FIR #489: An Explosion of Thought Leadership Slop

In the long-form episode for November 2025, Shel and Neville riff on a post by Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute, who identifies "idea inflation" as a growing problem on multiple levels. Idea inflation occurs when leaders prompt an AI model to generate 20 ideas for thought leadership posts, then send them to the communications team to convert them into ready-to-publish content. Also in this episode:

• A growing number of companies are moving branding under the communications umbrella, detouring around Marketing and the CMO. It's all about safeguarding reputation.
• Quantum computing has been a topic of conversation in tech circles for years. Now, its arrival as a commercially viable product is imminent. Communicators need to prepare.
• AI's ability to generate software code from a plain-language prompt has put the power to create apps in the hands of almost anyone. There are communication implications.
• Share some photos of yourself with an AI model, or companies that provide this as a service, and you can get an amazing likeness of yourself. But is it okay to use it as your LinkedIn profile?
• Research finds that leaders not only handle change management badly, but it's also having an impact on employees who have to endure the process. Communicators can help.
• In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on WhatsApp launching third-party chat integration in Europe; X is finally rolling out Chat, its DM replacement, with encryption and video calling; Mozilla has announced an AI "window" for the Firefox browser; WordPress 6.9 offers new features, collaboration tools, and AI enhancements; Amazon has rebranded Project Kuper as Amazon Leo; and Open AI says it has "fixed" ChatGPT's em dash problem. (We dispute that it's a problem.)

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