FIR Podcast Network

A Columbia University student was expelled for developing an AI-driven tool to help applicants to software coding jobs cheat on the tests employers require them to take. You can call such a tool deplorable or agree with the student that it's a legit resource. It's hard to argue with the $5 million in seed funding the student and his partner have raised. Also in this long-form monthly episode for April 2025: How communicators can use each of the seven categories of AI agents that are on their way. LinkedIn and BlueSky have updated their verification programs in ways that will matter to communicators. Onboarding new talent is an everyday business activity that is in serious need of improvement. A new report finds significant gaps between generations in the PR industry when it comes to the major factors impacting communication. Anthropic -- the company behind the Claude LLM -- warns that fully AI employees are only a year away. In his Tech Report, Dan York explains how BlueSky experienced an outage even though they're supposed to operate under a distributed model. Continue Reading → The post FIR #462: Cheaters Never Prosper (Unless They’re Paid $5 Million for Their Tool) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Videos from virtual influencers are on the rise, according to a report from YouTube. And AI will play a significant role in the service's offerings, with every video uploaded to the platform potentially dubbed into every spoken language, with the speaker's lips reanimated to sync with the words they are speaking. Meanwhile, the growing flood of AI-generated content presents YouTube with a challenge: protecting copyright while maintaining a steady stream of new content. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel examine the trends and discuss their implications.Continue Reading → The post FIR #461: YouTube Trends Toward Virtual Influencers and AI-Generated Videos appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Media outlets around the world -- and in particular in the U.S. -- are strategizing how to cover the incoming Trump Administration. Some are even planning to shift their focus to more soft news in order to retain readers and avoid drawing the president's ire. We look at the implications for the media relations industry in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #444: Preparing for Trump 2.0 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Longtime FIR listener (and one-time contributor) Bernie Goldbach asked Neville and Shel how they find quality conversations. That opened up a discussion about sources of information for staying current on communication and technology trends and how those habits have changed over the years.Continue Reading → The post FIR #345: Sources of Information appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The number of change initiatives companies impose upon employees has skyrocketed from two per year in 2016 to 10 in 2022. That has left employees with a serious case of change fatigue, increasing the likelihood that these initiatives will fail. Shel and Neville look at data from Gartner and advice on how to better handle the surge of change programs, many of which companies are undertaking in response to challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Also in this episode: Web3 has never captured the public's imagination. The lingo of Web3 may be partly to blame. Over half of public relations practitioners lack confidence in their data literacy skills. That's a problem when the simple but useless AVE metric is no longer the communicator's fall-back metric. The pandemic influenced the ways companies communicated with employees, leading to a shift in the elements of communication that lift organizations' internal brands. A quarter of Twitter users don't expect they'll be using the platform within a year. The uproar over perceived or real copyright violations inherent in the Large Language Models used by generative AI tools is poised to find its way into laws and regulations. Continue Reading → The post FIR #334: Employees Really Do Hate Change appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

While some assume NFTs are on their way out as the value of digital artwork has plummeted, brick-and-mortar retailers are increasingly finding ways to offer the ability to mint NFTs right in their stores. In this episode, Neville and Shel look at some of the latest developments in the evolution of collectible NFTs.Continue Reading → The post FIR #268: NFTs in the Checkout Lane appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Posts and videos featuring Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) hacks and formulas are flooding the web. We reported recently on one such hack focusing on press releases. But when you consider the kind of content on which the AI models rely for their answers, it may be more efficient to revert to good, old-fashioned PR and marketing.Continue Reading → The post FIR #479: Hacking AI Optimization vs. Doing the Hard Work appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For a while, businesses were flexing their social responsibility muscles, weighing in on public policy matters that affected them or their stakeholders. These days, not so much, with leaders fearing reprisal for speaking out. But silence can have its own consequences. Also in this episode: The gap between AI expectations and reality; rent-a-mob services damage the fragile reputation of the public relations profession; too many people think AI is conscious, so we have to devise ways to reinforce among users that it's not; Denmark is dealing with deepfakes by assigning citizens the copyright to their own likenesses; crediting photographers for the work you copied from the web won't protect you from lawsuits for unauthorized use. In Dan York's Tech Report, Dan shares updates on Mastodon' (at last) introducing quote posts, and Bluesky's response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Mississippi's law making full access to Bluesky (and other services) contingent upon an age check.Continue Reading → The post FIR #478: When Silence Isn’t Golden appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

With numerous competing business priorities demanding attention, and government policy decisions often pushing sustainability to the back of the agenda, organizational communication professionals play a critical role in keeping sustainability front and center. We are uniquely positioned to connect sustainability to the organization’s purpose, values, and long-term success, ensuring it is viewed not as an... Continue Reading → The post Circle of Fellows #119: Can Sustainability Be Sustainted? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

User-generated content is at a turning point. With generative AI models cranking out tons of slop, content repositories are being polluted with low-quality, often useless material. No website is more vulnerable than Wikipedia, the open-source reference site populated entirely with articles created (and revised) by users. How Wikipedia is handling the issue -- in light of its strict governance policies -- is worth watching, especially for organizations that also rely on user-generated content.Continue Reading → The post FIR #477: Deslopifying Wikipedia appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Swarms of consultants descend on companies that have engaged their firms, racking up billable hours and cranking out PowerPoint presentations that summarize the data they've analyzed. That business model is at risk, given the amount of that work that AI can now handle. Recognizing the threat, some consulting firms are actively reengineering their businesses, with McKinsey out in front. In this short midweek episode, Shel and Neville review the actions of several firms and agencies, and discuss what might come next for consultants.Continue Reading → The post FIR #476: Rewiring the Consulting Business for AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini explore the impact of AI on client expectations.Continue Reading → The post ALP 279: Setting client expectations in the AI era appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been 12 years since Google shut down Google Reader, its popular RSS news reader. The rise of social media newsfeeds had rendered RSS useless for many people, and declining usage led Google to sunset it. But RSS feeds never went away. Many websites still make them available; they're baked into most blogging utilities; and podcasting relies heavily on RSS feeds for distribution of audio and video files. As algorithms determine what you see in social networks, and newsletter subscriptions require visits to your inbox, where your newsletters are mixed in with all your other emails, RSS news readers are making a comeback. New news readers are emerging, and older ones are making improvements with a range of features, including the incorporation of AI to assist with sorting and other tasks. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore the benefits of RSS, examine some of the features of the latest crop of readers, and discuss how an RSS resurgence can benefit communicators.Continue Reading → The post FIR #475: Algorithms Got You Down? Get Retro with RSS! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini focus on the issue of employees over-servicing clients.Continue Reading → The post ALP 278: What to do when agency employees continue to over-service clients appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Emily Allard shares her journey from being a professional softball player to starting her own sports marketing agency focused on women's athletics. Continue Reading → The post CWC 112: Building a Passion-Driven Agency (featuring Emily Allard) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

“Artificial intelligence will not save us. But it might help us understand who we are.” – Monsignor Paul Tighe In one of our most thought-provoking FIR Interviews to date, we speak with Monsignor Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Section of Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education at The Vatican, about the ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence and the role of the Church in shaping global conversations around technology. As AI continues its rapid development and deployment across all sectors of society, the question of how we use it – and why – has never been more important. From concerns about algorithmic dehumanisation to the challenge of building ethical cultures inside corporations, Msgr. Tighe brings a unique voice of moral clarity and practical insight to the discussion. In this wide-ranging conversation with FIR co-hosts Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, and guest co-host Silvia Cambié, Msgr. Tighe addresses: Why the Vatican published Antiqua et Nova, a foundational text on the relationship between AI and human intelligence, in January 2025. How AI challenges our definitions of intelligence, decision-making, and moral responsibility. The dignity of work in an age of automation and algorithmic management. How corporate communicators can foster trust, transparency, and ethical accountability in their organisations. The moral obligations of companies developing AI, and the limitations of relying solely on regulation or benevolence. Why global conversations on AI ethics must include voices beyond technologists and ethicists – including religious, cultural, and social communities. Continue Reading → The post FIR Interview: Monsignor Paul Tighe on AI, Ethics, and the Role of Humanity appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In multiple ways, Artificial Intelligence is redefining the role of the public relations professional. Some of that change is the result of new tools that automate processes that once consumed copious amounts of time. One such tool reviews services that solicit expert commentary at journalists' requests, then crafts responses. The marketing of this tool, dubbed Synapse by its Lithuanian founders, has sparked a considerable amount of controversy over ethical considerations. Neville and Shel discuss the pros and cons in this long-form FIR episode for July 2025. Communicators are now also supposed to be able to detect phishing attacks disguised as media inquiries, to abandon age-old metrics in favor of meaningful outcomes, and overcome old tropes, like one wheeled out by former communicator Melinda French Gates, who claimed without evidence that tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg have aligned themselves with the Donald Trump Administration only at the behest of their communication teams. Also in this episode: AI is driving a change in the way we craft press releases, drawing the Social Media Press Release to mind. PR is at the heart of AI optimization, since third-party sources are a vital factor in determining what finds its way into AI answers. Social media has transformed from a means of connecting with others to a platform for streaming entertainment. What are the implications for brands? More and more brands are launching Substack newsletters as a way to control the message and engage directly with customers. In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on media companies erecting paywalls to prevent AI models from harvesting their content. The consequences could be enormous. Continue Reading → The post FIR #474: AI is Redefining Public Relations appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been more than 60 years since Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message. The decades that have passed since then have done nothing to diminish the truth of McLuhan's prescient statement. For today's employees, the medium for most information is the digital interfaces the company provides. There's an interface for the intranet, for email, for internal social networking and collaboration, for emergency alerts, for calendaring, and for all manner of resources employees need to get their work done. What message do these interfaces send to employees? If they're unified, consumer-grade, and make it easy to do the job, the message is one of caring. If they're confusing, difficult to navigate, and result in frustration, employees can perceive that message as one of dismissal or even contempt. It certainly signals that the company doesn't care. Who should own the digital employee experience (DEX)? A number of recent commentaries have argued that internal communication should be at the helm, which may be counterintuitive in many organizations where anything digital is IT's responsibility. We explore the case for internal communication's DEX role in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #473: The Digital Employee Experience is the Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of having a clear vision for where an agency is headed while also acknowledging the need for strong operational skills.Continue Reading → The post ALP 277: You don’t need to be a visionary, but it helps to have a vision for your agency appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Communication leadership takes many forms, each requiring its own set of skills and vision. At its core, it involves leading a communication team—setting direction, fostering talent, and ensuring excellence in execution. On a broader scale, communication leaders play a critical role in guiding the entire organization’s messaging, advising executives, and shaping the narrative both internally and externally. Beyond the organization, communication professionals often step into industry leadership, setting standards, sharing best practices, and elevating the profession as a whole. Whether managing teams, advising the C-suite, or championing industry progress, communication leaders are essential in building trust, driving alignment, and advancing both organizational and professional goals. Four Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) discussed the qualities of communication leadership during the most recent Circle of Fellows panel. During the hourlong conversation, you'll discover how communication experts drive alignment, build trust, and shape culture from the inside out. You’ll gain practical strategies and fresh insights from industry leaders, equipping you to influence decisions at the highest levels and make a measurable impact on your organization’s success.Continue Reading → The post Circle of Fellows #118: Communication Leadership appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.