The Trending Communicator
In today's hyper-accelerated communications world, keeping up means juggling reputation, brand building, crisis management, storytelling, and more, all 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 our profession today, with experts sharing real stories and strategies for making a mark in communications. 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.
The Trending Communicator with Dan Nestle
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.
New to The Trending Communicator?
Aug. 8, 2025
PR is a Leadership Strategy - with Kristel Valaydon
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 industry and 15 years developing her approach, Kristel challenges the
Aug. 22, 2025
PR is Juggling Knives on Fire While Riding a Unicycle - with Abenaa Hayes
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) Hayes , founder and CEO of Elysee Consulting , who's been perfecting
Sept. 5, 2025
Why This Former CCO Became Your Comms BFF Instead - with Gab Ferree
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 better than reporting to the CEO, and how to stop asking for a seat at
Sept. 19, 2025
Playstorm: Why Your CEO Needs to Get Dirty with AI - with Sandy Carter
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 to every power list that matters (CNN's Top 10 Most Powerful Wom
Oct. 3, 2025
Beyond the Seat at the Table: Leading Corporate Affairs at Scale - with Megan Noel
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 role is a fundamental reimagining of what communications does. M
Oct. 17, 2025
Expertise is Not Authority: Authority is the Expertise People Seek You Out For - with Amanda Russell
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 UCLA's first fully accredited influencer marketing program. Ama
Oct. 31, 2025
How AI Changes Your Customers and Why You Must Change Too - with Mark Schaefer
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 happening as AI reshapes human agency, empathy, purpose, and trust. Th
March 2, 2026
Naming is Storytelling, Just Harder - with Scott Milano
Everyone thinks they can name things. Toss some words around in a brainstorm, pick the one that sounds right, hope it passes trademark. But naming done right is storytelling compressed to its most essential form, and getting it wrong costs more than most organizations want to admit. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle reunites with Scott Milano , founder and managing director of Tanj , one of the world's top naming agencies, and the man who has named more than 1,000 bra
June 19, 2026
You're the Top of the AI Sandwich - with Brian Piper and Matt Wilkinson
If AI writes a better prompt than you can now, what are you still being paid for? In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle is joined by two of his closest collaborators, Brian Piper , content and AI integration consultant and co-author of Epic Content Marketing Volume 2, and Dr. Matt Wilkinson , founder of UK agency Strivenn and author of the forthcoming Buyer in the Loop. A month earlier, the three shared a stage at Mark Schaefer's Uprising retreat, building one marketing p
Recent Episodes
June 19, 2026
You're the Top of the AI Sandwich - with Brian Piper and Matt Wilkinson
If AI writes a better prompt than you can now, what are you still being paid for? In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle is joined by two of his closest collaborators, Brian Piper , content and AI integration consultant and co-author of Epic Content Marketing Volume 2, and Dr. Matt Wilkinson , founder of UK agency Strivenn and author of the forthcoming Buyer in the Loop. A month earlier, the three shared a stage at Mark Schaefer's Uprising retreat, building one marketing p
June 5, 2026
AI Forward, Not AI First - with Brian McHale
Plenty of companies have bolted AI onto how they already work and called it transformation. Far fewer have rebuilt the business around it. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle talks with Brian McHale , CEO and owner of Brandience , who bought a struggling traditional ad agency back in 2008 and spent the better part of two decades quietly rebuilding it around AI. His shop now runs eight AI agents for every human employee, cut prospect research from 45 minutes to under 10,
May 22, 2026
Open your AI Authenticity Loop - with Allison Shapira
Authenticity might be the most abused word in business today. Every AI tool promises to preserve it. Every leadership guru sells it as a brand pillar. And the more it gets thrown around, the less it actually means. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Allison Shapira — founder and CEO of Global Public Speaking , Harvard Kennedy School lecturer, regular HBR contributor, and author of AI for the Authentic Leader: How to Communicate More Effectively Without L
May 8, 2026
The AI-Enabled Archivist and the End of Corporate Amnesia - with Jason Dressel
Companies are racing to stuff AI into everything. They're also throwing away the only thing that would make their AI actually useful. Decades of institutional memory, hard-won lessons, the stories baked into the bones of the organization, all left in a box labeled "archive" and forgotten. Then everyone wonders why the LLM keeps hallucinating. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Jason Dressel , CEO of History Factory and host of the History Factory Podcast
April 24, 2026
Your Adult Brain Is Your Last Unfair Advantage - with Dr. Michael Netzley
The story you've been told about your aging brain is wrong. Strategic attention peaks in your late 50s. Innovative cognition in your early 60s. Integrative reasoning around 62. Meanwhile, AI keeps commoditizing the very capabilities younger workers were supposed to dominate — speed, information processing, rapid adaptation. The math has shifted. Human judgment, the thing the midlife brain actually does best, may be the last unfair advantage left. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, hos
April 10, 2026
Judgment Is the New Advantage - with Bo Breuklander
AI transformation isn't a strategy problem. It's a leadership problem. And until CEOs and boards stop asking for an AI strategy and start asking for a change management strategy, most organizations are going to keep spinning their wheels. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle sits down with Bo Breuklander , founder of Breuklander Communications , ProSci-certified change practitioner, and professor of PR and media writing at the University of Tampa. Bo spent 16 years in co
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About the Host
Dan Nestle
Chief Curiosity Officer
Dan is an award-winning communications executive and communications technology leader, podcaster, and author. Named to the PRWeek Magazine Dashboard25 in 2023 and 2024, he is recognized among his peers as one of the top 25 "movers and shakers" in communications technology. In both his work and podcast conversations, Dan has proven expertise in corporate communications, communications technology (CommsTech), Generative AI, integrated marketing communications, content marketing, social media strategy, and brand storytelling. He's also a co-author (with Mark Schaefer and 33 friends) and co-editor of The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever.
As host of The Trending Communicator, Dan will continue to hold conversations that satisfy his learning mindset and what has been called his "unearthly curiosity" - a formidable, if somewhat unpredictable, combination. You can expect great conversations about trends, tools, and platforms that enhance communication, encourage conversation, and foster person-to-person relationships.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Dan spent 16 years in Japan and speaks Japanese. Married to an amazing woman for a few decades now, he and his wife are proud parents of two incredible daughters and paw-rents of two loveable hounds.