In this episode, LA County communications leader Brenda Duran joins host Jason Mudd to discuss how to manage communications and public relations in the AI era through trust and authentic storytelling.
Tune in to learn more!
Watch the episode here:
Meet our guest:
Our guest is Brenda Duran, director of external affairs at the Los Angeles County Justice, Care and Opportunities Department. An award-winning public affairs and communications executive with more than 12 years of experience, Brenda specializes in crisis communications, community engagement, and building trust through authentic storytelling. A former journalist, she brings a unique perspective on how public institutions can communicate with transparency, empathy, and impact.
5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:
- The rise of AI in public relations
- Building trust in a digital-first world
- Leading communications during high-stakes moments
- The power of authentic storytelling
- The future of communications leadership
Listen to the episode here:
Quotables
- “[AI] is not there to replace anything; it's more to enhance what we're already doing.” — Brenda Duran
- “Trust isn't really built in with one campaign. It's earned through repeated reliable communication over time.” — Brenda Duran
- “AI definitely cannot replace some fundamental things like strategic thinking, relationship building, emotional intelligence, ethics and cultural understanding. Those are things that no machine will ever be able to take from us.” — Brenda Duran
- “We need to become AI literate, but you have to also remain human-centered.” — Brenda Duran
- “We still have to be trusted strategic advisors, lead with strategy, lead with empathy and humanity, and just make the right choices of what's good and what's ethical for the marketplace.” — Jason Mudd
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.
Resources
Guest’s contact info and resources:
- @bduran5 on Instagram
- Brenda Duran on LinkedIn
- Brenda Duran’s website
- From newsroom to PR: Journalists making the switch
- Transition from journalism to PR
Additional Resources:
- AI in PR: Transforming communication strategies
- The emerging role of AI in public relations
- How to speak with clarity and authority during a crisis
- Axia’s AI visibility services
- Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR with Jason Mudd podcast.
- Find out more about Axia Public Relations.
If you like this episode, you're going to love this:
- The best argument for PR? Surprisingly, it's AI
- When a crisis hits, say this or stay silent
- Effective crisis communications
Recorded: July, 2026
About your host Jason Mudd
Jason Mudd is a nationally recognized public relations expert featured by CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, PRWeek, and The Wall Street Journal.
Named North America’s top PR leader by the World Communication Forum, he serves as Partner of Axia Public Relations — recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.
Jason has advised some of the country’s most admired and fastest-growing companies, leading campaigns for iconic brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, GE, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.
He’s also a professional public speaker, accredited PR practitioner, published author, entrepreneur, and host of On Top of PR with Jason Mudd — a podcast ranked among the top 2.5% globally by Listen Notes and a top 100 marketing podcast on Apple Podcasts. His guests have included leaders from Disney, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, and Wells Fargo. Learn more about Jason at https://www.axiapr.com/team/
Find more On Top of PR episodes on:
Transcript
Episode Transcript
00:00:00 - 00:00:40
Brenda
AI definitely cannot replace some really, really fundamental things like strategic thinking, relationship building, emotional intelligence, ethics and cultural understanding. Those are things that no machine will ever be able to take from us, especially as public relations professionals. we need to become AI literate. But you have to also remain human centered and remember that at the core of what you're doing, especially in public relations and storytelling, is to be human centered and to be able to keep that perspective and kind of just usalizing it right as another tool in your toolbox.
00:00:40 - 00:01:26
Jason
Hello, and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason .
With Axia Public Relations, today we're bringing you a special episode of On Top of PR with Brenda as our guest. Brenda is an award-winning public affairs and communication executive with more than 12 years of experience, leading strategic communication for public sector organizations across Los Angeles County. As director of external affairs for the Justice Care and Opportunities Department, she specializes in crisis communication.
community engagement and building trust through authentic storytelling. A former journalist, Brenda brings a unique perspective on how public institutions can communicate with transparency, empathy, and impact. I love that. Brenda, welcome to On Top of PR.
00:01:26 - 00:01:29
Brenda
Thank you for having me, Jason. I'm really excited to be here today.
00:01:29 - 00:02:13
Jason
Yeah, I'm glad to be here too. I'm glad to have you. as we mentioned, I saw an article you wrote for a PR Professional Trade or Professional Industry Association magazine. And I liked what you had to say there. And we've come up with kind of five different topics we can explore today. So for our audience, we're gonna talk about kind of the digital AI world of public relations, how to build trust, authentic storytelling, communication, leadership future.
as well as leading communication during high stake moments. So we've got a lot to unpack today. I'm excited that Brenda's here, and I'm excited that you're here. And I'm glad to be here as we go through this conversation. So let's get started a little bit, Brenda. How did you get into public relations and public affairs?
00:02:13 - 00:03:56
Brenda
Yeah, it's such a great question. I started my career as a journalist. and I had a whole separate career outside of public affairs and public relations. I was working as a print journalist at a newspaper prior to getting into public affairs and public relations, and I had a very traditional print career.
working at several different newspapers, I actually managed a magazine, a city magazine for a while, and really had my foundation started in journalism. what was interesting is journalism, as you know, around 2008-2009 really started to change and the industry really started to take hits because of the digital space really expanding and changing the business model in journalism. So
That really affected my career in a lot of ways because I think it was just it got really bumpy in terms of like working in the print world. And I really started to think you know, where my skills would be really would really start to evolve in another place that wasn't journalism. And at that time, somebody had mentioned to me that there was a career opportunity working for local government and I really didn't see the connection at the time.
And finally, when I got a little bit more insight about what was needed, I thought it really made sense. And it was the perfect pivot for me as a storyteller to go and work in public service to tell those stories and to help the community. And so it was very aligned with what I was doing as a journalist. And that's how I got into government communications. I will tell you and be brutally honest with you, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. I sort of felt like, well, I'm gonna do this pivot. And I felt like I was kind of jumping off a cliff with blinders on. I didn't
00:03:56 - 00:03:57
Jason
Uh-huh.
00:03:57 - 00:04:18
Brenda
really know what that space was going to you know, ask of me. And you know, to my surprise, it's been really great because it's expanded my skill set as a storyteller. I now develop branding, I work in developing marketing.
I develop more of my storytelling in this space, so it was really a blessing in disguise.
00:04:18 - 00:05:01
Jason
Gotcha. Yeah. That's kind of my story too. I ended up in you know, start out in journalism and pivoted into PR. And we've got several episodes we've recorded about how other journalists have made that transition into I'll just share this now for our audience that might be new here. You can find the episode notes with links to the resources and the transcript and other highlights from this episode.
at ontopofpr.com/brenda-duran . and that'll be a helpful resource for you to hit up as we continue our conversation here. Brenda, let's jump into the rise of AI in public relations. Tell me about how when you first started using AI, what was your immediate reaction, and how has your journey evolved since then?
00:05:01 - 00:07:05
Brenda
Yeah, so you know, there's so much conversation around this topic right now. I mean, it's a really, really hot topic. And especially I think it's becoming more prominent in the public relations space. I started adopting AI and really starting to see in the the benefits of using it about, I want to say about a year and a half ago. And I've been following it really closely. As a matter of fact, I even took a course online to get a little bit more insight into best ways of using.
AI, especially for communications and marketing. And I feel like there's been a lot of buzz around AI and how that's gonna affect the public relations world and communications world in general. And I know that it's it's definitely gonna be transforming communications, but it's really, I feel it's not there to replace anything, it's more to enhance what we're already doing. So I have found AI to be very beneficial for drafting content.
I'm doing a lot of research and and background media monitoring, it's been great for, as well as summarizing very complex reports. I you know, whether it's if you're working in the government space or any other space that has a lot of jargon in it, it's really good for summarizing that. But I think as a going back to you having my foundation as a storyteller, what I can tell you and what I because I I really pay attention to this space right now, I read a lot of news about AI.
And I know that AI definitely cannot replace some really, really fundamental things like strategic thinking, relationship building, emotional intelligence, ethics and you know, cultural understanding. Those are things that no machine will ever be able to take from us, especially as public relations professionals. So I think that we need to become AI literate.
But you have to also remain human centered and remember that at the core of what you're doing, especially in public relations and storytelling, is to be human centered and to be able to keep that perspective and kind of just usalizing it right as another tool in your toolbox. And that's kind of how I have been approaching AI.
00:07:05 - 00:07:30
Jason
Yeah, love that. Good, good, good. Well, it's definitely a popular topic and you know, has the potential to be game changing. But as I've said on this show and over my career is you know, with great power comes great responsibility and with powerful tools that we just seem as PR practitioners and business people and and individuals in the marketplace.
We seem to just be getting more and more powerful tools. started out
00:07:30 - 00:07:30
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:07:30 - 00:07:43
Jason
with, you know, the e with email, and then the internet, and then text messaging, social media, and now AI. not to mention just cell phones and I my career's long enough to remember fax machines, and things like that. But
00:07:43 - 00:07:45
Brenda
Yeah.
00:07:45 - 00:07:57
Jason
what happens, I think, is you know, Gary Vaynerchuk says, marketers ruin everything. And so
You know, as new technology comes around, marketers figure out how to use it to market to people. And
00:07:57 - 00:07:57
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:07:57 - 00:08:04
Jason
when email first started was so simple, there were no graphics, there was no spam, and then suddenly there was spam, you know, and things
00:08:04 - 00:08:04
Brenda
Yes.
00:08:04 - 00:08:48
Jason
like that. So hopefully, you know, we can figure out a way to control you know AI a little bit more. of this recording date of July twenty-third, twenty twenty-six. I remember just yesterday hearing about
This AI platform that was being worked on in a secure lab at ChatGPT or its parent company. And basically, I don't know if you heard this news story, but you know, decided it wanted to go out and verify or get information that it didn't have. So it hacked into another off-site AI companies tool. Yeah, and wasn't supposed to be able to access the internet, period, but it didn't like that it didn't have the data.
So it figured out a way how to basically some people are calling it jailbreak. I don't know if that's the right term, but break itself free
00:08:48 - 00:08:50
Brenda
Wow.
00:08:50 - 00:08:59
Jason
from the constraint that it was in inside OpenAI's lab. And anyway, and to me that's just a scary moment of you know, the power
00:08:59 - 00:09:00
Brenda
Yeah.
00:09:00 - 00:09:07
Jason
of AI. So so tell me about your current use of AI. and what are some best practices you might share with our audience?
00:09:07 - 00:11:00
Brenda
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it builds I think with AI, it helps you build and use it as a tool w like I mentioned with other things that you're doing. But one of the things that I really like about AI is that it does improve efficiency. And that's what's happened with every type of technology that we've had, right? like you mentioned with with phones, with other things that have come.
But one of the things is that authenticity, it still comes from people and it still comes from storytelling. So I'll again I just sort of just use it as a tool to do some of the more like administrative stuff that used to take a lot more time, right? So like like I mentioned, you know, a lot of the times doing that research, doing that brainstorming, utilizing it for doing that media monitoring and that sort of thing. And that's sort of like what I've been using it for and I've what I found it useful for. I do think that it's still not in using the AI in the last like year or so. I don't I feel like there's still a lot of areas for improvement. I don't know that it's you know, you're still you still have to go back and look at the stuff that AI produces for you and double check that. it's not like a hundred percent, you know, error proof.
And I think that's really interesting when we're talking about AI because people think, it's, you know, it it brings all the it has all these benefits. But I also think that we're getting ahead of ourselves because we still need to realize that it's still a machine and we still have to do our due diligence in making sure that the information that it's putting out is accurate. So we still have work to do. the machine's not gonna do all of that for us. So I've I've noticed that in using it for the things that I mentioned, you know, I still have to go back and look at that research that it pulls. I still have to go back.
and look at the brainstorming ideas and analyze it and see whether that's not gonna work that's gonna work for for my work or not.
00:11:00 - 00:11:13
Jason
Right. Yes. Yes. I agree that I've faced the same challenges on the regular. one issue I face is I'm a perfectionist, so it's supposed to increase my efficiencies, but I feel like I'm just producing more content
00:11:13 - 00:11:14
Brenda
Yes.
00:11:14 - 00:11:21
Jason
or more material that I hope to go back to and review later, and then I just never get around to reviewing it. And then I feel like I wasted a lot of time getting it,
00:11:21 - 00:11:22
Brenda
Exactly.
00:11:22 - 00:11:30
Jason
you know. What's the saying in project management that the last
10 to 20% takes as long as the first 80 or 90% did. And
00:11:30 - 00:11:30
Brenda
Yeah.
00:11:30 - 00:11:59
Jason
I feel like I'm a huge, I allow myself to become a huge victim of that. So something I'm kind of working on, but also at the same time, like I we just had a training session today where I was showing some of my team members some of the cool things I'm doing in AI. And they were, you know, to them it it felt like it was next level compared to what they knew. And so I was glad that I did some of the training. And for some people it was, you know, helpful to see how someone else is using the same things they're doing.
but I'm always thinking like there's other people who are next level above me too. So I'm just, you
00:11:59 - 00:12:00
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:12:00 - 00:12:10
Jason
know, what is it, the the cliche, you know, a rising tide floats all boats. And so I think as we all work together, we'll start to realize and appreciate some of the impact and efficiencies that we're seeing here.
00:12:10 - 00:12:12
Brenda
Yes,
absolutely.
00:12:12 - 00:12:25
Jason
But you're right. I mean, human judgment remains essential. I think it always will, at least for you know, especially in these early days. But as I tell people, like you can't ignore AI because if you think it's growing quickly, just wait. It's only gonna, you know,
00:12:25 - 00:12:25
Brenda
Yeah.
00:12:25 - 00:12:41
Jason
multiply and compound at the rate both we're adopting it and its ability to do things for us, which many days like yesterday, as I mentioned, kinda give me pause and and a little bit of a of of scare. But, you know, if we're not gonna take advantage of it now, when are we gonna take advantage of it? So
00:12:41 - 00:12:42
Brenda
Mm-hmm. And it kind of
00:12:42 - 00:13:32
Jason
reminds me a little bit about the the days that I mentioned when the print journalism world was being really hit by the digital world. And I felt like everybody at that time was saying, Well, you guys need to think about a digital approach to the content that you're producing. And I felt like a lot of publishers kind of ignored that. And we saw that train go by. And found the print world found itself trying to pay catch up and I still like I feel like it's still kind of doing that. And so I think that's why it's important to take some of these new technologies seriously and really learn about them and how it's gonna be applicable to the things that we do and how we can work, you know, parallel to these emerging technologies and not, you know, separate from them because it could have an impact as it did in in in the print world.
00:13:32 - 00:13:49
Jason
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I was also in journalism at the time when you know, people were start first starting, including journalists, first starting to use the internet. And so I think I helped in my career three newspapers launch their first website. And after
00:13:49 - 00:13:50
Brenda
Yeah.
00:13:50 - 00:13:54
Jason
the second one, first or second one, started becoming a hot commodity, you know, where it was basically
00:13:54 - 00:13:54
Brenda
Yeah.
00:13:54 - 00:14:07
Jason
you know, name my own price to help other ple other newspapers catch up and
But what they always wanted from me, which I didn't have the answer for, at least not the answer they wanted to hear, was you know, how do we monetize this? And the
00:14:07 - 00:14:07
Brenda
Right.
00:14:07 - 00:14:24
Jason
answer I gave them at the time was, well, you create packages, advertising packages, and you include your website as part of that package and you, you bundle it together. And, you know, they're like, you know, they wanted it to kind of be an independent vehicle for for revenue. And I and I said, one day it might be.
Like it might be its own
00:14:24 - 00:14:24
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:14:24 - 00:14:31
Jason
thing where you don't have the print edition anymore. And you know, of course, some people are like, you know, like how how is that possible? You know? And but yeah, yeah. And
00:14:31 - 00:14:34
Brenda
How is that even possible? How could that ever happen?
00:14:34 - 00:14:53
Jason
and but my message to them was like, look, you gotta build the website and get people using it and used to it because the marketplace isn't there yet. So if you start trying to monetize either views or what we call now paywalls, which wasn't a term back then per se.
And and expecting advertisers to advertise on something that nobody's there yet, I think that's
00:14:53 - 00:14:54
Brenda
Right.
00:14:54 - 00:15:09
Jason
the wrong step, you know, versus buy this package and you get these other, you know, digital features as well. Doesn't mean you got to give them away for free, but you got to figure it out. And I think the lack of the industry and profession, maybe I'm to blame too, of being slow to figure out how to monetize
00:15:09 - 00:15:09
Brenda
Yes.
00:15:09 - 00:15:17
Jason
it. You know, there's this window where they're trying to monetize it early. I'm not saying this is correct, but it feels like people gave up on monetizing it.
And then suddenly
00:15:17 - 00:15:17
Brenda
Yes.
00:15:17 - 00:15:21
Jason
they're like, my gosh, we have to monetize this. So
00:15:21 - 00:15:22
Brenda
Absolutely.
00:15:22 - 00:15:24
Jason
it's been an interesting ride for sure.
00:15:24 - 00:15:26
Brenda
Yes.
00:15:26 - 00:15:43
Jason
so this pivots right next into our next topic, which is building trust in a digital first world. let's talk about how communicators can earn credibility when misinformation spreads faster than facts and why transparency and consistency matter more than ever.
00:15:43 - 00:19:48
Brenda
Wow, it's been such an interesting ride in this space. I think having been working in government communications now for twelve years, I have had the privilege, and I say privilege because I think there's a lot of lessons when you're dealing with different types of crises, in learning so many important things about what it means to build trust in the digital world. And I think the biggest lesson that I've learned in
Dealing with different situations is that every single communication in the digital space is either going to build trust or erode it. So you have to be very strategic in the digital space. And now we're living in a very interesting world, right? So people are expecting us, audience are expecting us, and the public is expecting.
That we have real-time communication across multiple platforms. And that's a heavy load to take on for any type of organization. And it's something that everybody has had to adapt to very, very quickly. And that means that we have now the responsibility that we have to meet people where they are while maintaining one consistent message, whether it's across, you know, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, that sort of thing.
And that has required a lot of strategic thinking in house for comms teams, especially in the government public sector space. first of all, meeting people where they are and knowing offhand that when something happens, you have to have that real time communication. That is the expectation now. people want answers and they want quickly. So
In government I can say in the public sector space, trust isn't really built in with one campaign. it's earned through, repeated reliable communication over time. And I've seen that happen when we're building out our social media sites. People go there to find answers to their questions that they may have about something that's going on in their community. and they expect you to, address whatever
questions they have in real time and be there for them. And I also think that listening is just as important as speaking or replying to them on these platforms. So social listening and community engagement, those are the type of things that should be shaping communication strategies in the digital world. Because it's really a a relationship that you have in this new space where people are expecting you to get back to them and communicate with them. So
Building trust really starts with that consistency, letting people know that you're there and that your message across all of your platforms is consistent and reliable. I think that's really important to show people. I think people want to know that you're also there's a real person behind your platforms that is listening to whether it's a rumor that they want clarified, whether it's something that they want to know. they wanna make sure that.
you are somebody that they can go back to when something happens or they have questions about something that they can go to you and they can ask you those questions. The digital world has also opened up a another interesting space, which I think we don't talk about enough,
is everybody is a content creator now.
we have citizen journalists, everybody's a content creator. Everybody is a news broadcaster now, in the digital space. And it gets very crowded and gets very noisy.
And the opportunity that you have as an organization, whether you're in the public sector or in the private sector, is that it's really, really important to establish yourself in your platforms with an authentic voice and authoritative voice about what it is that you are what your organization's about, so that people know that if they do have questions about other sources that may not always be reliable.
or other content creators, they can always go to your page and get the definitive answer of what what's going on. And so I think it's really important to note that just because it's such a crowded space now in the digital world.
00:19:48 - 00:19:50
Jason
Right. A hundred percent. I also feel like
00:19:50 - 00:19:51
Brenda
Yeah.
00:19:51 - 00:19:59
Jason
that, you know, what you're reminding me of is that, you know, the technology has evolved and changed, but the fundamental principles have not changed, right? So meaning that you
00:19:59 - 00:20:00
Brenda
Yeah.
00:20:00 - 00:20:05
Jason
still had to be you still had to have a a good reputation. If you were the the the town
00:20:05 - 00:20:06
Brenda
Yes.
00:20:06 - 00:20:21
Jason
editor or gossip person or expert or town crier or just a a voice in the community, right? If you weren't trustworthy.
If you didn't have reliable facts, if you were exaggerating the truth or being biased in some
00:20:21 - 00:20:22
Brenda
Yes.
00:20:22 - 00:21:08
Jason
way, you know, you would you would be recognized as such or not recognized because of the lack of credibility. So to me, it I say this a lot, people are like, Man, public relations has changed and you know, so much in the last, used to be five years, now it might be 10 years or whatever. And I'm like, you know, the tools have changed. As I said earlier, our ability to make a
a bigger mistake on a bigger platform or in a bigger, realm like a social media gaffe or or or send a an email blast to too many people or something like that. Yeah, those things can all happen. but fundamentally, right, strategy and messaging haven't changed. It's just been maybe consumers' attention spans have gotten tighter and the competitiveness of the business has gotten more competitive. But at the end of the day,
00:21:08 - 00:21:09
Brenda
Yes.
00:21:09 - 00:21:23
Jason
right, we still have to be trusted
strategic advisors, lead with strategy, lead with empathy and humanity, and just make the right choices of what's good and what's ethical for the marketplace.
00:21:23 - 00:21:45
Brenda
One hundred percent. I think you have a good point about the strategic advisors and we can't forget about that role that we play. We're not just content creators. And that's the advantage that we have, right, with the public relations experience that we bring to the table is that we're able to be those strategic advisors. We're not just content creators, we're looking at things with a strategic eye. So I definitely think that that's a great point.
00:21:45 - 00:22:03
Jason
Yeah, thanks. Thanks. so yeah, this is you know, a topic of conversation I'm pretty passionate about. speaking of, let's transition into the topic you wanted to speak about, which I'm I'm excited to discuss with you is leading communication during high stake moments. So managing,
00:22:03 - 00:22:04
Brenda
Yeah.
00:22:04 - 00:22:18
Jason
multiple crises perhaps across social media, traditional media, internal communication. Now we've got AI to balance into that. And so what
What tips do you have for leading communication in high stake moments or situations?
00:22:18 - 00:22:42
Brenda
Yeah, I mean, there's been so many great examples of interesting case studies in our world with different organizations and companies who have responded to different types of crises. And I think what I've taken away from my observation and especially with how they've dealt with public relations, whether it's a a recall on a product or food item
00:22:42 - 00:22:43
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:22:43 - 00:22:58
Brenda
or whatever.
I think we we always need to remember that people are gonna remember how the leaders of an organization or a company, they're gonna remember how they communicated during that time much more than the crisis itself. And we've seen that
00:22:58 - 00:22:59
Jason
Mm, that's fair.
00:22:59 - 00:25:56
Brenda
over yeah, we've seen that over and over again. And that could be very simple as no response. People also remember that that you didn't say anything when it was very critical.
Time and people remember that too. And I think now because we live in this world where everybody expects a statement right away, they expect information right away, this urgency of having all of that information at your fingertips has put a lot of pressure on leaders of organizations during a crisis because whereas before, you know, we would get a request from a a reporter saying, hey,
This crisis is going on. Do you have any, you know, a response to this? we could take a day, right? We could take a couple of hours. Well, now that doesn't really exist. and now that you're living in these digital platforms, the expectation is that you communicate with people immediately about what's going on. And that's been really important because people are, like I said, always tend to remember more of a how your response was as opposed to what the crisis was itself. And they tend to hold on to that quite a lot.
from what I've seen. And so what I always like try to remember during high-stakes moments is what's really, really important is communicate early, communicate often, and acknowledge what you don't know. Those three things I think go a really, really far with the public. even if you don't have all the answers, the fact that you're communicating early and acknowledging that you are aware of what is going on.
And you're letting people know again, going back to my previous point about your reputation, right? making sure that those relationships and those that relationship building on your reputation stays intact. Well, it doesn't those moments in crisis are when that matters the most. and you know, because people are looking to you to you to have an answer. And when you are in a high-stakes moment and you're doing that.
you're communicating early and you're communicating often and you're acknowledging that you don't have all the answers, people will respect you for that and will remember that. And that you will keep that reputation intact moving forward when another crisis occurs. So in the digital space we talk about how much speed matters, but I think we also, yes, speed matters, but it also matters accuracy accuracy matters more, right?
So we need to just make sure that when we are talking to people during a high-stakes moment, we are being accurate with the information that we're putting out and we're letting people know that, hey, we hear you and this is what we do know and what we do know that rest of the information we'll let you know. And that builds so much trust and credibility in the community during a crisis. It goes so far and and really kind of sets you up.
to be a credible voice when another incident occurs in the future.
00:25:56 - 00:26:07
Jason
That's great, Brenda. I really appreciate you saying that. I think when, you know, what resonated with me is there's a there's a cliche. People tend to remember how you treated them or how you made them feel more than what you say. And and I think
00:26:07 - 00:26:09
Brenda
Yes. Yes.
00:26:09 - 00:26:19
Jason
you're kind of saying something very similar and equally helpful, which is, people remember how you respond when you were faced with crisis. And, you
00:26:19 - 00:26:20
Brenda
Yes.
00:26:20 - 00:27:01
Jason
know, I think we're both saying you don't have to have all the answers right away.
But you certainly shouldn't make guesses. You certainly shouldn't give conjecture versus, at least communicating early enough to say we're aware of the situation, we're monitoring the situation, we're investigating what's happening, and you know, as we've talked about on this show before with others, and we'll give you an update between now and this period of time so people have some sort of expectation.
And then the burden on us as public relations practitioners or crisis communication experts is this whole idea of now we've got instead of one or two channels we have to manage during a crisis, we now have like, you know, 10, 12, 15, 20
00:27:01 - 00:27:01
Brenda
Yes.
00:27:01 - 00:28:06
Jason
different ways to communicate with our audience, of which there's also subways or you know, sub platforms or channels underneath each of those. So, you know.
Social media used to be well, make sure your crisis plan includes social media. And I was talking to a company the other day, they wanted to hire us for, you know, creating a crisis plan for them. And I guess they had hired another agency before and they immediately canceled the relationship with the agency when their crisis plan had zero, AI component to the crisis plan. And then they told me later that it had zero component of social media. So
You know, here's basically a company who apparently
hasn't written a crisis plan in fifteen years or updated in twenty years or something like that, which was unbelievable, you know, to me in many ways, but also kind of a challenge to be like, are we actively looking for every possible, new thing that might be, you know, needed to be integrated into our clients' reports? Of course we checked out pretty good well there, but I made sure it became a priority to kind of check those things out. So
I
00:28:06 - 00:28:06
Brenda
Yeah.
00:28:06 - 00:28:11
Jason
I like what you're saying. I the environment only seems to get more complex and complicated.
00:28:11 - 00:28:13
Brenda
Yes.
00:28:13 - 00:28:32
Jason
but the good news is that we also have more control. when you think of like earned media, shared media, and owned media, we have the opportunity to have owned media that, existed for a long time, but not as digital as it is today. Shared media allows us to spread the word very quickly, which can work both directions, right? Positive and negative.
00:28:32 - 00:28:34
Brenda
Yes.
00:28:34 - 00:29:08
Jason
and gives away a lot of the control. but the one thing I've always said about PR is PR is more than media relations and earned media coverage. PR is also more than crisis management. but thank goodness we have these other platforms available to us because, in the past you just you literally depended on oftentimes news media or limited owned media platforms to be able to communicate with your audience. And so
At least now with some of these platforms you have a little bit more control, a little bit more opportunity to participate in the conversations that maybe were hap happening unbeknownst to you. So
00:29:08 - 00:29:14
Brenda
Yeah, and let's and let's not forget that, you know, silence creates vacuums and someone is gonna come and fill it, right? So
00:29:14 - 00:29:15
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:29:15 - 00:29:25
Brenda
we really need to be proactive, especially as public relations professionals. We don't want somebody to come and fill that vacuum. We wanna be ahead of that story and be proactive during times
00:29:25 - 00:29:26
Jason
Right.
00:29:26 - 00:29:35
Brenda
of crisis. So so it's always important to remember that, you know, that silence always creates these vacuums and and people somebody's gonna always gonna come and try to fill that.
00:29:35 - 00:29:56
Jason
Yep, right. Exactly. All right. So the two more things we want to talk about in this episode is the power of authentic storytelling and the future of communication leadership. So let's start with the power of storytelling. we've kind of danced around that topic and maybe introduced a few things here or there, but how do you define authentic storytelling?
00:29:56 - 00:32:23
Brenda
wow, well, as my background as a journalist, you know, we know the power of storytelling. Stories is what moves people, you know, facts inform people, but stories are actually what move people. And I actually have a really a quote that I really love to say all the time that I've heard. in it's, you know, that the world is made up of stories, not atoms. And really that's
something that I really like have always like leaned towards because I feel like storytelling is really what moves the needle on everything. Sometimes the best communications, you know, highlight real people and real impact. And that always seems to be what makes the biggest difference in everything that you're doing. I always see people try to, you know, create new initiatives, new programs.
And those types of things I see a lot of people, a lot of people create data dumps. And when I see that, I'm not connecting to that information as a person. I try to look at it as an outside person. And the only way that I'm gonna be able to connect to any type of data dump or any type of new initiative or any type of new program that's that's that's presented is if there's some sort of story attached to that.
And that's what's really gonna move my interest. And I feel like we need to remember that. At the core of everything, people need stories in order to feel motivated, whether it's to buy something, whether it's to participate in something. And every organization has meaningful stories. That's a great part about it. You know, we we we just your job is to uncover those, what those are. So
The core of storytelling, as we all know, especially if you worked in journalism, is is always looking for like who is this helping? Who is this, you know, why does it matter? What's changed what's changed? How what kind of impact are you having? If you can answer those simple questions, you easily can create a story around the organization that you work for or the mission that you're that you're working for. And I think that helps because authenticity
goes again to what we were talking about earlier is building the credibility for us. and building that credibility, it gives us an opportunity to also create polished marketing language around the things that we're doing.
00:32:23 - 00:32:24
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:32:24 - 00:32:56
Brenda
So storytelling really has a role in so many different things that we're doing in public relations. And I really think that it's at the foundation of everything that we do. And it really helps to make whatever goal that you're trying you know, the whatever you're trying to promote, it really helps in solidifying that to the public because you're telling them a story and getting their, you know, getting them to be influenced by whatever it is that you're doing. So I I I think it's the foundation of everything that we do.
00:32:56 - 00:33:02
Jason
Yeah, I completely agree with you. I agree that every organization has a story. Sometimes you just have to know where to look or how to find it.
00:33:02 - 00:33:03
Brenda
Yeah.
00:33:03 - 00:33:15
Jason
It's always going to be about the humans inside of it, right? I I do some keynote speaking, and one of the things I talk about there is that, you know, you've never gone to a movie theater and watched a movie that's about a company. What you've watched is about the people
00:33:15 - 00:33:16
Brenda
Exactly.
00:33:16 - 00:33:24
Jason
behind the company, right? Because if you were there to watch a movie about a company, you'd be looking at profit and loss statements, leases.
00:33:24 - 00:33:25
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:33:25 - 00:33:26
Jason
Articles of incorporation, corporate formations,
00:33:26 - 00:33:28
Brenda
Yes.
00:33:28 - 00:33:45
Jason
and you know, other things that like might get lawyers interested, but certainly aren't things that people are typically interested in seeing. What you see is the conflict, the challenges, the overcoming adversity, the odds that were stacked against them, you know, the entrepreneurial spirit and the commitment to doing the right thing
00:33:45 - 00:33:46
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:33:46 - 00:33:52
Jason
or seeing things through that, you know, really are inspiring stories.
00:33:52 - 00:33:52
Brenda
Yes.
00:33:52 - 00:35:07
Jason
But you
know, if you're watching the ink dry on a lease or corporate resolutions, you know, that'd be great sleep sleeping prescription, right? So I think when companies get excited to say the company has announced something, you know, well, a company can't announce something. Someone at the company announces something. and you just have to kind of get behind the scenes. And so, shame on the person who says, Well, there's nothing newsworthy happening here or whatever, because they're not paying attention to what's
what the news is or what's human interest stories might be missing from the people within their organization. But a PR pitch is not about the size of the square footage of your office and and and and your building, right? It's about what you're building and ideally perhaps how you're making the world a better place and the people within the organization are people who are impacted internally and externally by the good things that you're doing.
also
love that you said this in the notes. Brenda, we didn't I don't think you said it out loud, but I just love this that, you know, why audience connect with people, not press releases? And and I think I'm kind of talking a little bit of about the press release side, but one thing that I've done in my career is when I started this business, every small business owner has to know how to do some form of selling, right? And we all
00:35:07 - 00:35:07
Brenda
Yes.
00:35:07 - 00:35:13
Jason
sell all the time, right?
Swap the word selling with persuading, swap the word selling with influencing. But you know,
00:35:13 - 00:35:14
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:35:14 - 00:35:46
Jason
the structural engineer has to assure the mayor and this in the city or county commission that this bridge is not going to collapse, right? If you hire me to build this bridge, or maybe it's the DOT with the state, or the federal government, there's a little bit of persuading. Here are my credentials, here's my experience, here's my vision, here's my safety, background training, policy practices.
You know, they want to make sure the bridge isn't gonna collapse and that no one's gonna get hurt building the bridge. that's a form of selling. I don't care what somebody says, right? And so some
00:35:46 - 00:35:47
Brenda
Exactly.
00:35:47 - 00:36:14
Jason
of my best training on how to be a better communicator, how to be a better public relations practitioner, how to be a better leader, how to be a better media relations practitioner has actually come from attending sales workshops because the sales workshop and its content were not about, you know, pressure.
and persuasion and and all that. It was honestly the best training is about the idea of telling stories, connecting
00:36:14 - 00:36:15
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:36:15 - 00:36:38
Jason
with people, answering questions, directing them in a direction that, yeah, might work to your favor, but also helps them form feel informed and educated and a path that they can, you know, be able to make those evaluations. So I say all that to say that it was a salesperson that I started tuning into early in my career.
Who said people will you for the stories that you tell. Right.
00:36:38 - 00:36:38
Brenda
Yes.
00:36:38 - 00:36:50
Jason
So if I told you a story of how I did something, you're gonna remember the remember me and what I did more because I told it in a story format, kind of thing. So
00:36:50 - 00:36:51
Brenda
Yeah.
00:36:51 - 00:36:53
Jason
I find that to be really interesting.
00:36:53 - 00:37:01
Brenda
And I and I and I I think you see it a lot on social media these days, right? We have so many social media influencers that are using
00:37:01 - 00:37:02
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:37:02 - 00:37:30
Brenda
storytelling to work with brands on social media. And the way that they're able to talk about a product for a brand is oftentimes them using storytelling to do that. And I find that really, really interesting. You can you don't have to go far to see.
how people in the digital space are using storytelling, right? To work with brands or to sell a product and that sort of thing. You can see it on our social media feeds every single day.
00:37:30 - 00:37:35
Jason
Absolutely. Yes. And, sometimes there's a few things they could be teaching us about
00:37:35 - 00:37:36
Brenda
Yeah.
00:37:36 - 00:37:53
Jason
storytelling, right? and the the success they're having with storytelling and how to modernize your storytelling, how to speak in sound bites, how to get people's attention really quick. and so you know, I I like a lot of that. all right, so as we're wrapping up here, and this has been a great conversation, Brenda, thank you so much.
00:37:53 - 00:37:54
Brenda
Yeah,
this isn't frank this has been great.
00:37:54 - 00:37:57
Jason
I want to hear your thoughts
on the future of communication leadership.
00:37:57 - 00:38:38
Brenda
Wow, I think we're s you know, I think we're in a really exciting space right now. I think that not just because of the emerging technologies, but I think that the type of communications leaders that we're gonna have to be to really make the future really, really solid, especially in communications and public relations and all of that.
I think going back to your point that you made earlier, which I think is super important, remembering that our role is going to continue to be strategic advisors in this space, no matter what type of emerging technologies exist. So keeping
00:38:38 - 00:38:38
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:38:38 - 00:41:01
Brenda
the focus on our role as strategic advisors for our organizations or the clients that we help out. And I also think that what's great about the emerging technologies is that
As future communication leaders, we're gonna be able to utilize data and make more data-informed decisions because of these emerging technologies. And I think that that's something that we should really, you know, hone in on and take advantage of because we're gonna have so much great data at our fingertips. And then I also think that.
As AI savvy communicators, there's a lot we can utilize with using the AI tools that we have at our disposal right now and using it to help us with every aspect of our jobs and public relations. And that goes all the way from you know being the trusted counselors to executive leadership to helping us build, you know, that organizational reputation and public trust,
utilizing these tools that we have.
to help us do that. So I think that kind of back to your point that you made earlier as well is that communications and public relations is not going to be simply about media relations in the future. I think where we're heading, it's going to be about helping organizations navigate complexity, change, and public expectations and doing so and in navigating this new digital world that we're we're living in.
And we're already doing it now. And I think it's just gonna continue and it's probably gonna get even more complex and our role is gonna be to help those organizations navigate that space. and then I think finally I would say that, you know, yes, the technology is gonna continue to evolve, you know, I think we're gonna have
Platforms are gonna continue to change, AI is gonna become more powerful. We're gonna see that in the next few years. But I think the fundamentals that we've been talking about in this conversation about great communications remaining the same, about us being able to build trust, communicating with empathy, telling those authentic stories and always remembering that there's a human being on the other side of the message.
is something that's never gonna go away and those are gonna be the foundation that we're always gonna go back to as communicators and and no matter how it evolves in the future. So I think I think that's what we're looking at in the future of communications.
00:41:01 - 00:41:20
Jason
Brenda, imagine a world where almost all news reporting is AI generated, right? How scary and different would that world possibly become? And I'm not saying that that's, hard and fast, but it sure seems like that could be a potential future. I don't
00:41:20 - 00:41:20
Brenda
Yeah.
00:41:20 - 00:41:30
Jason
think we fully realize the potential of what AI could be, but
Right now, we as public relations communication practitioners have a unique opportunity to influence
00:41:30 - 00:41:31
Brenda
Mm-hmm.
00:41:31 - 00:41:33
Jason
how AI cites and references and thinks of companies
00:41:33 - 00:41:34
Brenda
Yes.
00:41:34 - 00:42:28
Jason
through the data shows using news media and earned media and other types of content. but what that doesn't account for is okay, but how do we keep these media outlets in business? And advertising is gonna do that in some form.
but you know, AI adoption is happening as we talked about quickly, and AI enhancements are happening quickly and it's gonna move even quicker. So, hopefully there's good humans with integrity behind a lot of this. But, at some point, are we gonna see you work for the Los Angeles County organization, but imagine, you know, county and city.
Commission meetings being attended by a bot, who might be a drone that comes in and out of the meetings and does the reporting. because we all know that, you can watch, in theory, this podcast could have been written by humans or AI and then
00:42:28 - 00:42:29
Brenda
Yeah.
00:42:29 - 00:42:40
Jason
produced by AI avatars with a back and forth. we see that already today. So, I just wonder what that world would look like one day because there's gonna be a form of that.
whether people want it and
00:42:40 - 00:42:40
Brenda
Mm.
00:42:40 - 00:42:47
Jason
accept it, and whether there's, you know, humans are still competing in that space, the future's gonna be strange.
00:42:47 - 00:42:55
Brenda
It is. I I agree. I think it is. I think we'll we will see a lot of interesting new strange things, but I do feel
00:42:55 - 00:42:55
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:42:55 - 00:43:01
Brenda
just based on like what's been out with AI, like you hear a lot about AI slop, right? You hear a lot about that
00:43:01 - 00:43:02
Jason
Right. Mm-hmm.
00:43:02 - 00:43:13
Brenda
type of thing. And and it hasn't really been embraced by people the way that you would think, you know, people are not, you know, even when it comes to graphic design, I've seen a lot of talk about that, about things that are have been produced
00:43:13 - 00:43:15
Jason
Yep. I was just gonna say that.
00:43:15 - 00:43:21
Brenda
by yeah, people.
People will point that out right away. They'll say, you know, I'm not not really a big fan of this A AI
00:43:21 - 00:43:21
Jason
Mm-hmm.
00:43:21 - 00:43:35
Brenda
generated graphic. And they can really spot it right away. And so I think that as human beings, we gravitate towards authenticity. I think that's at the core of who we are. And I think that that's just gonna
00:43:35 - 00:43:35
Jason
Right.
00:43:35 - 00:43:45
Brenda
continue. So I think that discernment is really gonna be up to us. And I think we're gonna be the ones that are gonna set the tone when it comes to what's acceptable moving forward.
00:43:45 - 00:43:54
Jason
Yeah,
completely agree. Brenda, we've got to wrap up here. Tell me how can people best get a hold of you if they want to connect with you? Is that through LinkedIn or some other way?
00:43:54 - 00:44:14
Brenda
Yes, please connect with me through LinkedIn. Brenda on LinkedIn. And I also have a website. If you want to see some of my portfolio work or you want to connect with me through email, you can go to b.com and I'm also available on LinkedIn. so yeah, you can connect me over there.
00:44:14 - 00:44:20
Jason
Lovely. Yes. Please connect with Brenda on LinkedIn. Tell her you heard about her on On Top of PR. And when we are
00:44:20 - 00:44:20
Brenda
Yes.
00:44:20 - 00:45:00
Jason
mutually promoting her episode, take a moment to promote her episode to your audience. And like always, if you found this conversation to be helpful, please take a moment to refer a colleague or friend to this episode and this recording. The best way to do that is to share on otopofpr.com/brenda-duran.
And that'll take them directly to this episode with the video, audio version, the episode notes, the full transcripts, links to things we talked about during this conversation, as well as a direct link to Brenda's LinkedIn. So with that, this is Jason from Axia Public Relations saying, Thank you, Brenda, for being a great guest today.
00:45:00 - 00:45:02
Brenda
Thank you so much, Jason.
00:45:02
Jason
Thank you for our audience and followers and fans for your loyalty. I'm humbled to be able to help you stay on top of PR.
Topics: On Top of PR, story telling, artificial intelligence
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