothing but blue Sky being mentioned across mainstream media in the UK now has got that attention. So it’s definitely on an attention roll without any question. So that was a good one. We have a comment for this one too, don’t we?

Actually, two. The first one from our friend Lee Hopkins in Adelaide, Australia said totally agree joined nine months ago was Oh, underwhelmed ignored it. Now in involved with it because more and more of our tribes are appearing on it. And our friend Donna Papa Acosta said, same for me. I’m sure many have that view.

I see people talking about that themselves in post on Blue Sky. And just in case anyone didn’t know this, you and I joined Blue Sky during the during the private beta in 2003 2023 I should say. And it was a tool that. Sat there and we didn’t really do much whilst we were paying attention to threads at that time.

I I know, but suddenly, this has really kicked off [00:05:00] since beginning of November, coincidentally around the time of the US presidential election and Trump being the winner, an exodus, big time. Not the sense of closing down and moving, but moving and maybe keeping things back there. Things have evolved from that now and it’s certainly something that is getting attention from 7 million subscribers to 23 million in the space of a couple of months.

So this is no idle thing. Is it? The next big thing? That was something we talked about. That remains to be seen, but it’s a, it’s an interesting topic and a hot one for communicates without doubt. So the other thing we did in November was publish a new fi interview. On the 6th of November.

We published this. This was with Monique Nik. Her name will be familiar to you if you are focused on internal communication in particular. But we had a great conversation with Monique, didn’t we? Where she talked about trends, AI and authenticity and internal communication quite a bit about her book that she had [00:06:00] published a few months back.

But that was a really good conversation with Monique. It was, and we had a co a comment on that one too. This from IABC and Mina’s official account saying this is what IEBC is about. Members connecting, sharing insights, and inspiring others globally. It must have been talking about Monique and me, since you’re not a member.

Also wanna let everyone know that circle of Fellows has been posted as it is every month. Episode number 110 focuses on executive communication. I was joined by four IEBC Phil Fellows Alice Brink, Julie Holloway, Marianne McCauley, and Bish Mukerjee joined us from India to talk about executive communications that is up now on the FIR Podcast Network, both for video viewing and for listening.

As a podcast, there is a Circle of Fellows feed that you can subscribe to. Oh, episode 111 is coming on December [00:07:00] 19th at 11:30 AM Eastern Time. We will be talking about communication, serving as a foundation. I’ll be joined by Russell Grossman. He’s from over there in the UK with you, Neville. Theo Mary Car, Caras Martha Muzyka and Neil Griffith, who’s also UK based.

Again, December 19th. That’s a Thursday at 11:30 AM Eastern Time. I’ll be moderating that panel. I’m looking forward to it. I, it’s a, it’s an intriguing topic. I think it leaves us a lot of latitude for discussion. It should be fun. And now it’s time to jump into those stories that I listed at the beginning today.

But not until we’ve had an opportunity to sell you something.

I think most of us would agree that 2024 has been a tumultuous year in many areas of society in our lives, but our focus on social media in this topic, we’re gonna talk about wide ranging events in that landscape have characterized [00:08:00] 2024 threads hit 270 5 million users according to Mark Zuckerberg.

The turbulence and sharp decline of x formerly Twitter, the sudden emerges of blue sky as a compelling alternative, racking up 23 million users in a matter of weeks, as I mentioned earlier, and the rise of movements like Brett Summer redefining online culture. It’s been nothing short of a seismic year for social media.

As platforms rise and fall and user behaviors shift in real time, the need to anticipate the next wave of change has never been more urgent. Two standout reports from Batten Hall and we are social published just a few days ago, offer us unique lenses through which to understand each shifts in the year ahead.

In social, Batten Hall highlights the importance of social first strategies, AI driven insights, and the growing role of private digital spaces like messaging apps. At the same time, we are socials Think Forward 2025. The Livable Web Special Edition shines a [00:09:00] light on cultural and emotional trends such as users craving deeper connections, rejecting polished perfection, and seeking moments of joy in an overwhelming world.

Let’s unpack some of the key ideas from these reports and explore what they mean for communicators. Batten Hole predicts a shift where social media will no longer be an add-on to marketing strategies, but the primary focus in 2025 being social first means ensuring social platforms drive the entire user journey.

With ai, evolving the potential to refine messaging, protect communities, and unlock predictive insights will be transformative. However, brands must also navigate the rise of dark social spaces, those private networks where authentic personal engagement can thrive. And as users increasingly migrate to platforms like Threads and Blue Sky, the social sorting process will reshape the digital landscape, forcing communicators to rethink where and how they connect with audiences.[00:10:00]

On the cultural side, we are social emphasizes a broader emotional evolution in digital spaces. Gen Z rejects the polished, curated ideals of the past in favor of unfiltered authenticity, finding connection in chaotic, relatable content like Charlie X’s breadth Summer. Meanwhile, amidst global crises, many users are turning to lighthearted, low stakes interactions online, celebrating small luxuries, embracing wholesome hobbies, and seeking relief through uplifting content.

This trend compliments the rise of intentional consumerism where audiences increasingly cherish sustainability and meaningful use of what they already own over relentless consumption. We’re also seeing the growth of modern myth making where fans actively engage with hidden narratives and Easter eggs in brand storytelling, strengthening their emotional ties.

Finally, the push for new intimacies signals a shift back to the social roots of social media with users [00:11:00] craving more personal communal experiences in their digital lives. Together these trends highlight a social media ecosystem that’s becoming more strategic, more emotional, and more human communicators will need to adapt their strategies, not only to follow technological advancements, but also to align with shifting cultural values and emotional needs.

So as we take a look at these predictions, shell, do you have any trends mentioned here or others even that most resonate with you? There are several here that resonated with me. One being using the social space as a primary focus. I think that is important, but I don’t think that it is an all or nothing proposition.

I, I. I’m thinking about the fact that more and more people, particularly among Gen Z and millennials, are getting their news from Instagram and TikTok. The question is, where are the influencers who are presenting that news, [00:12:00] getting the news that they present? A lot of them are reading news. On TikTok, there are hundreds of people who have lots of followers who all they do is read news stories out of magazines and newspapers.

So if we stop. Getting our content into magazines and newspapers. Then the influencer influencers who are reading that are gonna read stuff that in which we have no share of voice. So I would not ignore the mainstream press. It’s just a reprioritization that I think we need to look at. Another one that really struck me is the need to get involved in private digital spaces, the WhatsApp groups.

Really attracting more and more young people who want to have the network, but they wanna have it with a group of people that they wanna interact with and not the whole world. And tools like WhatsApp and Snapchat allow them to do that. So how do we break through to those folks? So I these are trends that I think are absolutely coming [00:13:00] and, the social network that I still don’t hear people talking about very much. Ev everybody’s talking about blue sky and there’s a good reason for that. I’m not saying that it, we shouldn’t, and it’s not important, but Reddit is still there. Reddit is still one of the top visited sites on the web and tremendous influences wielded there.

I don’t know that it’s at the same level it was when they called it the front page of the internet. And when Buzzfeed was the hottest thing on the planet, they were getting the stories they were gonna do based on what was trending on Reddit. But it’s still an important place with some very granular communities that are not difficult to join.

And, if you’re a communicator looking to wield influence over people wielding influence over people on Reddit, it’s not a bad idea, but nobody talks about it. On the topic of Reddit, I’ve been user of Reddit since what, 2006, 2007? Active recently in particular. But I think it, it’s, I agree with you by the way, [00:14:00] but isn’t it really to do with.

If your audience is there, then that is where you need to go too, because you need to go where your audience is, but Right. And therefore, Reddit’s definitely not a kind of mainstream destination for everyone, again, depending on your audience. So I look at some of the some of the subreddits I’m participating, and these are niches.

These are absolutely not Oh, mainstream. They’ve got big numbers, no question. Did, I saw a report just yesterday saying that in the uk, Reddit has now got more action going on than any other social network that needs to be nuanced a bit in terms of understanding who is there actually, is it is it your millennial group?

They’re not there. It’s the Gen Zs there. But which topic? ’cause in this group over there, it’s actually full of boomers. So it’s a very complex network that needs you to be I think very clear on who you, your audiences are there. And if they’re there, then that’s where you need to be.

I think every organization should find out if there are subreddits that include [00:15:00] people talking about their space, and then analyze is this a large enough community that it warrants our attention who’s in this community? It doesn’t need to be large if these are all serious influencers. Who are taking what they learned through their interactions on Reddit and sharing it elsewhere to large audiences.

This is what used to happen with Buzzfeed, and I just think that the, by the way, the other thing is that I’m noticing more and more of my Google searches are pointing me to Reddit conversations where the answer is particularly on how to issues, because there are a lot of those out there.

There’s, subreddits around the Meta Quest VR headset. There’s subreddit. There’s subreddits for virtually every digital product out there where the fans of it and people who are wrestling with them are interacting with one another. So it’s actually driving traffic. Google drives traffic to Reddit.

So another reason to consider that another thing that you mentioned was unfiltered [00:16:00] authenticity. And I think that’s. Something that people really need to be paying attention to. We do something where I work. It’s a takeover Tuesday where young project engineers, this is an entry level position in the construction industry.

Take over our Instagram account and showcase whatever project they’re working on. And this is on Instagram stories and they’re pretty popular. There’s something about having these young employees talk authentically, but enthusiastically. It’s genuine authentic. Enthusiasm and it comes through that I think people really appreciate.

And, in terms of our audience, which, we’re not trying to convince people to build their $600 million building with us by watching an Instagram story. We’re trying to convince engineering students to come work for us. And it’s pretty enticing stuff when you see somebody just a little older than you just outta school a year or two, wearing their PPE out on a an active construction site, waxing poetic about how great this project [00:17:00] is.

That type of thing goes a long way. And I think companies would do well to consider that kind of, curated employee generated content. Yeah. One thing always surprises me when we talk about this kind of thing. Surely this can’t be like, oh, that’s a good idea for a listener. This is not a new thing.

This is what you should be doing. Always. Surely knowing your audiences, tailoring your communication to them, engaging with them in ways that I’ll use the word authentic, which has many meanings depending on a number of factors. So maybe this is part of it that what goes around, comes around in the sense that we are hearing in these reports, particularly from we are social or Bat Batten Hall too, for that matter, on the desire from certain origin, particularly younger generations for meaningful communication with brands, let’s say.

So the perfectionist the slick production values, created content that has been at the forefront for years. In fact, I was thinking today, looking [00:18:00] at on, on one of the TV channels that day, I actually watched, I. Terrestrial TV for a long first, for a long time seeing. We’re seeing now all the ads from the cosmetics firms and these are slick movie quality productions with celebrities doing the voiceovers.

And I often wonder, and I’m thinking this more now, who on earth relates to that? Normal people don’t really, maybe it’s aspirational. Again, I’m not gonna do an heavy analysis, but that surely is what we are moving away from. This is what the survey, these results of these reports tell us. People are looking for more honest, more relatable.

Messaging from brands they’d like to engage with, that they can actually believe. And that is not believable. Those amazing lifestyle ads for cosmetic brands. So I wonder why the hell they do that And they must make money at it, sell more stuff at Christmas. That could be it. They’re trying to reach the people who can afford those perfumes and colognes, right?

And that’s not, that’s gotta be it necessarily. Gen Z. That’s gotta be it right now. Johnny Depp isn’t gonna appeal to [00:19:00] anybody in Gen Z anyway, right? I don’t know if you’ve seen him. It’s gotta be the case. Yeah. Cologne. Yeah, he’s a pitchman now. What can I say? One other. Trend that you mentioned that I was intrigued by was this craving for communal experiences.

And I think there’s another opportunity. We used to have a lot of organizations that had departments focused on promotional activities. I remember when I worked at Mattel, we had hot wheel races and malls all around the country, people getting together and doing stuff together. And I don’t read about that kind of thing that much anymore.

And I think there are opportunities for brands to arrange activities and events for people to get together in the real world and do something. Imagine the Instagram photos that will come out of things like that. And, in the scheme of things, not the world’s most expensive approach to marketing either.

No, I think that’s what we are social refer to as new intimacies in their report [00:20:00] where people are craving deeper connections and seeking online spaces that foster community driven interactions. What does that mean for community? Goes well you’ve pretty much nailed it. Leverage niche communities and personalize your engagement strategies.

And I think, again, this seems so obvious, but focus on creating spaces where audiences feel seen and valued and that’s not new. But this is, again, something that we need to be doing more of in this changing environment. So there’s lots to take away in these reports, by the way. Batten Halls is a well produced, easy to digest, and in the content sense way, in the way in which it’s Pres presented.

So if you go to the website, fill out the form, and you’ll get a PDF version. We are socials. On the other hand, there’s what I called an everything reality presentation. There’s video, there’s animated graphics, animated texts, even talking heads popping up here and there only available in your browser.

So that’s a whole different proposition. It actually got me thinking a lot, the contrast between the [00:21:00] two. Maybe we are social as they absolutely at a Gen Z audience, at the exclusion almost of anyone else. If you want a nice comfortable PDF, you can read at your leisure. You’re not gonna get it. This is real time in the moment.

You’ll see this and you’ll need to have your headphones on or your speaker on because it’s an audio visual presentation. It’s very well done. Different approaches, they’re different topics, but they’re very complimentary both from Bassen Hall and we are social. I think they had a really good job presenting all of this as other reports have come out too in the past couple of weeks.

And you’ll find ’em if you search on similar themes, what’s been happening in 2024 for social media and what’s coming in 2025 and what you need to pay attention to. And a bit of overlap in all of them, but these two did strike me as definitely worth paying attention to. And there are, there will be links in the show notes.

No, no shortage of what’s coming in 2025 posts out. There’re the season, aren’t we? Shall this is the time for everyone to do their report? Yeah. Yeah. And also on, on we are social it’s a, it’s an unspoken final [00:22:00] comment that to their presentation, which is, if this is what we did to present our own report, imagine what we could do for you.

Nice one. The landscape of workplace AI adoption has undergone a pretty remarkable transformation over the last year. Speaking of looking back, organizations have moved beyond the g whiz phase into serious implementation and experimentation. According to comprehensive new research from the Wharton School and Marketing consultancy, GBK Collective, we’re witnessing what could be characterized as AI’s coming of age story in the enterprise.

Let’s start with the headline number that. Really grabbed my attention. 72% of companies now report using AI at least weekly for work purposes. That’s nearly double the 37% reported just last year. Now, what’s particularly fascinating is where this growth is happening. While you might expect IT departments to be leading the charge, we’re seeing dramatic [00:23:00] increases in adoption instead across all functional areas, including departments that were previously hesitant, adopters like marketing, operations, and hr.

This is entirely consistent with the message I’ve been sending as much as I can. This isn’t like Workday, where it implements software. Everyone will be using pretty much the same and can train everyone the same on how to use it with generative ai at this point especially use of the frontier models like Chat, GPT, Claude Gemini, every individual and department has to figure out for themselves how it’s gonna help.

Speaking of organizational structure, though, one of the most intriguing developments is how companies are adapting their leadership to accommodate AI Integration about one in five organizations, 21% to be exact, have now created Chief AI Officer. I. Physicians, we’ll see how long that lasts. I imagine there’s been a significant decline in the number of Chief Metaverse officers over the last couple of years.

I have to say, I still shake my head [00:24:00] at how loosely so many organizations imply the officer label anyway, the vast majority of companies, 91% are keeping their AI strategy development in-house. They’re not relying on outside consultants. This suggests to me that organizations are viewing AI not just as another tool to implement, but as a core competency they need to develop internally.

It also suggests there’s gonna be some serious consolidation among all those AI consultancies that have cropped up. The employee’s perspective has evolved significantly as well. Remember the early days when workers viewed AI with a mixture of anticipation, amazement, and trepidation that shifted fairly dramatically.

Today, 90% of employees see AI as skill enhancing rather than job threatening. That’s up 80% last year. I’m sorry, that’s up from 80% last year. The shift in perception from replacement to enhancement is crucial for successful adoption. I am, however, still [00:25:00] detecting reluctance to use it among a lot of employees, even millennial and Gen Z employees, largely due to personal security concerns.

What I find particularly telling is that about half of enterprises currently have few or no restrictions on AI usage in the work workplace. This repre represents a remarkable level of organizational trust in both technology and employees judgment. In using it, however, it’s worth noting that larger organizations tend to implement more stringent controls.

Only 15% of companies with annual revenue over $2 billion allow unrestricted AI use, suggesting a more measured approach. As the stakes increase, it may be in these companies, you’ll find those employees who won’t use it for fear of getting in trouble or use it, but don’t tell anyone for fear of getting in trouble.

Investment patterns tell an interesting story too. While 72% of companies plan to increase AI budgets next year, 57% anticipate these increases will be moderate [00:26:00] just between one and 10%. This suggests we’re entering a phase of more calculated ROI focused deployment rather than spend at all cost approach that we saw in the early adoption phases.

What we’re witnessing comes down to AI’s transition from a speculative technology to a practical business tool. The key now will be how organ organizations balance enthusiasm with pragmatism and innovation with responsible governance. It is interesting. You, it reminds me something you mentioned there about Chief AI Officer, we talked about that, the kind of expansion of c-Suite job titles quite a few times, maybe at least two episodes.

We’ve talked about that recently. And this strike struck me when I heard you say it. This is an example of that. Here we go again. You said how long it will last. That’s the thing. Yet for many organizations, I’m sure that is what they’re gonna have to do to get this on, get traction with this whole topic rather than being done piecemeal.

But it is [00:27:00] interesting. The Wharton report, I was reading the summary as you were talking. They are concluding that, and this will be like yeah. Type response you might have to this, which is what they’re saying. Organizations will keep experimenting with AI to figure out how it works best for them.

Yes. That’s what they should be doing. And you’ve got some metrics in here which kind of emphasize the value of doing that. It’s interesting, one thing they note as it evolves so will other technology required to make it more usable and practical, such as voice interface. So there’s a lot of things happening in parallel that may not be apparent when you first think about how am I gonna use AI in the workplace?

But also one thing it relates to what you said employees perhaps using a tool that without telling anyone because it’s not authorized, that’s exactly what’s going on in many organizations and the companies that. Don’t open that up in a better way than this are the ones who are likely to suffer, I would say.

Because what happens, [00:28:00] it’s inevitable. I was thinking back to some, something someone told me not long ago, that they’re not allowed to use chat GPT in the workplace. So what they do is download a copy from the website under a different name, even the student if you like, and they use that for their work stuff.

By contrast in a large organization where chat, GPT and others like it offer, what do we call ’em, an enterprise version of their tool, that’s a wholly different animal to the consumer version that you just download off the website. So you end up then through through bad policies in the organization is how I pitch it in a sense how I describe it.

Opening yourself up to all sorts of risks by not. Having a, an effective way that recognizes people’s concerns and enables them to do something about it rather than blanket, you’re not allowed to do this, and so they go ahead and do it anyway. That says a lot about the organization. That’s a different avenue to explore, but trust and belief [00:29:00] and all that stuff is in there and that’s lacking in that situation.

That’s dangerous to my mind. There’s lots to think about in this. It seems to be what a lot of employees are also doing is getting the chat CPT app on their personal phones. And it’s similar. Yeah. They just use it in a lot of organizations at this point, what employees have access to is Microsoft Co-pilot which is a difficult tool to parse considering the many flavors of co-pilot. But there is the base co-pilot that just comes with Office 365. That basically gives you an interface that is chat PT four. Oh, that’s, Microsoft does not have their own frontier model. They’re investing billions and billions in open ai.

And so this is what employees are using is chat PT for, even if if the company is saying you can’t use chat CPT they’re using co-pilot. So I think it’s interesting that organizations think that they’re preventing something bad [00:30:00] from happening. Although when you go through copilot.

Your queries your prompts don’t get saved and used as training fodder for future models. So that’s one reason companies may want employees to do that. I think those organizations that are saying, we don’t want you using chat, CPT use copilot employees should shrug and say, fine, because it’s the same damn thing I am.

I, I don’t use copilot. I have, Microsoft 365 subscription, all that. But I don’t like the style of it that’s the reality. And it may well be the best thing since Slice Brent, which I do not believe. It is quite well for employees who have no choice though. It’s there. They can use it.

But if you have choice I think I’d use something else, but it’s the landscape shell that’s basically it. There’s so many, ways you can use a generative AI tool. And there are many generative AI tools out there. To me that reinforces the reality in an organizational setting to [00:31:00] set out very clear guidance to employees on what to use, how to use, when to use it, and why without being, read the 65 page instructions on what you gotta do.

Don’t do that. People aren’t stupid. You gotta trust people. Although I hear people arguing that you can’t trust people. That’s a hell of a place to be if that’s your belief. We’ve done a ton of communication around AI where I work and employees know that it’s there. They know they have access.

What they’re asking is, okay, how do I use it? So we’re now planning some lunch and learns around effective prompting and things like that. I think this is what communicators need to be doing is one, they need to be. Promoting the responsible use of generative AI in the organization, highlighting whatever policy is in place, letting people know what the risks are, letting people know what the organization’s plans are for advancing the use of Gen ai, but also helping people figure out how they can figure [00:32:00] out how to take advantage of it.

In their jobs, how to write good prompts, how to figure out which tools are appropriate for you how to figure out how to identify those workflows in your job where AI can make you more productive, make you more effective, make you more creative. If that’s what’s called for. The more we do that and the more we share stories of employees who are doing it, the more everybody’s gonna get it and say, oh I can do that.

And start using it. So I think we have a very important role to play on the internal communication side of things. Totally agree. Opportunity for communicators. I have no question. We all know what Wikipedia is, the encyclopedia anyone can edit founded by Jimmy Wales back in 2001. I use it daily. Not often, not consciously.

If I’m searching for something, whether I do ask the question in Google, increasingly less likely [00:33:00] these days, or via perplexity, which is my preferred alternative to Google for the kind of how do I, where is, what is et cetera type questioning or even what’s the phone number of the pharmacy? It’s your favorite one, shall I know.

Wikipedia shows up still in typically in the top five or six search results, again, depending on what it is that you’re searching for. So it has evolved. It is a phenomenal resource. And it has, I have to say just. Because it fits in what you’re saying. I use it mainly when I’m watching tv.

For example, we watched a six part documentary about Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy Wars, and they talked about Kate Elder. And I said, yeah, I wonder if that was the same elder as Katie Elder in the movie, the Sons of Katie Elder. And I said, I’m gonna go to Wikipedia and find out. And I do that all the time.

When I’m watching anything with a historical context, I’m always using Wikipedia in front of the television. You’re a good use case. Shell. That’s a good use case. [00:34:00] In the organizational communication context, Wikipedia has a big role for communicators. And one of the things we’ll talk about now, and it’s a topic we have talked about before, and particularly going back some years is a valid topic ethical.

Editing of Wikipedia. So we’re gonna revisit this using the example of Butler Inc. And I’ll explain what Butler Inc is in a minute. So to set the scene a bit Wikipedia’s been a foundational pillar of the internet for over two decades from its founding. It’s the fifth most, most visited website globally.

Still. I remember it’s being claimed that for some time it’s an invaluable resource for billions of people. It’s a, it is critical in shaping public perception, often appearing at the top of search results. Additionally, it’s vast repository of information is a crucial source of training AI models. And by the way, it’s worth mentioning because some people think there’s only an English language version.

There’s not, there’s I think, 300 different language versions of Wikipedia, all of [00:35:00] different sizes in terms of content of what they have and how much of it. But Wikipedia’s, open and collaborative Nature poses unique challenge for communicators and PR professionals while its guidelines prohibit those with conflicts of interest from directly editing entries.

The temptation to bend these rules has led to controversies and mistrust between the Wikipedia community and corporate interests. We’ll revisit the topic of ethical Wikipedia entry, focusing on Butler, Inc. A digital agency that has set the gold standard for navigating this complex terrain. Founded by William Butler, a widely regarded expert in public relations for Wikipedia.

Euler Inc. Has pioneered ethical practices that aligned with Wikipedia’s principles such as neutrality and transparency. Earlier this year you and I shall had the opportunity to interview William in an FI interview where we explored the evolving relationship between Wikipedia and the PR industry, the growing influence of AI on Wikipedia’s ecosystem, and the nuances of ethical editing.

And by the [00:36:00] way, we’ll have a link to that interview in the show notes in an article published on the 25th of November. Butler, Inc. Set out their commitment to four core principles for engaging with Wikipedia. The first is neutral point of view, ensuring that all edits reflect a balanced and fair representation of the subject.

Second, transparency, disclosing conflicts of interest and intentions to the Wikipedia editing community. Third, collaboration, working with volunteer editors instead of circumventing them or attempting to exert control. And fourth, respect for Wikipedia’s rules following the platform’s, policies and guidelines without exception.

These principles speak to Butler Ink’s values in upholding the highest ethical standards. When engaging with the encyclopedia and this community of volunteer editors, they form a framework, not just for Butler ink’s work, but also as a model for how PR professionals and organizations should approach Wikipedia.

They demonstrate that ethical editing is not only possible, [00:37:00] but essential for maintaining trust between Wikipedia’s editors, readers, and the organizations that seek representation on the platform. In the article, William reflected on these guiding principles and how they have shaped Butler Inc’s success.

By prioritizing collaboration and transparency, the agency has avoided the pitfalls of unethical practices such as covert editing or promotional bias, which undermine Wikipedia’s credibility. But Inc’s work has proven that ethical consulting is not just a choice, it’s a responsibility for anyone engaging with Wikipedia.

This topic resonates deeply with me as I’ve directed projects in recent years requiring strict adherence to Wikipedia’s policies, ensuring neutrality and transparency. The But Inc model exemplifies how communicators can navigate this challenging space building trust with the editing community and their clients.

These principles should be the benchmark for anyone working on Wikipedia, setting a standard of ethics that others must follow. [00:38:00] So I’d like to hear your perspective shell, on the importance of these core principles. How do you think PR professionals can adopt these as benchmarks to foster credibility and alignment with Wikipedia’s ethos?

And what lessons can we take from butyl ink’s approach to ethical editing, especially given the increasing influence of AI on the platform? That’s two questions there. Actually. I thought there’s two questions You may have to remind me of the second one after I answer the first one. I think that these are.

Blinding flashes of the obvious. These are things that we have known for a long time. Butler Ink does a wonderful job of embodying these in its practice. The challenge is, I think, getting this information into the hands of people who are planning to, or needing to engage with content on Wikipedia.

I think there are organizations that routinely engage with Wikipedia. They’re big brands, for example, they have lots of products, lots of [00:39:00] trademarks. They’re in the news a lot what have you. But I would think that most people who engage with Wikipedia do it once, right? Somebody reaches out and said, Hey, did you know that the listing for your company shows your last earnings report from 2008?

And so you get in touch to try to see if you can get that updated and it can be a struggle they’ve never heard of you. You’re, you’re new to the platform. I went through this recently and I know how to engage with Wikipedia. I’ve been using it as long as you have.

I’ve done entries in the past. But they had our former now retired, CEO listed and as the head of communications, I didn’t want to go in there and make the change. I can’t do that. And so I went into the talk section and I explained I pointed to an article from a third party news source announcing the change in the CEO and absolutely nothing happened.

I had to go back in there and beg three or four times before somebody actually made that change. It can be [00:40:00] tough for somebody who doesn’t do this routinely to stay on top or even be aware of these rules. How do you get this information into the hands of people who are maybe doing this for the first time and maybe haven’t paid attention to the nuance in the, in, in the rules that Wikipedia has established?

It is not easy without doubt, and that’s something that has been a thorn in the side of Wikipedia ever since it. Was unveiled my experience. What you did was the right thing. By the way, you don’t try and edit it. You go through the talk pages and set out, make your case, declare your conflict of interest.

And I found my experience you have an account on Wikipedia. You create a profile page yourself, setting out who you are and why you’re, and if you’ve ever edited. Emphasize all of that. And so you say to people, look, go look at my profile. I’m legit and declare the interest.

And there’s ways to do that are the Wikipedia approved ways. My experience when I started doing this some years ago now is it’s labyrinth to understand the policies and guidelines. [00:41:00] It truly is seriously difficult, which is one reason why Butler Inc. In particular is doing well in this area because they have expertise from working with done tons of clients internationally on the pro policies and procedures.

I got an education on that, on a project I worked with with Butler Incon that required me to know how to do all this. And boy, that was a, an education, but it’s actually quite straightforward in, in following it. The difficulty, I think, or a difficult, not the only one, there are many is and Bill Butler mentions this in his article.

There are organizations out there and there are PR professionals out there unfortunately, who are quite willing to bypass where they can and go in and directly edit even. Through students intentionally bypass, they know the rules intentionally and bypass them anyway. Yes. Intentionally do that.

And that’s something Bill mentioned is a major issue that that we still have to overcome. I would argue this is certainly not [00:42:00] condoning it. This is people we’re talking about and it’s the good, the bad and the ugly in every community. And this is a reflection of that I think. There were issues 15 years ago now, probably 12 to 15 years ago now.

Where things came to a head. This was mainly in the uk I think between Wikipedia and pr, where there was a complete breakdown. Any kind of relationship, communication after a number of severe scandals through big. Well-known named agencies who were uncovered to have been lying through Wikipedia entries and falsifying entries in competitors pages of their clients.

And isn’t that where crew came from? Was all of those issues? I don’t remember the name, the big names. There was some big names. No Crew was the corporate representatives for the Ethical For Ethical Wiki. Yeah. Phil Gomes started that was Phil Gomes who started that. Yeah. And that was not as because of this, but this is one of the highlights of, but the point I’m making is that there were strong efforts made in the UK directed by the CIPR.

To engage with [00:43:00] Wikimedia Foundation about this. And I took part in that as a neutral. Interesting. This a neutral participant to bridge the gap. Philip Sherick was the other one. We made a presentation to a board meeting at Wikimedia Foundation and that led to the first, if you like, policy for PR professionals developed by the CIPR not long after that, which has then evolved into sixth edition or something.

So now. It’s difficult for anyone to say, oh, I didn’t know how we have to go about. Yes you do. If you are a member of the professional body, like the CIPR in the uk, and even if you’re not, you can access these guidelines that tell you these are the steps you need to take to do this. It ain’t rocket science to understand the process.

What is rocket science is actually understanding the process. If you had to wade through. Each of the pillars, if you will, on neutral point of view, declaring conflict of interest and a raft of others that are all to do with transparency and truthfulness and honesty. It is labyrinth and if you are [00:44:00] unlucky to then engage with the editor community, the volunteer editor community, and not hear anything forever.

Or you get one of them who’s just arrogant as hell ’cause they do exist. You have to realize to another thing that this whole structure is volunteer driven. So if you don’t hear anything, there’s not someone central. You can go and chase and say, Hey, what happened to my, it isn’t like that. You have to keep repeating it and you’ll find avenues and workarounds to get allies to make your case for you.

That requires a lot of time and hence why firms like Inc are doing well. I. Though that we are in a time when, again, those surveys we just talked about on authenticity, et cetera, is always been important in a case like this I honestly don’t see how anyone who is a practicing public relations or communicator, let’s say and a member of any of the well-regarded professional bodies could approach Wikipedia in anything [00:45:00] other than following absolutely all these principles and guidances.

And yet there are people who aren’t doing that. It needs to be, I think, emphasized that you shouldn’t be doing stuff like that. You need to understand the right way to do this. It ain’t difficult except understanding it, it is difficult. I’ll keep this short since it’s my broken record routine because there are PR people out there who.

Have not been trained who do not belong to an association, who do not feel compelled to abide by a code of ethics, who are unprincipled in their approach to their job and do it any damn way they want to. And until we come to the realization that practicing PR people must be certified and are at risk of losing that certification, and as a result losing their livelihood will continue to have PR people who will do this any damn way they want, regardless of what [00:46:00] the rules are and regardless of what resources are available out there.

Agree. I’m gonna that off my soapbox now. No, that adds to that bigger picture. We’ve talked about, I wrote about this myself on my blog a month or two back on the real issues that ought to be addressed, please, in the profession. That is to do with its credibility and this is absolutely the heart of it.

But in the meantime, for the 90% of PR professors out there who are honest, reasonable folks, I would say Wikipedia has a place in your role if you’re acting, if you’re working for. Large clients in particular, but not exclusively so that it is worth finding out how to address things and indeed to, to anyone.

Take a look at your own company’s Wikipedia entry page. Go and look at what it says about your company. Do you recognize that? And again, put out of your mind any notion of marketing talk. This is neutral point of view wars and all bad things that happened. That’s part of your history. You can’t cover that kind of thing up.[00:47:00]

So it requires reeducation for many people to get into this. The core issue though that we’ve been discussing here is just, concluding point to mention that the ethical approach is the only way you can do this as a PR professional and sleep at night basically. So this is what you need to do.

But Inc. Sets make it a good case. They’ve published their ethical guidelines and they note they’ve always had this, but they’ve never published them publicly. They’ve now done this. And if you read that, you’re thinking, yeah, we could do this, we should do this too. In which case you’ve got your blueprint there to do something greeting she and Nevo ever.

This was all around the world. Is Daniel coming at you from Shelburn, Vermont And this past month I’ve been looking a lot at where do people go in a post Twitter world? Because Twitter, of course is not Twitter anymore. It’s X and it’s a different company, a different vibe, a different thing. And now, controlled by Elon Musk and in the wake of the US presidential elections, I.

Where X was used particularly in [00:48:00] support of the campaign of Donald, of now President-elect Donald Trump. And where Elon Musk himself was very adamantly, pro-Trump, many people are starting to question, is X the place I wanna be? For some people it is, and I think it’s important to recognize that some people are finding that X still does what they want, still has the audience and is still there.

But for others, they’re saying, eh, I think I want to go somewhere else. The Guardian was one of the big ones that made this change and announced very prominently that they will no longer post on Elon Musk’s ex from its official accounts, but others are looking at that too. The challenge, of course, as communicators is that we’re moving into a much more fragmented world.

The interesting part about Twitter was that you could connect with people from all across pretty much all sectors of our society in different ways. And now we’re moving into places where it’s not that easy. It’s different, blue Sky and Threads were two of the big [00:49:00] recipients coming out of this election season.

Blue Sky had announced first that they’d added a million new members as people left X and they later announced that they’d come up. They were now at 20 million users for of the platform. Of course, threads rolled out, commented that they’ve been getting over a million people a day in November signing up, they’d have had over 35 million.

Take that blue sky where Threads and Mark Zuckerberg had announced in an earnings call that they had over 275 million users of threads. So, it’s a big player in that space. Where do you spend your time? Who’s there? Where’s your audience? These are questions that are there. I’m over on Macedon, which also saw an uptick, but not at the same scale as these two platforms, but, and I recognize it’s not for everyone there, but that’s where I’m at, and this is all happening in this space right now.

One of the reasons I haven’t been as excited about Blue Sky, people have asked me, why aren’t you just joining in like everybody else [00:50:00] is? Because it’s another centrally controlled platform now. It is, it has the promise of decentralization. And that’s one of the interesting parts is that it was developed spun out of Twitter by Jack Dorsey to go and create a decentralized social media platform.

And Jay Grabber, who’s the CEO, she and her team have done a fantastic job with developing a very, compelling platform. But it’s not quite where I would personally like it to be. There’s a great article by Christine Lemer Weber about how decentralized is blue sky really, which dives into technical pieces talking about how.

It has a promise of decentralization, but many parts of it are still centralized right now. You, there isn’t, you can’t move your account. Mine is Dan York. You can’t move that to another blue sky server in the same way you can like in Macedon, where you can move to a different instance in different server and work with that.

It’s not there yet. There’s some key components and [00:51:00] pieces around discovery, around messaging that still require the centralized services. And Blue Sky’s a company, they’ve taken some venture capital funding, which is a common way to grow, but VC companies typically want an exit. They wanna have some kind of return on their investment at some point.

And so this leads typically to the ification of other platforms that we’ve seen, whether there’ll be some method of getting that return back for the investors. Blue Sky’s also done some things like changing around the way the displays are. It used to be just reversed chronological. Now they’ve introduced.

Displaying replies by how hot they are in terms of interaction, engagement, so there’s some different pieces and parts that are moving in there, so I’m a little wary. And on top of this, we were reminded that we don’t control the handles, the account names that we have on, these social networks that are centralized.

If you’ve been paying attention at all to what’s been happening here in the United States, Alex Jones’s, [00:52:00] Infowars media sites have been up for bankruptcy due to his legal issues and with conspiracy theories and other stuff that’s been going on. The Onion purchased is in the process of purchasing all of that, coming outta the bankruptcy auction.

And that included some of the X handles and stuff. X made a legal filing saying, wait a minute, X owns every account. It can do with them, whatever it wants and it can go and do that now. Sure it’s their platform, they can control that. But it’s a reminder you are not in control. And that to me is the part that I think I worry about with some of these new platforms.

I want to be in control of my own destiny in some form, which is again, why I am partly spending a good bit of my time on Mastodon, where I have some more control. But we’ll see where this all shakes out. Speaking in platforms, tiktoks obviously a big one for short form video as we know, and it’s been under fire here in the United States with a law [00:53:00] that required its Chinese parent company by dance to dis to divest of its company, of TikTok in order to stay active in the US That’s gone through a chain of legal pieces and now it’s at a court in the in Washington DC where in theory, the first week of December, by Friday, December 6th, we’re supposed to hear a verdict, which will say, is the law valid?

Does TikTok have to divest or. Or not probably, regardless, it’s gonna go on up to the US Supreme Court. But anyway, we’ll see where that all goes. There could be changes coming to TikTok and how it’s working. A final thing, pay attention to what’s happening in Australia right now. They just passed a law banning children under the age of 16 from all social media platforms.

There’s a lot of vagueness in the law. It doesn’t actually specify which platforms. There’s a bunch of pieces. It doesn’t say how to do it. It doesn’t say how you’d limit somebody to Australia. There’s a whole host of [00:54:00] issues with the law, but they’ve put a stake in the ground that said nobody under 16 can access these platforms.

And it’s getting a lot of press right now, and it could change a lot of how we interact and engage with people and everything else. There’s a host of issues around that I could go into at great technical length around why this is broken and why it won’t work. Just geographic blocking doesn’t work.

Geographic location the means aren’t there. In theory, the law says that that you’re somehow gonna be able to be age verified without showing a government id. So who knows? The key point is watch what’s happening. The law is supposed to take effect a year from now, so in late 2025, and they’re gonna be doing some trials of different technologies and things, but a lot of other countries and states here in the US and others are looking at this.

And so pay attention to what’s happening in Australia because out of this will be some of [00:55:00] what will probably be brought into other places of the world. With that, I’m gonna wrap this up, send it back to you, shell and Neville, you can find more of my write audio and writing at Dan york, me and talk to you soon in December.

Bye for now. Thank you so much, Dan. Great report as always. Good collection of stories a couple that jump out at me. Having read about the band that Australia has imposed on people under the age of 16 for using social media I just can’t see that working. I don’t see how they’re gonna police that at all.

Be interested in watching how that unfolds. And I am very curious to see how that court decision shakes out on. TikTok although I don’t expect TikTok to go anywhere regardless of how that case ends up, because the Trump administration comes into office in January and Trump has on the campaign trail expressed his reversal [00:56:00] of opinion.

And then I was fully supportive of TikTok, which means that, it was Congress who passed the law that said it would be banned if it wasn’t sold by sometime in January, 2025. But it’s up to the Trump administration to enforce that ban. And he could easily just instruct the powers that be not to enforce it just to ignore it.

And it will just continue rolling along as it has. So interested to see how all of that turns out as well. But great report, do appreciate it. And speaking of that second Trump administration, which is. Coming in corporate America faces a critical strategic challenge, and that is when and how to engage on sociopolitical issues.

Companies are working hard right now to avoid being caught unawares as they were during Trump’s first term. When events like the 2017 Muslim travel ban Trump to nearly a hundred tech CEOs to speak out [00:57:00] against the policy. The dynamics are markedly different this time around as DEI, consultant Anne-Marie Malecha notes, during Trump’s first term, a tight labor market gave employees significant leverage in pushing companies to take stance.

Today’s economic environment has shifted that balance of power, potentially giving companies more latitude in choosing their battles. That’s likely why you’re seeing so many companies here in the us abandoning their DEI practices and goals. Walmart being the latest and one of the largest to make such a pronouncement after the George Floyd murder.

There was so much pressure to right a wrong that companies quickly fell in line around their employees sentiments. Today with right-wing extremists like Robbie Starbuck framing the narrative and employees with fewer levers of power to pull, companies are just as quick to cave to pressure and revert to.

Pre George Floyd practices a particularly valuable framework for navigating these decisions has emerged in the form of a [00:58:00] comprehensive decision tree that’s being shared among corporate communications teams. This model begins with a fundamental question. Is there a precedent? From there, it guides organizations through crucial considerations like whether the issue impacts business operations or stakeholders, whether it violates corporate values and whether employees’ rights are in immediate danger.

The framework’s strength lies in its nuanced approach to both proactive and reactive scenarios. This framework has been published in an article about this issue in Axios, and we have a link to it in the show notes, but I’m gonna walk you quickly through just one. Path in, in this decision tree Starting again.

Is there precedent? You have yes and no options. So let’s say the answer is yes. Then it says address changes with key stakeholders. But if the answer is no, then it asks the question, are you changing course? If that’s the case, then the questions are, does it impact employees? Does it impact [00:59:00] business operations or shareholders?

And does it impact corporate missions corporate values or mission? So let’s just walk through. Does it impact employees? If the answer is no, a statement’s likely not needed. If the answer is yes, the question is, are they or their rights in immediate danger? If the answer is no, then the question is, are employees calling for a response?

And there are options there, yes, but not in ma in mass, no. And yes but then the the answer is yes to are there are they, are their rights in immediate danger? If the answer is yes, then internal communications are recommended. If the answer is unclear, it says, consider internal communications that acknowledge the issue, offer support for employees even if a stance is not being taken at the moment.

Now looking ahead, companies are particularly focused on policy areas like immigration, healthcare, and trade that could directly impact their operations and workforce. A lot of these are also preparing for [01:00:00] response strategies in case they become targets in culture, war debates, or social media callouts, and that’s a possibility that is growing given the Trump approach to governance by tweet.

The key insight emerging from communication experts is that companies should prioritize issues where they have both authority and something meaningful. To add to the conversation, and I might add a dog in the hunt, as Janet Stovall and Kim Clark arguing their depth model approach, organizations must develop their own authentic voice rather than simply following the crowd on every issue.

The depth model, by the way, stands for dialogue, education, purpose, transparency and Humility, a framework to help organizations communicate effectively on DEI and social justice issues. By fostering authentic and strategic conversations. It’s out of their book, which is titled, and I love the title, the Fine Art of Not Saying Stupid Shit.

Anyway. The Smartest Strategy may be [01:01:00] establishing clear processes now for evaluating when and how to engage rather than trying to predict specific scenarios. The whole Trump thing is around chaos, right? Makes it hard to predict. So with the potential for rapid policy changes and social media confrontations, having a robust decision making framework could improve could prove invaluable in navigating the complex landscape ahead.

This decision tree is a good place to start. It’s in the Axios report and we have a link to it in the show notes. Yeah, it is useful. Listening to what you were saying, how you were describing all this show it struck me that I. The landscape has changed in that, a kind of decision tree like this reflects the times when the the structure was such that you had a model structure to follow and everyone knew that, and it was all fine.

Not anymore. You mentioned what AX has talked about govern the governance by [01:02:00] tweet. That’s definitely the landscape and it’s fast and it’s comes out, comes blindingly out of your left field where you don’t expect it to come. And you’ve gotta react quickly and there isn’t time for a chain of approvals to be gone through.

So you need to change your structure. That’s gonna affect everyone and I. Just, I got no research. I’m gonna, I’m gonna share with you saying, because it says so. Hey, my feeling is we’re gonna see this. You’ve got Musk and the scene. He’s gonna have a role in this what’s it called? This department for reducing employees in the federal government, whatever it’s called.

You’ve got him there and you’ve got a raft of people from what I’ve been reading, appointed who was like a DJ on a radio station. Someone else who was some whatever with no political experience. Fox News host, right? No political experience and strong agendas. They’re all either anti-vaccine or they don’t believe in any of this stuff, or it’s all rubbish and it’s lies and everything else.

And it’s the Democrats who are behind all the.

You might [01:03:00] have a policy, and I wonder this is likely to happen. I’m sure that you know us, the new government’s in place from January and announcements are made about this happening or that happening, and then Trump goes and posts a post on his true social network that’s completely the opposite to that.

So what’s the federal government gonna do? The spokes scrambled around and change it. And I think in a short order, you’re gonna see what you believe and who you’re going to pay attention to. And this is chaos coming. Yeah. But more, more relevant, I guess to the, to our conversation on this topic. This is global.

This is not just American companies need to figure this out because you’ve got already, I’m seeing almost daily people talking about if Trump does this for the, the tariffs if there’s a trade war coming and this company’s gonna do that, and how are we gonna do this?

You’ve got that. As part of the scenario, and it may be second or third person down the track as it were, compared to the primary audience, which is in the United States. This [01:04:00] does affect everyone effectively. I would say wherever you are, if you are a communicator, you need to be cognizant of these developments and these trends or these movements, whatever you might wanna call them, in preparation for what’s coming after January.

And Trump is signaling, already thinks I’m gonna do this when I’m inaugurated or after I’m inaugurated. So you’ve got, on the one hand the dire stuff that we hear about, which is deep mass deportations out of the US You, you’re hearing people say that can’t happen. So you’ve already got chaos surrounding that.

How’s it gonna happen? Who’s gonna do it? Is it gonna happen? What about, what are you saying? Are you gonna deport everyone? Including all those legally settled, Trump doesn’t seem to make much distinction overall this, no one else is able to fill the vacuum. So we are looking to, I. Chaotic period.

And if I were a communicator in a senior role in a big organization, I’d be having attention paid galore to all of this and enabling me to be able to [01:05:00] make, to provide counsel to the senior leaders of that organization. Because you have to be prepared for the un unpreparable basically. Yeah. He hasn’t he doesn’t take office for seven weeks and he is already created this kind of chaos.

He’s already getting all the attention. He had a phone call with the president of Mexico and he gets out there and says she promised to deal with the border and she had to come out and said, I never said anything like that. That’s right. He’s just continuing to make shit up. I think, and that’s chaos.

I have a feeling he does, I think he does a lot of this and he’s laughing to himself as he’s doing this thing. No, he knows what he’s doing. Yeah. Yeah. He does. But getting back to the corporate side of this since I don’t want it to just become a biased political diatribe what organizations need to do in their planning, and it wasn’t covered in any of the material I read on this is considered that shift in the media that you use to get your message out.

This is not just to deal with sociopolitical issues during the Trump administration. Look what happened during the [01:06:00] campaign. We addressed this in one of our midweek episodes in the past month, that podcasts wielded undue influence in social media. Very little this time around. Nobody talked about, the Russia or China.

Influenced social media feeds and the like, having influence. We didn’t hear about the sending people to a rally that didn’t exist and things like this just didn’t come up. The DeepFakes didn’t play that big an issue. Everybody was worried about that. Social media. It’s because the attention has shifted to other sources of information and as we are planning those.

Statements, those positions where we do feel compelled to take a position then we have to consider how are we gonna do that? Are we gonna be talking to influencers? Are we gonna have them on deck ready to help us on our behalf? Are we going to have podcasts we can reach out to and get our spokespeople onto episodes to discuss it?

Podcasts that have [01:07:00] audiences that we wanna reach. So we really need to be rethinking the priorities that we have for the media that we’re going to use. Sending out a tweet these days may reach the audience. You distinctly don’t want to reach with these types of things. So I think it’s time to be rethinking our media hierarchy.

Anyway, this is a particularly urgent reason to jump on that. Yeah, we’ve got less than two months to get prepared for this.

Let’s talk about Blue Sky for a change. I’m sorry. Blue sky. Blue sky, that new network. We have talked about Blue sky and you can’t really escape from this in terms of what’s happening with this. Most people, I suspect, don’t care at all. And I probably still quite happy on Twitter or X rather.

Some are just blank not doing anything. But in reality, this is a shift in the landscape of of how you engage with people on social media, across social networks, and it’s worth adding this. [01:08:00] Topic, this kinda subtopic to it all, which is the growing apps ecosystem. So tools that you can use to do certain things in blue sky or use its data to do or whatever.

It’s quite interesting because we’re seeing this emerging quite quickly as a haven for developer creativity. That echoes the app building energy we saw in Twitter’s early days. And that was, in my mind when I was thinking about this topic. This reminds me of the 2007, 2008 period. Twitter was founded in 2006.

I joined in December that year. And in a sense, not a lot happened for six, seven months or so until developers suddenly started doing things and things began to pick up in a very interesting way in terms of functionality, in terms of enjoyment of what you were doing and how you could achieve things that otherwise you couldn’t.

If developers had not got involved, Twitter was a developer friendly. Service at that time. So those early [01:09:00] days are very much an echo. While platforms today, like threats have yet to nurture innovation like this, blue Sky’s fostering an expanding ecosystem of third party applications and tools.

This open approach to development is a crucial differentiator, creating exciting opportunities for both users and developers. A, an emerging hub for this, it’s not. Topi built yet, but it’s emerging. Is the Blue Sky directory launched in November by Muhar Ikal, a prolific creator with a history of building impactful side projects according to his bio, the directory aggregates tools, apps, and community resources, making it easier for users to navigate and maximize their blue sky experience.

Al was inspired to create the directory after noticing the lack of a centralized resource for tools and starter packs within the Blue Cut Sky ecosystem. In his words, like everyone getting active here, I’m looking for resources to help me make the most of the platform. I found a couple of GitHub repos and blog posts with lists of [01:10:00] tools to get started, but not a great directory.

So I’m gonna build one. That’s how it started a few weeks ago. Currently, the directory includes really useful sections curated by him, startup X. This is a new thing that features custom feeds and user collections, people that people have created that are tailored to specific interest and communities and are very useful for new people coming to be sky and suddenly find there’s a place or there’s a tool they can use that includes other users and you can follow them straight away, all in one place, sub attune to your own interests.

Lists which provide themed, shareable groups of accounts or content for easier engagement, that the, there’s a directory of those clients, meaning apps, third party apps showcasing alternative apps for accessing blue sky, such as gray sky and deck blue. If you use TweetDeck in the ages, in the days of Twitter pre and post 2010, by the way, deck Blue will be very familiar.

And there are utilities [01:11:00] tools like the Blue Sky Feed Creator that lets users build custom feeds without coding knowledge. So IQ Bal updates the directory dynamically incorporating new tools and PAC shared across the platform. His approach demonstrates the power of user-driven development, and the commitment to making Blue Sky an accessible and resource rich environment.

This openness has also inspired developers outside the directory to innovate in unique ways. For instance, I recently started experimenting with Auto Blue, a WordPress plugin by Daniel Post, a WordPress developer that automatically shares blog posts to blue sky. Seamless integration of blogging and social media underscores.

Blue Sky’s potential to become a hub for creators. We might see a resurrection of the bloggers fish because of stuff like this. Another standout is Blue Sky comments, which allows comments on a blue sky post, but a blog entry to appear directly on the blog itself. This reminds me a lot of the functionality of tools like Chat Catcher for Twitter created by Shannon Whitley in 2008, [01:12:00] which I used to unify social conversations around my WordPress blog post back then.

So again, the parallels between early Twitter I. Early blue sky are, I think, quite marked. This is not X, this is nothing to do with the toxicity on that platform. This is harking back to the embracing of innovation and ideas and openness to enable things to work for lots of people. I think it’s phenomenal.

So these tools highlight that spirit of creativity and openness in Blue Skyes develop a community, a stark contrast to the closed ecosystems of competitors like threats. By encouraging such innovation, blue Sky is cultivating an environment that empowers users and developers to shape the platform collaboratively.

So question view then. How do you see this renewed app building energy, influencing Blue Sky’s growth and positioning in the social media landscape? And what can we learn or what can other platforms take from this approach to fostering third party innovation? Do. I think [01:13:00] what I it’s really smart on Blue Sky’s part to allow this, there is a case to be made that Twitter took off because of the creation of all of these third party apps that they allowed through an open API tweetbot, terrific Phoenix, TALEN for Twitter tweet deck, a huge one Echo phone.

And then there was the integration of Twitter into other tools like Hootsuite and Buffer. They’ve been shut off of Twitter because of the closing of the API. And I think that’s why I. I’m wondering if some of these third party developers are a little nervous because the owner of the platform can decide arbitrarily at any moment that we’ve gotten big enough, we want all of the views coming through our apps and not third party apps for the variety of reasons that they would have to do that.

And keep in mind that blue sky started with Jack Dorsey. I know he’s not [01:14:00] involved anymore, but his DNA is still in the organization. In fact, when he brought in the CEO of Blue Sky, she’s the CEO now, it was to create a federated approach for Twitter. And as she dug into the code, she said, I can’t do that, but I could do that with a new social network.

So he funded the startup of Blue Sky. That’s how it got started. His DNA is there I’d be a little worried that. Any third party app is not long for this world. Once it becomes more advantageous from a business perspective to control all of the apps rather than have all of the third party apps that help them build their user base.

I see where you’re coming from with that. I wouldn’t have that worry in the sense that you say Dorsey’s DNA is still there. I don’t think it is. It was at the very beginning, but this is not. What you see now is not what he envisaged back then, because this was gonna be part of Twitter. This is part of how Twitter would evolve.

[01:15:00] But from what I’ve read he got impatient with things, certain stuff he didn’t like. So he quit and he left. So Jay Graber, the CEO, interesting woman reading a bio in the background. And you’re right, others have said this too. Oh yeah. But what happens if they suddenly say, sorry, we’re closing everything.

I don’t believe they’re gonna do that. And I feel. That what I see there and what I hear this is not the same environment as Twitter at the time they did that when Dorsey was still there, by the way this is a different place in my opinion, and I think that you hear it and you think, fine keep an open mind on it then.

But I don’t see this at all. And I think any of these developers who are building stuff take a huge risk in that case. And they’re willing to do it. I’ve not seen anyone really seriously making the claim that, watch out. You’re gonna lose your shirt because they’re gonna do this.

I’m not seeing that. But I think more positively, as you yourself noted, that this is truly extraordinary, that they are enabling this, which is great. [01:16:00] And if they’re doing this so that they can say, thanks a lot guys. We’re now gonna do this in the road. I don’t believe they’re gonna, that hope I’m right.

I hope you’re right too. But business is business and businesses make unpopular well, there’s ethical s in their own self interest and there’s not ethical business. Yeah. I think I, if I were advising an organization who asked me the same question, I’d say there the, there might, that’s the possibility.

Keep in mind, take it into account in your planning in that case. Yeah. Yeah. Keep in mind that their goal is not to make money through advertising, but through fees for extended services and that’s what people are speculating about, and they have indicated that is something they’re under considering, but it’s not set yet.

They’re not making any money, by the way. It’s not like every startup. Yeah. They’re no they’re getting investor dollars, making a nickel from they’re not making money, they’re not making profits. No. They’ve got money to keep going and pay the staff and stuff like that. Yeah. But this is very early days.

This is only just now taking off. Yep. I’d have a very open mind about what speculation is about. What’s I wouldn’t avoid as a user, I wouldn’t avoid using any of these tools. When Twitter shut down [01:17:00] access to the tool that I was using, I just switched to another one that they, was a Twitter.

Based tool. And it was fine. I didn’t like it as much, but I could still participate on the platform. So take advantage of these while they’re there and if they indeed never close the API and allow this ecosystem to continue to grow, that’ll be great. If they don’t, we’ll deal with it with, I think there’s things about their plans we don’t know about.

Oh, clearly there’s things about what possibilities are. Maybe APIs will change in terms of how we regard them, how people might use them. There are too many no unknowns. And then to quote a famous American politician, there are a lot of unknown unknowns that we don’t do know about. So there, there’s a question mark over a great deal of this.

So it’s a leap of faith, I suppose you could argue, but I think that in the spirit of of support that yeah. Listen to what people say about that. Make up your own mind. But in the meantime get to know what you can do with this. And [01:18:00] if blue skies suddenly turn around in six months to a year and say, we’re actually gonna do that, then your worst fears will have arisen.

I don’t believe that’s gonna happen. One of the things that was discussed recently on Blue Sky was Coca-Cola’s Holiday commercial. When Coke released its holiday advertisements this year, they weren’t expecting the firestorm that erupted. Their decision to use AI to generate its highly anticipated Christmas commercial sparked immediate controversy, particularly among advertising and marketing professionals who labeled the results as soulless and disastrous.

The controversy highlights attention that has been growing in the worlds of advertising and marketing. On one side, are creative professionals committed to human artistry and Hollywood quality production values. On the other are companies eager to demonstrate their technological prowess to Wall Street, particularly through high visibility holiday campaigns.

Coca-Cola’s approach is particularly noteworthy working with three AI [01:19:00] focused agencies. They created multiple versions of their classic 1995 holidays are coming commercial now. The company maintains that this wasn’t about cost cutting, but rather about personalization. They can now target 12 different US cities with customized versions of the commercial, each showing local landmarks local to that city, which yeah, makes sense as a sound reason to use ai.

That’s the same thing we’ve been talking about with your CEO delivering remarks at a town hall in America in English, and then being able to. Create that video with them saying the same things in all the languages your employees speak around the world. It’s AI enhanced dubak for all practical purposes.

But the feedback came from people like Al Hirsch, a TV series creator who commented on X fun fact. Coca-Cola is red because it’s made from the blood of out of work artists, and that tweet had nearly 700,000 views. [01:20:00] Other comments read Pepsi. Now’s your chance to make a live action ad bashing on Coke for using AI and nothing like celebrating the spirit of Christmas with the most solace commercial possible.

Even Shelly Palmer, advanced media professor at Syracuse University and digital marketing consultant said that it sucked. Now, Coca-Cola issued a statement, and I’m gonna read the whole statement. It’s a full paragraph here. The Coca-Cola company has celebrated a long history of capturing the magic of the holidays and content, film events, and retail activations for decades around the globe.

We are always exploring new ways to connect with fans and experiment with different approaches. This year we crafted films through a collaboration of human storytellers and the power of generative ai. Coca-Cola will always remain dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology.

That was a big screw you to everybody who was complaining about the ad, but here’s where we get a twist in the [01:21:00] story. While advertising professionals mocked the badly rendered logos and shiny faces, consumers mostly seemed unfazed the flood of insulting comments on YouTube. Notwithstanding research from System one shows the ads scored really well with viewers who either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the AI generated imperfections that horrified critics.

Now this disconnect points to a broader shift in advertising. As pr, the car, Coca-Cola’s, global head of generative AI suggests, and I would note that he’s the global head, not the Chief AI officer. Much of the backlash may reflect industry professionals anxieties about their own futures. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has already transformed its advertising approach, shifting 60% of its media budget to digital and creating thousands of contextually relevant content pieces measured in real time.

And we’re not seeing the same level of complaints around all of those. While advertising purists [01:22:00] may yearn for the days of, I’d like to buy the world a Coke, consumers appear ready to accept AI generated content as long as it maintains emotional resonance. And that goes back to a point you made Neville in, in the look ahead about what consumers are looking for from social media.

This suggests we’re witnessing not just a technical evolution, but a fundamental shift in how brands connect with their audiences. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that last sentence. She I have to admit I yawned, when I heard about all the criticism, it reminds me of what’s been going on here in the UK over the past couple of weeks about the rebranding of Jaguar, the car maker, new logo that has had everyone from politicians to celebrities to whoever complaining they destroyed the brand venerable British brand.

My goodness, what’s going on? But they’re holding firm and basically doing the same kind of response idea as you suggested CO’s doing. I just wonder if [01:23:00] the critique is mostly from industry people, IE advertising folks and so forth, and yet the consumers that the ad is aimed at, like it how do you deal with that?

What do you do? Is that not the same perhaps as. The Hollywood movie comes out, the critics absolutely slam it, but it goes on to make billions in the box office. Do you care what the critics say in that case? I think that’s when you issue a statement like the one the Coca-Cola did that said, we’re fine with this.

This is very consistent with our history and we’re gonna keep on doing it. Yeah, I’d not seen the ad. I’ve just dug it out now on YouTube and I see all the 3000 comments, including the top of the list. Is that one you mentioned about Pepsi, now is your chance to make a live action. Ad bashing coke.

You are a multi-billion dollar company. Says one comment, hire some animators. Yeah I get it. I get it. I can’t really say much, so I have not having seen the ad, I’m gonna take a look at it. Yeah. I read probably four or five articles about this because when this erupted, it really erupted.

And [01:24:00] so I read several articles and then I went and found the ad and watched it, and I shrugged and I said, I don’t see what the big brouhaha is here. I should say. I don’t see what the kerfuffle is here. It seemed fine to me. I had no issue with it. And if I was just, sitting back on the couch watching a football game and during the commercial break that commercial came up, I would not lean forward and go, Hey, that’s really lousy AI they used there.

I, I, unless. Unless you’re in the industry then you would, yeah. Yeah, this may be if I was worried about my job and I saw that, although I have to tell you, if I didn’t know that had been produced using AI and I watched it casually during a commercial break and a football game, I wouldn’t have wondered, I would’ve just said yeah, there’s another animated Coke commercial, so I may actually, it’s more than one ad, right?

There’s a series, because I saw some maybe 12 versions of it. Okay. I saw I saw something the other day on, actually on Blue Sky, which I looked at for about 10 [01:25:00] seconds before I my phone rang. And so I didn’t, which was an animation of a giant Santa Claus in a store leaning behind him and picking up a Coca-Cola truck and placing it on the street outside, and the truck then drives away, and I first thought was, that’s ai.

I said to myself, that must be part of it though. I don’t recall that particular scene, but I’ve only watched it once. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll, because it’s on YouTube, I’ll embed that video in the show notes for this episode when I get around to doing the show notes. When you get around to the show notes, it’s a, it’s an interesting situation.

And I think like the Jaguar situation I mentioned what I see the outcome from this, the immediate outcome from this is that the brand is getting huge attention. Everyone is thinking about Jaguar cars and even the ones who aren’t commenting I’ve not seen a huge amount of support. I’ve seen lots of people saying, look, get over this for God’s sake.

It’s a, it’s just a car logo. It’s actually more than [01:26:00] just a car logo. So you might have the same with the Coca-Cola thing. But nevertheless, bottom line, the brand’s getting a lot of attention. Who was it who said no publicity is bad publicity? This could be in that scenario.

People are thinking about Jaguar, so that can’t hurt. But yeah, I remember the discussion with Mitch Joel years ago about the fact that when radio emerged, a lot of Vaudeville theaters went out of business because the entertainment shifted to radio. And the same thing. It’s happened hundreds of times for various reasons as innovations have taken root and become default ways of doing things to suggest that AI is not going to become a typical and regular component of video production is ridiculous.

So get used to it and figure out how to make a living in that world. It actually applies to general areas we’ve talked about, which is, oh, you are a [01:27:00] copywriter and using AI to write some of your stuff. That it fits into that area too. Oh, you, we can’t have this. You need a copywriter to do.

There’s still that thinking there. And I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying that things are evolving quite fast in these areas and it would be a grave error, I think, for any organization or individual to say, to just dismiss and say, you can’t use that for that purpose. And maybe part of it is articulating the underlying fear of change the underlying belief.

In many cases it’s probably true in some that. Deploying this technology in that industry is gonna lead to job losses. And you can do the thinking yourself to think of a certain role. One, one thing I think a lot about when I see the recycling crews coming around the neighborhood to empty the recycling, if ever there was a job desire for robots, that this is it.

And those six guys in this brand new truck who do a great job their days are numbered. Is the thought I have sometimes. So [01:28:00] is that bad? I don’t know. It’s change and at a time when every industry, everywhere is struck for money and resourcing all this stuff, these are an inevitability about some of this unpleasant though.

Much of it is. It’s people we’re talking about, right? Yeah. This is part of that. It seems to me. The other thing to keep in mind is that as jobs are lost, jobs are also going to be created. Different 30 years ago, how many web developers were there? How many social media consultants and employees were there?

How many companies had departments that were, digital? How many podcasters were there? It’s, that’s right. And podcast advertising services. And yeah. This is creative destruction. This is the way it works. It’s been that way for, centuries the old buggy whip manufacturer complaining about automobiles.

It’s this, just, this is the way the world works. So tune in next. Tune in next time for more good news about what’s happening in our world. And that will draw this episode of four Immediate Release [01:29:00] to a close. Our December episode is scheduled to drop on Monday, December 23rd. We will be recording that the Saturday before.

In the meantime, I hope that you will drop us a comment. The way most people do that these days is commenting on the LinkedIn or Facebook posts that we offer up to let you know that a new episode’s available. We also post those on threads on Blue Sky on Mastodon. We haven’t talked about Mastodon in a while, but we do.

Share our posts there. And there are other ways to comment. You can send us an email send that email to fir [email protected]. Attach up to a three minute audio if you would like. We haven’t had one of those in ages. So you know, that’s because Kim Hansen retired so we don’t get audio comments anymore.

You can record that audio comment directly from our website at fir podcast network.com. There is a send voicemail tab on the [01:30:00] right. Just click that you can leave a comment on the show notes at FI comment or FI podcast network.com. And we do hope that you will leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts so that new listeners can find us and that dear listeners will be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

The post FIR #437: AI Takes Root in the Workplace appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Bluesky — the Twitter-esque social network that has suddenly started attracting refugees from Elon Musk’s X — had its start when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey asked software engineer Jay Graber to introduce federation to Twitter. She told him she couldn’t, but she could create a new social network based on a new federation protocol called AT, a decentralized foundation for public social media. At first, Bluesky was an invitation-only network. Many of those who scored invites were underwhelmed. But a surge of migrations from X has reinvigorated Bluesky, which is also adding features as a further incentive for people to join and stay. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss Bluesky’s potential and whether communicators should consider establishing a presence for their companies or clients.

Links from this episode:

• Bluesky’s Boom: Are We Watching the Next Big Shift? – NevilleHobson .com
• Journalists Are Leaving X for Bluesky. Will They Stay There?
• Bluesky Is Growing Up. Maybe Too Fast.
• Benefits of an open network
• Inside Bluesky’s big growth surge
• Mass X-odus: professionals desert Elon Musk’s network
• Number of users on Bluesky
• How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth
• Journalists Are Leaving X for Bluesky. Will They Stay There?
• Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky
• CIPR to Cease Engagement on Twitter
• PRovoke Media Will No Longer Post on X
• ‘Growing space for connection’ – why charities are finally moving to Bluesky
• X-odus: Should Your Company Leave X?

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 2.

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:

00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 436 of four immediate release. I’m Shell Holtz. And I’m Neville. Hobson. In this episode, we are gonna talk about Blue Sky. It’s something that you probably will have heard of. It’s a social network. The new Challenger one in the news hugely. This past week, today, blue Sky, surpassed 22.7 million users.

That’s a significant leap from 7 million. Just three months ago, disillusioned users are migrating from x former Twitter in search of healthier online spaces. This surge mainly since the US presidential election, early this month and widely reported across mainstream and social media during the past week highlights a broader shift in professional and organizational engagement as users abandoned platforms that feel no longer serve their needs.

Are we watching the next big shift in the media landscape, or is this simply the latest fat? We’ll share our thinking [00:01:00] right after this.

Blue Sky’s rapid growth presents both opportunities and challenges. Casey Newton, the platformer noted yesterday that the platform faces significant hurdles in scaling its infrastructure and implementing robust content moderation systems to ensure user safety and trust as blue sky expands. Balancing its decentralized ethos with these operational demands will be critical.

Organizations too are taking note. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, CIPR in the UK under CEO Alistair MCC Capra announced it would cease engagement on X immediately due to concerns over the platform’s direction. The CIPR set up an account on Blue Sky yesterday complimenting its established presence on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Similarly, Paul Holmes, founder of Provoke Media stated that his publication will no longer post on x. Reflecting a growing trend among professional media outlets. The Guardian’s decision last week to stop posting new content on X marks a pivotal moment in how [00:02:00] major media organizations are rethinking their social media strategies with over 27 million followers across its accounts on X.

This isn’t a small shift. It’s a significant recalibration of priorities for one of the world’s most respected media outlets. Charities and advocacy groups are also finding a new space for connection on Blue Sky. According to Civil Society News, many charities are setting up accounts on the platform, leveraging its community driven ethos to engage audiences authentically.

The scientific community has been quick to embrace Blue Sky as well with Science magazine reporting that researchers and academics are increasingly using the platform to share knowledge and collaborate. This migration underscores Blue Sky’s potential as a hub for professional and intellectual discourse.

We’re also seeing political communities making moves. Political engagement on social platforms is often a key indicator of their relevance and staying power. Blue Sky’s adoption by UK Labor Party members of Parliament and discussion among influential [00:03:00] voices in the European Union about Blue Sky’s potential role are significant developments.

These shifts highlight the platform’s growing appeal as a space for public discourse, one that feels safer, more transparent, viable, and far less chaotic than X on whether organizations should leave X entirely. Luke Brinley Jones, founder of OST Marketing, argues for a balanced approach. In his piece on the Exodus, he highlights the importance of carefully weighing the cost and benefits before making such a move, noting that abandoning X prematurely could leave organizations out of important conversations.

Blue Sky’s decentralized framework and user-friendly design have attracted praise, but its long-term viability will depend on its ability to address scalability and trust. As Casey Newton noted, the Columbia Journalism Review has highlighted how American journalists have found blue Sky to be a promising alternative to X.

Though retaining their engagement will depend on the platform maintaining its unique appeal without succumbing to the [00:04:00] challenges that plagued its predecessor. And what about threads? Meta’s Ex Challenger that now boasts over 275 million users is not getting the same attention and buzz as blue sky with its vibe, open, creative, and refreshingly free of the corporate polish.

That makes threads feel well a bit lifeless by comparison. Yet Meta says Threads is now getting over a million new signups every day, and X has over 600 million monthly users at the moment. Blue Sky is tiny by comparison. Still, blue sky feels like a place where people actually do want to be, and we’re already seeing a third party app ecosystem taking shape.

A definite sign of strong interest from the developer community. The energy on the platform is unreliable, and the moment is hard to ignore. I think it’s fair to say that if blue sky keeps surging, it’s hard not to see threads slipping further into the background, no matter the numbers. Looking ahead the next few months will be crucial for Blue Sky.

The platform must navigate its growing pains while continuing to [00:05:00] attract and retain users and organizations. Its ability to scale responsibly while preserving its community driven ethos could well determine whether it becomes a viable alternative to x. Or just another chapter in the ever-changing social media landscape.

What do you think? Shell, is Blue sky poised to become the next big thing, or will it fade like so many others? I think it depends on the steps that they take going forward. They can, it depends. Good answers certainly stumble and it depends. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. They certainly could stumble make some mistakes that drive people away or slow their growth.

On the other hand, they could take steps that attract more people. They seem to be. Taking the approach of slow and steady implementation of new features adopting some of the ones that are popular over on threads. One of the things that I think is going to drive its adoption. Is that they’ve taken a hands off approach [00:06:00] to the content that people share.

Both on X and on threads. They are tamping down posts with links in them. They don’t want those. What made Twitter, what it was the real time nature of people sharing information. People used Twitter. To find out what was happening in the news because it’s where news broke and it’s where journalists were sharing links to what they were reporting or.

Giving you heads up on what they were reporting. And you can’t really do that on threads because the algorithm is not real time. It’s more geared toward, social fun stuff. And without links rising to the top on X, you’re not gonna be able to do it there either, even though. There are still some journalist communities that have not made a move from x.

I was listening to a podcast just yesterday on my way home from work where they were talking about the fact that the whole national [00:07:00] football league sports reporting community continues to thrive on X. It has, nobody’s made the move over to either threads or. Blue sky. This is all happening at the same time that we’re seeing a tremendous fragmentation.

We have generations that are more inclined to spend time in their groups on WhatsApp or on TikTok. So are we gonna see Blue Sky become the next Twitter? I have serious doubts that anybody, regardless of what they did could. Assume that kind of popularity because people have too many options and they have their preferences.

They like what they like. There were fewer options back in 2007 when Twitter was first introduced, it was the first Microblogging tool and people gravitated there the real time. Nature of it made it very exciting compared to some of the other options that are out there. Even [00:08:00] if they do have 600 million over on X monthly users that’s a drop in the bucket.

Compared to what the 4 billion on Facebook. All these things are relative. But it will continue to grow. And the other thing I wanted to mention real quickly is that its federated model is mostly aspirational at this point. There are not a lot of servers that have been set up with the AT protocol.

You’re seeing more of that with the activity pub protocol. From Mastodon. There are a lot of instances that have been set up which is the one that threads uses, which is why we’re seeing that kind of cross-posting through threads, but you’re not seeing a lot of it. It, it is pretty much a monolith right now, even though that protocol exists.

Just this morning, by the way, I was reading a website that explained how to set up an at server and it’s involved compared to. Process. This is not for the casualty or the average user. Certainly not. And in fact, I think the point about mention [00:09:00] numbers, I think we need to stop mentioning these numbers because that’s not the important thing.

Twitter’s rather blue sky is not suddenly gonna overtake Twitter and eclipse it. It’s simply not possible. It’s totally and your point about, football league and others who are massive on. X and haven’t ported over that is absolutely the case with many others. So I think to put this in the correct perspective, this is not like a sudden tsunami about to happen.

Of all these people suddenly gonna flood over to blue sky. I can’t see that happening. It’s it. If things are moving, there is definitely something in the air. On the examples I mentioned on who is leaving or who is in fact more significantly, I think, is to talk about who is setting up shop on Blue Sky rather than who is migrating from x.

Most of these people aren’t closing down X, they’re still there in one form or another, which to me is a sensible thing. No matter how you feel about Elon Musk and his behavior and the interference he does, and all these [00:10:00] stuff that he seems to do that upsets a lot of people. Reality. There are people using x in their millions.

As ways of keeping in touch as ways of alerting people about something, whether it’s an event or a disaster or some other thing. The weather even. All that flight information isn’t suddenly all gonna migrate. So this is for, I think for those who feel they just don’t want to be on X anymore and want to be someplace more pleasant.

And I would argue from experience. Blue Sky is a much more pleasant place. It’s not the same as XO got 600 million against 22.7. Of those 600 million, what half are bots probably. And the other half are mixture of nice people and some pretty nasty characters in there too. So it’s that kind of difference yet.

Something is shifting. The sands are moving. It seems to me when you’ve got things like the vibe is changing too. Yeah. You mentioned about the AT protocol. So I’m testing something which I’ve just installed. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, which is a plugin for WordPress. [00:11:00] That when you post a blog post, it’ll also share it to Blue Sky.

We already have that with threats. Now we’ve got something like this on blue sky. That’ll appeal to a lot of people. Another one, not WordPress specific, lets you host your comments on Blue Sky. That appeals to me hugely reminds me of the outstanding work Shannon Whitley did back in before 2010 I think it was, where he created tools that, had huge takeup. And I look back on my blog in those days and find it’s absolutely cram full of comments made on Twitter that were then posted to the blog as well. And that was a, actually it was a plugin that Shannon created. So if we can get to that area, then that adds, I think, momentum to a platform that would make it easy to to attract attention from a lot of people.

We are early days. This is early. Early adoption days. Where we’re at currently. So this is not mass migration time at all. Yeah. But the other thing that I think will drive [00:12:00] adoption is it’s not the media coverage it’s getting now, which is all about how people are. Migrating from X, it’s the media coverage is gonna get when the media starts reporting news based on posts on Blue Sky and you have enough influential people moving to Blue Sky from X saying things that the media might want to cover, that you’re gonna see and increased volume.

Of you remember how you used to see tweets all the time embedded in news coverage of events. You still do on the websites, you still do, but you’re gonna start to assuming that they’re gonna allow you to. Do that. I’m sure they will. You’re gonna start to see the blue sky posts, whatever they’re called.

I don’t, what do they call it? No do not use the word skeet. Whatever you do, it’s a disgusting word in my opinion. I, you didn’t hear me say it, did you? No. I said it. So did no, I don’t up yet. She. No one’s set that up yet. No one has set up embedding from from Blue sky too early days.

You can always do a screen grab if you needed to. Yeah, but the point is to [00:13:00] do it like you do it with Twitter or X doesn’t exist yet. You can’t do it. But that’s something they should consider because they are the real time. Their algorithm does not favor anything. No, it does let you follow a list.

I mean there’s Blue Sky books and writers and things like that. I did, by the way, love, I have to share. It was a tweet from Austrian Air Airlines. Yeah, that was a good one A few days ago it chose a flight attendant. With her arms out, like she’s pointing to the exits. And it says, we took a moment to locate our nearest exit, and the exit is not ex it’s the logo for XIT.

And beneath that, in very small type it says Austrian is closing this account effective immediately. So I think there are brands that are actually taking advantage of leaving X to. Make an exclamation point of that action. Yeah. But this is, this is, individual steps here and there, which get media attention.

It’s not gonna drive huge people to, to leave without question. But [00:14:00] like I said, this is, to me, the feel is there is a shift, there’s something in the air, something is moving. It’s not mass, it’s not a migration, it’s not an exodus of some say, although to individuals that you see it as an exodus. That’s fine.

It’ll coexist. You and I have talked about this quite a few times before that whatever we feel about X, like I mentioned, Elon Musk himself, the way he’s, he, depending on your point of view, ruined it or whatever he is done to it. It’s not gonna suddenly vanish as far as we can see right now.

Although anything’s possible tomorrow, who knows what he might do or not do. In the meantime, we have this alternative place that is attracting a huge amount of tension right now, and it’s being driven in mainstream media typically, and echoed in social and then reverberated back into mainstream.

I’m seeing media stories in some of the UK media talking about who’s saying what on. Blue sky. That’s because it’s a news story. Not because a matter of course they’re gonna do this. And the other thing you mentioned about threats not being a news place. Yeah. They actively [00:15:00] discouraged news in those early days.

And wouldn the surface news stories. I think they made a huge mistake doing that, frankly, because you didn’t get. Media, people, journalists, and anyone else going to thread at all? You didn’t at all. That’s beginning to change. I saw an announcement this morning, my time that thread had announced that now you can customize the feed.

What is your default rather than this for you? Stuff that, that. Pushes stuff out. You don’t want to wanna see really, or you don’t know whether you do, the algorithm thinks you might, you can now choose your own. They’ve pinched that idea from Blue Sky according to all the reporting I’ve seen about it.

In which case, what does that signify? Are they getting a little nervous about Blue Sky? Possibly. They’ve upped the ante and some competition’s good in that case, so it is still. Early days, you, we cannot say that this is the ex successor at all. We are seeing something that many people, including me, for that matter, find quite attractive.

Up until now, threads has been my primary social network. It still is, but Blue Sky is looking increasingly [00:16:00] attractive from my point of view. And I don’t see some are people talking about there’s too much US politics there. The magazines are in there. I don’t see any of that stuff. I really don’t.

So is that an algorithmic thing or is it because I’ve chosen feeds of what I pay attention to, which is not. The stuff that has, that you can decline seeing some of the stuff or the people you follow? As well. Some of the people I follow don’t talk about that kind of thing, or there’s one person who does, you’ve gotta have someone in there so you know what you don’t wanna be seeing.

It is very much like Twitter, 2008 period, as I see it, frankly. It’s a pleasant place. That was what that was like back then. Before algorithms, before the advertisers got in, before the ugly people got there. And the cesspit it is now is a different thing. It is not comparative. So it is interesting and I’m seeing people building lists a useful tool in blue Sky as a good half dozen I’ve seen of communicators of different.

Plays a lot of overlap between them. There’s a big one on internal communicators, a huge one on PR [00:17:00] people. And these you can get hold of and keep ’em yourself as well. And in which case you could follow just those if you wanted to. I like following things I don’t know yet because that’s how you get interesting stuff as well as the stuff you can avoid, but you’ll know it when you see it.

So it, it’s got that air of Twitter in those early days. The exploratory, the experimenting times, it’s good. Yeah. And get better as they add more features and tweak it. And I find that I’m spending more time on blue sky than I am on threads these days. Yeah. Just because I tend to find more interesting stuff there now.

And I suspect that’s the algorithm not pushing stuff down that I would be more interested in. Yeah, we’re here where I work we’ll be opening a blue sky account. We don’t wanna miss out on this just because of the 20 seconds it would take to cross post something there. Yeah. That’s actually what I would suggest to anyone who’s wondering, I work for x, y, Z company, what should I do something there?

Set up an account. Don’t close anything else. Yeah, just try it out. See, join things, talk to [00:18:00] people, see what it’s like, get a handle on it and make your decision then and see what others are doing that would be a smart move that would apply to any new social network by the way. That’s worth doing.

I think so. We’ll watch this with great interest. And also as people are creating those. I was gonna say is people are creating those topic driven lists. Find out where people are talking about things that your customers are interested in and join those conversations. Yeah, so we’ll keep an eye on this.

They’ve got some serious work to do. Casey Newton said that quite well, I think, and particularly on moderation and filtering out really vile content. And his interview with the guy who runs the trust and moderation team, there is quite. Eyeopening, quite insightful. I did read that, where he shares some insights on literally the issues they’re having to deal with, which is a microcosm of what the bigger networks are having to deal with.

Except of course the big one, Twitter, who doesn’t seem to do anything because they haven’t got the staff anymore. So they’re talking on Blue Sky, ramping up the [00:19:00] moderation team to currently 20 people to a hundred plus. And it’s still, maybe that’s a drop in the ocean because as.

Keep attracting new members. If this continues this wave, then they’re gonna need to do probably more than that. So it’s quite a challenging time for them, and I think we need to kinda recognize that this has got risks if you go there where you might get something. They did talk today about some overzealousness in preventing some of this stuff by suspending accounts that.

Just got caught up in the way. ’cause they mentioned a word that the algorithm actually is not the right word ’cause it has the wrong connotation. But they’re using a tool that is designed to spot and call out prohibited content. Stuff that, that doesn’t meet the parameters that humans can then look at.

So it’s used by many companies from what I read in an article. So I think awareness of this behind the scenes is useful to know as they’re building out something that. Will be trustworthy. I see people saying, yeah, but is it I’m worried about if I go there, I’ll see all this bad [00:20:00] stuff I see on x.

I think it’s unlikely. It’s worth a shot. Mind you, I think to just give it a go and do it carefully. Yeah, you have to be serious about content moderation. There are things that you just can’t allow. Even x can’t allow, child pornography on its site. So you’ve gotta be looking for all this stuff.

Blue Sky I think I read that the EU says it’s out of compliance with eu. Was it privacy rules? I think yeah. That’s a, they got work to do. They only have 20 employees. I think that’s a red herring shell. They’re not even the size in terms of use in terms of users how many they’ve got and all that stuff.

They don’t meet the minimum standard where the EU would pay attention to them. So this is a red herring. They did respond to that, by the way, by saying that they just looking for some help to identify who they should talk to. The eu. So they don’t have an office anywhere there. There you go.

I don’t think they do have an office. Yeah so does say EU has a website that makes it easy to find who to talk to and customer support. Yeah. Oh yeah. Anyway, they only have 20, they’re startup and they [00:21:00] employees, they haven’t got, they haven’t gotten themselves established yet. They’re only a startup.

They have only 20 employees that are full-time. They have no revenue stream. Everything that they’re getting right now is investment. They’re not talking about advertising as a means of producing revenue. They’re talking about subscription fees for special features and the like. So we’ll see how that all shakes out.

But yeah, it’s definitely worth watching. And that will be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

The post FIR #436: Nothin’ But Bluesky (and TikTok and Threads and Instagram and WhatsApp…) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss PR professionals wanting a seat at the table when it comes to business decision-making.

They explore the need for PR professionals to build relationships across departments, understand business dynamics, and communicate openly with other stakeholders.

The conversation emphasizes the value of collaboration, learning from each other, and navigating interdepartmental challenges to drive business growth and improve client relationships. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 252: Strengthening your PR agency’s role in business decisions appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Few communication disciplines are as challenging as executive communication. These professionals ensure that organizational leaders communicate effectively, whether making a speech or delivering testimony to a governmental body. In the November 2024 installment of Circle of Fellows, our panel explored executive communication challenges like rebuilding institutional trust in an era of widespread credibility loss, working closely with executives whose time is limited, and helping executives communicate effectively during a crisis. Learn how seasoned communicators navigate these complexities while avoiding communication failures that can escalate into PR disasters. Our panel of Fellows shared proven strategies for ensuring consistent communication among all members of an executive team, helping executives communicate the “why” behind decisions, and making good apologies when needed.

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. She is the vice-chair of the IABC Academy.

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.

Mary Ann McCauley is an independent consultant with extensive experience in nonprofits as staff, on boards, and as a consultant. Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations is her focus. Mary Ann takes a practical approach that results in achievable goals. Her experience includes working closely with executive directors, their staffs, and boards to help their organizations communicate and operate more effectively as a result of working on their business plans.

Bish Mukherjee is an advisor in marketing, media, public relations, and branding with over 40 years in the profession. He is the president of Misha Network. He did award-winning work for the Reserve Bank, BSES, Colgate-Palmolive, and Alstom. He has organized corporate events for the Queen of England, the British Prime Minister, and the French President. Bish has anchored a fortnightly TV show on Bombay TV. He was featured on Australia’s “Sixty Minutes.” Bish has taught advertising and PR. He is an executive board member of the Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce and is a PRCI Hall of Fame inductee; he also serves on the board of advisors of the Public Relations Council of India, from which he received a lifetime achievement award in 2019. Bish served on the editorial board for the house magazine of the Reserve Bank of India., and sub-edited several volumes of the NSW Compensation Court Reports and the Dust Diseases Tribunal in Australia. He has been conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award and Hall of Fame recognition from the Public Relations Council of India. In IABC, Bish was president of IABC India, and he started seven international chapters as director of the Asia Pacific region.

The post Circle of Fellows #110: Executive Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When executives justify their return-to-office mandates, they almost universally cite the collaboration and innovation that result from serendipitous encounters between employees. They also point to the need to boost productivity. The problem with these arguments is that the evidence does not support them. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel look at one financial services company that has seen eye-popping increases in performance metrics since listening to its employees and adopting a policy that lets employees work where they want. We also review a report on what it actually takes to build connections and collaboration in organizations.

Links from this episode:

• RTO mandates aren’t for everyone. Here’s what we did instead—and it’s working: Synchrony CEO
• Synchrony’s Rick Hartnack: ‘Remote Work Model Is A Competitive Advantage’
• What Employers Get Wrong About How People Connect at Work
• How to Improve Employee Engagement in the Workplace
• 5 Strategies To Boost Employee Engagement In The Workplace

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, November 25.

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:

@nevillehobson (00:03)
Hi everyone, welcome to episode number 435 of 4 Immediate Release. I’m Neville Hobson.

Shel Holtz (00:11)
I’m Shel Holtz. I was reading an article the other day by Brian Doubles, the CEO of Synchrony, which is a financial services company that offers consumer finance products. My Chevron gas station credit card is a Synchrony product. Doubles wrote in Fortune that amidst all the CEO calls for employees to return to the office, he’s had no second thoughts maintaining Synchrony’s policy, which I can best sum up as whatever. Want to work from the office? Fine. Work from home?

That’s fine too. Wanna be hybrid? You got it. Doubles does ask employees to live close enough to an office that they can get there for occasional meetings, training, and culture events. This policy stemmed from a survey of employees who said they wanted to be able to have work at home as an option and have access to the office from time to time without concern about it threatening their career or being seen as a negative.

Now, despite everything we’re hearing from the CEOs who are justifying the return to office mandate, Synchrony, using its approach, has risen to fifth on the Fortune 100 best companies to work for list. That’s up from 51st in 2019. And 95 % of Synchrony employees say it’s a great place to work and that the company’s way of working gives them the flexibility they need. So what’s going on with all of this justification?

that other CEOs are providing for their mandates for everybody to come back five days a week. We’re gonna dive into that right after this. In the article he wrote, Doubles explains that what Synchrony did to make this approach work, including making in-person events matter, adopting a coaching culture, supporting career journeys, no matter where the employees are situated,

And measuring outcomes versus time in the office are what really drove this success. And by the way, on that last one, Double says the company has seen stronger productivity and business outcomes. Employee turnover is lower. The company has experienced a 30 % increase in job applications. Meanwhile, CEOs everywhere are insisting that having employees in the office produces key benefits.

These include enhanced collaboration, the belief that physical proximity leads to spontaneous interactions, brainstorming sessions, and seamless communication. But yeah, spontaneous interactions can occur in an office setting, but the forced nature of return to office mandates have proven to result in employee dissatisfaction and resistance rather than genuine collaboration.

They also argue that you get stronger company culture. The idea that shared physical spaces cultivates a unique organizational culture and reinforces company values. And the big one, they believe that you get better productivity when people are in the office. The assumption is that in office work environments minimize distractions and facilitate better oversight leading to higher productivity levels. These, it’s important to point out, are myths.

For example, a recent survey found that only one in three executives who imposed return to office mandates saw even a slight positive impact on productivity. Doubles calls this a failure of imagination on the part of leaders everywhere. And while these points have some merit, we really have to examine whether these assumptions hold true in the current work landscape. Recent studies and expert analyses offer a more nuanced perspective. Let’s start with collaboration and connection.

There was an article in the Harvard Business Review recently that agrees that in-person work can facilitate spontaneous interactions, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to meaningful collaboration. The quality of interactions rather than their frequency or spontaneity is what truly drives effective teamwork. Next, let’s turn to employee satisfaction and retention. Data from the Great Places to Work organization suggests that

Rigid return to office mandates can negatively impact employee satisfaction and retention. Employees who have autonomy over their work environment tend to exhibit higher engagement and are more likely to stay with their organizations. And as for productivity metrics, findings from Gallup reveal that remote workers often match or exceed the productivity levels of their in-office counterparts. The flexibility of remote work can lead to better work-life balance, which in turn enhances overall performance.

The fact is, the research finds that meaningful connections develop through intentional engagement, not just physical presence. And while a physical presence coupled with efforts to create meaningful connections can produce these results, careful thought and planning can produce meaningful opportunities for connection and collaboration, regardless of where employees are doing their jobs. Organizations like Synchrony are achieving success by focusing on intentional engagement strategies

rather than arbitrary office attendance requirements. Now I raised this issue a few months ago, but it’s worth reiterating in light of this data about what truly drives connection and collaboration. We have to stop acting like remote or hybrid work is temporary. We have to stop using patchwork methods for engaging with employees, for guiding their career aspirations, for managing them and for keeping the culture strong. We have to help our organizations and leaders figure out how to develop

practices based on remote and hybrid work being the way business is done in the post-COVID era. Understanding employee preferences is crucial for this kind of success. Surveys indicate that a significant portion of the workforce values the flexibility that remote work offers. For example, a study by Buffer found that 97 % of employees would like to work remotely at least some of the time, indicating a strong preference for the flexibility that remote work provides.

And companies that offer flexible work arrangements are more attractive to top talent. Rigid return to office policies could deter potential candidates who prioritize work-life balance and autonomy. Now, this is a podcast about communications and there is a role for internal communicators here. This is an opportunity to help leadership understand that effective collaboration stems from well-designed processes and cultural support, not physical proximity.

The key is shifting the conversation from where work happens to how it happens most effectively.

@nevillehobson (06:56)
It’s a big topic, is it not? It actually what you’ve highlighted, I think, suggests strongly that all those organizations whose leaders are saying to people in demanding their return to the office five days a week are nuts. They don’t understand the way of things. think, listen to what you’re saying, I was saying to myself, if I were working for organization that was

that had a policy of coming back to the office. To me, the best way to do this is the hybrid approach. And you mentioned surveys talking about what employees themselves value and what they would like to do, which speaks to that, it seems to me, that you’d like the option to work at home or the office, whatever suits you. And that financial services company you spoke about, that’s their approach in the sense of, know, whatever works.

So you work at home or wherever, go to the office when you need to to meet with someone perhaps, or because you feel like going into the office that they just see people. I wouldn’t appeal to me to be working 100 % away from the office. I’d like to go into the office. I think though, the question in my mind is, if this is so, and the arguments are compelling,

that the forced return, enforced return to everyone five days a week, the office is not a good thing to do at all. What needs to happen then for those companies? And there are many of them here in the UK as well. I read now and again about such a company is implementing a return to work policy. How do you deal with that?

Shel Holtz (08:42)
It’s a challenge because I think what’s driving a lot of this is not what the leaders of these organizations are saying is driving it. I think there are some hidden agendas here. I think that there is pressure from governments, for example, to get people back into downtown corridors to support local businesses, the dry cleaners and the bistros and the sundry shops, the 7-Elevens, the Starbucks and the like that have been suffering because people are not working.

@nevillehobson (08:54)
Yeah.

Shel Holtz (09:11)
downtown, they’re not coming out during lunch and availing themselves of these services. I think there’s also the leases that these organizations are paying for these buildings that are sitting empty or half empty and some pressure to have people come in and occupy those spaces. I think there are probably some other

issues that are driving this. And what you’re hearing is that this whole collaboration and connection thing is this is the excuse that they’re making, even though there isn’t really data to support it. So I think that you need to do is is look at bottom line effectiveness of what’s happening in these organizations that have embraced remote and hybrid as just the way things are now companies like Synchrony and look at what they’re doing in order to make it work.

@nevillehobson (09:43)
Yeah.

Shel Holtz (10:00)
I mean, they’ve reconfigured their spaces in the buildings that Synchrony owns to accommodate cultural events and big meetings and get togethers that reinforce the culture without saying you need to be here every day just so you can sit at your desk and do whatever it is that you would have done at home without having to go on that commute.

@nevillehobson (10:10)
Hmm.

Hmm.

I was reading as well the Harvard Business Review piece and there’s a really interesting section that speaks to this directly and it sets it out pretty well I think. Let me read this bit. So what might be happening when employers issue return to office mandates? Colleague connection may increase as HBR.

because employees are milling about the same office and benefiting from random and serendipitous interactions. But at the same time, leader connection might decrease because employees feel their supervisors don’t understand their motivations or don’t care about the impact of the return to office mandate on their autonomy and their lives. Employer connections can also take a dive as the desire to work hard to see the company succeed is undermined by a feeling of betrayal.

And without clear and unambiguous links to why employees need to be back in the office, role connection can be negatively impacted as people believe they’re being evaluated based on their attendance more than their performance. I think that’s absolutely spot on that assessment. And in my view, I think there is that and I and visualize myself in that situation. I would feel the same, I think. And you might also feel that I’m coming to the office because they told me I have to, in which case.

that’s not a good start to doing this. And your your own productivity is likely to be heavily impacted because when you’re in the office, under those circumstances, you’re going to be chatting with people, they’re to come up to you and say hi, and you suddenly you’re in that sort of environment, rather than be focused on meeting with someone to pursue a project or do something. I you might do some of those things, but the the the climate, as it were, is not conducive to any of that.

of the combination of the fact you have to be there, so that’s why you’re there. The feeling of betrayal. And if there is lack of trust in your manager, the thing is doomed because elsewhere, and indeed, Gallup talks about this, well-skilled managers, the ability to coach their teams experience much greater productivity and all the stuff that goes along with that than teams that don’t have.

a manager like that or a supervisor. I don’t see any and it’s interesting what you say, Shell, where think there’s, you know, it’s like governments are interfering with this. I’m sure it’s similar in the US, but here in the UK, you’ve got empty office buildings everywhere and companies are struggling to fill them. They’ve to pay the rents and so forth. So that’s an incentive for them to persuade people to come back to the office. But

Most or many of those businesses you talked about, the dry cleaner, the beast, have closed and gone. They’re not there anymore. And so in this country, and this is probably different to the states, I’m sure, that public transport, broadly speaking, in most big cities is potluck, frankly, whether that train is actually going to arrive and get you there on time. the stress is dreadful. hear this all the time from friends of mine who do commute into London in particular, but also Manchester.

So all of those things are drivers to make you want to perform well from your home office or go in or is and or go in at a time that isn’t the old traditional rush hour. It’s far more likely that it’s going to be valuable if you do that way. It just seems to me crazy to insist on these mandated returns to offices. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Shel Holtz (13:54)
Yeah, mean evaluating people on attendance is ridiculous. The company does not succeed. There’s not a business analyst out there that evaluates the performance of a company or its desirability as an investment based on how many employees show up at the office. Those are not outputs that they’re looking for. There are other things that we hear about that are important to employees. Young employees need to be seen and mentored. But again, I think what we’re doing is…

@nevillehobson (13:58)
crazy.

Thanks

Shel Holtz (14:24)
looking at this as temporary, so we’re figuring out, well, how do we do this for now until we can get people back in the office and mentor them and coach them the way that we are accustomed to, rather than identifying new means of doing this, which is where we have to go. We have to find ways to make people visible, to have them mentored by various people in the organization, to coach them effectively as a manager when they are working remote or.

It can be done. There are organizations like Synchrony that are doing it quite well. Look at the fact that their turnover rate has dropped as a result of this. So I agree with what Mr. Doubles said, the CEO of Synchrony. It’s a failure of imagination on the parts of leaders who say the only way that we can make this work is going back to the way things used to be. Employees have moved on from this.

@nevillehobson (14:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s about right. So it’s a leadership issue more than anything else. Yet, I worry that nothing will make this change. And if anything, you can see the pressure increasing for people to go back to the office. Here in the UK,

what I’ve seen in mainstream media now and again in the past few months are the calls for this getting stronger and more forceful. It was like insisting this is going to have to be the only way these companies will survive is all the employees that go back to the office. And even this way, I we’ve touched on this sort of area before, but those are the companies that seem to me to have people in roles of power and influence who are

adamant that they’re not going to allow working from home anymore. And you got to come to the office. And the unspoken bit to me certainly is so we can control you, we can know what you’re doing, and stop you doing stuff we don’t want you to do. I look at the story that was topical here recently. One of the big banks here, National Westminster Group, issued a statement publicly that picked up a lot of attention that they prohibit employees using WhatsApp. And they’re not allowed to use the communication methods that are unofficial.

Translation, we don’t want to use the encrypted messaging apps because we can’t see what you’re saying. Now, it turns out that there was something bigger behind the scenes on this, that this was to do with something happened in the US with companies and employees using third party apps that were very risky. So there was issues surrounding that pressure put on the UK to do the same that led to this, it seems. Yet, that is totally

ridiculous, frankly, to do that. But I get it, there are people who don’t get it. And they are in positions of control and organization to make some of these, these edicts out there or put them out there. So in this context, though, this they seem to be getting it wrong completely. And you mentioned some of them. And I think the one that struck me in particular was regarding that financial services company, you mentioned that they have gone up to what 51st.

higher even than that is one of the best companies in America to work for.

Shel Holtz (17:34)
Yeah, they were 51st, now they’re, I think, fifth. So, I mean, that’s quite a dramatic improvement.

@nevillehobson (17:37)
Right, So in five years, it is. So that’s what other people are saying about them. And so surely, these organizations that are insisting people go back to the office, because that’s the new terms and conditions of your employment, are hitting the sand, it seems to me. I mean, I don’t know what else to draw upon itself, but it doesn’t seem a very good idea to insist on this.

Shel Holtz (18:01)
No, and I think your top performers who have been forced to come back to the office when they get a call from a recruiter saying, we have a position for you and you can work remote, they’re going to be very inclined to take that. And you’re going to see these companies lose the cream of the crop from their employee populations. And they’re going to be left with mediocre employees who can’t get a job elsewhere and keep coming to the office because they just don’t have a choice.

@nevillehobson (18:12)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

So you mentioned earlier, when you were laying out this this whole situation, an opportunity for community. So what advice would you say or what tips would you give to fellow communicators who are in an organization that is insisting on returning to the office? What could they do to try and influence opinion to change that?

Shel Holtz (18:50)
Well, I think leaders are motivated by data. So whatever data you can pull together, and I think it’s a combination of what your own employees are saying. Remember, employee voice is a critical component of employee engagement. So elevate that voice and let the leaders know.

how employees are feeling and what they’re thinking, and combine that with the fact that, I mean, only one in three CEOs with return to office mandates saw even a little bit of productivity improvement. Meanwhile, the ones that continue to have remote and hybrid are performing quite well from a productivity standpoint. And then you might wanna propose some communication channels or communication activities that…

are new to the organization that support the idea of connection and collaboration with a hybrid or a remote workforce that the organization can start to employ on a regular basis or at least experiment with so that we’re not just using something that’s cobbled together to get us through until everybody’s back in the same place.

@nevillehobson (20:00)
tips.

Shel Holtz (20:01)
And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of Four Immediate Release.

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