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20 Dec 2011
Experts gives their views on the changes facing thought leadership
I asked 12 people who I consider to be leading global commentators on thought leadership as well as those who have produced some amazing thought leadership programs in-house over the years to comment on four critical thought leadership questions for 2012.
Inspired by their answers I couldn’t help chipping in with my own thoughts.
As a result of the overwhelmingly positive response, I have split the interviews into four different posts – one post per question. In the New Year I will make available an e book containing all the answers.
Interviewees include: Bob Buday, Erica Klein, David Meerman Scott, Jeff Ernst, Rob Leavitt, Britton Manasco, Dana van den Heuvel, Matt Church, Fiona Czerniawska, Dale Bryce, Elizabeth Sosnow, Marte Semb Aaasmundsen and me.
This post covers their answers to question one:
Question one: What will be the single biggest change we will see in thought leadership over the coming year/s?
Bob Buday, president of Bloom Group LLC, a firm that helps professional services and other B2B companies gain market leadership through thought leadership (http://www.bloomgroup.com)
“I’m not sure there will be any one major change in thought leadership in the coming year. I believe we’ll continue to see small changes in the ways that current and aspiring experts create and market their ideas.
“Social media will continue to give us ways to more easily conduct research (to find organizations to study), as well as more easily spread our ideas. However, I don’t ever expect social media to supplant the old ways of gaining expertise on an issue (talking by phone and in person to people who have dealt with the issue at hand) and sharing that expertise with audiences (seminars, books,
whether online or print, management journals, online or print).“So while I’m dubious that we will see a major change in the next year in the way companies create and market content to educate their target audiences, I do expect to see a fundamental change in thought leadership over the course of this decade, and I hope sooner rather than later.
“The change I’m expecting is that organizations (especially firms that sell expertise) will see the emerging discipline of thought leadership not just as a marketing initiative but also as a service innovation initiative. By far, the largest return that companies can generate from thought leadership comes from not just displaying expertise on an issue but actually having superior services that
help clients solve the issue. I wrote about this in 2011 in a blog post ( http://bloomgroup.com/blogs/bob-buday/do-thought-leadership-marketing-and-knowledge-management-relate).“This is not the way most firms look at and use thought leadership today. A handful of consultants may write an article or book based on some research and client work. But they then typically use the article and book to generate more such work – not more internal capability in their organizations to deliver more such work.
“Using thought leadership as R&D for service innovation is the Holy Grail of thought leaders. As more and more professional services work – architectural and engineering designs, consulting services, legal advice, accounting work, etc. – moves to locations that can provide that expertise at far lower cost, professional firms whose services aren’t fundamentally unique and superior at
delivering results won’t be able to maintain their fees. Thought leadership, then, becomes the mechanism for de-commoditizing a commodity service.”Erica Klein, Thought Leadership Writer and Strategist Specializing in Financial and Technology Companies (http://www.ThoughtLeadershipWriter.com)
“I believe each company that recognizes the value of thought leadership will begin to develop a strategic blueprint that integrates these programs into the overall framework of their business development and marketing efforts.
“I also think you’ll see more of an attempt to integrate LinkedIn individual profile pages with company-wide thought leadership initiatives, significantly increasing the impact of these programs over the long term.”
Matt Church, founder of the Global Thought Leaders Movement and creator of the Million Dollar Expert Program. He is the author of 5 books including Thought Leaders and his latest Sell Your Thoughts (http://www.mattchurch.com)
“The need for those who are true thought leaders to be able to prove that depth of expertise in an efficient manner. Many will claim the title of thought leader but the challenge is for those who are to be as equally obsessed with the development of IP as they are in the promotion of same.”
Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR a business-to-business strategic public relations and marketing communications firm based in New York City (http://www.blisspr.com)
“We expect the biggest change to occur in the formatting of thought leadership. Companies are slowly beginning to recognize that
traditional thought leadership packages such as “white papers” or “POV pieces” may not be nimble enough to survive in today’s highly cluttered marketplace.“Winners will embrace an exciting array of design opportunities, from e-books to cartoons and even songs.”
Jeff Ernst, is the Principal Analyst, serving CMO and Marketing Leadership Professionals at Forrester Research and is probably best described as a thought leader in B2B marketing and sales strategy (http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jeff_ernst)
“Companies will get frustrated that even their most compelling thought leadership ideas/Point of Views get lost in the noise in the
market and don’t stand out from what everyone else is saying, so they will shift from taking a “random acts of thought leadership” approach (a webinar here, a whitepaper there, a blog post) to a more methodical, orchestrated approach.“This will require them to develop a thought leadership platform in a similar manner to how political candidates develop a campaign platform.”
David Meerman Scott is one of the pre-eminent thought leaders on PR and marketing. He is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of the #1 bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR (which has been published in 26 languages) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Real-Time Marketing & PR. He recently launched his new online book: “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage”. (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/)
“I’m big on real-time thought leadership. By this I mean people or companies that can respond to what’s going on now. For example if there is a regulatory issue impacting their sector, can they comment on it right away?
“I’ve noticed that traditional thought leadership content on the web is very campaign-like in its approach – it’s planned well in advance. There is nothing wrong with that, except that the web is a very now medium and too few companies are taking advantage of this.”
Dale Bryce is the group manager marketing for Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery firm. He has been instrumental in their successful ‘client first’ thought leadership approach (http://www.skmconsulting.com/Home/)
“More will not be more!
“With the proliferation of digital and social media platforms, distribution of thought leadership will be easier. That’s good. But with this, impact could be less unless we keep an eye on quality and intent.
“I have always thought that building and engaging with a select and loyal audience is the main game. Just think of the power of presenting thought leadership as a genuine and tailored gift to a particular client: “We were thinking of you just the other day, and believe this piece here is really relevant to you and your business.”
“Cheesy? It depends on your intent…”
Marte Semb Aasmundsen, graduated this month with her MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications
Management at The University of Stirling in the UK. Her thesis was on thought leadership.“I believe that thought leadership is the future of communication and reputation management.
“More and more companies have begun, and will continue, to realize the potential of the strategy; the competition within the thought leadership realm will thus be intensified and as a result, the message will need to become more sophisticated.
“Thought leadership initiatives lacking substance will no longer be recognized as thought leadership.
“I also think that the strategy will be more recognized globally, which opens up the opportunities for cross-cultural thought leadership.”
Britton Manasco is the founder of Manasco Marketing Partners which specializes in creating thought leadership marketing and sales enablement solutions. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog Illuminating the Future and the executive journal, Elevation Quarterly. (http://www.brittonmanasco.com/)
“I spend most of my time working in the B2B arena, particularly with companies engaged in a complex sale. With regard to that type of company, I am seeing a definite focus on how to empower sales (as opposed to simply marketing) with thought leadership. So, I will venture that it’s a significant trend: positioning sales people as thought leaders and trusted authorities.
“To become thought leaders, they must also be challengers – individuals who have the confidence and perspective to challenge the buyer’s status quo thinking.
“They must offer a new point of view – a new angle on things. They must be, in essence, provocateurs. And they must be prepared to guide their prospective clients through a complex and demanding decision.”
Rob Leavitt is a B2B marketing strategist, specializing in issues-based marketing. He is currently Director of Thought Leadership at PTC, a $1 billion enterprise software firm. (http://www.reputationtorevenue.com/)
“I think we’ll see another whole wave of thought leadership development and marketing.
“Clearly thought leadership has gained tremendous interest, support, and investment in the last few years, but we’re still very early in a maturity cycle. Many companies are still getting a basic foundation in place in terms of defining issues to address, creating a publication engine, enlisting subject matter experts, and testing the social media waters.
“All this is critical, but much of it is not actual “thought leadership” if by this term we literally mean “leading thoughts.”
“Many of us producing useful, non-promotional, educational content, but examples of more innovative and ground-breaking thinking is more rare, and requires far more investment, discipline, and experience.
“As more of us get past the foundation stage, I expect a great deal more innovative work in next few years.”
Fiona Czerniawska is one of the foremost global authorities on thought leadership, particularly in the management consultancy space. She is the co-founder of Source, a company specialising in researching the consulting industry (http://www.sourceforconsulting.com)
“There are lots of things I’d like to see change but am not sure will actually happen: seeing consulting firms produce less, but higher quality thought leadership and pulling more of their output around a small number of over-arching themes would both be high up my agenda, but that’s hard to achieve in an environment where volume still matters.
“I would also like to see firms being more thoughtful in their use of different digital formats and social media for thought leadership purposes, rather than the pretty random experimentation that’s the norm at the moment. But I do think that 2012 will prove to be the year in which a minority of consulting firms will stand out in their ability to use these formats/media much more
effectively.”Dana VanDen Heuvel is a marketing consultant, author and speaker. He is a recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS, Internet communities and interactive marketing trends and best practices as well as thought leadership (http://www.marketingsavant.com/)
“I believe that marketers are realizing that thought leadership is really a ”supply side” construct, and in order to ensure that our thought leadership efforts are valid in the marketplace, we need to take a “demand side” approach and focus not only on what makes for great thought leadership, but rather what makes for great “attention leadership” where we’re attracting and maintaining the attention of our audience over time.”
Craig Badings – author of this blog and the book “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership”, and a consultant at Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications.
“We will see more sophistication in terms of focus, how thought leadership is researched, how it is targeted, packaged and presented and how it is integrated into the sales process.
“Cloud computing will also present a big opportunity in showcasing and ordering intellectual property but this will be a longer term play.
“Finally I think thought leadership will continue to gain traction as a strategic business tool as opposed to a pure communications/ marketing tool.”
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