The Unseen Decay of Content Marketing
Content marketing is dead. I got an email this week that PROVES it. Look! The race to the bottom is unwinnable, but plenty of providers are trying to do so anyway. This email reminds me of the moment that I knew crypto was over. Months before conventional wisdom pronounced crypto dead, I was waiting in […]
A Call to End Digital Pollution
The environment… Human rights… Democratic values… Content… They have one thing in common. They’re collapsing. And it’s our collective fault. I wish I had better answers for the first three. But even if I did, no one is asking me to be emperor. What people ARE asking me is to help with “better” content. They’re […]
A Plea for Better Video Conversations
I know… we are somehow “supposed to” do video now, but seriously…if you have to, please stop chewing your camera. I don’t want to sit here watching you come at me like I’m a ghost and you’re a Pac-Man that just ate power pellets. No chomping, no chasing. Just conversation. Relax. Tell me something good. […]
The Anti-Intellectual Cult of Writing Advice
Too much writing advice is just good old-fashioned tent-revival anti-intellectual crap. Writing experts intone their points with the cynical piety of anyone who broadcasts truisms—cynical because it positions those experts as having the solution to redeem people from their doomed attempts at thinking. I’m old enough to remember when dogma dictated we should write for […]
Balancing Innovation and Advocacy
Startups in B2B are justifiably very focused on being in “build mode.” But they shouldn’t lose sight of how to be in “communicate mode” as well. Many founders are not even naturally inclined to be vocal advocates. But when you’re innovating, you also have to be a clear voice on why the problem you are […]
The Power of Thought Leadership for High-Stakes Decisions
One thing B2B marketers often get wrong—they use generic, mass-market tactics for small-to-mid-sized businesses when their buyers are large enterprises. They put traffic ahead of trust. This mistake seems more common among smaller and newer providers, but it happens elsewhere, too. The thing is, the buying decision for a high-stakes, high-ticket purchase doesn’t work like […]
Attracting the Right Audience Through Your Approach
How you do marketing reveals a lot about what you value and how you see other people. It also sends signals about how your company views and treats others—above and beyond the surface-level messaging in your marketing collateral. And finally, those signals attract like-minded, similarly oriented prospects. Market with big ideas, focused on advancing the […]
AI Content Creation: Good Enough vs. Crafted Communication
Using AI to create is just fine for creating content that only needs to be “good enough.” I recently used a tool that automatically assembles stock video clips based on keywords in a given script. Clips are well-rendered, transitions are smooth, the background music and automated voiceover are fine. A videographer or professional editor would […]
Unmasking the Battle for Genuine Communication in a Formulaic Content World
A few thoughts about generative AI and LinkedIn “bros.”* * LI bros: Heavy LI posters (essentially always men of a certain generation) who promise to 10x everything, and provide you with frameworks, templates, courses, etc. ** Heat death: A hypothetical end state of any system, up to and including the Universe, in which energy is […]
Disagreement Should Not Be Upsetting
Disagreement should not be upsetting. I come from an academic background where people could disagree in public vehemently and then go out for collegial dinner and drinks afterward. Not as an exception but as a norm. It’s just how debate happened when people had different approaches to a text or topic. Of course, there were […]