The headline is a bit dramatic but it was hard to pass up the "Shadow" reference. In fact, Shadow AI refers to employees covertly using generative AI tools at work without IT, HR, and other departments knowing about it. A recent report found vthat 27.4% of the content employees fed into AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini was sensitive, a 10.7% increase from a year ago. The most sensitive data types shared with AI tools are customer support (16.3%), source code (12.7%), research and development material (10.8%), and unreleased marketing material (6.6%). HR and employee records represent 3.9% of sensitive information uploaded to AI chatbots, including confidential HR details, employee compensation, and medical issues. Neville and Shel examine the problem and the role internal communicators can play in this short midweek episode.
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The post FIR #419: Is Shadow AI an Evil Lurking in the Heart of Your Company? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For years, Tractor Supply has touted its values and how firmly it has committed to them, as demonstrated by the fact that the Tennessee-based retailer recently set new targets, having already met the ones it established in 2018. But a vitriolic campaign by a right-wing podcaster led the company to summarily abandon those values, leading some employees to quit and diverse members of the company's customer base to speak up. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss how firmly a company should stand up for what it believes, especially as political divides threaten organizations' ability to do what's best for the business.
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The post FIR #418: These Are Our Rock-Solid Beliefs — Unless You Don’t Like Them appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Share of voice, share of search, share of conversation—brands are forever measuring their share in whatever space they want to dominate. Now that people are seeking answers from generative AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, brands will need to know whether they show up in the responses these models deliver. There is already a proposal to call this measurement "share of model." In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel will explain what it means and how brands can get the same out of GenAI models that they have been getting out of Google (i.e., share of search) using SEO techniques.
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The post FIR #417: As AI Adoption Grows, Is Share of Model the New Metric? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Maven is a new social network that eschews likes and follows -- the features of other social networks that induce stress and anxiety in users who feel compelled to grow their numbers rather than have meaningful conversations. But if brands can't build a follower base or measure engagement on their posts, is there a use case for establishing a presence on Maven? Neville and Shel look at the possibilities in this short midweek episode.
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The post FIR #416: No Likes, No Follows, No Stress! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The UK Post Office scandal is a stark example of leadership and communication failures. When a faulty computer system was implemented, it erroneously flagged financial discrepancies, leading to the wrongful conviction of numerous subpostmasters for theft and false accounting. Instead of addressing the software's errors, the Post Office's crisis communication strategy focused on concealment and covering up misdeeds. This approach exacerbated the situation and severely damaged the organization's reputation and trust. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss how transparency and accountability should have been the focus of leadership and how other companies' crises could have been instructive for the Post Office's leaders.
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The post FIR #415: A Staggering Failure of Leadership and Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Organizations need to adopt policies and communication strategies based on the acknowledgment that remote/hybrid work is here to stay. The current state of play is rooted in an assumption that it's temporary, creating tensions between workers and leaders and leaving pre-pandemic company cultures in shambles. In a survey conducted jointly by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the USC Annenberg School of Communication, communicators shared their views about how remote/hybrid is going four years after it was thrust on organizations and its impact on the internal communication function. These results were presented on June 26 at a session of the IABC World Conference in Chicago. A press release is set for distribution the week of July 1, with survey results available soon after.
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The post FIR #414: Companies Treat Remote/Hybrid Like It’s Temporary. It’s Not. appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We are told, "AI won't take your job." Instead, "Someone who knows how to use AI will take your job."

Tell that to the scores of copywriters who have already lost their jobs to generative AI. With ChatGPT and its competitors in the frontier LLM space being used to write more than anything else, agencies and organizations are figuring out how to craft prompts that turn out decent copy. Some copywriters are figuring out how to stay relevant, though, including taking gigs improving the copy these AI tools churn out.

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel examine these trends and wonder what they mean for other communication jobs.
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The post FIR #413: AI Is Coming for Copywriters appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

You work for one of the biggest consulting firms in the world. You've been told that taking a voluntary separation package from the company is in your best interest. When you agree (not that you had much choice), you're asked to sign an agreement that not only won't you disparage the company, but you'll use the language provided to you to let your colleagues know why you're leaving (nothing bad about the company) and how great your time there has been. With more than 330,000 employees in this company, won't anybody think identical farewell messages from multiple employees find this a bit suspicious? That's what happened at PwC, our lead topic in this monthly long-form FIR episode for June 2024.

Also in this episode: Megainfluencers charge as much as $1.5 million for a single post. Could you do better with a bunch of mico and nanoinfluencers? New studies are out from Deloitte and McKinsey on the state of AI in the workplace. AI avatars and coworkers are starting to show up in some companies as the tools to create them get easier to deploy. Publishers worldwide have been hit by Facebook deleting posts that have been inaccurately identified as spam. And your favorite brand that showed such commitment to that social cause a few years ago? They don't care about being "woke" anymore.

Dan York is focused on policy in his Tech Report, looking at age verification laws that are popping up all over the place, Canada imposing a tax on streaming services (after a less-than-optimal experience with a link tax), and a U.S. Supreme Court Decision is due about content moderation.
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The post FIR #412: Don’t Let the Door Hit You on Your Way Out appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.