The Future of Management Is Hybrid: Leading Human-AI Teams in a New Era of Work

Ask coders how they spend their time these days, and they’re likely to tell you they mostly oversee generative AI tools that craft most of the code. The quality of the code LLMs produce has improved dramatically. People who used to craft code from scratch now review and adjust AI chatbot outputs. For all practical purposes, they have become AI managers.

To some extent, that’s a part all managers are destined to play. The arrival of AI agents will catalyze this transition.

Agents—AI systems that act autonomously to carry out multiple tasks in pursuit of a goal—will become part of most managers’ teams. Working alongside human employees, they will complete work in a fraction of the time it takes a human. It won’t be long before hybrid human-AI teams are common in every industry.

Consider healthcare, where an AI agent will draft post-visit follow-up patient care plans, schedule check-ins, send reminders, and flag unusual symptoms in post-visit surveys for review. The human nurse practitioner will review and personalize the follow-up plan, contact patients in need of emotional support or clarification, and make clinical decisions about concerns the AI has flagged.

In financial services organizations, agents will monitor client portfolios, market conditions, and life events, suggesting portfolio rebalancing or financial moves. The human financial advisor will evaluate the agent’s suggestions based on their understanding of client goals, appetite for risk, and emotional readiness, and hold relationship-building meetings with clients.

In law firms, agents will scan contracts for risk clauses, missing terms, or compliance issues, while junior associates will analyze the agent’s highlights, apply legal reasoning to ambiguous cases, and advise on negotiation strategies based on client context.

Even in the industry in which I work—commercial construction—we are likely to see agents monitoring site sensors, drone footage, and safety incident reports in real time to auto-generate daily construction logs, track progress against schedule, and flag potential safety or quality issues. The assistant superintendent on the job will review the agent’s reports, resolve discrepancies (for example, an agent might not consider a weather delay), and make judgment calls on escalating issues or adjusting plans.

These are but a few of the ways agents will alter the means by which work gets done.

Managers Aren’t Ready

The addition of AI agents to teams will have profound implications for how managers manage. Consider the four examples above:

• Healthcare—Healthcare managers will have to align clinical protocols with AI-generated outputs, ensure HIPAA compliance (in the U.S.), and train staff to interpret and override AI recommendations when necessary.
• Financial Services—Managers will need to ensure their advisors understand the limits of AI recommendations, balance automation with trust-building, and train teams to explain AI logic to skeptical clients.
• Law firm—Partners or legal managers will have to assign roles clearly (AI as first-pass filter, human as final reviewer), prevent overreliance on AI in nuanced deals, and maintain audit trails for liability.
• Construction —The manager will ensure the AI is calibrated to real-world conditions, train staff to verify AI data, and build workflows that integrate AI updates into morning planning hurdles.

Countless challenges will face managers AI agents become a routine part of the mix. Scheduling alone will require new ways of thinking, since agents will complete tasks in hours or days instead of the weeks or months it may have taken humans, yet humans will continue to need the same amount of time they always have to complete their assignments. Rethinking how and when things need to get done, accounting for the handoffs between humans and AI agents, will test managers’ skills.

Other challenges managers will face include…

• Defining roles and responsibilities—What do AI agents do and what requires the human touch? There is more to this than just passing out assignments. In many cases, it managers will have to redesign their processes from scratch.
• Oversight and trust—While AI agents operate autonomously, managers will remain accountable for the results they produce, requiring them to monitor AI decisions and intervene when necessary. Managers will also need to establish clear protocols and boundaries for agents’ autonomy (like setting rules for what an agent can decide on its own and what should require human approval).
• Skill gaps and training—To manage AI agents, managers must understand how they work and ensure their team members are trained to work alongside them.
• Maintaining morale and trust—Introducing AI agents to teams is bound to raise employees’ anxiety levels. Managers must proactively address job security fears and demonstrate how AI agents assist but don’t replace the team.
• Performance evaluation and accountability—How do you evaluate performance in a hybrid human-AI team? A rethinking of success metrics is in the cards.more to this than just passing out assignments. In many cases, it managers will have to redesign their processes from scratch.

And all of this must happen while managers retain all their usual people-management duties—including, in some cases, managing remote workers, a challenge to which many managers still haven’t risen.

Redefining the Manager’s Role

Much of the work that occupied managers will shift to AI, especially administrative work like handing out assignments, tracking progress, compiling reports, and making routine decisions. With less busy work, managers should be able to to focus on those aspects of managing that require a human touch, shifting to leading and mentoring, employing soft skills over hard skills, as shown in this chart:

Wharton professor and AI thought leader Ethan Mollick has suggested companies may shift to more fluid, project-based structures where “AI will act as connectors, while middle management will focus more on human-AI coordination.” Instead of managing a rigid all-human team that grinds through its work, a manager might move from project to project as needed, overseeing a flexible AI-human hybrid team.

A day in the life of a manager in an AI-integrated team might involve checking a dashboard of AI agents’ overnight work, consulting with a data AI about market trends to inform strategy, and then spending the afternoon in one-on-one meetings with team members to coach them through challenges and build morale.

Managers may also work closely with technical staff on agent fine-tuning (a bit like managing the “training” of an AI much as they manage the development of an employee). As Anthony Mavromatis at American Express observed, AI is “freeing up (managers’) time and allowing them to focus on the essence of their job”– the creative and innovative aspects that AI can’t do

Empathy, ethical judgment, communication, and adaptability will define great managers in the AI era.

In fact, despite growing consensus (including among employees) that AI could one day take over their managers’ jobs, the manager’s role will become more pivotal as they focus primarily on leadership. If adding AI agents creates a “digital workforce” with humans working together, the manager’s role is to orchestrate this human-AI symphony.

However, too many managers lack soft skills, focused as they are on driving their teams’ work and slogging through hours and hours of administrative tasks. The management training most companies provide their managers has not been updated to account for the transformational role AI will play on teams.

Can Communicators Help?

As a communicator, I don’t look at any business activity without seeing it through the communication lens. Internal communicators who choose to wade into these waters can have an outsized impact on how well their organizations adapt. After all, like so many things digital in organizations, this is as much about change management as it is about the technology. Communicators will get people on board, informed, and comfortable, ensuring everyone understands what’s changing and why.

To do this, communicators need to…

• Set expectations with transparency—Communicate how AI agents will affect workflows, job roles, and day-to-day activities. When employees know the facts, they’re less likely to fear the worst.
• Two-way dialogue to address concerns—Provide channels that allow employees to voice their concerns and get answers.
• Communicate the “why”—A compelling narrative will make it easier for the pivot to go smoothly. Tell the story of why the company is embracing agents. Is it to improve customer experience? To reduce tedious work and free people for creative tasks? Paint the vision of how AI will ultimately benefit the employees and the company.
• Guidance, training, and resources—Let employees know what support is available, and create some of that support in the form of intranet and other easily-accessible resources.
• Highlight success stories and quick wins—Nothing motivates employees to adopt a new behavior like seeing other employees recognized for that behavior.* Set expectations with transparency—Communicate how AI agents will affect workflows, job roles, and day-to-day activities. When employees know the facts, they’re less likely to fear the worst.
• Two-way dialogue to address concerns—Provide channels that allow employees to voice their concerns and get answers.
• Communicate the “why” —A compelling narrative will make it easier for the pivot to go smoothly. Tell the story of why the company is embracing agents. Is it to improve customer experience? To reduce tedious work and free people for creative tasks? Paint the vision of how AI will ultimately benefit the employees and the company.
• Guidance, training, and resources—Inform employees about the support available and create some of that support in the form of an intranet and other easily accessible resources. Highlight success stories and quick wins—Nothing motivates employees to adopt a new behavior like seeing other employees recognized for that behavior.

Internal communication should be the bridge between the technological change and the human side of the organization. When done right, robust internal communication ensures that AI agents are introduced not as mysterious black boxes, but as well-understood new teammates that everyone knows how to work with.

Management in an AI-Driven Workplace

Once human-AI hybrid teams are up and running, organizations will find themselves on a trajectory to a time when they will be flatter and more agile, with managers serving as AI strategists. New definitions of what a “good manager” is will emerge. Looking 5-10 years out, I can envision a workplace where AI agents are ubiquitous, embedded in almost every process. The very definition of a “team” or “workforce” will evolve to include digital entities. The managers who thrive will be those who embrace this future and guide it rather than resist it. They will be lifelong learners, continually adapting as AI evolves. They’ll also be advocates for their team’s humanity – ensuring that technology serves to enhance human potential rather than replace it.

The managers of the AI era won’t be those who can out-calculate a computer but those who can leverage AI to amplify human ingenuity. They will create teams that are not only highly efficient but also creative, resilient, and ready for whatever the future of work brings.

Take My Books. Please.

Over the years, I have authored or co-authored six published books. Every one of them is in LibGen—Library Genesis—the shadow library project that provides unfettered access to written material. Meta used LibGen to train Llama, its open-source generative AI model.

I’m fine with that.

I know a lot of my peers disagree. That’s fine with me, too. I understand their objection. But I do have a different perspective, one that aligns with the philosophy Big AI is promoting. It was my perspective well before I heard Big AI explain it.

Before delving into books, it’s easier to explain the concept with images. After all, graphic designers and artists are equally exercised about image generation models trained on images they created merely by virtue of those images being available on the web.

Patterns, not Plagiarism

By now, I hope most people who use generative AI tools understand how they work. The models don’t include databases of the millions of images scraped from the web. The models “learn” by “seeing” all those images and identifying common patterns. If you see 20,000 images of cats—photographs, paintings, sketches—you learn the patterns that make a cat. When you ask an AI image generator for a picture of a cat, it creates a bespoke image based on the patterns it learned in its training.

Any artist can look at one of those bespoke images and see their own style. This is the source of their distress. However, any aspiring artist can spend hours at an art museum or gallery, studying the styles of the artists whose works hang there. You even see them: They sit on museum benches with sketchpads, copying what they see in order to learn and adapt the styles of the masters displayed on museum or gallery walls.

Oddly, nobody assails these art students, accusing them of intellectual property theft. This has been how artists learn for centuries. Pablo Picasso was influenced by Paul Cezanne’s treatment of form and space. Vincent van Gogh was influenced by Jean-François Millet, especially his pastoral and peasant scenes. Claude Monet? He adopted the style of J.M.W Turner, whose exploration of light and atmospheric conditions inspired Monet’s Impressionist techniques. Paul Gaugin’s bold use of color and simplified forms inspired Henri Matisse. Marcel Duchamp influenced Andy Warhol. Thomas Hart Benton influenced Jackson Pollock. The list goes on and on.

And yet we never, ever, hear anybody complain about the ethical shortcomings of these artists.

Authors Learn from Authors

Writing is no different. George R.R. Martin was heavily influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien and historical fiction writer Thomas B. Costain, and fantasy pioneer Jack Vance. J.K. Rowling drew inspiration from Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Roald Dahl for her Harry Potter series. ray Bradbury inspired Stephen King. Simone de Beauvoir influenced Margarete Atwood. My all-time favorite writer, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, was influenced by the surrealism of Franz Kafka and by the style of one of my other all-time favorite writers, William Faulkner.

Even in non-fiction, writers’ styles are influenced by others. Yuval Noah Harari (whose fabulous “Nexus” I just recently finished) was heavily influenced by historians and thinkers like Jared Diamond and Richard Dawkins. Robert Caro (whose “Master of the Senate” I am reading now) read a lot of Barbara Tuchman. The great Brené Brown was inspired by social researchers and psychologists like Carl Rogers and Harriett Lerner.

Artists and writers, then, incorporate the styles of other artists and writers into their work. They don’t have to spend a penny on any of the work they internalize. They can check out books from the library or pay a small fee to enter a museum and drink in the styles of hundreds of artists. As they incorporate elements of what they have seen and read into their own work, they make money from it.

Just like generative AI. The only difference is that a large language model can’t go to a museum or gallery. The art has to be brought to them.

Caveats

If somebody picks up one of my books (even without paying for it), learns from it, and makes some bank based on what they learned, that’s great. If someone queries an LLM and gets an answer that includes information I shared in one of my books, that’s great too, even if the company behind the LLM didn’t pay for it. (The royalty from the sale of one book wouldn’t be enough to take my wife out for dinner at a drive-through.) The LLM isn’t plagiarizing my book (with which I would have a problem). It just learned.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have some issues with the practice of hoovering up every scrap of information available. Thinking about my books, the last one was published in 2008. It’s all outdated. In 2006, my podcasting partner, Neville Hobson, and I had our book, “How to Do Everything with Podcasting,” published by McGraw Hill. Podcasting in 2025 is dramatically different than it was in 2006, just two years after it was introduced. Nobody thinking of starting a podcast should use that book. It would be bad if a query to an LLM produced information from that book.

(If I had a more recent title, though, I wouldn’t feel differently. The fact that some detail from my book might find its way into an LLM’s response would not prevent one person from buying my book. I would be chuffed to learn an LLM incorporated knowledge I contributed in its answer.)

I also sympathize with living artists whose styles are duplicated for original images and agree that the companies behind the image generators should not allow it without some form of compensation.

I have more problems with LibGen than I do with LLMs. The idea that anybody can grab a copyrighted book and read it without paying for it is troubling. If 100 people read one of my books on LibGen, the total royalties actually COULD cover the cost of a fast-food meal for my wife and me.

In every other case, however, I have no problem with an LLM being trained on my copyrighted work. You’re welcome to it.

FIR #456: Does AI Put Communication Expertise At Risk?

• FIR #456: Does AI Put Communication Expertise At Risk?

It’s not just jobs that AI will affect. It’s the perception that employees have important expertise. After all, if AI can do the work, it’s easy to view employees’ special knowledge and experience as less important to the organization. Neville and Shel examine the steps communicators can take to continue to be viewed by leaders as subject matter experts who expertise brings value to the company. Also in this episode:

• The publishing platform Ghost is enabling technology to embed it in the fediverse.
• New studies reveal that bad communication is leading employees to leave their jobs.
• A national UK newspaper has launched AI-curated news for “time-poor audiences.”
• Unilever is stepping back from its purposeful activities, opting to invest heavily in influencer marketing.
• Have fans of your brand given it a nickname? New research suggests you probably shouldn’t use it.
• Dan York reports on the Internet Engineering Task Force’s work on a way for websites to signal what AI can collect and process.

Links from this episode:

• The social web beta is here
• Social web (beta)
• Substack rival Ghost is now connected to the fediverse
• Newsletter platform Ghost adopts ActivityPub to ‘bring back the open web’
• Ghost Connects Creators Across the Social Web
• The Social Web Foundation
• Communication breakdown: 61% of employees unlikely to stay in their job cite poor communication among top reasons
• Survey Results: Employees Report Pride in Their Jobs 
• ‘People are really angry’: A vibe shift around layoffs is happening across the workforce
• Survey Results: People take Pride in Their Jobs
• Independent launching AI-powered news service for ‘time-poor audiences’
• BBC News to create AI department to offer more personalised content
• The LA Times’ AI Experiment Sparks Backlash
• How Gen AI Could Change the Value of Expertise
• LinkedIn Skills on the Rise 2025: The 15 fastest-growing skills in the US
• Companies’ biggest barrier to AI isn’t tech — it’s employee pushback. Here’s how to overcome it.
• Farewell Photoshop? Google’s new AI lets you edit images by asking.
• Unilever swaps social purpose for social media as new CEO calls brands “suspicious”
• Ben & Jerry’s claims CEO was unlawfully fired over political issues
• Why Brands Should Avoid Using the Catchy Nicknames Consumers Give Them
• How nicknames may weaken brands

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

• IETF’s AI Preferences Task Force (you are welcome to join the mailing list and participate)

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, April 28.

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 .(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.

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:

Neville Hobson: Hey everyone, and welcome to for immediate release. This is episode 4 5 6, the monthly long form episode for March, 2025. I’m Neville Hobson in the UK.

Shel Holtz: I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California. We are delighted that you have chosen to join us for today’s review of really interesting material that has surfaced over the last month in the world of communication, business, and [00:01:00] technology.

We will start as all of our monthly episodes start with a look at the short midweek episodes that we have produced since the last monthly, which was episode number 452, but Neville, we have some comments that predate that episode that have come in, , since that last monthly episode in in February. , the first of these is a comment on episode 4 51 that comes to us from Sally Get who says Verizon Recruiters have a new tactic dangling the remote hybrid work Carrot.

At t is requiring workers to return to the office full-time. Rival Verizon is touting its more flexible opportunities as a way to add top talent to the V team per an email sent to at t employees business in Insider found that, , 1,200 open Verizon roles across the us, , 10 of which are remote and many of which require at least eight [00:02:00] in-office days a month.

But at and t isn’t budging telling Business Insider. It wants people who want to work in team environments with strong relationships and collaboration fostered by an office construct. So this battle over return to office, , and employees who desire to continue to work remote is ongoing.

Neville Hobson: That was a good comment from Sally.

It, it, , makes a lot of sense what she said. , let’s have a quick look at the, , at the episodes we’ve done, including the last monthly, because we got a few comments, right? She, , so we talked about quite a range of things in, , in 4 52, the long form monthly for February, YouTube. Shifting from mobile to tv.

Are we living the age of chaos communication? That’s a big topic, I must admit. , the impact of loosened content, moderation, policies, Gallup report, and what people want from leaders. Any value to AI generated research panels? We asked. It may be the end of the line for LinkedIn hashtags, we pondered and Dan York Tech report, , [00:03:00] Macedon and a few other things in there.

So a pretty big, , discussion field over the course of 90, more than 90 minutes. That one, I think it was Cheryl. And as you mentioned, we got some comments to that.

Shel Holtz: We did two of them, , one from Kristi Goodman who says, I have a note to add to your conversation about changing social channels. My nonprofit had a surprise last week.

We’re on a crazy number of social channels because as you know, it’s important to be where your people are with dwindling followers and engagement. Our plan at the start of the year regarding Twitter X was to maintain our main account, just to monitor it. We’d never advertised there. We expected to walk away soon.

But during a 20 hour state legislative committee that we were part of, advocates and reporters took to Twitter with lots of live tweeting, info sharing and even new followers, 85% of our engagements that day were on Twitter. I honestly don’t know what to think. And then as a bonus, she shared a photo from a few months [00:04:00] ago when Bryan Person drove to Austin for my office holiday breakfast.

He’s been producing IRA’s podcast since it launched in 2025, it says.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. Terrific. Yeah, I saw Christie’s comments on LinkedIn. I think I left a reply , to it. , that picture of Brian’s neat though. He looked, , he looked quite, , alert and alive. Haven’t seen Brian for a while. It’s good to see that I haven’t

Shel Holtz: seen or spoken to him in a while.

I see a comment from him every now and then. , but he was one of the original. He was members of by our audience. He was, the second comment comes from Catherine Arrow who says, hello there, Neville must say it was wildly disconcerting to see myself tagged in your post and then listen to you read and discuss my article on the podcast.

I would’ve happily discussed it with you both and answered some of the questions you had on your mention of the Melbourne mandate. And I think that was actually my mention of the Melbourne mandate. Yes. That’s still up there on the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management site.

You can find it here. She shares the link, which we will add to the show [00:05:00] notes and that will take you to the old WordPress site, which still has a lot of material on it. It’s old now to the point that it’s almost wearing whiskers, but much of the thinking we did then I was, , the Global Alliance secretary at the time is as relevant as ever in today’s operating environment.

Neville Hobson: Hmm. Great. I did, I think I did respond to her comment as well on LinkedIn that I saw.

Shel Holtz: I believe you did.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. So then, , 4 53, which we recorded on March the fourth. , that’s what, , we discussed some research inspired from, , by Duke University’s for Cure School of Business, , and explored why strategically roasting customers with humor and light-hearted banter can enhance brand loyalty and deepen customer connections.

In 4 54 that we recorded on March the 10th, we broke down the many implications for the practice of pr. The actions required to prepare brands to be targets of the same kind of treatment. Ukrainian [00:06:00] President Zelensky got at the hands of, of the Trump, of Trump vans and the complicit media that infamous White House press conference, and that’s a topic I still see being discussed a lot online.

And then in 4 55, the episode immediately prior to this one we’re recording. We did that on March 17th. We shared our thinking about the advice offered by Lulu Chang, messa founder and CEO at the agency roster in her manifesto, calling on leaders to skip the agency and go direct. In other words, traditional PR is dead again.

We had a good chat about that one. Didn’t we show?

Shel Holtz: We did. And interestingly, I just read a post by Jenny Dietrich talking about how in this very same environment, how important the peso model is and to engage in paid, earned, shared, and owned, , that they all have relevance and I importance. She didn’t mention MEVY at all, , but you could sense that presence there.

Anyway.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. Yeah. [00:07:00] Excellent. , we also did two new interviews, , in the preceding 30 plus days. , the first one, , which was something we were both looking forward to quite a bit. So we recorded it on, we published it on the 26th of February. That was with Steve Ruble, who is a big figure from the early days of social media and a stellar career over almost two decades with Edelman.

And Steve had a lot of insights, , on what we discussed, which broadly speaking, we covered the wide spectrum of artificial intelligence, media analytics, and the future of pr. , it was big and it’s definitely an interview worth, , listening to, or conversation I’d say covered about 40 minutes just over.

, and, , it’s worth the 40 minutes having a listen to. We also had, , a great conversation with, , Sam Michelson, , the CEO and founder of Five Blocks. And that’s, we asked him in the interview, , what the origin of that was. , so listen to the interview and you’ll get that. , [00:08:00] that was a great conversation about how AI search is changing reputation management.

So it was focused particularly on that area. , and , it really was great, how Sam shared his thinking. And we contributed to the overall conversation on how PA AI powered search is changing, , the whole landscape of how reputations are built, managed and perceived online. So we talked about that in some detail and discussed what companies and communicators need to do in that new landscape.

So it was definitely worthwhile. So that’s quite a lot of stuff we published in the last 30 Days show.

Shel Holtz: And we’re prolific, aren’t we? , , and in addition to the interviews, there’s also a new episode of Circle of Fellows up on the FIR Podcast Network. This is the monthly panel discussion, , featuring fellows from the International Association of Business Communicators.

I moderated the panel. It was on ethics in communication that went. Nicely with Ethics Month at I-I-A-B-C. [00:09:00] The the panelists were Todd Hattori, Jane Mitchell, Diane Eski, and Carolyn sel. The March Circle of Fellows is scheduled for this coming Thursday at noon eastern time. That’s March 27th. And this is, , an interesting one.

We’ve never tackled this topic before. It’s working with data in communication. And the panelists are Adrian Ley, Robin McCaslin, Leticia Vez, and Angela Seneca. So if you’d like to tune in, live and participate in that conversation, that’s coming up again, March 27th, this coming Thursday at noon. If you head over to the FIR Podcast Network, you’ll get the link to the YouTube live, , stream.

So hope you can join us for that. And we’re gonna take a short break, , to sell you something and we’ll be back with our stories of the month.[00:10:00]

One

Neville Hobson: of the more significant developments in the world of digital publishing happened last week, and it’s a move that caught the attention of creators, developers, and advocates from more Open Web ghost. The open source publishing platform that powers many independent blogs and newsletters has announced support for Activity Pup, the protocol that connects users and platforms across the Fedi us.

We’ve discussed Activity Pub and the Fedi US in previous episodes of this podcast. It means that every user of the Paid Ghost Pro platform now has the option to publish content on their ghost site that can be followed, shared, and replied to directly from platforms like Mastodon, pixel Fed Peer Tube, and others in the Federated Social web.

Once you’ve enabled the social web beater, your ghost account becomes a fed averse identity, for [00:11:00] example, at you, at your domain. That would be your web, your social web handle. Every post you publish is automatically pushed out as a federated object, and when someone on Mastodon replies to your post, that rep reply should show up as a comment on your blog.

Although I’ve not seen that yet myself, your blog essentially becomes a native part of the Fedi verse. Not just a website you have to visit, but a presence you can follow and interact with from anywhere in the network behind the scenes. This is part of a broader vision from Ghost to make the web more open and interoperable.

They’ve also co-founded a new nonprofit, the Social Web Foundation, with the goal of accelerating adoption of protocols like Activity Pub and pushing forward a decentralized model of content and social interaction. Ghost, CEO, John O. Nolan is one of the founders, and this latest feature release aligns perfectly with that mission.

It is also a clear point of differentiation from platforms like Substack, which operate in a much more closed [00:12:00] ecosystem. In fact, TechCrunch’s headlines said it best. Substack rival Ghost is now connected to the Fati verse that framing is telling. Ghost isn’t just a tool for publishing, is becoming part of a distributed, creator owned web where no single platform owns the relationship between publishers and their audience for communicators and digital, digital strategists.

This is an important moment. It signals a shift in how we think about publishing, reach and engagement. Instead of building audiences within walled gardens, there’s now a viable way to build a presence that is platform independent, but still deeply connected to where conversations are happening. As I wrote in a post on my New Ghost blog last week, I think this move is more than just a technical upgrade.

It’s a cultural signal, a sign that a growing number of people, creators, readers, and developers alike want to return to the principles that made the web powerful in the first place, openness into operability and user control. Indeed, ghost [00:13:00] noted in its announcement. If you’ve been writing things on the internet for a while, you might describe it as the return of the blogosphere.

You’ll know the significance of that. If you were here the first time around. I should mention that ghost newsletters aren’t yet part of the activity pub enabling in the beta only posts on your ghost website. I imagine embracing newsletters will come in the near future. Also, I mentioned earlier that the public beta is available to users on the subscription based hosted Ghost Pro Service Ghost has said that support for Activity Pub on self-hosted Ghost Pro will come with the release of the Ghost version six upgrade later this year.

So let’s dig into what all this means for communicators, for independent media, and for the direction we see social platforms evolving. She, what’s your take?

Shel Holtz: Well, a few thoughts on this. First, , I miss my RSS news reader from the first go around the bloggersphere. That was how we managed to avoid having to go visit each [00:14:00] blog that we followed independently, , to see what was new.

, and I think the fedi verse is kind of like that, but better, , given what’s coming with the ability for comments to move freely, , around the fedi verse, not just your most recent posts. , of course, I. Don’t think that this is the return of the blogosphere because it never went anywhere. It maybe a return to greater awareness and, and more utility of, of the blogosphere.

Yeah. Again, the challenge with the blogosphere and the reason that these walled garden social networks became so prominent is because setting up a blog is work. , and in many cases it’s also money. And a lot of people who felt I would like to share something, didn’t wanna go to that trouble, it wasn’t that important to them.

, or they just weren’t technically able or financially able. And along [00:15:00] comes, Facebook. Suddenly they’re able to share their cat photos and whatever’s on their mind without having to create something and maintain something and, and pay a monthly bill or two, , in order to do so. , I think that’s not going to change because of this, , the fact that you set up, , a ghost blog and a and a ghost newsletter is testament to your commitment to this that not everybody has.

That’s fine. There are people who wanna be consumers of this, and I think it’s gonna make it easier for people to consume and easier for people who engage with comments, which is great. Now, how successful will ghost be with this, , you know, Substack for all of the issues that it has still has a first mover advantage?

, it’s. Referenced now routinely in the news. I mean, I’m watching a mainstream news broadcast and they’re saying this person in his [00:16:00] substack, , this is becoming as common as it used to be to hear that so and so tweeted something. , it’s becoming sort of the defacto place where people are sharing their perspectives that get picked up in the mainstream media.

Can, can ghost overcome this? , perhaps I, I don’t know. , nobody has really overcome some of the other organizations who have capitalized on that first mover advantage. Think of Amazon, for example, but we’ll see, , this move into the fedi verse may give them the momentum they need

Neville Hobson: possibly. , I think, , it is interesting.

You are, you are absolutely right. I, I, , in what you say. but. I see this as much more than just newsletter publishing. , for instance, I moved from WordPress where I’ve been for 18 years, , to ghost. I shut up shop on my WordPress blog, , with consequences from that, , SEO, the historical, , history built up, , with, with Google, search count, , console, et cetera.

All of that, [00:17:00] I start from scratch. But for my goals were different. I’m not interested so much in that. I was interested more in the writing. And the thing that is different with Ghost, in my view, , even compared to WordPress, which is a, which is a better comparison, WordPress is also enabled. The activity pub via plugin, but ghosts is a way easier to set up.

In fact, there is no setup. It all happens. You just enable the beater and boom, you’re there. WordPress, you ought to publish a plugin. In my case, one of the reasons why I shifted was my hosting service would not support the plugin, wasn’t WordPress, it was the hosting service, refused to enable it, , ‘cause they had something else going with a similar file name and so forth and so on.

So I thought, no, I’m outta here. I’m gone. , so there are other factors too, but that was a big one for me. But the major reason was simply the writing. I didn’t want to be a website admin anymore. I was a WordPress admin person more than I was a WordPress blogger. Fed up with it, didn’t want that anymore.

So I stopped the [00:18:00] old site’s still there as an archive. , but I’ve got a new site. The only difference with the domain name is now.io as opposed to.com. so, , that will appeal to many people. . It doesn’t yet support the activity pub on the self-hosted version of Ghost, because I could have done that.

I could have downloaded the software set up on a server just as you do with WordPress. I didn’t wanna do that anymore yet. I know two friends of mine are doing that. Well, you don’t have to do that word with WordPress

Shel Holtz: either, right? You could, you could set up on wordpress.com.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. But I had also had enough of the WordPress issues going on in WordPress with the CEO and his, , his legal fights with another, , reseller of WordPress, , hosting.

It was ugly and it also struck me, , that you’re constantly bombarded with upgrade to this. Hey, this new plugin is only $20 a month, all that daily. Literally enough. So I moved, , I don’t have any regrets, , after three weeks from the move, although I started the new presence back in January, so. In terms of where this is [00:19:00] going, , from a social web slash activity pub point of view, this is purely the beginning for Ghost.

, the Fedi verse has been there a while and Mastodon has been the big leader in that. I think now is the time for this sort of change to happen with another player making a firm commitment, which Ghost did quite a while ago. Now it’s public. The public beater is there. , they’ve had warm support from many of the obvious places.

The tech. Press, for instance, the likes of TechCrunch, verge, Vox, et cetera, all of those guys, , and a number of, , of their prominent, , influential voices who are set up shop on ghosts for both blog and newsletter. So I’m just, you know, one of the many individual users there. , I’ve had some great engagements via my new newsletter, which has been quite pleasing, more than I ever had with WordPress.

That’s no criticism of WordPress. They had a newsletter, but not to the same, , scale as how Ghost does it. So I think when the newsletter is supported in the activity, pug activity, [00:20:00] that’s when you’re gonna see. Bigger take up, I think from many of the big newsletter publishers, will that shift the needle in any form?

Right. It’s hard to tell. , I think the, , , reality as I see it certainly is that , from a communicator’s point of view, let’s say you are a, a communicator that in an organization looking at developments, , in this broad area, particularly with all the talk about, let’s look at blogging again, move away from these walled gardens.

Here’s another option you need to be considering. , it’s not too, it’s not. , much different to WordPress conceptually, , practically, it’s very different. WordPress has a huge ecosystem of hundreds, if not thou. In fact, it’s thousands of developers, plugin developers, theme developers. There’s theme marketplaces that work.

Ghost doesn’t have any of that, or very little of it. So there’s a lot more, , of, of the need for you to be hands-on, like in the very early days of blogging. , yep. You’re gonna have to write some h TM L. You’ve got JavaScript and CSS to get a handle on if you want, customize [00:21:00] stuff. If you don’t wanna do any of that stuff, there are resellers who will host it for you and take care of that.

In my case, I went to the hosted route to take care of the general installation of everything. I concentrate on the writing, and largely I’m doing that. I think this is an important move in terms of what is gonna happen with, , the fedi verse and, , enabling this idea, this appealing idea of wherever you are, , on a part of the Fedi verse that’s connected to everything else on the Fedi verse.

You can engage with content on a different service entirely, and guess what? Even blue sky. Is supported and that uses a different protocol to activity Pub. Now, that’s still, I think, an intent rather than an action because there’s a workaround you have to do, you’ve gotta follow somebody who’s developed a bridge to enable it.

And that’s not working too well at the moment, but I’m excited about that because of that brings blue sky in. There’s a barrier down immediately between tutor and protocols because it doesn’t really matter. You, the [00:22:00] average user won’t be bothered about, oh, it’s a d it’s at protocol and I’ve got activity.

But you don’t care about that. You shouldn’t even be thinking about that. You just write, publishing someone on Blue Sky leaves a comment on Blue Sky that shows up in your block. Reminds me very much of, , not the early days so much, , of the beginning to get developed. Days of WordPress. In particular, WordPress, , Shannon Whitley comes to mind immediately.

Mm-hmm. With his tweet chat plugin that enabled you to comment on Twitter. That would show up. In your WordPress blog post that you’ve commented on, and that was outstanding. An outstanding feature that all went away during the changes that went on, and, , a ton of other reasons. Now we’ve got something that has the promise to fulfill that intent, , in a way that you don’t have to do anything, , at all.

You as the you, as you as the blogger. , it would be great if once that’s connected to newsletters too, because then you’re gonna see all the barriers down in terms of engagement. And that should be of interest to [00:23:00] communicators in, in business B2B. This will come to the platform. , there are already a lot of businesses on Ghost already, , and some, .

There and others are experimenting. And that’s what I would advise community to take a look at Ghost with this thought in your mind that this is going to break down barriers across different platforms because of the fedi verse, whether it’s at protocol, whether it’s activity, pub, , work arounds, whatever.

It enables you to do things and enables others to connect with you. So I’m pretty excited about what’s coming.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, I have an email newsletter for the company I am employed by, and it goes out once a month. We use MailChimp to Yeah, create and distribute, manage the subscriptions and the like. And I have been thinking about changing to, frankly, Substack, , just to get that cash littles on Substack, I

Neville Hobson: hear.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. Well, it’s the cachet of the name because you’re now hearing it in the media. You, you, you’re now hearing it on podcasts, [00:24:00] people referencing, oh, on this person’s substack on that person’s, they don’t even say newsletter, they say Substack. On the other hand, , transitioning to Ghost would give us the ability to build a broader readership through.

The integration with the Fedi verse. , on the other hand, you have to wonder how many people hear Ghost and go, well, what kind of rinky dink outfit is this? , for people who haven’t heard of it , and don’t know what it is. , just that reputation , and it’s not, the substack doesn’t have some reputational challenges that they’re facing, as we have mentioned.

Seriously here, there are people who have, have left over some of this, but, but still, yeah, I would have to stop and think about what’s best for my organization. Sure. , if I were gonna make that transition.

Neville Hobson: I, I would say I have a simple view. Shell, frankly, and it’s easy for me as an independent person. I don’t work for a company.

I don’t have big organizational issues to consider, but I look at that the same as I would look at XI definitely would not wanna be in [00:25:00] a toxic place like that. Now, I’m not saying to sub sex toxic, I don’t know that. I do know though a number or a handful, let’s say, including a couple of prominent ones who have left Substack and have joined Ghost because they do not wanna be in a place that has, as I mentioned, the N word, , a number of people, , allegedly, , find, , tuned into that kind of, of thinking.

So, , I think your point is valid, though. It’s got. Name recognition right now, but hey, listen, everyone had that issue when they started out and time will tell whether they’ve got traction. I believe Ghost has serious traction. They’ve got, , a good presence. They’ve got a, a, a nonprofit foundation behind them.

They’ve got money, they’ve got support, and they are approaching it absolutely the right way. , unlike WordPress for instance, which I think about quite a bit still. So I think. The newsletter is, , important. , it’s definitely comparable to Substack. It’s not comparable to MailChimp or any of those other ones.

It was a newsletter only via email. [00:26:00] This is newsletter and web via a publishing mechanism on the, on the server that you host your blog on. It’s all takes care taken care of in the background. It is very much a social web approach to it all, and this then enables this, , beta service.

, it’s, , I think as I mentioned, , maybe I should restate. It’s a very early beta, the stuff not enabled yet, so I think you should test it out. , test out Substack too, if you have time. , it’s

Shel Holtz: interesting. I don’t know if either of them have corporate clients. I mean, , they very well may, but it’s not something I’ve, well, it depends how

Neville Hobson: you’re defining corporate clients.

I mean, there’s a number of public listed companies on there. There’s a handful of big media properties using Ghost as there are on Substack. So, you know, take a pick.

Shel Holtz: Well, let’s move along and talk about jobs because people leave them, , they leave them for all kinds of reasons, but the one we hear about most is that people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses.

We may need to put a new spin on that. [00:27:00] According to a recent survey from the Grossman Group, people may actually be quitting because the company doesn’t communicate well. The survey found 61% of employees who say they’re unlikely to stay in their current jobs. Cite poor communication is one of the top reasons why that’s not a marginal number.

That’s the majority of employees who are at risk of walking out the door, pointing directly at communication breakdowns, and it’s not the first time we’ve heard this. Alert Media’s 2025 Workplace Survey Report finds that employees are craving more consistent, clear communication, especially when it comes to their safety and wellbeing.

One of the standout findings from the report. Psychological safety depends heavily on good communication, and when that’s lacking, trust falls apart. We’re not just talking about the usual day-to-day work cranked out by professional communicators. You know, HR emails, articles on the internet weekly newsletter.

What employees are flagging isn’t always about [00:28:00] channels or campaigns. It’s about day-to-day interactions. It’s about the way their leaders talk to their teams. It’s how transparently companies share bad news. It’s whether employees feel listened to and included in the loop. These are all things that internal communicators should be focused on if the company has an internal communications function at all.

In the Grossman Group research, a full 70% of respondents said that when communication is poor, it negatively impacts their productivity. Close to the same number. 69% say it drags down morale. That’s a direct line to disengagement, quiet, quitting, and ultimately attrition the cost. Well, Gallup estimates that low engagement, much of which stems from communication issues, costs the global economy $8.8 trillion.

That’s trillion with a T. Now, there’s a wrinkle. In the Grossman survey results, it found that employees overwhelmingly believe communication is [00:29:00] everyone’s responsibility. Yet they also made it clear that their number one ask is for better communication from wait for it, their direct managers. In fact, that was the top request, even more than hearing from the CEO or the leadership team.

So maybe employees do leave their managers, but specifically the managers who can’t or won’t communicate effectively. Now, another thread worth pulling comes from a recent CNBC piece highlighting what they call a vibe shift around layoffs. For years, companies could lay off workers with a boilerplate statement about market conditions, and that was that.

Now employees and the broader public are demanding transparency. That is, they want better communication. They wanna know why certain people were cut, how the decisions were made, and what leadership is doing to support those who are impacted. Anything less feels disingenuous and fuels a toxic narrative inside and outside the organization.[00:30:00]

Now, I find it disheartening that companies are still doing this. I I, I communicated all of this kind of information during layoffs going back to the 1980s. What can internal communicators do about the situation today? First, we can stop thinking of our job as just publishing information. I know I harp on this a lot, but I still see a lot of communication departments, that’s what they do.

Professional communicators should be training, coaching, and empowering people, managers to communicate better, especially in high stakes, high emotion moments. Think layoffs, reorgs, workplace safety in incidents, this is where trust is either built or broken. Second, we need to listen more and help others listen better.

Employees wanna feel heard. That means internal comms teams should be building better feedback loops, making space for upward communication and encouraging open dialogue between teams and their leaders. I’m reading a book right now called Leading the Listening [00:31:00] Organization just so I can figure out how to better do that.

Third, we can help shape the culture of communication by modeling clarity, empathy, and transparency in everything we produce. Interestingly, even in companies where morale is high, , consider North Carolina State University, where a recent survey showed strong pride among the staff, there are still gaps.

Fewer than half of the employees at NC State said they felt fully informed about leadership decisions. Pride and positivity don’t eliminate the need for better communications. If anything, they underscore the importance of maintaining that trust through consistent, honest communication. We’re in a moment where communication isn’t just a soft skill, it’s a retention strategy, it’s a risk mitigator, and for internal communicators, it’s an opportunity to step up, not just as messengers, but as the strategic enablers of better leadership at every level of the organization.

Neville Hobson: [00:32:00] It makes a lot of sense, I think. , this is something we talk about frequently, isn’t it? And here we are again with, with this about managers about better, better, better naming them to communicate, et cetera. I just wonder why it doesn’t happen. I mean, you’ve seen that

Shel Holtz: interesting

Neville Hobson: because

Shel Holtz: the survey indicates that for all the years we’ve been talking about this, the needle doesn’t seem to have moved.

Neville Hobson: It doesn’t, and I’m, I’m also thinking about Edelman’s trust barometer, this, this area features in there and in terms of general lack of trust, but you threw out a lot of metrics in that, in that narrative there. Shell, so let me ask you if, what would you say are the top three things communicators need to do about this if it’s enabling managers to be effective communicators themselves?

What do communicators need to do specifically?

Shel Holtz: Well, communicators, first of all, need to get the buy-in from their leaders. That what they are there for is not just to inform employees of what’s going on. This is more than corporate journalism. This is a department. [00:33:00] Whose expertise is to improve communication throughout the organization, and that means all kinds of communication.

How many communicators out there are partnered with their training departments, you know, learning and development? How many of them are working with managers around communication issues that they’re facing, either in their teams or in dealing with other teams? This is what we should be doing. We should be facilitating the flow of information and knowledge and helping managers communicate effectively two way with the members of their teams, , at all levels, , of the organization, frontline managers , , and senior leaders.

, we, we really need to help organizations become effective at communication at all levels, not just on the intranet and across email. Hmm. So that’s the big thing.

Neville Hobson: Okay, so, , how do we then avoid [00:34:00] having this conversation again in six months? Then what do you say? What do you say to that?

Shel Holtz: I don’t think there’s any way we can avoid having this conversation in six months. , I, I think that there are, , organizations that are led by people who think that communication should be writing nice stories about, , the wonderful things that are happening in the organization that nobody’s going to read.

, and that’s great. , that, that that’s all we need. , you know, we talk about how the internal comm star rose during the pandemic because companies had to lean on communicators when everybody was working from home and we. Weren’t accustomed to reaching people and engaging people that way. Well, it’s been five years and that star is falling again, I’m afraid.

, and I think it’s incumbent upon us as the communicators to make the case that what we do really is about retention and risk mitigation, and [00:35:00] building engagement and improving productivity. , and we just have to connect those dots for the, for the leaders of the organization so that they can take advantage of what communication brings to the table.

Neville Hobson: A call to action for internal communicators. I hear there, shell, that’s a, that’s a good one. So, , let’s go back to something we haven’t really talked about yet in this episode. Ai, we knew it was coming. It was coming. This is a interesting, to me, one of the more interesting developments, , recently and how traditional media is experimenting with ai.

And this comes from the British newspaper, the Independent, which, , has announced the launch of a new AI powered news service called Bulletin. Designed specifically for what they describe as time poor audiences. The idea is simple but compelling. Use artificial intelligence specifically Google’s Gemini AI model to generate ultra brief news summaries each no [00:36:00] longer than 140 words.

These summaries are created by rewriting original reporting from the independent, or content from news agencies. The key point though, is that journalists review and check every single summary before it goes live. They’ve hired a dedicated team of seven staff to support bulletin, and the goal is to offer readers a fast, accurate briefing service while maintaining journalistic integrity.

It’s part of the independence, broader strategy to make its journalism more accessible to busy readers. Those they say who are juggling long work hours, family responsibilities, or are just overwhelmed by information overload. Bulletin will launch at the end of March on bulletin news with initial sponsorship from the social platform.

We are eight, , that includes investor and former English Premier League footballer Ferdinand among its backers. As part of that partnership, the independent will produce exclusive content for we are eight as well. What makes the Bulletin particularly interesting, [00:37:00] I think, is how the publisher is positioning this effort.

Christian Broughton, the Independence managing director, said the journalists themselves were closely involved in shaping the AI workflow, ensuring they remain in control of the content editor-in-Chief Jordy. Greg describes Bulletin as brilliant shorthand for the independence journalism, a supplement, not a replacement for the deeper Coverage newsletters, podcasts and documentaries.

And of course, the independence move isn’t happening in isolation as other UK publishers like Newsquest and Reach are also experimenting with AI assisted reporting. Others in the US and elsewhere are also experimenting. Still, the independence in the UK seems intent on framing bulletin as a human led initiative supported by AI rather than the other way around.

So is this a new model for trusted, scalable journalism in an age of short attention spans and algorithmic overload? Or is it a step towards automating too much of what journalists do? [00:38:00] What do you think she,

Shel Holtz: well, it could be either one. Depends on how they go about it. It’s all in the execution. But you’re right, there is a lot of AI infiltrating the world of journalism these days.

And what I find most interesting about it is that it is uneven.

It,

Shel Holtz: there don’t seem to be trends. It all seems to be. Ideas that are generated internally and implemented so that you have different publications using AI for different things. And some of them could be really good for journalism, some of them not so much.

For example, the Los Angeles Times has introduced an AI driven labeling system to flag articles that take a stance or are written from a personal perspective. Their billionaire owner, , introduced this in a letter. , it’s called the Voices Label, and it applies to opinion pieces along with news, commentary, criticism, and reviews.

Some [00:39:00] articles also include AI generated insights, which summarize key points and present alternative viewpoints. , this is not. Making a lot of people happy. , Matt Hamilton, vice chair of the LA Times Guild said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, we don’t think this approach, AI generated analysis unvetted by editorial staff will do much to enhance trust in the media.

And earlier results have raised concerns. , the Guardian, , highlighted an LA Times opinion piece about AI generated historical documentaries where the AI tool claimed the article had a center left bias, and suggested that AI democratizes historical storytelling. Another flagged article covered California cities that elected Ku Klux Klan members in the 1920s.

The AI generated counterpoint stated that some historical accounts frame the Klan as a cultural response to societal change rather than a hate driven movement, which I suppose is not [00:40:00] necessarily an accurate but awkwardly positioned as an opposing view. , then you have, , El Folio, an Italian newspaper, , published.

In addition, entirely generated by ai. , the Associated Press has collaborated with Google to integrate realtime news updates into Google’s Gemini Chatbot Time Magazine. Introduced time ai, , platform that enhances journalism. Engagement using, , generative ai. It offers personalized and interactive storytelling experiences.

Reuters, , employees generative AI across various aspects of news production, including reporting, writing, editing, production, and publishing. But they do disclose when content is primarily or solely AI generated. ESPN began publishing AI generated recaps for women’s soccer games. , the Garden Island, , newspaper in Kauai, Hawaii introduced AI avatars named James and Rose to deliver live broadcasts by discussing [00:41:00] pre-written news articles.

, courts uses chat GPT to write hundreds of articles every day on securities and exchange filings. , and various news outlets are using AI for things like generating interview questions, predicting churn, transcribing interviews, suggesting headlines and proofreading. It is all over journalism and to.

Argue that is somehow inappropriate or unethical. , I think is, , the metaphor that we have used on this show more times than we probably should have is King Knut trying to hold back the tide. , it’s going to become a defacto part of journalism. And one of the reasons this makes sense is if you think about the budget cuts that especially print journalism has been experiencing, if they can get AI to pick up some of that drudgery load, , so that the reporters can focus on doing the reporting, you know, the, the shoe leather on the streets, , that’s to their benefit.

So yeah, I think you’re gonna see some [00:42:00] newspapers, , and other media outlets succeed with this. , they’re gonna find the right balance. They’re gonna keep the human exactly where they should be in the loop. , others, , like the LA Times, maybe not so much.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, , I, that’s how I was it too. I think, , given the information , I’ve found about what the independence planning to do and the key part of the role of journalists in the production of the content that is, generated with the help of the AI is absolutely crucial to this.

, you mentioned courts. , I was reading a courts piece recently, and it was quite clear to me that this was not, this, no journalist has written this content, and I just wonder, again, I don’t know this, but I just wonder, do they have actual humans checking the stuff before it gets out? I’m assuming they would.

, therein lies, I think, interestingly with

Shel Holtz: courts, they, they temporarily shut it down because of inaccuracies and then brought it back, expanding it to publish longer articles with disclaimers about the potential AI related, , hallucinations that. You could read that. [00:43:00] Yeah.

Neville Hobson: But that you see that that’s not good enough.

, totally not because , you get that , with the raw prompt response from chat GPT at the bottom, every single one. You know, it may be inaccurate. You need to check it. What what you need to do is, , is to create content. And you might use the ai, , in the case of the independent to gather, , the stories that, it has been asked to do.

And, and assuming it’s prompted in the right way, if that’s how they’re going about it, to, , create the content that you, the human then can edit. And you are the subeditor if you like. , let’s call it the verifier, the checker, whatever. You’ve gotta do all that too. , and so you don’t actually have to write the story.

, which is again, a, a discussion topic that would take us down a huge avenue, huge road , if we wanna get about into that in this episode, which we don’t. That’s another day, I think. , but, but I think. You are right. It’s a tsunami that’s approaching, this is going to impact journalism and questionably.

So in good ways, certainly, and in not so good ways. [00:44:00] Certainly, , the not so good ways I, I suspect is likely to be self-inflicted from within the industry more than anything else, by those who see an easy way to, , replace people or to not have to worry about increasing budgets to do the things they wanna do.

They can employ an AI to do this. And, , part, I suspect partly the failure of those organizations are gonna be mixed because of the fact the human people, the humans who need to read the content, pay money for it, are not gonna do that. There’s likely also to be regularly pushback in, in significant numbers of countries so that they’ll be threatened all those ways.

, there will be protests no matter what. There will be people who think this is a very bad idea. Totally. And the bad idea, I, I think is definitely the case for those who do not. Go through the, the, the right process to do this, which the independent seems to be planned. I’m looking forward to seeing the first edition.

That website, they’ve, they’ve got bulletin news. I took a look at it, , just before we started recording and [00:45:00] all it gave me was a completely blank page. Nothing on the page at all. I looked at the page source and there was nothing there either. So I dunno what’s happening with that. Maybe it’s just not live yet.

Shel Holtz: Well, , it’s late in March if the out, but it’s not

Neville Hobson: the end of March. Well, indeed. But if the story’s out there, they, they, they would be wise, I would say, to prepare something saying coming soon or whatever it might be. So, , but I’m gonna keep a cosign it because I’m keen to see how they’re doing this.

I’m like every average Joe, I’m time poor like everyone else, but I’d put time into this just to see how it is. , I did ask Gemini myself, how can I do this, do something like this if I wanted to. , be a, , , kind of new summary publisher. And to make it easy, I said, you know, how would I produce a newsletter that summarizes everything I’ve published on my website in the preceding 30 days with little summaries of all of this?

And it told me quite clearly how I could do this. The only thing missing is the bit I’m keen on, is it automating it? I don’t wanna have to create a template and then [00:46:00] copy and paste. No, no, no. What’s what’s the point of that? I’m looking for something that would enable me to create something additional that I can then review and approve and publish.

, there are ways to do it, and there are third party tools you could do. The Zapier comes to mind, but there’s two manuals. So I look into it further, I think. But if the independent is doing this, therefore there is a means. It may be that it’s a cost and the specialists you need to bring on board, but I could see this coming, , in a big way.

, and here in the uk, , reach is a, a newspaper publisher that owns a number, a significant number of regional newspapers, as well as a number of the national tabloid dailies. And, uh, they’ve been employing. AI tools to create some of their reporting for quite a while. So when you read in my local newspaper down here in Somerset, for instance, about, you know, this restaurant in that town has just published a new menu with their summer offers of nice food and all that stuff.

It makes a story. , I , don’t know. And I’m if, if you are listing here, correct me if I got this wrong, but I bet you an [00:47:00] AI did that, not a journalist. So, , some of the writing also you get suspicious about the quality of the writing. So you make is this AI generated. So I think the more you can do this where their, their approach, it seems to me, , is very good.

AI is the assistant for the human. So these are human led initiative, assisted by ai, not the other way around. That’s the way to do it in my book.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. I’m untroubled by the notion of articles in the mainstream press that have been written by ai. If there are articles that don’t require great writing and the securities filings.

Articles is a great example that hits some government database that you’re monitoring. The basic facts are there. The model has been trained on tens of thousands of articles about securities filings, and if it can share the facts accurately, , somebody does a quick review to make sure it’s right, why not?

Does that need a Pulitzer Prize winning journalists to crank that article out? I [00:48:00] what’s important is the information be shared timely among people who are going to make investment decisions based on these types of things, not how well it was written. Have those reporters go out and do the writing on the stuff where it matters.

Some of this writing just needs to be good enough.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. Yeah, you could be right. I’m not saying I disagree with you. I, and I don’t necessarily think I fully agree with you, but I, I think the, to me it’s like, , you need to be sure that what you are reading, , or consuming, , , in a different way of looking at it, is authentic.

And that doesn’t mean the literal use of the word authentic, , is, is it what they say they do. , so if they’re using AI to, to help them, they need to disclose that somewhere. And yes, I know, I hear the arguments from people saying, no, you don’t need to do. Yes you do. We are not yet in a stage where you don’t need to help people understand that you are genuine, , and that you are approaching this the right way.

Because if you didn’t do this, that news that someone will find interest wouldn’t get reported. ‘cause you don’t have enough [00:49:00] journalists to do that. So that answers a big. Part of the question about how are we gonna, , ensure that we’re fulfilling a social purpose, , even though we’re a business, of course, but the purpose in society, to report on the news of interest in your niche, in your community, in your geography, whatever it might be.

When we don’t have enough journalists, we are stuck with cashflow problems and so forth, and we’re probably gonna close down. So that is one of the reasons why I remember reading this about Reach a year or so back, why they were doing this for local reporting and indeed sports reporting in particular.

So, , the thing about, , business results that you talked about where it’s just data that makes it easier for it to be, , reported on by an ai because it won’t necessarily have, here’s what x, Y, Z company did, and they reported the loss. It therefore means that for their market position going forward, X the human rights that bit, unless the AI’s.

The means to do that, which requires a human to be involved at that [00:50:00] stage. So that’s taking it down a slightly different avenue. It seems to be, again, this is a huge topic. Shell, , and I think it’s great to talk about it like this because there is no, , silver bullet answer. There’s no, this is the way you do this.

And there there are 15 other ways you could do it too. But I, broadly speaking, your point I agree with though is that, , there are things that, , are worthy of reporting in the media that don’t justify that Pulitzer Prize winning journalist to be doing it. , so in which case you’ve got a bot to do it.

Yeah, that makes sense. But the human, and it doesn’t have to be the pulitz surprise winner, , although why shouldn’t it be needs to revise it and authenticate it and verify the story. So the human must still be involved.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, I you need to have that copy editor role for sure. , but yeah, I don’t need authenticity, , for certain types of, you know, two paragraph.

Purely factual articles. I know I’ve mentioned this multiple times, but even before chat, GPT was released in [00:51:00] November, 2022, , there was Associated Press using I think writer or Jasper to crank out articles about high school baseball games. They had never had the reporting staff to go out and cover these games before, but the stats were recorded in some accessible database, and now you could just turn the AI loose, train it on baseball score stories and let it.

Scrape up the, the statistics from the game and write the story. , somebody edits it , and off it goes, who cares? I, it doesn’t need to be authentic. I need to know if my kid’s team won. , and you know, if, if it’s a question of are we gonna send reporters out to do this, or are we gonna send out to cover the government scandal, I’m gonna let the AI write the high school sports stories and send the reporter out to report on the government scandal.

That’s where the authenticity is required.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, disagree. Sorry, I, I I need the authenticity for everything, no [00:52:00] matter what it is. In fact, it’s, well, the thing is that too, before the AP only a two paragraph report, I wouldn’t read it anyway. ‘cause I want the meaning. I don’t just want the score, I want the meaning.

But before the

Shel Holtz: AP started doing this, they weren’t covering those games at all because the resources weren’t there to do it.

Neville Hobson: No, indeed. So the resource there is now to do it properly, in which case do it properly is, is what I would say. So yeah, the authenticity is important. Like I said at the beginning, not the literal meaning of the word authenticity.

So can I trust what the, what what I read in print, metaphorically speaking is, is the truth or is accurate or is factually correct? How do I know that? And

Shel Holtz: what’s going to damage your credibility is if enough of those articles turn out to be inaccurate. Which is why you still need somebody checking, but, and hence you

Neville Hobson: need the authenticity.

Exactly. Yeah.

Shel Holtz: But do you need somebody to go to the game? Take notes, sit in the press box and, and take notes during the game and file the game. It depends on the game game. Well, not, not a high school game for sure. Not a regular season game. High game. No. Depends. School game. It depends on,

Neville Hobson: on what the report’s gonna be.

If it’s a lot of, of analysis and [00:53:00] prediction and so forth that you, you’d expect. So I was looking at a report about, , just, just over, just over, over this weekend about the recent, , rugby championships in Europe, the Six Nations, and a terrific report I read on, , one of the news on the sports websites that was full of, I could tell the writer really knew this topic exceptionally well, but the start of writing this tone, all that stuff was engaging.

It was entertaining. That’s what I wanna read. Not a dry two paragraph. That’s simply this is what happened. And at the 46th minute this guy did that and they went ahead and they won the championship. No, I can get that anywhere. Get a blogger to give me that source. I want to read that. Breadth and depth of information.

Well, I, I guarantee therefore guarantee I, I would pay pay for that newspaper and I would subscribe to it.

Shel Holtz: I guarantee you the people who are interested in how the high school team did, will read any story versus reading no story. Uh, and, and that’s the option that these publications have right now.

Neville Hobson: There we go.

Such as the landscape. She,

Shel Holtz: you know, and if it’s a feature story, , by all means, [00:54:00] but if it’s really just, , there were nine innings and here’s what happened. , I, I honestly don’t care how that got written, as long as it’s accurate. Fair enough. And like I say, I think the issues will arise if enough of those end up being wrong.

, not, or just simply people need them

Neville Hobson: not worth your time reading. ‘cause it’s crap basically.

Shel Holtz: Well, again, if you care about the score of the game, that’ll be fine. As long as it’s good enough.

Neville Hobson: Okay. That’s a

Shel Holtz: good, good point. And we’ll move on because we have more ai. Exactly. We have more AI to discuss, , starting with a brief report from Dan York.

Dan York: Greeting she Neville And fr this is all around the world. It’s Daniel coming at you from the Vancouver British Columbia airport where I was planning to have a much, , longer time to give a report. But, , I didn’t. So the thing I will just say is I was spent the week in Bangkok, Thailand at the Internet Engineering Task force, meeting 1 22 about internet standards.

And there’s some interesting stuff going on this, , this time around. What’s happening with [00:55:00] just sort of the evolution of, of encryption and of protecting the web in so many different ways? There were a lot of, , interesting discussions. One thing to pay attention to is there’s some new work going on about AI preferences, which, if you’ve worked with websites for a while, you’ll know about the robots txt file that you use to go , and indicate that you want certain parts of your site, , blocked or not.

, in this case, it’s a new one, which will allow you to indicate whether you want certain parts of your site to be scraped by AI engines or not. , it’s a new bit of work. It’s called AI preferences. It’s something that’s happening, it’s emerging, it’s being standardized or it’s being developed.

Yet after that, it needs to then be implemented in browsers and things like that. So there’s a ways off to go, but it’s something to just, you know, there is work being made done to pay attention to this. Another big, , little area of work was, , some work around what’s happening with the World Summit on the Information Society or WSIs plus 20 review that’s happening this, this, , summer [00:56:00] in Geneva.

Well and on throughout the year. Something else to pay attention. If you look up WSIs plus 20 WSIS plus 20, you can read a bit about what’s going on this year as far as some of that. That’s all I’ve got time for today. I’m just gonna give a quick little report like this and send it off to you guys. , as always, you can find more in my audio writing at Dan York.

Me. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.

Shel Holtz: Thanks, Dan. Sorry to hear about your flight delays and I’m sorry it kept you from recording a full report, but, , did enjoy your discussion of AI preferences. The standard. We will have the link to the Internet Engineering Task force group that is working on that and, , very interested to see how that develops and whether there will be widespread.

Acceptance of it among the publishers of sites who would be affected by it. But let’s keep talking about ai, because the conversation around AI and the workplace is shifting and that’s happening [00:57:00] fast. We’re no longer just wondering if AI will impact our jobs. There’s a new question floating around. What happens to the perception of expertise when AI starts performing the tasks that we once, , relied on to prove our value?

That question is central to a recent Business

Listening to Employees is Vital. Is AI-Powered Sentiment Analysis a Viable Approach?

A growing number of companies are offering internal communicators AI-powered advanced sentiment analysis tools to process real-time insights from chat platforms, emails, and discussion forums. These solution providers claim that analyzing employee conversations will help internal comms teams understand how employees respond to things in real time, just as sentiment analysis informs marketing and advertising decisions.

Listening is, of course, important.

The word “communication” comes from the Latin communicare, which means “to make common” or “to share.” True sharing, after all, is not a one-sided act. Arriving at a mutual understanding about something requires it to move both ways—from speaker to listener and back again. Communication is not just about telling. It is also about understanding. If one person speaks but the other doesn’t listen or understand, communication has not taken place. Nothing has been made common.

Hence, listening is a key part of any strategic communication effort. It applies to internal communication as much as to public relations, marketing, and advertising.

The Employee Voice

In internal communication, this is often called “the employee voice.” Engage for Success, the chartered UK organization that promotes employee engagement as a better way to work, lists employee voice as one of the four enablers of engagement. Engage for Success defines employee voice as the result of an organization that sees its people as central to the solution (not the problem). “Employees are involved, listened to, and invited to contribute their experience, expertise, and ideas.

“Employee voice exists where the organization has put mechanisms in place to enable it to have an ongoing conversation with its staff, in different ways, to ensure every voice is heard,” according to the Engage for Success website.

Internal communicators have used various mechanisms, from surveys and pulse checks to focus groups and suggestion boxes. Even sentiment analysis isn’t new. Intel began using sentiment analysis a decade ago to gauge workplace morale and identify and address employee concerns before they boiled over and led to increased turnover.

While sentiment analysis can be a powerful tool for understanding the employee voice, its use also raises important ethical, legal, and cultural considerations. Unlike customer sentiment analysis, where brands analyze public social media posts or survey responses, internal sentiment analysis involves monitoring private or semi-private conversations within an organization. Employees may not be aware that their messages are being analyzed, leading to concerns about privacy, trust, and surveillance.

Listening, Not Surveillance

Transparency is crucial. If you plan to use AI-driven sentiment analysis, you must openly disclose this practice to employees. Communicators should explain what data is being collected, how it will be used, and—just as importantly—what it won’t be used for. For example, if the goal is to identify widespread concerns about a policy change, employees should know that individual messages will not be flagged or attributed to them personally. Without clear boundaries, employees may feel they are being watched rather than listened to, which can erode trust and discourage open dialogue.

Even then, employees could become more circumspect about what they say, knowing their every word is being scrutinized, leading to less candor and diminished value from collaboration.

Another key consideration is data accuracy. AI models, while powerful, are not infallible. They may misinterpret sarcasm, cultural nuances, or industry-specific language, leading to inaccurate conclusions about employee sentiment. Internal communicators must validate AI-generated insights with qualitative research, such as focus groups or direct conversations, before taking action. This safeguards against misinterpretations that could lead to poor decision-making or unnecessary interventions.

Ultimately, sentiment analysis should be framed as a listening tool, not a surveillance mechanism. Communicators should emphasize that the goal is to enhance engagement and address concerns, not to monitor individuals or penalize dissent. Organizations can use sentiment analysis to strengthen internal communications while maintaining a culture of trust and transparency by setting clear expectations, communicating openly, and supplementing AI insights with human judgment.

Or better yet, don’t use it at all. There’s no telling how many employees won’t believe these tools won’t be used for nefarious purposes. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

FIR #452: Communicating in Chaos

• FIR #452: Communicating in Chaos

“We are once again at a moment in time where things will not — and cannot — be the same again. However it unfolds, the only certainty is chaos will follow.”

So wrote global PR practitioner Catherine Arrow in a post on LinkedIn. In this monthly longform episode, Neville and Shel discuss Catherine’s observation that communicators are caught in the thick of conflict in which division is actively cultivated and truth is disputed and weaponized.

Also in this episode, YouTube viewing has shifted from mobile phones to television sets, with implications for the way communicators and marketers produce video for YouTube; there is much for communicators to consider when engaging on platforms that have shrugged off content moderation (part of the chaos Catherine Arrow referenced); Gallup’s Global Leadership Report is out and we’ll share what people want from their leaders; you can now create personas using AI—does that mean it’s a good idea to ask them questions instead of convening a panel of humans for your research? And LinkedIn is de-platforming the value of hashtags—does this spell the end of hashtags on LinkedIn?

In his Tech Report, Dan York discussed Mastodon Quote Posts, Apple’s ending of end-to-end encryption in the UK, and WikiTok, a TikTok alternative that delivers an endless scroll of Wikipedia.

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 24.

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 .(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.

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:

• CEO Says TV Overtakes Mobile as “Primary Device” for Viewing
• I was watching YouTube on my TV before it became more popular than phones – here are 3 reasons why it’s better on the big screen
• There’s a Good Reason Most People Prefer YouTube on TV
• Welcome to the Age of the Chaos Communicator
• The Global Alliance’s Melbourne Mandate
• What loosened restrictions on social media content moderation means for B2B communications leaders
• Perplexity search on impact of loosened content moderation on communication and marketing
• Global Leadership Report: What Followers Want
• The Case Against AI-Generated Users
• Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated “Research”
• User research. Without the headaches.
• FAQ: What Are Synthetic Panels?
• What is synthetic sample - and is it all it’s cracked up to be? And can GenAI be used off-the-shelf to create one?
• The end of the road for LinkedIn hashtags?

Links from Dan York’s Report

• Bringing Quote Posts to Mastodon
• Apple removes Advanced Data Protection for iCloud in the UK after the government ordered it to build a backdoor, something the company says it will never do
• Apple pulls iCloud end-to-end encryption feature for UK users after government demanded backdoor
• Developer creates endless Wikipedia feed to fight algorithm addiction

Raw transcript:

Shel Holtz: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 452 of four immediate release, our long form episode for February, 2025. I’m She Holtz in Concord, California.

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

Shel Holtz: And we have six really interesting topics to share with you today. Some serious implications for communicators that we’re going to help you navigate.

Before we get there, though, we have our usual monthly rundown of housekeeping to take care of, starting with a look at what we have reported in our short midweek episodes since the last monthly show in January. Neville. We’ve got quite a few episodes four we’ve had since the last episode.

Neville Hobson: And they’ve been great topics. I think we’ve we’ve covered some pretty interesting areas. The first one since the last monthly, that’s episode 4 48, we recorded on the 29th [00:01:00] of January was riffing on a couple of LinkedIn posts that looked at change management and enterprise social networks is at the end of the line for these things written by Caroline Keeley and Sharon O’Day respectively.

And they did a good job of setting out the case. So we talked about that. Worth a listen, we have a comment right on that one.

Shel Holtz: We do, we have two comments on that one. The first is from Natasha Gonzalez, who says, definitely agree that internal usage may be a reflection of a change in external social usage and that the Godspeed approach has never worked well.

And then Sharon O’Day, who was one of the people who. Was the source of the material that we riffed on in that episode said great discussion. Thanks. Shell and Neville. I agree with most of the points you bring up here. People need clarity on what channels are for and how they should use them, but that’s more of a challenge than you might expect.

Very many comms reviews. I do reach the conclusion that even the comms team don’t know what their ESN their, employee social network is really [00:02:00] for and with trust on the decline. As you discuss, it’s understandable that employees might be reluctant to share. Will people look through my past contributions to our employee social network and conclude my disagreement is disloyalty.

No wonder people are retreating to smaller forums or choosing to check out active discussions in a world where Elon and his ilk are in the ascendancy, having an opinion on your employee social network may be, may mean putting your neck on the line. I was tempted to title my piece. Did Elon Kill the Employee Social Network?

If leadership are active, authentic on social themselves, it creates psychological safety, which will encourage people to participate. But the reality is very few leaders really do this, and if comms are using employee social networks as another broadcast channel, then long term they contribute to their decline as they’re no longer positioned in audience’s minds as a place of listening, debating, or sharing.

Neville Hobson: Good comment. [00:03:00] So then episode 4 49 on the 5th of February. This is a topic we’ve talked about before. The title of our episode was Employees Use of Shadow AI Surges. We talked about shadow ai. I’ve forgotten the date show. It was about a year ago, I think quite a while ago. And this looked at an aspect of this that’s not decreasing.

If anything, it’s increasing. On the risk side people are using these tools still in organizations and not telling anyone that they are, particularly where there is prohibition in place. So as a stealth approach to using generative ai, we said, but there are plenty of risks. So we looked at the data.

There’s data now on this and discussed various approaches companies can take that will benefit both them and their employees in four 50 on the 13th of February. That was a really good topic where we discussed recent research that shows senior leaders in organizations have doubts about [00:04:00] communicators abilities.

And that’s a that’s a pretty bleak assessment. It talked about complexities in the worlds of business, medium politics, and where you’ve got that situation. The concern of senior executives. The confidence is not high. It decreases. Our people up to the task is what they’re asking.

And you and I outline the research results and discuss ways communicate, can reverse this troubling trend naturally. We had lots of suggestions in that area, and we have a comment on this one too, don’t we?

Shel Holtz: Two of them here, actually three here. First from Amy Santoro who says, this saddens me, but I’m not surprised still since I started in communications in the nineties, we’re not valued and struggled to get a seat at the table.

Patrick Edwardson says, great conversation. Think you’re absolutely right when it comes to communication professionals needing to be more proactive in offering solutions and perspectives to leaders, rather than ending up in a reactionary mode, which is easily done given [00:05:00] the current volatile external environment.

More on that to come in this episode. And finally, Steve Renzo sums it up pretty well, saying that’s depressing.

Neville Hobson: Good ending to that one. Then in episode 4 51 on the 17th of February we talked about return to office. Obsessed executives are minimizing the employee voice. This is the now infamous and widely known behavior of the CEO of JP Morgan Chase.

The bankers Jamie Diamond, who unfortunately for him had a severe rant during an employee meeting that was recorded. And of course, the recording leaked. It’s, the expletives are dreadful. It is seriously someone who really doesn’t care. What did employees want to do or think? They need to do what he tells ‘em and just get into the office and be there.

So we talked about that. And I see that we’ve had on LinkedIn, certainly a lot of people who’ve who’ve who, who liked it and stuff like that. We provided mostly you shall evidence that productivity, morale [00:06:00] higher with remote workers. We did cite a lot of that research. But if it comes down to, or when it comes down to a leader who behaves like this, your work is cut out to to, to show the benefits of a hybrid approach to the workplace or any other method that splits the get into the office or work from home.

It’s a never ending debate, it seems to me. But I’ve seen others talking about this too since that episode. IE other behaviors not leaked recordings, but leaders of big organizations saying, I don’t care. You gotta get in the office. So this is an argument that has still got a long way to run, I’d say.

So that was yeah, sorry. We got comment two, haven’t we?

Shel Holtz: We have three. Starting with Stuart Bruce who says, if it’s a simplistic back to the office mantra I’m against it. Simply having people sitting behind a desk in an office is counterproductive. However, if it’s managed intelligently by rethinking office layouts, what people do when they do it and more, then there’s value.

The osmosis effect is [00:07:00] invaluable. Junior people, learning from senior people simply by being around them. The spontaneous sharing of ideas. The problem is that too often in offices, there isn’t a lot of those two things happening. If people are to be back in the office, it needs to be benefit, both the employer and the employee.

That means rethinking what being in the office really means. And I have to say, I, I really agree with Stewart. It’s why I favored the hybrid model over a fully remote model. Although there are cases where an employee, it makes sense for them to be fully remote, but not as a routine. Be at home, be remote when you’re gonna be nose down, doing.

Individual work and be in the office when there are things happening that are gonna put people together, interacting, engaging, collaborating, sharing. That’s what makes sense to me. Jesper Anderson also commented he asked, did you hear Richard Edelman on Provoke Media’s new PR agency leader podcast?

He’s very much in favor of mandatory returning to the office, saying people [00:08:00] are at their best when they are together. And finally, Steve Neruda says, having read a couple of discussion threads on LinkedIn on this subject, what stood out to me were the comments that one’s employees couldn’t be trusted, which read to me like a very Trumpian every accusation is a confession.

People projecting their own faults and failures externally.

Neville Hobson: Good comments. All of them. Great. Yeah. So that’s a hot topic. No doubt. We’ll be talking about it again in the future.

Shel Holtz: I also wanna let you know that the most recent episode of Circle of Fellows from January is up and available on the FIR Podcast Network.

Was a really good discussion on creativity, on how to get that creativity sparked, especially in the busy corporate environment. Zoa artists, Diane GSKi, Andrea Greenhouse, and Martha Mka joined me for that episode. And then coming up this Monday an unusual day to [00:09:00] record. Circle of Fellows. That’s usually the third Thursday of the month, but this month it worked out for Monday at noon Eastern time.

We’ll be talking ethics because it is communication ethics month at IABC. And that conversation will involve Diane GSKi again two months in a row. Todd Hattori Jane Mitchell and Carolyn Riel. Should be a great discussion on communication ethics, especially in light of some of the communication we’ve been seeing in the last few months.

Neville Hobson: Definitely. And also just to let you know, we have a new FIR interview that will be published next Wednesday, the 26th of February. Those of you who’ve been in this game for a long time in terms of digital and social will recognize this name. Steve Ruble. Steve has longevity in this. He is a hugely influential voice and kickstart a lot of the developments that happened from 2005 onwards.

He spent nearly 19, [00:10:00] 20 years at Edelman and he’s now looking at new pastures, new ideas, new ventures. New adventures. I would say we had a great conversation with Steve, just a week or so back. And we’ll be publishing that, as I mentioned on Wednesday. So that’ll come out in the morning, GMT, so you can catch it when you wake up.

And also that same day, we’re recording the next FIR interview, which we’ll publish sometime in March with Sam Michelson, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Five Blocks. That is a digital reputation management agency among other things. He’s involved with his company, which is how I came to know.

Sam also runs a server, offers a service called Wiki Alerts which lets you track. Pages to Wikipedia pages, and I’ve been using that service myself for probably five years. But Sam and I connected, we had a long chat. He’s based in Israel. The company’s based in New York. And looking [00:11:00] forward to exploring Sam’s thoughts on a topic.

Both you and I have talked about quite a bit the letters, AI feature in there in terms of digital reputation management. So we’ll get some insights from Sam on what he thinks about where this is going and in, in the context of organizational communication. So that’s all coming up. New interviewing published on Wednesday the 26th of February.

The following interview will come out in the first half of March, I reckon.

Shel Holtz: Looking forward to that interview on Wednesday. Sounds like it’ll be an illuminating session. And now it’s time for us to start reporting on our six topics of the month after this.

There is a major shift in video consumption Communicators need to pay attention to. YouTube is now watched more on TVs than on mobile devices. For years, YouTube has been synonymous with mobile viewing, but according to YouTube’s, CEO Neil Mohan TV screens have [00:12:00] overtaken smartphones as the primary way people watch YouTube.

In the US viewers now watch over a billion hours of YouTube daily on their TVs. This trend isn’t just happening in the us it’s in the UK too, where 34% of YouTube viewing already happens on TVs and among kids aged four to 15, that number jumps to 45% in the uk. Clearly, this is something that’s not slowing down.

So why is this happening? There are several factors driving this transformation, and it starts with the evolution of smart TVs and streaming devices because YouTube is now pre-installed on most of them on the Sony TVs and the Samsung TVs, those smart TVs they come with the YouTube already pre-installed.

Same with the Roku and the Apple TV box just makes it easier than ever to watch it. On your tv. It’s also not just for short clips anymore. YouTube is just teaming with documentaries in-depth, explainers and [00:13:00] episodic series. I think it’s interesting that Epi episodic series are thriving on YouTube and it’s turned into a shared viewing experience with more people watching YouTube together.

Just like traditional television. And I know I do most of my YouTube watching on the computer, but if I see something I think my wife would be interested in, I pull it up on the TV and we watch it together. So there’s that. For communicators using YouTube, this shift has some pretty big implications. If audiences are consuming YouTube like tv, then we need to adjust the way we create this content.

So what do we need to do differently? First you need to optimize for TV screens and most of the YouTube videos that are up there. Now were designed for mobile. And if your audience is watching on tv, you’re gonna need to adapt. First of all you need that 16 nine aspect ratio, the wide screen format, because vertical videos suck on tv.

And I can tell you that from personal experience, [00:14:00] you need to make your text and graphics bigger. What works on a phone that is a few inches from your eyes might be unreadable from across the room. And you also need to make sure your audio is high quality because poor sound is a lot more noticeable on your sound bar or your surround sound system, even your native TV audio than it is.

Listening to it on your phone. Next thing you need to do is think more like a TV producer. They’re watching YouTube more like tv, so you need to lean into longer content. Viewers on TV are a lot more likely to watch content that is 10 plus minutes. You need to invest in better production, quality lighting, sound and editing matter more on a large screen and consider episodic content because as I mentioned, recurring series and repetitive formats, episodic formats encourage you to come back and watch the next episode, so you get people hooked on your content.

It’s no longer just a one-off, oh, I saw this, I [00:15:00] watched it, it was interesting, and I’ll never see anything from you again. Third, it’s important to leverage the second screen experience because viewers may be watching YouTube on tv, but their phones are still in their hands. YouTube is expanding features in order to accommodate the fact that people are watching on their TV with their phone in their hands.

They’re doing QR codes and videos because it’s a simple way to drive viewers to take action, and they’re offering phone-based interactions. They’re making it easy to comment or engage with the video on your mobile phone while you’re watching the tv. If you want viewers to sign up, comment, share, you have to make it easy for them to do that from their phone.

Because they really aren’t gonna use their remote to do that on the tv. And if you are advertising on YouTube, you need to consider your ad strategy too. They are rolling out TV specific ad formats. Three of them are interesting. One are pause [00:16:00] ads. These are ads that will appear when you pause the video.

So what kind of ad would you like people to see when they pause a video? Next is non-intrusive overlays that are better suited for passive TV viewers. And finally, is high quality skippable ads. If you can skip the ad, you will, unless it draws you in. Viewers are a lot more willing to watch if it’s a well made, interesting, compelling ad.

Now, if you’re using YouTube ads, these formats could be more effective than traditional pre-rolls. The takeaway from all this is that YouTube isn’t just another social platform anymore. It’s the new television. If you’re using YouTube for communication, it’s time to start thinking like a broadcaster.

Neville Hobson: Listening to what you’re saying there, she I just said to her, my God, the manipulation is dreadful.

Truly. But I watch, more t more YouTube content on TV than any other device. In fact, the worst device to watch YouTube on is a mobile phone. Frankly I, in my experience, horrible not only is [00:17:00] it a small screens, it’s squeezed in, the vertical you mentioned, okay. But all the popups and all the ads and all the kind of and particularly the ads that break in the middle of something you’re watching.

So it’s a dreadful experience in my humble opinion. Maybe not so humble, but that’s my opinion. So I tend to watch YouTube on TV for stuff I’ve saved that I found elsewhere. I actually quite and this is not like I see something, I think, oh, my wife and I would like to watch it together.

We don’t do that with YouTube. We do that with Google movies. That’s a fact. Now that’s not YouTube. That’s a separate thing, but it’s the same company of course. But I like to watch things I’ve found elsewhere that I’ve saved. I can watch on a big screen, and it could be an ad, it could be something else, anything.

Even yet, that experience is not brilliant no matter what device you’re using, simply because of the int inclusivity of the advertising, other messaging that interferes with what you’re watching. So you could say. If you take the premium account, pay for it, you don’t get the ads. That’s actually not quite [00:18:00] true.

You do, but maybe not so badly as this. So I think your point is a key one that you mentioned towards the end of what you were saying, which is if an ad is done really well that draws you in, you wouldn’t object. Utterly agree with that. But I’ve yet to find any on YouTube in the uk. The worst ones are, the kind of over fifties life insurance plans.

Maybe that’s the algorithm looking at me and serving up that rubbish, wor, badly made, I mean everything. I better stop me now, shall I get you on a rant yet? So I think TV’s great. It’s a better medium to watch it, but you don’t always have time to do all of that. So the next option I think I would agree with you is a big screen monitor in your office attached to your desktop computer.

Definitely not a phone tablet. Okay. If it’s a large one, but I think. The rest of what you said makes sense from the, from the content writer’s perspective and the medium that people are shoving this content out there. I just don’t think anyone’s really doing that very well on YouTube. That’s my take.

The feeling I [00:19:00] get often is that you’re there and you will be interfered with intrusive advertising, whether you like it or not. And often there’s no skip. You gotta watch the damn things. In some cases not all. So I don’t have a very good perception of YouTube. So I’m not the target audience as much of this stuff and I’m totally fine with that.

Lemme tell you that

Shel Holtz: I don’t see any ads on YouTube ever because I pay the premium fee. Oh, I don’t to avoid the ads. Yeah. Oh yeah. It’s worth every penny as far as I’m concerned, to not see those ads. Sure,

Neville Hobson: I get that.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. But the fact that more people are watching on TV now than mobile doesn’t mean people aren’t watching on mobile.

So you have to know who your audience is and where are they more likely to be watching. I didn’t see any demographic breakout except that number for kids four to 15 in the uk watching more than the overall population on their TVs. So yeah, I think it’s partly recognizing where [00:20:00] you’re.

Audience demographically is likely to be watching, but it’s also what kind of content are you thinking of producing? If, if you’re looking for a TikTok like video if you’ve made it for TikTok, I, there’s no reason not to repurpose it for YouTube. The more places it, it is, the better, as long as you’ve made whatever adjustments need to be made for the differences in the formats.

But on the other hand, and I know I’ve talked about this on the show before, there are businesses now companies that are making documentaries and YouTube is now a good place to host those because people will sit and watch a documentary. I’ll tell you the truth, Neville, michelle and I wanted to watch a movie. There was a remake of the movie that was about to come out, and the original starred one of Michelle’s favorite old time actors, Tyrone Power and we wanted to watch the original before we saw the new one and checked every streaming service and nobody had it.

I was, oh my God, this movie has to be somewhere. Where it ended up being, it [00:21:00] was YouTube. So that’s what we did. We pulled up YouTube because it’s on both our Apple TV box and our Samsung tv. So we just pulled up YouTube, did a search for the movie, and sat there for an hour and 40 minutes and watched a movie.

So that’s a new behavior and I think people, who produce content have gotta get accustomed to that and start factoring that into your thinking about what kind of content are you gonna produce.

Neville Hobson: I would agree with you. I would, the only thing I’d say to what you, the kind of pace you outline, I don’t do any of that with YouTube other places I do that.

Not a place I naturally look to, to spend time on except, as I mentioned, as I saved, I wanna catch up with a concert a clip of an ad that I really thought was impressive, things like that. I don’t watch movies, I don’t watch documentaries. There, there are other places I go for that kind of content, but we’re all different and that’s why there’s so much choice out there.

I just get, find so much choice. I gotta limit it to something. So I don’t pay [00:22:00] for that. I pay for other servers, but not pay YouTube. So I tend not to use it. That much in that regard. But it the point though, you are making, I think I would agree with that. You’ve gotta get your aunt together, offer content in a way that’s compelling to the viewer that keeps them around.

And they might then look at other stuff. And that’s why I’m reading the Gizmo article that you shared on this, talking about the revenue that has been steadily increasing. The writer of this piece, by the way, has a a scathing review of YouTube’s mobile app, . I agree with him. He talks about the brain brot of the YouTube mobile app turns me off more than it turns me on.

If I truly wanted dumb quick hits to shock my brain with numbing dopamine, I would turn to TikTok . But and he also makes a comment too which was in my mind, strange to consider YouTube’s popularity on TV when the company keeps raising the price. Obviously YouTube TV service. That’s an interesting point.

So in the US he says YouTube TV now costs [00:23:00] $83 a month. That’s a lot of money. Wow.

Shel Holtz: Might as well just pay for cable.

Neville Hobson: Gosh. Yeah. That’s crazy. He says, if I’m gonna be forced to watch ads because I can’t afford a premium subscription, I wouldn’t wanna do it on my TV or phone.

Okay. That’s his take. But it’s an interesting topic. Shell and I think content creators really should think this through better than they do to make it a more compelling experience for the viewer.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. And by the way, one of the reasons I watch a lot of YouTube is because jam bands tend to upload their concert videos, to YouTube, and I am a jam band fan and one reason I can watch them on my phone is that I did get the pixel fold okay.

My phone is now it unfolds into a mini tablet and it makes that experience a whole lot better.

Neville Hobson: Is it any good?

Shel Holtz: I love it. Yeah, it’s great. It’s a little heavy a little heavier than I’m used to for a phone, but I got used to that pretty quickly. I like it. I like it a lot.

Neville Hobson: Cool. Okay next we’re going to talk about a different world in an age of chaos.

And this [00:24:00] stems from a post on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s coming up a lot in my research when I look for topics these days. And that’s a good thing. There’s some great content there. I’ll tell

Shel Holtz: you, I’ll tell you, I’m saving more and more LinkedIn articles to my Tumblr feed which is what I use to look for articles to write about or to talk about on the show.

So I agree with you.

Neville Hobson: Sure. I use pocket for that, and it’s chock full of LinkedIn content, but I also save on LinkedIn as well. But now picture this. Imagine a world where reality itself is contested, where facts are no longer agreed upon, and truth bends under the weight of disinformation. Does that sound familiar to what’s happening right now?

It could be some familiarity there. This is the world we find ourselves in today, and as communicators, our role has never been more crucial or more complex. Five years ago at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic communication had some semblance of order governments held daily briefing scientists stood alongside officials, and even as chaos unfolded, there were still structures in place to [00:25:00] make sense of it all.

Fast forward to 2025, and that coherence has all but vanished now. We find ourselves in an era that Catherine Arrow calls chaos communication. A time when public relations professionals, journalists, and communicators, are no longer just sense makers, but active participants in an information war, in a thought provoking post on LinkedIn.

Welcome to the Age of the Chaos Communicator. Arrow. Arrow warns that we’ve entered a new phase of public discourse, one where truth is deliberately distorted. Polarization is a strategy, and neutrality is no longer an option. We face a world shaped not just by geopolitical tensions and economic upheavals, but by deliberate attempts to reshape reality.

She critiques the role of public relations and communication professionals pointing out that they are no longer just mediators, but often find themselves entangled in battles over truth itself. Some uphold ethical standards while others willingly participate in disinformation [00:26:00] for personal or political gain.

Arrow warns at the stakes are now higher than ever. . As those in power actively work to reshape narratives for their own benefit in this environment, neutrality is no longer an option. Communicators must take a stand, push back against misinformation and act as defenders of truth, even at personal or professional risk.

As communicators, what role should we play? Do we amplify messages regardless of the truthfulness, or do we take a stand knowing that speaking up could come at a cost? Arrow argues that we are now one step beyond traditional crisis communication, and we must embrace the uncomfortable reality of chaos communication, where defending the truth is not just an ethical responsibility, but a battle in its own right.

Ultimately Arrow calls for a redefinition of the communicator’s role in this new era, urging professionals to move beyond traditional PR functions and embrace the responsibility of countering manipulation, upholding integrity, [00:27:00] and ensuring that history is not dictated solely by those with loudest megaphones.

This age of chaos raises important questions for communicators. How do we ensure that ethical communication remains at the forefront? How do we counter disinformation without adding to the noise? And most critically, if we don’t take a stand for truth, who will?

Shel Holtz: Well, the question I have is, are we doing this on our own using platforms like LinkedIn or are we doing this on behalf of our organizations? Because if we’re doing this on behalf of our organizations, we certainly can’t just go off and do it on our own. A lot of organizations are grappling with the chaos that is coming out of Washington, DC right now and making some tough decisions about what they’re going to say and what they’re not going to say in order to protect their business.

Good god look at Elon Musk right now and specifically thinking of Twitter or [00:28:00] X where he is suggesting not in so many words, but everybody is . On top of this interpretation that if you advertise on X and you don’t increase your ad spend, you could end up being the target of a government investigation, your organization.

You talk about the weaponization of government and the administration is doing that. If you don’t tow the line on DEI policies, you’re, you could end up being the target of an investigation by the Department of Justice. These are pretty serious threats. And I think organizations that have employees they need to pay so that they can feed their families and, keep a roof over their heads.

They need to keep their vendors working. They need to keep their investors happy. That’s a tough call to take a stand. I think there are fewer and fewer organizations, frankly, that are doing that be because of the threat. Now I. Absolutely agree. And I am taking a stand [00:29:00] individually, online, wherever I can as, as well as through other community activities.

But I think it’s interesting if she’s talking about, as an official spokesperson of your organization, you are speaking for your organization. You can’t make that up as you go. .

Neville Hobson: I’m not sure she’s talking about that. Although that may be part of what she’s saying. She doesn’t state it, but it is more of a general thing, it seems to me.

And I think it makes sense. Like you I could see the risk element of this but perhaps more significantly to your prime point, which is you can’t just go out and do this if you are talking on behalf of the organization. Of course not. I don’t think she’s suggesting that.

It does make you think when I read her article, this was before the news rapidly emerged about the thousands of people that Trump and his psycho fence are firing in public sector or the federal employees. I read today, I think the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta is letting go some thousands of employees.

The big [00:30:00] one is the 10,000 or so that have been let go in. I’ve forgotten which government department shell, do you remember? It was in the news? Yeah,

Shel Holtz: it was the US agency for international development.

Neville Hobson: Is it that one? Okay. Because I think Department of Defense is coming up next. So I was reading Generals this morning.

They had about

Shel Holtz: yeah, chairman of the

Neville Hobson: so I guess in the context of that without this conversation just focusing on all this stuff going on in America, I think. In my mind it’s been why aren’t we seeing more people pushing back on, on stuff like this? But the wider picture would be generally what the US is, the current administration in the White House is doing, broadly speaking across the board, the threat of tariffs and this kind of deal making in Ukraine.

It’s all about mining these precious metals that’s all Trump wants. He wants a deal, and he’s talking about how much money everyone can make on this. Good grief. He’s all about the transaction. And, uh, cozy up to Putin and so forth. No one’s really saying a lot about that.

And I [00:31:00] can understand that. Part of me understands that, the high risk element of that. But I think it’s more why do that? No one has a clue how to respond to this yet. That’s what it looks like to me. Whether you are in a European government, whether you are in a global multinational corporation, let’s wait for.

Someone some company that’s a big global enterprise is gonna get in the cross hairs of either Musk or Trump and have to go through some kind of serious accusation. So what are we gonna do about that? So I would imagine what Catherine Arrow is pointing out is already on the discussion tables of large organizations.

I would think the what if, and this is what would you call it? Chief says, we’re beyond crisis communication. This is chaos, communication planning. So that is already going on, and maybe we’re in the, to use a second World War analogy, this is the phony war. There’s not real war broken out yet.

These are little skirmishes. These are the . Probing and the pushing. That’s what it seems to me. And yet the consequences of these actions are dreadful and dreadful. They’re dire, [00:32:00] they are gonna affect all of us. So you mentioned about, in a company people have gotta, look after their employees, they can feed their families or totally.

Right. Maybe that’s what’s influencing the lack of things as well. So we’ve got all that. This then is the, almost like the game plan for this is what you’ve gotta decide as a communicator in the organization. And by the way, thinking about that, the communicators.

What about those folks who are in those organizations that have fired all those federal employees, the communicators, assuming they aren’t amongst the fires. I’ve seen a couple of people talking on threats who are communicators who’ve been let go in, I’ve forgotten which agency? So it’s across the board.

And we are gonna see some dreadful consequences of all of this. In the meantime, we’ve got what c Catherine Arrow is pointing out to us that we need to decide ourselves. How do we ensure that ethical communications at the forefront how do we counter disinformation? Listen to everything Trump says, and the fact checking [00:33:00] guys are hard at work on everything he says and almost.

The majority of everything he says is not true most of the time. So how do you counter that? Because it’s like we’ve often talked, if you don’t respond to stuff like that after a short period of time, it becomes the truth to most people. ‘cause no one is saying different and there’s a big risk. If we don’t stand for truth, who will is her concluding point. That’s a very good statement. But we should adapt that to the real world, to the reality of the circumstances in our own situations. There is risk doing this without doubt. I don’t have the answers to these questions I’m asking too.

I’ve been thinking about this as I read Katherine’s post and just observing what’s going on as Musk with his chainsaw at a conference. Goodness me Trump, who. I just wonder, is he, does he think this is all a joke? Do you think so? Is he just letting Musk have his way until something goes wrong and then he fires him and then we see a conflagration?

Who knows? But this is a dangerous time. This, I, [00:34:00] in my view, is a good clarion call for us to think about some of these things and indeed this kind of conversation you and I are having, others should be having these conversations too, because we are at a time of grave peril. It seems to me, in this age of chaos.

And chaos is right.

Shel Holtz: Absolutely. And when Catherine Aero says that we need to take on a new role, I would argue it’s not a new role. It is something that was suggested maybe 10 or 12 years ago by the Global Alliance for Communications and Public Relations. Yeah. This is the organization whose membership is made up of communication associations.

I-E-B-C-P-R-S-A CPRS. They’re all members of the Global Alliance, and they met in Melbourne way back when and drafted what they called the Melbourne mandate. I don’t even know if you can still find that online. But at the center of the mandate was that the communicator’s role at the center is to be the conscience of the organization and to help guide.

The [00:35:00] doing of what’s right and the rejection of what’s wrong. And that’s exactly, I think what she’s talking about here. Just more speaking up than providing counsel. But as communicators I think that they were right in the Melbourne mandate that because we have that view, not only of all of the organization’s operations, but everything that’s going on externally, we’re in the best position to say, look, this is how people are going to react to our taking this position. I look at Target the gr the department store chain as an example. They dialed back their DEI, they dialed back the pride month celebrations. They used to have a lot of product from gay L-G-B-T-Q designers and the like in the store.

And they’ve dialed that back because of the pushback they were getting. But now there’s been a suit filed against them customers who supported their DEI initiatives and their supportive Pride month are boycotting and making a lot of noise. They’re being torn apart by both ends.

And [00:36:00] you have to wonder how an organization is going to deal with that when half of the people want you to do one thing and half of your customers want you to do another. And they you can’t have it both ways. So I’m, these are difficult times.

Neville Hobson: They are. And I’m thinking something you mentioned about the Melbourne mandate is a good point.

But I think we’ve got, we’re at a time now where nothing at all is black or white, is very nuance’s. Lots of dreadful shades of gray. Much more than that movie talked about. Lemme tell you that. And you’ve also got something we can observe which she references that some people uphold ethical standards.

And I would like to think the majority of communicators do, while others willingly participate in disinformation for personal or political gain. That’s not a new thing, of course, but at a time when things are not what they appear, particularly when. In the kind of good old days, an authority figure, like the [00:37:00] president of the United States, you could almost literally say, if he says it’s it is.

So, now you’ve got Trump doing that kind of stuff. If he says it’s it ain’t, that’s a fact, but what are you gonna do about it? And it gets worse every time he talks. I think this presents a, this kind of adds to the dilemma confronting communicators because it is not black and white, the old rule book that you may not apply the way it was intended back then.

So you’ve gotta think fast on your faith, be pretty agile as the word goes and look at how do you convince your leaders, your colleagues and others that of a certain course of action when evidence, quote unquote out there suggests it’s not that, it’s this, how do you deal with that? So it’s, it is a time of chaos.

Shel Holtz: We’re gonna stick with this topic. We’re just gonna zero in on one element of the chaos, and that’s the upheaval we find ourselves in. Thanks to this trend of loosening content moderation policies [00:38:00] on major platforms, notably X and Metis platforms this shift has profound implications for communicators, especially in the B2B sector.

So if you’re working the B2B sector, pay attention MET is transitioning from third party fact checking to a community note system that’s similar to the approach that X formerly Twitter took under Elon Musk’s leadership. If you care to call it that Zuckerberg is framing this move as a commitment to free expression, aiming to address concerns about over enforcement and perceived biases and content regulation.

But this relaxation of content controls has really sparked a lot of debate. Critics argue that reducing moderation can lead to increases in misinformation and harmful content, posing risks to public disclosure and brand safety. Really interesting to be having this discussion. Right now. I’m reading the book, the Sirens call by Chris Hayes, which is about the attention economy.

And we only have so much attention to give. It’s being commoditized, [00:39:00] but there is an endless supply of information out there and people are working hard to draw your attention. To their content. And if you spend your time with disinformation and misinformation, that means there’s less time for you to hear the countervailing opinion on all of this.

So what are the implications for communicators for those of us in communications, these changes require a strategic reassessment. Here’s what to think about. First, brand reputation management With fewer moderation controls, there is a greater risk of misleading or harmful content proliferating. You may find that your brand’s messages is right up against something that’s controversial or offensive, and that can damage your brand’s reputation and ERO trust.

So it’s really important to monitor social channels vigilantly, and respond quickly to any content that could negatively impact your brand. Then there’s navigating misinformation. The [00:40:00] potential rise in unchecked information means communicators have to be proactive in combating false narratives, developing clear factual content and engaging directly with your audience to correct misperceptions, misconceptions, and disinformation can help maintain your brand’s credibility.

Also, educating your audience on how to identify reliable information and information sources can empower them to navigate the digital landscape more effectively, and they may even be grateful to you for that. Next is evaluating platform strategies. As platforms change their moderation policies, we may need to go so far as reassessing where and how we engage our audiences.

There are already people pulling their X accounts and telling people you, and you’ll now find us on Blue Sky. That’s because X is among those platforms that have become less conducive to your brand’s values and messaging. Due to an increase in harmful content, diversifying your digital presence and considering alternative [00:41:00] platforms with moderation policies that align with your brand standards can mitigate potential risks.

Finally there’s enhancing internal policies that we need to consider internally. Revisiting your social media guidelines is imperative. Ensure that your team understands the importance of responsible content sharing and the potential implications of engaging with unmoderated content.

Providing training on best practices can help maintain a consistent and positive brand image across all channels. So by staying informed and being proactive, we can navigate this complex environment effectively, safeguard our brands, and continue to engage our audiences in a meaningful way.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, it sounds so wonderfully.

Let’s do this the way you say it, shell, um, it’s good to link it to Catherine Arrow’s assessment of the Age of Chaos, because this is part of that. I agree. I find it almost incomprehensible to, to understand why [00:42:00] anyone would want to, um, eliminate content moderation in this day and age notwithstanding Trump and Musk even, and Zuckerberg for that matter talking about, because moderation restricts freedom of speech.

That’s the kind of overriding argument that I understand they’re saying is that’s why they’ve done this, because they want to give. Better freedom of speech without these impediments of government censorship, which is really what it amounts to. So all this pushback in Trump’s style against the the European Union and their efforts to provide safeguards for people online and so forth, all that’s gone by the wayside basically.

So brands generally the people running those brands have serious difficulties. Now with this in being present on any platform that doesn’t have moderation, which is where ones like Blue Sky really do stand out with what they have, and they’ve ramped up their their safeguarding teams significantly.

Trouble is. The likes of X in [00:43:00] particular with what, 600 million users and Facebook with what are they got 3 billion users. The numbers are staggering that, that’s like a drop in the buckets. But maybe this, again, the extension of the conversations that we’ve had in prior episodes, which is that maybe this is something that brands who.

Do not wish to literally give up on their content and their messaging being overwhelmed by stuff that they abhor and does not represent their brand values at all. Being associated with a place that has stuff like that. Maybe this is another nudge to get going with, considering other platforms, which comparatively, in terms of user numbers are niche right now.

But that’s more honest it seems to me. And it’s not saying that, oh, great, we can have them to moderate all the content that, that’s one we can say, but we want not at all. This then becomes a far more strategic approach to this, and it actually sets in place, I think. [00:44:00] The beginnings of a framework for this is how it’s going to be in the future.

That these monolithic networks that are controlled by a single corporation or one crazy individual who changes things on a whim now and again, and it is more like again and now would not matter. It takes power away from those people and you then are more honest and truthful to yourself and your audience.

So that is the future though. ‘cause what we got now is the age of chaos and it ain’t pretty.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. And I find the argument that this is all about free speech to be a little disingenuous. , honestly, if you’re looking for unfettered free speech there’s always four chan. It’s still there.

Last I heard. And anything goes on four chan. There are places that do that. But yeah it’s getting uglier and uglier. I am seeing stuff in my Facebook feed that I have never seen before. People I have not followed, I have not commented on, I haven’t even lingered on these posts.

And I [00:45:00] find them objectionable and offensive. And why are they in my feed? What is it about the algorithm that is injecting this stuff into my feed? You, I think what makes TikTok so addictive is that it. Figures out pretty quickly what you like and just automatically starts giving you more of that.

In fact, in his book, Chris Hayes says he had a, an evening at home one night. So he he was alone which is rare. So he decided to have a half a gummy an edible and play with TikTok. And he said after an hour he realized he had just been scrolling through videos of people making sandwiches lovingly and carefully and cutting them in half, one after another.

And he said, oh my God TikTok knows I’m stoned , so, why can’t Facebook do something a little more like that? Why is it loading me up with this content? And it is, I think this shift toward a more . Conservative approach to [00:46:00] what we see. And I’m actually blocking a lot more on Facebook these days than I ever have.

And I think it’s all because of this accommodation of the new administration and a desire to stay outta their crosshairs. That could be. I also think it’s the algorithm responds to what you post yourself, the content you post, and the volume of your posting. So I don’t do much on, on Facebook. I hardly ever maybe it’s probably less than 1% of my time there, less of that even engage with anyone who’s not a friend at all.

Neville Hobson: I spend all my time purely in my friends. The equivalent of the timeline. I don’t engage much now and again, I’ll have a look at what’s going on and I quickly go away because I don’t see anything there that interests me at all. But that’s just me. I know others who are completely the opposite to that.

TikTok I gave up on TikTok about six months ago. It’s just full of utter bilch. That’s how I see it. I have no interest in that at all. It’s a shame. But I think, [00:47:00] this is the landscape we have and it is not gonna improve. I shell I’m certain it won’t ever improve be, it’s getting worse, if anything.

And now with what’s happening it’s I despair that this is ever gonna be a pleasant place. So I’m still on Facebook. I’m still not a hundred percent decided whether I’m gonna completely shut it down, but I’m leaning that way. And that doesn’t sound like ridiculous fence setting. I dunno what does, but that’s where I’m at still right now.

Shel Holtz: I just finished reading a book. I can’t remember the author’s name. There are people listening, I’m sure, who would are shouting it at me. As soon as I tell you the title of the book it, it is called Nexus. And it is a history of information networks from the Stone Age to ai. And one of the points the author makes he’s a historian something of a philosopher an Israeli he wrote a book called Sapiens that I think was a bestseller.

But he says, what enables democracy is information networks that allow people to engage in [00:48:00] discussion about the issues that affect. The society and to arrive at some kind of consensus. And we’re losing the ability to have those conversations because of this chaos and because of this flooding of the zone with misinformation and disinformation and people latching onto conspiracy theories and whatever suits the tribe that they belong to.

And that’s worr

J.D. Vance says AI “is not going to replace human beings.” That’s snake oil.

One of the givens we have come to accept since OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT 3.5 on November 30, 2022, is that AI’s lack of empathy is one core reason organizations will continue to need humans “in the loop.”

This assumption is flawed on at least two levels. First, it dismisses the potential for AI to mimic empathy. While AI has no emotions and can never be truly empathetic, it certainly can act like it is. Second, even though humans can empathize, they are not always empathetic, even when empathy is called for.

Nothing in the real world demonstrates this better than recent news from Allstate, the nearly 100-year-old insurance giant ($57 billion in revenue in 2023). One of an insurance company’s most common activities is the back-and-forth communication between a customer who has filed a claim and the representative handling the claim.

Customers were unhappy with these interactions. According to Zulfi Jeevanjee, Allstate’s chief information officer, “When these emails used to go out, even though we had standards and so on, they would include a lot of insurance jargon. “They weren’t very empathetic…Claims agents would get frustrated, and so it wasn’t necessarily great communication.”

Nearly all of Allstate’s messages to claimants are now written by AI, and customers are happier with them. They don’t make accusations, as claims agents did. They don’t contain a lot of jargon. They’re friendly. They convey empathy for the claimant for whatever situation led them to file a claim.

So far, Allstate insists no layoffs are planned. Since generative AI still hallucinates and makes mistakes, Jeevanjee claims agents still review every message before sending it. “But they’re not writing them anymore.”

If claims adjusters at Allstate feel secure, though, they should look to Fukoko Mutual Life Insurance, a Japanese insurance company that laid off 34 staff members and replaced them with AI.

It happened in 2017, five years before generative AI made its big splash.

Fukoku said it would increase productivity by 30 percent by using an AI system to calculate insurance payouts.

The IT sector’s unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent in January, compared to 3.9 percent in December, exceeding the 4 percent national unemployment rate. AI is the main reason. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff has been upfront about it, saying Salesforce may not hire a single software engineer in 2025 since AI can handle all their work.

Copywriters in advertising agencies and related industries have been laid off and replaced by AI. Forrester expects ad agencies to replace 7.5 percent of jobs with AI by 2030.

Last June, a CBS News report found 4,000 jobs had been eliminated by AI. The Washington Post headlined an article, “ChatGPT took their jobs. now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners.” One from the BBC tells about “The workers already replaced by artificial intelligence.”

At the recent European AI summit, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance insisted AI will only make workers more productive, not replace them. He’s selling snake oil. The layoffs are already happening and will accelerate. At the same time, people with AI skills will fill newly created jobs. Salesforce, for example, is cutting 1,000 jobs this year but filling 2,000 AI-focused roles.

That’s cold comfort to the specialists in non-AI jobs who will find themselves looking for work in an increasingly tight job market. We should be preparing for this. Instead, we appear to be languishing in a state of denial.

Hybrid/Remote Isn’t Going Anywhere. It’s Time to Stop Treating it Like an Interim Arrangement

“We are hard-wired for face-to-face communication. Anything that is not face-to-face is a corruption of face-to-face communication.”

I do not remember who said this during a session at a conference many years ago, but the statement has stuck with me.

Humans evolved as social creatures who relied on face-to-face communication for survival, cooperation, and social bonding. Before written language was first introduced around 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia, face-to-face communication was the dominant means of sharing information, resolving conflicts, and building relationships.

Despite the development of written and digital communication, our preference for face-to-face interaction is deeply embedded in our biology. It is wired into the brainstem, which controls basic survival mechanisms, and the limbic system, which governs emotional and social connection. Only with the later evolution of the neocortex did we develop the ability to communicate beyond direct, in-person interactions.

Face-to-face communication provides instant feedback through gestures and facial expressions, conveying meaning beyond words. Tone, body language, and context enhance understanding. In contrast, text-based communication can be ambiguous, lacking the immediacy and nonverbal nuances that reduce misunderstandings. Digital communication introduces further layers of abstraction, increasing the potential for misinterpretation.

All of this may sound like I’m advocating for employees to return to the office (RTO).

I am not.

But companies do need to bring their employees together in the real world from time to time.

(Of course, there are jobs that cannot be remote or hybrid. From ambulance drivers and ER doctors to manufacturing facilities to the employees who build buildings—the industry in which I work—some people have to be on the job every day. But not everyone.)

The Case for RTO—and Why It Doesn’t Hold Up

The business leaders speaking out the loudest for RTO make the same arguments repeatedly:

• Innovation thrives on serendipitous encounters between employees in hallways and breakrooms.
• Productivity and quality suffer when people work from home.
• Long-nurtured company cultures disintegrate without shared physical space.
• Young employees need in-office exposure to senior colleagues for mentorship and career growth.

None of these arguments hold water.

The Myth of Serendipitous Encounters

While spontaneous workplace interactions can spark ideas, research suggests that their role in innovation is overblown. A study published in Organization Studies found that workplaces designed to encourage collaboration through physical proximity often led employees to develop strategies to avoid unnecessary interactions. Meanwhile, a UC Berkeley study found that while informal interactions can foster creativity, employees tend to engage mostly with people similar to themselves, limiting exposure to diverse perspectives and reducing the potential for truly innovative ideas.

Productivity and Quality in Remote Work

Remote work initially led to a reported 16 percent decline in productivity. However, this drop was largely due to the adjustment period. By mid-2021, the same firms that had reported a decline saw a 17 percent productivity increase among remote workers compared to in-person employees. They had adapted. In fact, 77 percent of employees working remotely at least part-time reported increased productivity, with 30 percent saying they accomplished more in less time and 24 percent achieving more within the same timeframe.

Newer research finds hybrid workers have lower turnover rates than in-office workers and are as productive as those who worked entirely in-person. (It’s also worth noting that 80 percent of employers report losing talent because of RTO mandates.)

Company Culture in a Hybrid World

The belief that company culture cannot survive remote work stems from the misconception that remote work was always meant to be a temporary, pandemic-driven solution. Instead, the pandemic revealed a new way to work. Strong cultures are built on intentional strategies and policies that support engagement, social interaction, and team cohesion—regardless of physical location. Flexibility and autonomy in hybrid environments often lead to greater job satisfaction and greater productivity.

Young Employees and Remote Work

If remote and hybrid work are here to stay, organizations must rethink mentorship and career development. New strategies can help young employees integrate into company culture, build relationships, and access mentorship. Virtual mentoring, structured onboarding programs, and hybrid team-building events can replace outdated in-office norms. Companies that embrace these approaches will attract and retain the best talent.

Making Hybrid Work… Work

Despite resistance from some executives—such as JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon—hybrid and remote work have become embedded in the modern workplace. About 60 percent of organizations now operate under a hybrid framework, with 27 percent of U.S. remote-capable employees working fully remotely and another 53 percent following a hybrid schedule. One out of every four active job listings offers full-time hybrid and/or remote work arrangements.

Instead of mandating arbitrary in-office days, companies should focus on making in-person time more meaningful.

Where and When We Work

Too many hybrid models enforce rigid schedules, such as requiring employees to be in the office three days a week. This approach ignores the reality of knowledge work. If an employee is spending the day writing reports, why must they commute to an office? Worse, open-office environments often force employees to jam earbuds in their ears to avoid interruptions, defeating the purpose of in-office collaboration.

Instead, in-office work should be driven by purpose, not an arbitrary schedule. Employees should gather in person for:

Team collaboration sessions

• Client meetings
• Training and professional development
• Social events that build culture and connection

Intentional culture-building opportunities, both virtual and in-person, are critical. Virtual team-building activities and regular check-ins can supplement digital interaction, but nothing replaces the power of face-to-face engagement.

The Role of In-Person Events

Company picnics, barbecues, and offsite gatherings create opportunities for informal networking and relationship-building. These events foster cross-functional connections and reinforce a shared sense of belonging. They also afford employees the chance to see and interact with company executives in a more laid-back setting.

Similarly, in-person town hall meetings enhance engagement. While virtual meetings are convenient, studies show that 55 percent of attendees pay full attention in face-to-face meetings. The spontaneous social interactions before and after a meeting—especially if it’s planned, with food and beverages before and after—further strengthen workplace relationships and reinforce culture.

Supporting New Hires and Young Employees

Reimagining new-hire orientation for a hybrid world means leveraging virtual tours, structured mentorship programs, and e-mentoring platforms. I have mentored a young content marketing professional for years through monthly Zoom meetings—despite never having met in person. (IABC/San Francisco created the program. It was abandoned a couple years ago, but Sarah and I continue our monthly sessions.) Organizations should implement structured e-mentoring rather than leaving mentorship to chance.

A buddy system can also help new employees acclimate by pairing them with experienced colleagues for guidance. Virtual team-building events, interactive workshops, and informal gatherings can provide early-career employees with exposure to colleagues they wouldn’t naturally interact with.

Encouraging young employees to participate in in-person opportunities—such as company events, team meetings, and networking sessions—rounds out their professional development.

Training Managers for the Hybrid Future

Recognizing hybrid and remote work as the new normal means investing in manager training. Leaders must develop skills to support, engage, and mentor employees in distributed teams. Effective remote leadership requires clear communication, active engagement, and the ability to foster trust and collaboration across digital channels. This training will also help managers address those workers whose scopes require them to be onsite every day, so they don’t feel marginalized or denied the work-life balance afforded to others.

Conclusion

Experts don’t forecast a change any time soon to employees’ desire to work from home at least some days. Among employees working for companies mandating RTO, many have embraced a growing trend labeled “hush hybrid,” in which employees who want to work remotely find ways to get away with it, mainly because their supervisors allow them to.

This widening gulf between leaders and front-line employees will not end well. There cannot be much trust between Jamie Dimon and his employees (despite his reminder that they’re welcome to work elsewhere). Shutting off the channels employees use to engage with one another because leaders don’t like the dissent they see there—as Mark Zuckerberg has done at Meta—is contrary to the idea of listening to the employees’ voice, which is one of the four enablers of employee engagement.

Face-to-face interaction remains deeply ingrained in human communication. However, clinging to outdated office norms ignores the reality of modern work. Instead of enforcing blanket RTO policies, organizations should focus on creating intentional, meaningful opportunities for in-person interaction while optimizing hybrid and remote work structures. Companies that embrace this shift will not only retain top talent but also cultivate stronger, more adaptable workplace cultures.

Note: Neville Hobson and I discussed this in a June 2024 episode of our “For Immediate Release” podcast after the initial release of a report from the USC Annenberg School/IABC that made similar observations.