For Immediate Release Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz

Some PR pros think you should withhold original research, infographics, and other original content from a pitch to a journalist. Others think you can share it, but only under some circumstances. Still others think it best to give reporters what you have. Neville and Shel explore the various recommendations in this short, mid-week episode.
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The post FIR #324: Pitching Original Content appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

All generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) works fundamentally the same: AI neural networks learn from large training sets, gleaning patterns from the contents of those training sets in order to create original content based on their understanding of those patterns. When the companies behind those AI tools use content available on the web for training, do they need to ask permission from the content creators? You and I don't. We can look at as much as we like and learn as much as we can. Is it the same for AI training sets or is it something else altogether, more akin to Napster using existing music without compensating the artists? Neville and Shel are on opposite sides of the debate. Also in this episode:


The University of Iowa's school of business has introduced a program to teach students how to tell stories. Storytelling is a crucial business skill that few businesses value. Communicators can help change that.
A BBC football analyst -- a contractor, not an employee -- made some partisan remarks on a social network and was punished for violating standards by which employees are required to abide. It reopened a long-dormant discussion about social media policies.
Did Silicon Valley Bank communicate too little, contributing to its failure? Or did it communicate too much? Is it possible the bank did both?
ChatGPT and Midjourney have both been upgraded and the updates are substantial. Midjourney images are scarily photo-realistic and ChatGPT can now create a web page -- Javascript included -- based on a sketch of a wireframe. And that just scratches the surface of these updates.
Microsoft has introduced Co-Pilot, the tool that will let users of its software tap into the power of Artificial Intelligence.

Dan York shares news from WordPress, WhatsApp, the world of ChatBots, and more in his Tech Report.
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The post FIR #323: Outright Theft Or Fair Use? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Network outages. Fleeing advertisers. Disaffected staff. News reports of abusive behavior. Rents in arrears. And news feeds are increasingly swamped with posts from trolls and bots. Things are not looking good for the bird site. But if it fails, what's the alternative? The fediverse is questionable. LinkedIn is solid, but its focus is on business. Jack Dorsey's Bluesky is coming, but it's federated, too.  Is there anything out there that can serve the function Twitter does? Neville and Shel examine the situation and explore the alternatives in this short midweek episode.
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The post FIR #322: If Not Twitter, Then Where? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the laundry list of mistakes and missteps from Norfolk Southern in the wake of the disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, what stands out the most is that the company seems to be making it all about them and not the people suffering the fallout of the crisis. (At a town hall meeting, a company representative kept repeating how awful everyone at Norfolk Southern felt about the incident. Nobody in East Palestine cares how anybody at Norfolk Southern feels.) You have to wonder if they're getting and ignoring good crisis counsel, if the counsel they're getting is bad, or if they're not getting any professional input at all.
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The post FIR #321: Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Crisis Comms appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Artificial Intelligence is already embedded in daily life, from product recommendations based on past purchases to playlist suggestions. If you use a smartwatch or health-monitoring wearable, you're using AI. The leap demonstrated by recently released generated AI apps suggests that future developments are going to come at an accelerated pace. We've also seen amazing robotic developments. (Have you watched a recent Boston Dynamics video or checked out Loona, the robotic pet that was the hit of CES in January?) Mix the two, bake for a decade, and imagine what you'll get.
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The post FIR #320: The Chorebots of 2033 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

A lot of company leaders believe a return to the office is a prerequisite to raising productivity and employee engagement metrics. A look at the data seems to reveal exactly the opposite: Productivity rose near the start of the pandemic and plummeted when companies began demanding employees come back to the office. Engagement numbers also fell well after the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to the premier engagement researcher. The world of work has changed, whether senior leaders understand that or not, which puts a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of in-house communicators.
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The post FIR #319: Return to Work Mandates Damage Engagement and Productivity appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.