It happens every January, as surely as the Tiffany ball will drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve: Edelman has released its annual Trust Barometer with a focus on the public’s views on innovation and the pace of change, along with the usual dimensions of trust the survey tracks every year. Neville and Shel examine some of the study’s core findings and reflect on their meaning for today’s communication professionals. Also in this episode, Neville and Shel discuss a court case in the U.K. in which an employee was told she could not work remotely and had to return to the office, along with other developments in the whole remote-hybrid-return-to-the-office battle; a global advertising conglomerate did something remarkably creative with synthetic media, demonstrating some of the positives that are possible with AI-generated hyperrealistic video; and a scandal 20 years in the making has erupted in the UK thanks to a four-part docudrama. In his tech report, Dan York reports on WhatsApp’s launch of voice updates, Threads’ plans for integration with the fediverse; generative AI developments, and a couple of milestone anniversaries.

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

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. For credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request the credentials in our Facebook group, or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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. Neville’s Asides blog is also available.

Links from this episode:

• 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer
• 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer: Business has best chance to reverse widening gap between society, innovation
• ‘Trust’ Takes Another Hit
• Trust Barometer: Innovation Fueling Divisiveness
• Trust in media: UK drops to last place in Edelman survey of 28 nations
• Employees are being influenced by Gen Z colleagues to reexamine the workplace, study finds
• Revealed: how top PR firm uses ‘trust barometer’ to promote world’s autocrats
• UK judge rules against FCA manager who wanted to work from home
• L’Oréal CEO says remote staff have ‘no passion, no creativity’
• The return-to-office wars are over — here’s who won
• Home workers lack social skills, warns recruitment giant
• WSJ News Exclusive | Remote Workers Bear the Brunt When Layoffs Hit
• How Publicis used AI to create personalized videos for its 100,000 employees
• Post Office IT scandal underlines need for a reset in corporate communications
• British Post Office scandal (Wikipedia)
• The power of Mr Bates vs The Post Office in bringing about justice
• Fujitsu apologises for its part in UK Post Office scandal
• Fujitsu may have to repay ‘fortune’ spent on Post Office scandal, Chalk says
• ‘The timing was impeccable’: why it took a TV series to bring the Post Office scandal to light
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office: why docudramas have the power to inspire real social and political change

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report:

• WhatsApp launches voice updates and polls for Channels
• The Quiet Death of Ello’s Big Dreams
• How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
• 404 Media on AI-generated spam and why they Need Your Email Address
• The LLM Misinformation Problem I Was Not Expecting | RIPE Labs
• Jan 15 - Wikipedia’s 23rd anniversary - Wikipedia Day
• Hello. The Apple Mac @ 40
• Watch Steve Jobs reveal the very first Macintosh on this day in 1984 | Macworld