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Melissa Agnes and Olivier Blanchard join Shel Holtz for this week’s episode, which covered these stories…

• The #DeleteUber movement, which seemed to wind down after the conversation moved on from the company’s response to the Trump administration’s immigration ban, is back in full swing with a post from a former engineer outlining inappropriate sexual conduct at the company. Uber seems to move from one crisis to another. Will its response to the current crisis be enough?
• Consumer packaged goods companies are experimenting with IBM Watson Ads, which let consumers ask questions and get verbal responses from the ad itself.
• Voice tech also holds some promise for “quick service retail,” where it could replace employees with touch screen tablets who are there to answer customer questions.
• Distrust of experts is on the rise. One professor thinks storytelling is the solution to the problem.
• Most Millennials watch live-streaming video, yet most communicators aren’t ready to give it a try.
• Dan York reports on Stories, the Snapchat feature that has been appropriated by Facebook’s apps Instagram and WhatsApp.

Connect with guest co-hosts on Twitter at @Melisssa_Agnes and @TheBrandBuilder.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR was recorded using Zencastr.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

Melissa Agnes is a founding partner of Agnes+Day, a crisis intelligence firm. In her role, Melissa is a crisis management consultant and keynote speaker, has developed an international reputation for crisis management, planning and training by helping large global brands prevent and manage a wide range of corporate issues and crises. Her client list includes government agencies, cities and municipalities, healthcare organizations, energy companies, global non-profits, financial organizations, the public and private sectors and many others. Melissa is an international and sought-after keynote speaker and guest lecturer.

Olivier Blanchard is a French-born, American-based Brand Management and Digital Marketing consultant, the author of two best-selling books, and an acclaimed keynote speaker. As a Senior Analyst with Futurum Research, Olivier helps organizations better understand the crucial ole that emerging technologies like Cloud computing, Big Data, Virtualization, Augmented Reality, Smart Automation, IoT and AI will play their industries and markets over the next 10 to 20 years. Though based in the US, his geographic range extends beyond North America to Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Olivier is the author of the best-selling #1 social business desk reference for digital managers and business executives: Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts In Your Organization (Que/Pearson). Olivier is also a sought-after subject-matter expert and corporate trainer.

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is director of Internal Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio