In the long-form episode for November 2025, Shel and Neville riff on a post by Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute, who identifies “idea inflation” as a growing problem on multiple levels. Idea inflation occurs when leaders prompt an AI model to generate 20 ideas for thought leadership posts, then send them to the communications team to convert them into ready-to-publish content. Also in this episode:

• A growing number of companies are moving branding under the communications umbrella, detouring around Marketing and the CMO. It’s all about safeguarding reputation.


• Quantum computing has been a topic of conversation in tech circles for years. Now, its arrival as a commercially viable product is imminent. Communicators need to prepare.


• AI’s ability to generate software code from a plain-language prompt has put the power to create apps in the hands of almost anyone. There are communication implications.


• Share some photos of yourself with an AI model, or companies that provide this as a service, and you can get an amazing likeness of yourself. But is it okay to use it as your LinkedIn profile?


• Research finds that leaders not only handle change management badly, but it’s also having an impact on employees who have to endure the process. Communicators can help.


• In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on WhatsApp launching third-party chat integration in Europe; X is finally rolling out Chat, its DM replacement, with encryption and video calling; Mozilla has announced an AI “window” for the Firefox browser; WordPress 6.9 offers new features, collaboration tools, and AI enhancements; Amazon has rebranded Project Kuper as Amazon Leo; and Open AI says it has “fixed” ChatGPT’s em dash problem. (We dispute that it’s a problem.)

Links from this episode:

• Why companies are merging communications and brand under one leader


• Will quantum be bigger than AI?


• ‘Vibe coding’ and other ways AI is changing who can build apps and how 


• The market has spoken: Vibe coding is serious business


• The potential of vibe coding


• Everything Wrong with Vibe Coding and How to Fix It


• Vibe Coding: How to Avoid Over-Engineering and Build Smarter, Not Harder


• Mastering Vibe Coding: How to Get Better AI-Generated Code Every Time


• Why AI Thought Leadership Hurts Content Teams


• Is it Ok to use AI-generated images for LinkedIn Profiles?


• Your Staff Thinks Management Is Inefficient—They May Have a Point

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, December 29.

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 fircomments@gmail.com.

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. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 489 of For Immediate Release. This is our long-form monthly episode for November 2025. I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson in Somerset in England.

Shel Holtz: We have a jam-packed show for you today. Virtually every story we’re going to cover has an artificial intelligence angle. That shouldn’t be a surprise — AI seems to dominate communication conversations everywhere these days.

We do hope that you will engage with this show by leaving a comment. There are so many ways that you can leave a comment. You can leave one right there on the show notes at firpodcastnetwork.com. You can even leave an audio comment from there. Just click the “record voicemail” button that you’ll see on the side of the page, and you can leave up to a 90-second audio.

You can also send us an audio clip — just record it, attach it to an email, send it to fircomments@gmail.com. You can comment on the posts we publish on LinkedIn and Facebook and elsewhere, announcing the availability of a new episode.

There are just so many ways that you can leave a comment and we hope you will — and also rate and review the show. That’s what brings new listeners aboard.

As I mentioned, we have a jam-packed show today, but Neville, I wanted to mention before we even get into our rundown of previous episodes: did you see the study that showed that podcasting is very male-dominated as a medium?

Neville Hobson: I did see something in one of my news feeds, but I haven’t read it.

Shel Holtz: I heard about it on a podcast — I don’t remember which one — but I found it really interesting because the conversation was all about equity. And I’m certainly not in favor of male-dominated anything, but podcasting is not an industry where there is a CEO who can mandate an initiative to bring women into a more equitable position in podcasting.

This is a medium — let’s face it, even though The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and other major media organizations have jumped into the podcasting waters — where it’s essentially a hobbyist occupation. You and I started this because we wanted to, and the tools are available to anybody who wants them.

I remember when we started this, one of the analogies we used was trying to walk into a radio station and say, “Hey, I want to have an hour-long show every day on public relations.” You’d be laughed out of the radio station because there’s not an audience big enough to support that kind of content. But here, if you can find an audience, you can have a podcast.

So I don’t know how you go about making this more equitable, but I found that to be an interesting perspective.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree. There are some podcasts I’ve listened to that are hosted by women — which, frankly, are few beyond the realms of kind of “feminine-oriented” content. But there are a couple in our area of interest in communication that are. So they’re out there, but the majority, very much, are men.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. I mean, just in internal communications, there’s Katie Macaulay, and there are a lot of women doing communication-focused podcasts. Maybe if you’re going to look for somebody to make this a more equitable media space, it has to start with the mainstream media organizations that are producing podcasts — The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal of the world.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, over here you’ve got The Times and a few others who have women doing this. They are there in the mainstream media orientation, but the kind of homebrew content that we started out with, I don’t see too many.

Shel Holtz: No.

Well, Neville, why don’t we move into our rundown of previous episodes?

Neville Hobson: Okay, let’s get into it.

So we’ve got a handful of shows. We’re actually recording this monthly episode about a week and a half earlier than we normally would. I think the reason for that, Shel, is something to do with U.S. holidays, your travel, and stuff like that.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, I’m going to be in San Diego next weekend, visiting my daughter and granddaughter because they’re not able to come up