Coca-Cola’s new AI-generated Christmas ad trades people for polar bears and pixels – and splits opinion wide open. In FIR 488, @shelholtz.bsky.social and @nevillehobson.xyz unpack the reaction, and discuss the comms challenges that come with AI-driven content. 🎧 Listen or watch: bit.ly/4qThPl1

This letter in @thetimes today is the most credible comment about the latest #BBC crisis from anyone I’ve seen so far.

Wearing the poppy today for Remembrance Sunday. Such a simple symbol, yet it holds generations of memory, sacrifice, and hope for peace. We remember today, and again on Armistice Day this Tuesday. #RemembranceDay #LestWeForget #PoppyAppeal

This is an obscenity. No one needs that much money.

“We survived, but it wiped out the library.” The Internet Archive lost half a million books in its legal battles – a quiet tragedy for digital memory. My reflection: Echoes of Alexandria. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/echoes-of-al... #InternetArchive #DigitalPreservation

In FIR 487, @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz unpack @martinwaxman.bsky.social thoughtful post about pressing pause to make room for curiosity, quality, and quiet. When the AI conversation turns into a crowded superhighway, this isn't quitting – it’s recalibrating 🎧 bit.ly/4onmHwV

"X's commitment to remaining the decade's messiest (and slowest) rebrand is unwavering" www.creativebloq.com/design/brand...

“Quite simply, we’re creating AIs that are always working in service of the human” – Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/0…

“The King faces a choice between protecting a brother and preserving a monarchy.” My take on the continuing crisis around Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – and why accountability, not damage control, is the only way the monarchy can retain credibility. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/when-account...

WTAF? This is absolutely ridiculous. And this: "Paid removals are normal under the Facilitated Returns Scheme, with foreign nationals who agree to leave the UK being given £1,500." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

After 10+ years away, I’ve rejoined #IABC – the International Association of Business Communicators. I’m focusing on purposeful work, alignment, balance, and meaningful conversations about AI, ethics, and the future of communication. It feels good to reconnect. www.iabc.com

@equatormag.bsky.social just launched. Refreshing addition to the tired media landscape www.equator.org/about/what-w...

Welcome to the new reality distortion field #Grokipedia www.thedissident.news/grokipedia-a...

Really not sure what to make of “ghost posts” on Threads - posts that disappear after 24 hours. Either a super-convenient way to share casual, ephemeral chat with friends, or an invitation to spam everybody with unfiltered ephemeral chat, aka spam. How do you see it? bit.ly/4hvPVXO

The @nytimes.com assessment of Nigel Farage is worth a read. This view from across the Atlantic is perceptive. We write off Farage at our peril. The US wrote Trump off as a joke leading up to 2016. We mustn't repeat that. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/o...

We watched “The House of Dynamite on Netflix. A gripping tale with a dystopian taste although I thought it was a credible story of what might be. A peculiar ending but that didn’t take away from the storytelling. Terrific cast, great production. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ho…

FIR 486 is live. @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz cover rage-bait marketing, Lloyds’ exec GenAI + Copilot rollout, PRovoke’s crisis lessons, Böcker’s Louvre real-time ad, corporate affairs’ new brief, and trust velocity. 👉 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-486-meas... #Comms #PR #AI

Just landed on my Galaxy Watch 7 - the new One UI 8 Watch update from Samsung. Some new Watch faces such as this one!

Post update: I’ve added a short FAQ to my review of "The Communicator’s Guide to AI", covering bias, environment, privacy and measurement. Handy for teams who want quick guardrails. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/a-communicat...

“Going viral” isn’t a strategy – it’s a dice roll. In FIR 485 @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz explain why you should drop it from your objectives and what to measure instead. Plan for compounding attention, not spikes. 🔗 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-485-is-i... #FIRpodcast

Just published a review of "The Communicator’s Guide to AI," a mindset-first look at AI for comms – ACT: Aspire, Choose, Tune – with ethics baked in. Builds on my earlier post about the course (which I took). 🔗 Here's the review: www.nevillehobson.io/a-communicat...

King Charles needs to move rapidly on this now to demonstrate his ability to resolve this crisis. Stripping his brother of all his privileges would be the right move. Then send him into exile. bit.ly/3Jnk9zK

If you look back on #WindowsXP with nostalgia and want some fun on your Android phone, give this a whirl! 🎉 www.windowscentral.com/hardware/pho...

I'm on the wait list for the new Opera Neon browser. Good to read this review beforehand www.theverge.com/tech/801899/...

Trump’s White House just joined Bluesky 😱 There goes the neighbourhood!

Well, that didn’t last long… www.bbc.co.uk/news/live…

Call Inspector Clouseau! news.sky.com/story/lou…

Sharing: how I update my Ghost theme quickly and safely using a local Docker desktop, VS Code, and ChatGPT - a very capable collaborator when you know how to steer it. Story: www.nevillehobson.io/updating-a-g... #Ghost #Docker #VScode #ChatGPT

This 👉 “King Charles and Pope Leo are to become the first British monarch and pontiff to pray together at a church service since the Reformation in the 16th Century.” www.bbc.co.uk/news/arti…

Many examples of what you can do with Sora to create high-quality video are truly extraordinary. Yet most I see are too perfect, too unnaturally good, in a way that diminishes the impact. Plus, when you see the ‘Sora’ watermark, your sense of awe vanishes, knowing it’s not a real image. My 0.02 🙂

"Consumer behavior is pushing a shift from performance to participation. For the next generation, #community isn’t a feature layered on top of a product. It is the product." techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/a...

The #OpenSea pivot from #NFT to crypto: “the battle-worn startup has expanded from NFTs to become a one-stop shop for trading all cryptocurrencies across 22 different blockchains” bit.ly/4qc18AO

One of the great things about autumn is a 4 o’clock cup of tea and two toasted crumpets with melted butter and strawberry jam 😍

Delighted to be named in #Vuelio ’s Top 10 UK PR Blogs 2025 with 'Studio6 by Neville Hobson.' A great mix of PR, internal comms, public sector and inclusion-focused voices. Worth connecting if you care about where comms is heading. List → www.vuelio.com/uk/social-me...

New baselines for 2026 from #wearesocial 's "Digital 2026" report: 6.04bn online, 5.66bn social identities, 1bn+ monthly AI users. My takeaways + a practical checklist for comms teams → www.nevillehobson.io/digital-2026...

@axios.com take on research from @pewresearch.org about #AI and how concerned/excited people are www.axios.com/2025/10/15/a...

One thing ChatGPT-5 isn’t very good at is creating what it described as “a neat 2026 checklist” graphic for a post I asked it to review before I publish it tomorrow. I say stick with your main day job, thanks 🙂

Labour promised in their manifesto at last year’s general election that they would not increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. So, with all the chatter this week about “tax rises” coming in the next budget, what’s left on the menu?

A lot has been said about digital art NFTs, which hardly anyone knew how to explain. The Telegraph has a keen assessment of the rise and fall, noting “it was fun while it lasted, but people are now losing money fast.” www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artis…

A new #AI tool called #OliviaBrown can create & send entire PR campaigns, even follow up with journalists. In FIR 484, @shelholtz.bsky.social and @nevillehobson.xyz discuss what this means for trust and the future of #publicrelations. 🎧 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-484-is-o...

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, you have to admire his drive and stamina. Extraordinary for a 79 year-old.

A new word to get used to: “co-bots”, meaning robots that collaborate with humans www.wsj.com/business/…

"The Art of Less": https://nevillehobson.micro.blog/2025/10/13/the-art-of-less.html

Headlines travel faster than truth. My latest post looks at Pope Leo, AI, and the speed of modern media – and asks how discernment and conscience can still guide us. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/when-headlin...

One pleasing thing today is that Trump hasn’t been the focus of attention in the mainstream media re the Nobel Peace Prize. After clickbait headlines all week on what he will do in revenge if he doesn’t get the gong, common sense prevailed today. Tomorrow’s another day: relish the current calm!

Read the achievements of this worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. And read about her character, her values, and her struggles. My respect goes to the committee who upheld the Nobel values. www.threads.com/@nobelpri…

Noticing that Micro.blog posts I’ve written on mobile devices have more typos or syntax errors than those I write via the website. Could be the keyboards (tiny and virtual on mobile, big and physical with the computer), or maybe a lack of Grammarly on mobile?

Clickbait is a “degrading” part of journalism, says Pope Leo, adding that news agencies deliver a service which “requires competence, courage and a sense of ethics”. www.theguardian.com/australia…

With all the fuss and concern about whether the girl who says she’s Madeleine McCann, surely a DNA test would determine whether that’s true or not?

Was #Tylenol 's response to presidential claims that the painkiller causes autism in children whose mothers used it while pregnant worth holding up as a case study? @nevillehobson.xyz and @shelholtz.bsky.social break it down in FIR 483 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-483-how-...