This is cross-posted from the FIR Podcast Network.

Special thanks to FIR tech correspondent Dan York for stepping in last week to handle hosting chores while Shel was present for the birth of a granddaughter! Shel is back this week with panelists Philippe Borremans, currently director of strategy for PR Media, an H+K Strategies Affiliate, based in Casablanca, Morocco; David Spark, owner of Spark Media Solutions, a brand journalism firm, and author of Three Feet from Seven Figures’ and Jim Ylisela, president of Duff Media Partners, providing journalistic services, communications consulting and training, also a contributing writer for Chicago magazine.

These were the topics of discussion:

• Philippe talked about adjusting to life in Casablanca and the state of PR in Morocco
• The panel responded to Rachel Miller’s audio question from last week about whether we detect a trend in companies shifting from Human Resources to Employee Experience
• A post by a PR agency exec suggests most agencies don’t do media relations well and, as a result, are (inappropriately) minimizing its importance, while a survey of journalists finds the industry is failing at one of the basics, the online media newsroom
• We give a listen to an audio clip about the sorry state of corporate videos and explore solutions
• A U.K. study found most employees either don’t know if their companies have a crisis plan or, if they do, they don’t know their role when a crisis strikes
• Jim takes on silos in organizational communication functions
• Philippe let us know about BotPages, a directory of bots that looks just like Yahoo did in the early days of web directories
• Is brand journalism dead and, if not, what do we need to do to make it more effective?
• Dan York reports on the revelation of Bitcoin’s creator, the 50th anniversary of BASIC, and Hemingwayapp.com, a tool to make writing more engaging

Connect with our panelists on Twitter at @horationelson (Philippe), @dspark, and @jpyjr (Jim).

Links to the source material for this episode are on Delicious.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

About today’s panel:

Philippe Borremans is a multi-lingual corporate communications professional with more than 20 years experience in both internal and external communications, crisis communications, online reputation management and media relations.  His career started at Porter Novelli in Brussels and continued at IBM for about 10 years. Both functions gave him extensive experience in European Media Relations and Public Relations. A specialist in press relations, issues management and communication campaigns, he is currently director of Strategy at PRMedia.

David Spark is a veteran tech journalist and founder the brand journalism firm Spark Media Solutions. Spark has worked with brands such as IBM, Microsoft, HP, and Indycar Racing. He’s reported on the tech scene for more than 18 years in more than 40 media outlets, and is the author of “THREE FEET FROM SEVEN FIGURES: One-on-One Engagement Techniques to Qualify More Leads at Trade Shows” available at ThreeFeetBook.com.



Jim Ylisela is president of Duff Media Partners, providing journalistic services, communications consulting, and training. He’s still a contributing writer to Chicago Magazine, which he’s been writing for since 1988, along with other publications like Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Reporter. He spent 13 years as a senior lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism where he taught urban reporting, investigative journalism, and served as co-director of the Chicago Medill News Service. He also spent 10 years as a consulting editor for The Chicago Reporter. He also put in some time as president of Ragan Consulting.