Sociolinguist Dr. Valerie Fridland says we need to relax about the changing nature of language. In her book, "Like, Literally Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English," she notes that language has always evolved. Every generation adds its own spin, and the English language is almost unrecognizable from what was spoken centuries ago. And for the most part, we agree. But Dusty thinks there's a *figurative* line in the sand that should never be crossed: the corruption of the word "literally" in modern English. We talked to Dr. Fridland for episode 43 of this podcast, where she gave us a bri ..read more

When you're working with high-profile people in fields like PR, marketing and branding, things are always changing. History gets uncovered. New information comes to light that changes everything. And sometimes an opportunity comes along to learn just a little bit more about a topic of interest. So in this episode, we're revisiting three separate tales from Lead Balloon’s four-year run to dig deeper, uncovering some new "holy crap" moments that we never saw coming. From episode one, we find out how the manager for world-famous-Internet-meme-Grumpy-Cat feels about being cast as the villain on ou ..read more

Wendy’s, the burger chain, is infamous for its punchy, no-holds-barred Twitter account.  And social media manager Amy Brown was the creative instigator of that success. Many internet historians even point to her epic 2017 tweet-roast as the viral moment that launched an entire genre of Snarky Brand Twitter. It certainly made her a hero to social media managers the world over. So why, within just a couple of months, did Amy Brown feel like she needed to leave that high-profile dream job at Wendy’s?  Because social media burnout is real. And for professional communicators, who need soc ..read more

UFOs have traditionally been more of a pop culture phenomenon than an actual science. But with the recent declassification of Navy gun camera footage that shows unexplained craft seeming to defy the laws of flight and physics, there's a growing movement among the aviation, military and science communities. They insist it's vital to destigmatize the conversation around Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, which is the preferred nomenclature for the inexplicable occurrences. Because the craft seem to do things that are impossible for our current level of aeronautical technology, and have i ..read more

Let's be honest: political groups don't have a great success rate when it comes to their strategic communication tactics. Every election cycle, American voters are bombarded with mailers, emails and text messages that mostly just get trashed or deleted. And when a Political Action Committee like NextGen America is charged with reaching out to younger voters, they face an even more substantial task in motivating the perennially under-performing youth vote to make their voices heard. But this year, NextGen America made headlines nationwide when it leveraged a new, unconventional tactic in its ge ..read more

The robot revolution has arrived. And they're coming for your marketing or content creation job. The advent of generative artificial intelligence chatbots—most notably tools like Chat GPT and Midjourney—is poised to revolutionize creative industries. These tools use deep learning technology to generate new content based on prompts from human users. But will this be the end of creativity as we know it, or a new implement to help creative people be even more creative? In this episode, we hear from "Jess," a copywriter who was laid off from her job at a well-known national logistics company and ..read more

"How do you do, fellow marketers? We think it would be pretty 'on fleek' if you would stop trying to use slang terms to make yourself more relatable to young people." Certainly, brands swooping in and trying to leverage youth culture to drive sales is nothing new. But as bad as it was in the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s, the advent of social media marketing made it 1000 times worse. The internet never forgets, and whether it's the "Silence, Brand!" meme or the "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids" Reddit group, the web is littered with examples of companies whose attempts to ingratiate themselves with ..read more

Communicating during and about the Covid-19 pandemic is a topic we've discussed several times on this show, including in our most recent episode. And, as of today, May 11, 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services coronavirus Public Health Emergency is expiring. But just because Covid is "over" doesn’t mean we won’t still have to discuss it as strategic communicators. And so in this bonus episode, we bring back someone who has been a voice of reassurance and reason throughout this horrible, three-year ordeal. Bill Pierce was a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services i ..read more

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