The Little Questions

AI is your newest colleague but is it your biggest communications risk? In this episode of Little Questions, the podcast from Apella Advisors, hosts Jenny Scott and James Kirkup dive into the growing challenge of artificial intelligence in corporate communications. From AI-generated legal submissions that land firms in court trouble to opinion pieces that editors can spot as machine-written from a...

What happens when a casual political joke in a "private" employee Facebook group explodes into a national media crisis? In this episode of Little Questions, the podcast from Apella Advisors, hosts Jenny Scott and James Kirkup get into the messy reality of modern corporate communications: politics has spilled into absolutely everything. From the water cooler to staff WhatsApp groups, political disc...

How does a national newspaper group maintain its edge? On this edition of The Little Questions podcast, we're peeling back the curtain on the quiet power of your inbox, the evolution of business news, and why the era of the silent CEO is officially over. Guiding the conversation are the podcast's new hosts,  Jenny Scott  and  James Kirkup , both partners at Apella Advisors. Jenny brings her experi...

We're proud to have provided 100 informative, humorous, and occasionally thrilling episodes of Little Questions - the podcast for all of us working with or working in Corporate Affairs, Communications and PR. To mark our 100th episode, we have gone back into the archives and pulled moments from the conversations that still resonate. In this special episode - the last to be hosted by Matt Young and...

In a world that occasionally feels like it's teetering on the edge, the demand for "wise counsel" has never been higher. In this episode of the  Little Questions Podcast , we turn the spotlight on advice, the good, the bad, and the confidently delivered but completely wrong. Because in Corporate Affairs and Communications, advice isn't just part of the job, it  is  the job. Whether it's guiding re...

If your organisation's culture were described anonymously tomorrow, would it match what's written in your annual report? In this episode of  The Little Questions , we explore how culture failures move from being internal concerns to full-scale reputational crises, often catching leadership by surprise, despite long-standing warning signs. We examine what happens when aspiration outruns operational...

Do you remember when we were told the world was heading inexorably towards globalisation? That technology would dissolve borders, that liberal stability was the model forevermore, and that everything was, more or less, under control? Yeah. About that. In this episode of The Little Questions, we're not here to solve geopolitics (there are people far better qualified doing that already). Instead, we...

505 years ago, on this day in 1521, a German monk named Martin Luther stood before the Holy Roman Emperor, representatives of the Pope, and the assembled powers of church and state at the Diet of Worms. He was asked a simple question: Would he recant his writings? Luther had already nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door several years earlier. Those ideas had spread. They had caused discom...

Welcome to the fourth annual Little Questions PR Heroes and Villains. This is our excuse to look back over the year that was and consider who nailed their comms and who jumped straight into the proverbial pile of steaming. In previous years we've considered 'Shania Train', Elon Musk, Flaco the Eagle Owl, Bradford and even Ryan Gosling, well for pretty much just being Ryan Gosling!  Joining Jenny S...

In front of a live audience, Apella Advisors' Jenny Scott sits down with Nick Clegg - former Deputy Prime Minister and former President of Global Affairs at Meta - to cut through the noise surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Fresh from his time in Silicon Valley and the release of his new book, How to Save the Internet, Nick joins Jenny to dismantle the "bonkers" valuations of the current AI bubb...

Normally, we spend our days advising big organisations on how to rebuild trust, explain themselves better, and stop setting fire to their reputations. But today we've taken on a new client. A tricky one. With the sort of knotty challenge we love at Apella Towers. Legacy brand. Huge heritage. Slightly confused about what it stands for. Name of the client: Britain. It's a high-maintenance account, t...

It's topical time again. The last few weeks have seen a potential bubble emerging in the markets as tech valuations soar. This time round central bankers have jumped in to provide warnings ahead of this potential crash. In the UK, the Treasury has continued to fly taxation kites to see how the public and markets react - something that we discussed in episode 90. It has been impossible over the las...

Are press events still a smart comms tool - or just a tired ritual some of us can't give up? Press events used to be a pinnacle of communications activation. The moment you filled a room with hacks, told your story once, and watched the headlines roll in. Or at least that's the fantasy many executives still cling to. The reality? Unless you're a prime minister, president, or possibly Elon Musk, th...

Is traditional business media dying? What's the best approach for handling a CEO whose bedroom antics have become newsworthy? What happens when a company tells the wrong story? And what have been some of the best placed PR stories from the last few weeks. All that and more coming up on this episode of The Little Questions.  This episode is hosted by Matt Young and Andrew Brown. Andrew Brown; forme...

Is comms becoming a bit too corporate? We still spot trouble before it hits. We still know what plays in the media, what won't land with the public, and how to read the room better than anyone else on the ExCo. But when it comes to doing something bold and out there? When it comes to cutting through, not just smoothing over? Are we going a bit soft? Swapping instinct for process. Gut feel for gove...

For our summer special, we've assembled a list of what we believe to be the most important things effective Corporate Affairs practitioners need to know – blending practical lessons, shared wisdom from talented colleagues, and insights that only time and experience can bring.   Some of the points are practical, others are more philosophical, but whether you're at the beginning of your career or le...

Welcome to another meander through the stories, people and events that have caught our attention in the past few weeks. From creating new world championships, to doctored sweets, and the lambasted lollipop man, plus the odd politician or two making an utter idiot of themselves. Our aim here is to discuss the small stuff, in the world of communications and sometimes beyond. That proverbial chat ove...

The Beatles once sang that money can't buy you love. However, spent in the right way, and on the right thing, it would seem it can buy you the attention and potentially even adoration of thousands, nay millions, of people around the world.  How? Sponsorship. Once the process of getting your logo on a shirt, today it's all about stadiums, series, songs, influencers, even causes.  Sponsorship is now...

On this edition of The Little Questions we're joined by Simon French, Chief Economist and Head of Research at Panmure Liberum.    In a wide ranging conversation, we discuss how recent macro-economic events are impacting corporate reputation. Topics we cover include how corporate affairs teams should approach navigating such an uncertain environment; why you still need to listen to your maths teach...

The world is in turmoil, so it feels like it's the right time for the PR professionals to get involved. It also feels like the right time to use Lenin's famous quote – "there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen". We have plenty of ground to cover on this edition of The Little Questions including Birmingham's bins, British steel, dead things (you'll find out...

By rights, the fly-on-the-wall workplace documentary should have died a death the moment The Office became a hit. At that time, BBC shows like Airport, set in Heathrow, and Life of Grime about environmental health workers attracted cult followings with their often banal interviews, wobbly camerawork and acerbic voiceover narrations. Ricky Gervais' masterpiece took these stylistic devices and turne...

Until the late 1980s, if the subject of engagement was raised at work, it was usually to sign a card and chuck in a quid for Terry in Accounts who'd just popped the question to Mandy in the typing pool. This all changed in the mid 1990s when workplace academics began to opine on the idea that people could become engaged in their work. Fast forward a few years and a whole plethora of large consulta...

Trump is back. And back with a bang. Be it old age or the fog of Covid but Little Questions had forgotten quite how discombobulating the stream of consciousness from the 47th President of the United States really is.  From waking up in the morning wondering, what has he said or done now, to then trying to work out what he meant, and if the latest u-turn was a u-turn or not. All before the coffee h...

You can picture the scene - you have spent the last three months speaking to your ExCom and corporate finance team about your company's biggest acquisition to date. This will fundamentally transform the shape and operations of the company, you are raising a large equity and debt package to finance the deal, and your leaders are excited about this next stage for the company. Then, the dreaded happe...

2025 marks our 4th year providing hopefully useful snippets of wisdom for all things Comms, Corporate Affairs and PR-related. Given the New Year, we decided to look forward and consider who has some of the trickiest Comms challenges in 2025 and given, we're also solution-focused, how we'd go about fixing them. Some of the organisations and subjects in our Little Questions crosshairs this time incl...