The Trending Communicator
In today's hyper-accelerated communications world, keeping up means juggling reputation, brand building, crisis management, storytelling, and more while adapting to new technologies like generative AI. The Trending Communicator, hosted by Dan Nestle, is your guide through this chaotic landscape. This podcast dives into the challenges of PR, communications, and marketing today, with experts sharing real stories and strategies for overcoming those challenges and more. It's the perfect resource for professionals looking to innovate, take risks, and stay ahead. Join us to make sense of today’s communications chaos, one insightful conversation at a time.
Episodes
December 12, 2025 • 68 mins
Companies love to talk about AI transformation. They've created policies, distributed tools, checked boxes. But behind closed doors, overwhelmed employees are phoning it in with AI slop, leaders can't tell the difference, and the workforce is too exhausted to learn anything new. That's not transformation. That's theater.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle welcomes back Anne Green, CEO of G&S Integrated M...
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December 1, 2025 • 83 mins
Companies keep approaching AI the way they approached every other tech rollout: install it, train on it, expect immediate returns. But AI isn't software. It's imperfect by design, doesn't follow a predictable implementation curve, and the gap between what leadership promised the board and what's actually happening is becoming a serious problem.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Chris Gee,...
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November 14, 2025 • 71 mins
You can't communicate your way out of a values problem. Yet every day, communications leaders are expected to do precisely that.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Emil Hill, principal of The Creshiem Group and a public affairs strategist with 25+ years navigating the intersection of business, government, and communications. From guiding the W.K. Kellogg Foundation through Truth, Racial ...
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October 31, 2025 • 45 mins
Your customers are changing because of AI. But so are you—whether you realize it or not.
Host Dan Nestle welcomes back Mark Schaefer, whose new book How AI Changes Your Customers reveals a transformation most people aren't prepared for. As one of 300 futurists who contributed to Elon University's Being Human in 2035 study, Mark brings insights beyond the usual AI hype.
Mark and Dan explore the psychological rewiring that is happe...
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Expertise is Not Authority: Authority is the Expertise People Seek You Out For - with Amanda Russell
October 17, 2025 • 48 mins
You can be the smartest person in the room, but if no one knows you or your point of view, you don't have authority. This "authority gap" is why most professionals struggle to earn attention, build trust, and gain influence.
In this episode, host Dan Nestle sits down with Amanda Russell, author of The Influencer Code, creator of the influence equation (Influence = Attention + Trust), founder of Amanda's Playbook, and architect of...
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October 3, 2025 • 65 mins
What happens when the communications function stops being about messaging and starts being about business transformation? When your stakeholders include 10,000 employees, 94,000 students, 350,000 alumni, plus investors, policymakers, and healthcare partners?
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle reconnects with Megan Noel, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Adtalem Global Education, to explore why the CCAO ...
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September 19, 2025 • 56 mins
MIT just dropped a bomb: 95% of corporate AI initiatives are failing. Not struggling. Failing. And Sandy Carter knows exactly why.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, I sit down with Sandy, currently Chief Business Officer at Unstoppable Domains, former VP at Amazon Web Services, and the person who turned IBM's "social business" concept nobody understood into a $200 billion market. Sandy's written seven books, been named...
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September 5, 2025 • 68 mins
Gab Ferree led global communications at Slack, Bumble, and OneTrust, reaching every traditional summit in our profession. Then she walked away to build Off The Record, where communications professionals can finally admit they don't have all the answers. Even the VPs who are supposed to.
In this conversation, we explore why 100% of comms professionals are using AI but nobody's talking about it, why reporting to a CMO might be bette...
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August 22, 2025 • 71 mins
Can you juggle? If you're a communications pro today, you'd better learn how. Just when you think you've got a good rhythm going, someone tosses you another responsibility. Maybe it's a new social platform. Maybe it's a cultural shift that changes how your audience thinks. Maybe it's AI lighting everything on fire. But you can handle it.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Abenaa (Abby) Hay...
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August 8, 2025 • 71 mins
How many of us are stuck playing media relations hits-and-misses while the real opportunities to drive business transformation seem to be just out of reach?
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Kristel Valaydon, founder of KV Communications, to explore her revolutionary Five Spheres of Connection framework and our capacity to transform PR into a leadership strategy. After 25 years in the ind...
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July 25, 2025 • 80 mins
We can navigate a crisis, position a CEO, and craft messaging for millions of people. So why do so many brilliant communications professionals struggle when it comes to talking about themselves?
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, Dan sits down with Natalie Moran, founder of Comms Futurist, who's built her practice around this exact challenge. After managing crisis communications for millions and working at the highest ...
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July 11, 2025 • 69 mins
What if empathy isn't just about being nice, but your secret weapon for building systems that actually work?
Lizabeth Wesely-Casella, CEO of L12 Services, spent her early career in construction wearing hard hats and reading blueprints in the 90s. She learned that communication wasn't just a nice-to-have—it was survival. That foundation led her to combine behavioral science, Lean Six Sigma, and internal communications into framewor...
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June 27, 2025 • 74 mins
Here they are again—marketers and communicators worried that
AI is about to eliminate storytelling altogether. But what if the exact
opposite is happening? What if AI is actually making authentic human
storytelling the ultimate competitive advantage?
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle reconnects with Park Howell, the brain behind the Business of Story and creator of the Story Cycle Genie—an AI tool desig...
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June 13, 2025 • 70 mins
Humans are in a tough spot right now. Seems like everyone's talking about AI disruption, how to "stay human," why humans will be more or less important, and on and on. But one thing remains certain: business transformation will fail without a human-centric approach.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with change management and change communications legend Kate Bullinger, CEO of United Minds, ...
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May 30, 2025 • 66 mins
If you're thinking "cultural communications" is another way to say "DEI," you may want to broaden your perspective. Culture comms might just be the key to building trust when the stakes are high - especially in healthcare.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle connects with award-winning healthcare communicator Alicia Gibson Wright, founder of GW Health Public Relations, to challenge conventional wisdom ...
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May 16, 2025 • 84 mins
How do we work with AI in a way that keeps the human part intact? Because while AI can handle the process, it’s still on us to bring the perspective, the empathy, and the meaning that make communication matter.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle reconnects with seasoned media analyst, communications strategist, digital innovator, and social media OG, Steve Rubel. Steve - now EVP of Media Insights & Measu...
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May 5, 2025 • 55 mins
Is AI a miracle, heralding an age of invention, or the harbinger of a dystopian civilizational collapse? The rise of short-form video on social platforms - empowering creators, or undermining society? The only certainty these days is uncertainty. But for curious minds, that's precisely what makes it exciting.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle catches up with Emanuel Rose, CEO of Strategic eMarketing and...
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April 18, 2025 • 72 mins
Are we going in the right direction as communicators? In an era of dramatic policy shifts, cultural upheaval, and a fractured media landscape, how do we trudge onward through the muck without losing our way? Weighty questions indeed.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Elie Jacobs, founding partner of Purposeful Advisors, to tackle the thorny issues facing today's communications professiona...
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April 4, 2025 • 67 mins
Faced with today's fractured mess of audiences and media, it's tempting to unleash a deluge of content and overwhelm social channels with content, hoping to reach the people who want to hear from you. Clearly, not a winning strategy - and those who think it is produce nothing more than dull, generic, reputation-breaking AI slop. But what if the key to success lies in a concept as simple as it is powerful: distinctive discoverabili...
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March 21, 2025 • 74 mins
If change is inevitable, why are we typically so bad at managing it? As businesses navigate digital shifts, mergers, and AI advancements, one crucial group often gets sidelined: employees. Communicators can play a much larger role in managing these key stakeholders during organizational upheaval - and strategically guide organizations through any transition.
In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle welcomes ch...
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