Restoring Trust in Marketing
Marketing may have a seat at the table in business strategy discussions, but most of the time, it seems to have a whoopie cushion on it. However, it’s not the fault of individual marketers. Almost without exception, marketers are thoughtful, creative leaders and contributors. They care deeply about their business’s outcomes and customers. Nevertheless, marketing […]
New Year, New Light: Replacing Resolutions
We all know that resolutions don’t work. But what’s the alternative? Ten years ago, I decided to stop making New Year’s resolutions and replace them with annual themes. Instead of a Resolution… The phrase “annual theme” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as “new year’s resolution,” but choosing a theme for the year […]
Graceful Vision and Graceful Ethics (A Manifesto for Thought Leaders)
All too often, we content marketers get stuck working in the trenches. We stop noticing the stenches. Yet, grace gives us a way out. Ugh, The Stench! Digital channels for content marketing have become open digital sewers. We know it. We can smell it. We experience the stink and waste in multiple ways, but it […]
Pilgrims, Thought Leaders, and Reunion
From Reboot to Reunion Jerry Colonna asks hard questions. In his earlier book, Reboot, he asks leaders how we have been complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t want. It is a kind, generous, and loving question that invites us to use tools of radical self-inquiry to become better leaders. Now, in Reunion, he broadens […]
What the French?
Career Change in a Changing World People often ask me how I got from a PhD in French literature to founding and running a thought leadership agency for institutional finance. It’s one of my favorite stories to tell—not because it’s about me, but because it’s about transformation and resilience. It’s about taking what you have, […]
Thought Readership: Escaping the Content Cage
Big Content has failed us. It emerged when content became a separate marketing specialization. But then, discipline became dogma. Talk about content devolved into truisms and slogans. Bromides and misconceptions. But perhaps worst of all, it pulled content away from its fundamental direction, serving intermediaries rather than writers or readers. It’s no wonder that so […]
Thought Leadership and Grace
What is “graceful” thought leadership? The answer is buried in the name “thought leadership.” If there’s no thinking and it leads nowhere, it won’t work—especially when a growing content glut swamps decision-makers’ attention and steadily teaches them it’s most likely a waste of time. What am I doing talking about grace? Everybody likes to talk […]