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Doug Simon is the Founder & CEO at D S Simon Media. D S Simon Media is a recognized innovator in broadcast public relations and the creator of the industry’s first AI-Powered Broadcast Media Tour™. Since the start of COVID, the firm has scheduled and produced more than 5,000 media segments annually, further establishing itself as a category leader. Clients include top brands in healthcare, technology, travel, financial services, food and beverage, consumer goods, entertainment, retail, and non-profits. Established in 1986, the firm has won more than 100 industry awards.
TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: Rina, it’s great to have you on the program, and obviously, AI is top of mind, but it also can be top of mind for risk management. Are you seeing any changes to how you approach risk management because of AI?
RINA: Thank you first for having me on. I’m so excited to be here. You know there’s a lot happening with AI. Everything from deepfakes, right? We’re seeing a lot of that. And that’s continued for years, but now it’s just so available for people. So, from a risk standpoint, making sure that people have that scenario in their back pocket of what to do when that happens. And equally as of late, I mean, you’re seeing statements right from companies that are created on AI that are very quick to get out of the gate. And so, from a risk standpoint and an organizational standpoint, if you don’t have something ready and you’re not planning for those scenarios, you’re already behind, right? So, those are just a couple of things that we’re seeing.
DOUG: Yeah. So, AI can help with risk management. Do you see it in that quick response capability?
RINA: Yes. I mean, I also see it in just being able to assess emerging situations and issues, too. The ability to have something that can scan social listening, can scan sentiment analysis, and can help with pattern recognition is really where AI can be extremely helpful for risk and for just scenario planning, stress testing messages, and things like that, too, you know, you can really understand if the tone is right. What are the watchouts when I have this message? What are the different risks that I have from even just a message testing standpoint?
DOUG: Yeah. So, what are some of the other ways that communicators can protect their own reputations?
RINA: Reputation is all that we have, both ourselves as well as an organization. And so, preparation, I always say, is first and foremost. So, you have to be prepared, and what that looks like in action is scenario planning. It looks like I’m anticipating risk, using AI to help you understand what are the risks that are out there. It also means helping leaders think about how decisions should be made, not just what the decision is, but what are those frameworks in place that help them to make decisions? So, when the time comes, and there is a risky situation or there is a crisis, you’re already prepared, and you have those different frameworks and things in your back pocket.
DOUG: Yeah. You’ve touched on some of the solutions. Are there some additional mistakes that might be common, ones that communicators and brands need to avoid?
RINA: So, some of the mistakes that I often see is one waiting too long, right? And so, they say, oh let’s just see how this plays out. That’s not something that we recommend, or we want to do, right? We have an opportunity. If there’s a narrative that’s already out there, look at it as an opportunity and fill that gap. We should also be building reputation proactively so that you’re not in a situation where you’re kind of having to backpedal. You’ve already built reputational capital. And so, a lot of times, I don’t see companies building that capital and being proactive with their efforts. Another common mistake that I see is with legal, and leaning too heavily into the legal side. We love our legal friends. We love to work with them, but at the same time, there’s a human element.
DOUG: Do you stand by regarding legal? “We love to work with them”.
RINA: I do. I honestly really do love their perspective that they that, you know, is brought there, I think, is truly, truly valuable. And at the same time, we’re both there for a common goal. It’s to manage risk so that the organization doesn’t get into issues and trouble, right? And so, it’s just how the approaches go after it. There has to be a balance, right? And so, I truly do love legal, I think they bring such a good perspective, but we have to work together for the common goal.
DOUG: That makes sense. Now the stakes have gotten higher than they’ve probably ever been, or so it seems. And things can change so rapidly. How do you suggest communicators can manage their own fear while they’re guiding others? And you seem to be someone who’s more ray of sunshine than gloomy cloud, but how can people sort of manage their own fear apart from just being, like, fearlessly upbeat?
RINA: Yeah, I mean, I love the topic of fear. So, I just spoke at PRSA ICON and spoke about the fear factor. And so one of the things that I told folks is that at the end of the day, you have to recognize fear in yourself, and you have to be aware. If you’re not even aware of it, then that’s where you get into trouble with just, you know, it clouds your judgment, and you just get to rash decision making. So, first and foremost, just understand and recognize, hey, this situation is a little scary for me. It’s something new. And first, you have to name it. You have to notice it in yourself. And then you have to be able to navigate it. And what navigation looks like for communicators is breathing. I think a lot of times, we’re in this situation where we’re going, going, going we’re, you know, we’re with leadership. We’re doing all this stuff, especially in a high-stakes moment, and we ourselves forget to just take a minute to just breathe and to regroup and ourselves and to slow the situation down, right? And so, just simple tactics like that can really help to manage fear when you understand how it sort of manifests in yourself. And then from a tactical standpoint, it’s frameworks. It’s having the process. It’s all the readiness that you did before. So, then you know, okay, you know what? I’ve done this. I have the playbook. I have the frameworks. I can do this. And having that narrative in your head is just critically important.
DOUG: Yeah. And I find sometimes the decision can be not to have a response, but there’s a huge difference between not having a response and a decision not to respond
RINA: 100%. Silence is a strategy when it’s used as a strategy.
DOUG: How do you sort of delve into what the risk factors might be? Do you find clients already know, or sometimes they’re not necessarily aware?
RINA: Yes. I think that generally they have a good idea of, okay, these are our high risks, right? But some of these nuanced risks are really where we can come in and help you see those watchouts based on what we’re seeing, what the market is saying, and your particular market, right? And that outside perspective, it is really what the difference is. And then just in terms of, you know, thinking and what we’re seeing, reputation is going to continue to be so important and treating it as a business asset, right? At the end of the day, reputation is what helps you with job seekers. People want to work in your organization if you have a great reputation. And so having communicators who understand the business bottom-line impact of what we’re doing is going to be critically important going into 2026. Well, now that we’re in it, right? It’s going to continue to be just such a huge asset, talking about the value of what we do and why it is important to the C-suite.
DOUG: Yeah. And circling back to AI, because everything does circle back to AI these days. That’s one of the things we’re seeing with the AI-Powered Broadcast Media Tour™ that we’re doing, which is first identifying what people are really asking? What are they thinking? What are they curious about? And now you’re actually able to understand what they’re asking through all these platforms, which can be very informative regarding a strategy.
RINA: What do people do when they go to ChatGPT or Perplexity or Claude, right? And they ask about your organization, what’s coming up there, and making sure that you know what that is, because all factors into the reputation of your organization and the risks that you have.
DOUG: Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
RINA: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.
