13 Free Media Webinars in the next 8 days: Podcasting, Generative AI, Disinformation, Social Media, & more

Mon, Jan 8 - So You Want To Run A Podcast

What: Sarah Ventre will discuss her career in audio investigative journalism, the perils and promise of embedded reporting, and how she has survived and thrived in a changing media landscape.

Who: Sarah Ventre whose podcast was named one of 2020’s top podcasts by both The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Her reporting there won an Edward R. Murrow award for journalistic excellence.

When: 6 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists

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Tues, Jan 9 - A Discussion with Brooke Kroeger on her book Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism

What: This book explores how women have fared in American journalism’s most competitive and highly valued bastions, the ones men have dominated in the 180 years since mass media began.

Who: Brooke Kroeger, a journalist, professor emerita at NYU, and the author of six books, the latest of which is Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism, published by A.A. Knopf in May 2023.

When: 7 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The New England Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists

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Tue, Jan 9 - The Trainer’s Guide to Podcasting

What: You’ll discover how to find your podcasting style and voice, why it’s a good idea for trainers, and exactly how to get started. Takeaway a game plan for quickly creating messages that matter, building your audience, and translating it all into training results. 

Who: Becky Pike Pluth who more than 24 years of experience in training delivery and design and business operations, she has been the owner of The Bob Pike Group for the past eight years. She also is the author of Creative Training: A Train-the-Trainer Field Guide, 101 Movie Clips that Teach and Train and nine other influential books and resources.

When: 9 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Wed, Jan 10 – Disruptive AI and Blabbing Chatbots: Are You Ready to Fight or Adapt?

What: Find out how AI could disrupt your writing and editing career — and what you can do about it (or how you can adapt to coming changes). Our panel of experts will discuss what AI is, how it works and whether writers and researchers can use the tools effectively to brainstorm, research and outline new ideas.

Who: Harry Guinness, freelance writer; Jeanne Dietsch, former New Hampshire state senator and founder of Mobilerobots and Activmedia research; Jon Christian executive editor of Futurism; Linda Whitaker computer scientist, Ph.D in operations research and novelist; Arielle Emmett, moderator

When: 1:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The American Society of Journalists & Authors

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Wed, Jan 10 – Confronting Disinformation: How Communicators can Navigate Trust & Truth in Society

What: Deciphering fact from fiction has become an ever-growing challenge. Join us for a webinar on the IPR-Leger 4th annual Disinformation in Society Report, where we’ll unravel the layers of disinformation’s impact on society, explore its repercussions, and equip communicators with actionable insights to rebuild trust.

Who: Tina McCorkindale, President & CEO of the Insttiute for Public Relations, Dave Scholz, Chief Strategy Officer at Leger

When: 4 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Institute for Public Relations

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Wed, Jan 10 - Beyond ChatGPT - Navigating the LLM and Generative AI Landscape

What: Generative AI has taken the business world by storm, but vey few have explored the marketplace beyond ChatGPT or Bing AI. What other options are out there, how do they work and what advantages do they offer?

Who: Chad Udell, co-founder and co-CEO of Sparklearn and author of Shock of the New: The Challenge and Promise of Emerging Technologies.

When: 9 am, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Thu, Jan 11 - From Birth to Death: A conversation on health disparities  

What: We’ve known for a while that Black Americans fare far worse in health measures compared to their white counterparts. But reporters with the Associated Press wanted to know how wide these disparities are and why they persist and so they launched a year-long investigation. This webinar is about health equity and how you can cover it in your communities.

Who: Journalist Kat Stafford, one of the main reporters of the five-part AP series "From Birth to Death” that examined health disparities over a lifetime.

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists

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Thu, Jan 11 - The 2024 Social Media Trends to Get You More Followers & Sell More Products

What: The latest strategies that will not only boost your online presence but also drive sales. From emerging trends in content creation to leveraging influencer marketing for maximum impact, we'll guide you through the key elements that can propel your brand to new heights.

Who: Sana Ali is the VP of Social Media Marketing at Entrepreneur Magazine.  

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Entrepreneur

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Thu, Jan 11 - Speculating about Our AI Future with Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, and Martha Wells    

What: Three science fiction authors will discuss the promise, perils and possible impacts of artificial intelligence.

Who: Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. Ken Liu is an American author of speculative fiction. He is a winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards. Martha Wells is the author of many books and has won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, and Locus Awards.

When: 7 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Illinois Libraries Present

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Thu, Jan 11 - Public Relations Trends for the New Year

What: This webinar will discuss 2024 trends in public relations including the impact AI may have on the field, how to get ahead of the game related to key social media trends, and a look at the emerging importance of inclusive content creation. 

Who: Members of NC’s public relations team and its PR agency, DCI.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Visit NC

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Fri, Jan 12 - Burnout & Stress: How journalists can manage both in 2024

What: A conversation focused on practical tips and effective methods for journalists and newsroom leaders to address stress and burnout. Journalists are likely to face stressors from many directions in 2024: the demands of constant deadlines, industry-wide financial turmoil, and an uncertain election season ahead are among them.  

Who: Tara Francis Chan Managing editor & operations director for The Appeal; Naseem Miller Senior editor for health at The Journalist’s Resource; AX Mina Senior civic media fellow at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism; Samantha Ragland Vice president journalism programs at the American Press Institute; Bara Vaida Director of training for the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

When: 10:30 am, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Press Club

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Tue, Jan 16 - Social media in college sports

What: Learn from industry leaders about the latest trends and strategies in sports social media for 2024. Elevate your social media skills by discovering innovative techniques & tools to better engage your audience and amplify your program's brand on social.  

Who: Matthew Glick, Gipper Media, CEO & Founder; Kristen Keller, UC Santa Barbara Associate AD for Communications and Digital Strategy; Robert Rosa, Gipper Media, Creative Director; Lydia Thompson, Gipper Media, Inc. Partner Marketing

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: College Sports Communicators

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Thu, Jan 18 - Advertising Predictions for 2024

What: Topics include: Which market segments are likely to thrive in 2024; How political advertising will impact the future ad landscape; What we can expect in the future for streaming platforms.

Who: Todd Krizelman, CEO MediaRadar 

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Media Radar

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Plagiarism & False Data in Academic Papers

There are countless credible accusations of (academic) misconduct that go uncorrected; I myself have published articles challenging the integrity of hundreds of papers. The majority of them have not been retracted, corrected or even remarked upon. I would wager that most reasonably large universities (my own included) have faculty members who are known to have plagiarized, fabricated, falsified, claimed undue credit, hidden financial conflicts of interest or misbehaved in numerous other ways and who have seemingly gone unpunished."

New York University professor Charles Seife writing in the New York Times

22 recent articles about where AI will go in 2024

An OpenAI employee says prompt engineering is not the skill of the future — but knowing how to talk to humans will be – Business Insider  

Generative AI will move from hype to actually being helpful – Semafor

How ‘A.I. Agents’ That Roam the Internet Could One Day Replace Workers – New York Times

Why AI struggles to predict the future – NPR

How AI will upend the customer service industry - Semafor

OpenAI’s chief scientist, on his hopes and fears for the future of AI - MIT Technology Review

Forrester’s 2024 Predictions Report warns of AI ‘shadow pandemic’ as employees adopt unauthorized tools – VentureBeat

2024: The year AI gets real - Axios

The biggest winners — and losers — in the coming AI job apocalypse – Business Insider

Now That Generative AI Is Here, Where Will All The Data Come From? – Forbes

Researchers think there’s a 5% chance AI could wipe out humanity – Semafor

Generative AI a la ChatGPT is pushing investors to new extremes of hype – Axios  

The Generative AI Bubble Will Burst Soon – KD Nuggets  

Wall Street Watchdog Says AI Will Cause 'Unavoidable' Economic Collapse – Gizmodo

Experts Predict the Future of Technology, AI & Humanity – Wired

An English professor long interested in the statistical analysis of literature & he thinks AI is a game-changer in our understanding of texts – Business Insider

How AI Is Impacting Society And Shaping The Future – Forbes

In its own words: The future of AI in sports – Sports Business Journal

iPhone 16 is poised to be an AI superphone — 5 rumors you need to know – Tom’s Guide

Everyone gets an AI agent – The Nieman Lab

Klarna CEO on how AI will make online shopping more 'emotional' – Semafor

Where is AI Heading in 2024? Looking Ahead To AI In 2024 – Forbes

AI & Soft Skills

When it comes to using ChatGPT at work, some business leaders believe that soft skills will be crucial in the age of AI. Earlier this month, Aneesh Raman, a vice president at LinkedIn, said that communication, creativity, and flexibility are skills that will set employees apart in the workforce as opposed to technical skills like coding. Perhaps doubling down on what makes you human may be what saves you from being replaced by AI. -Aaron Mok

Something AI is good at—and something it's not

“Studies this year of ChatGPT in legal analysis and white-collar writing chores have found that the bot helps lower-performing people more than it does the most skilled. On a task that required reasoning based on evidence, however, ChatGPT was not helpful at all. Here, ChatGPT lulled employees into trusting it too much. Unaided humans had the correct answer 85 percent of the time. People who used ChatGPT without training scored just over 70 percent. Those who had been trained did even worse, getting the answer only 60 percent of the time. In interviews conducted after the experiment, “people told us they neglected to check because it’s so polished, it looks so right.’”

Read more in The New York Times

Turning happiness into a management tool

A large American health-care provider, Ochsner Health System, introduced a rule that workers must make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within ten feet of another person in the hospital. Pret A Manger sends in mystery shoppers to visit every outlet regularly to see if they are greeted with the requisite degree of joy. Pass the test and the entire staff gets a bonus—a powerful incentive for workers to turn themselves into happiness police. Companies have a right to ask their employees to be polite when they deal with members of the public. They do not have a right to try to regulate their workers’ psychological states and turn happiness into an instrument of corporate control.

Companies would be much better off forgetting wishy-washy goals like encouraging contentment. They should concentrate on eliminating specific annoyances, such as time-wasting meetings and pointless memos. Instead, they are likely to develop ever more sophisticated ways of measuring the emotional state of their employees. Academics are already busy creating smartphone apps that help people keep track of their moods, such as Track Your Happiness and Moodscope. It may not be long before human-resource departments start measuring workplace euphoria via apps, cameras and voice recorders.

Schumpeter in The Economist

Career Choices

Find what you are good at. Find what you have a passion for doing. People will pay you good money to do the things that fit within both circles. No one will be willing to pay for your "C minus" work (or not very much). So forget about bringing your "fours" up to "sixes" (on a scale of one to ten). Focus on getting your "eights "up to "nines" and your "nines" up to "tens." (A bit of an oversimplification but you get the idea).

Stephen Goforth

A Human/AI Blend isn't Always The Best Option

A new study “recruited management consultants from Boston Consulting Group.” One of the tasks was to brainstorm about a new type of shoe, sketch a persuasive business plan for making it and write about it persuasively. Some researchers had believed only humans could perform such creative tasks. They were wrong. The consultants who used ChatGPT produced work that independent evaluators rated about 40 percent better on average. In fact, people who simply cut and pasted ChatGPT’s output were rated more highly than colleagues who blended its work with their own thoughts. And the A.I.-assisted consultants were more than 20 percent faster.

Read more in The New York Times

16 Articles about AI & Health Care

19 Articles about Data Science & AI from Nov 2023

Selling the Problem

Most managers and leaders put 10 percent of their energy into selling the problem and 90 percent into selling the solution to the problem. People aren't in the market for solutions to problems they don't see, acknowledge and understand. They might even come up with a better solution than yours. Then you won't have to sell it, the solution will be theirs.

William Bridges, Managing Transitions