About me
Hi, the fact that you’ve visited this site means that you are interested in thought leadership – my passion.
On this site you’ll find interviews with some thought leaders who share some practical tips on what it took to get there. Interviewees include: David Meerman Scott, Ken Blanchard, Bernard Salt, Howard Gardner, Gary Bertwistle and Dana van den Heuvel to mention a few.
You will also find heaps of useful information about the steps you can take to become a thought leader, the definition of thought leadership, how to evolve a thought leadership strategy if you are a business, the benefits of thought leadership, the importance of content and content curation, great thought leadership insights from various gurus from around the globe, how to take your thought leadership to market as well as some case studies.
Hi, my name is Craig Badings and I have spent the past 22 years consulting to small and large brands about their public relations challenges. It has only been over the last 5 years that I have developed a deep interest and fascination with the topic, thought leadership. Feel free to download my e book at the top right of the home page and I’d welcome your follow on twitter @thoughtstrategy or you can join me on LinkedIn.
Mu interest in thought leadership started when I witnessed its power when used as a strategic business tool. My view is that anyone can be a thought leader as long as they put in the time, they have new insights, points of view to share and they are able to package and communicate it effectively to their target audience.
While thought leadership is my passion, by day I am a director at Sydney-based corporate and financial PR consultancy, Cannings Corporate Communications, a member of the ASX-listed, STW Group Ltd, Australia’s largest communications services group.
But thisis a long way from where I started – as an English teacher at a Johannesburg school, Sandown High in the 1980s.
As much as I loved being in the classroom and on the sportsfield engaging with young, exciting minds, after two year of teaching, I decided to enter the world of public relations. It was, in my blood. My Mom had been in the PR business ever since I could remember mainly in her own business.
I started out in PR with South Africa’s largest PR company, Simeka TWS Communications. My very first account was Durex and without realising it , I was involved in some pretty early thought leadership work. We engaged with the leading Professor on the topic of HIV Aids at the time, Prof Ruben Sher, and we were reaching out to and engaging with the various Sangoma (witchdoctor) organisations in order to gain a deeper understanding of the issues impacting their patients lives, their views on HIV Aids and how we could advocate more regular use of condoms and share information with them.
After a four year stint in the Johannesbur office, I was transfered to my home town, Cape Town to head up the office. After almost a decade with the company it was time for a new challenge and I launched my own PR agency, Rainmaker Public Relations.
Two exciting years later Rainmaker was bought out by London-based PR multinational, Citigate. I headed up the PR division of Citigate South Africa and one year before emigrating to Australia, was appointed managing director of Citigate’s Cape Town PR, advertising and design agencies.
In 2003, I moved to Australia with my family and after a brief stint with Kreab Gavin Anderson joined one of the Ogilvy Public Relations brands, Savage & Partners in Sydney before it merged with Cannings.
Once again please download my e book at the top right of the home page. I’d also welcome your follow on twitter @thoughtstrategy or you can join me on LinkedIn.
55 Responses to “About me”
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At least one of the Cape Town mates is destined for fame. Good luck.
Thanks for your words of support Colin – fame may be a bit of a stretch though…
Excellent book (and a great author!) lets hope it really takes off – it should!
Lovely that’s what we like to hear…
Congratulations Craig, how exciting and wishing you good luck
Congratulations Craig, it looks like a very interesting and well researched book which every PR Consultancy should have on their shelves.
Thanks Annie, of course I couldn’t agree more but always better if somebody else says it. See you soon. Will be in SA from 18-29 Sept and will bring a few copies of the book with me.
Cheers
Craig
Great post..will bookmark this..thanks
Thanks appreciate your feedback.
Rather wonderful post, definitely enlightening information. Never ever considered I’d discover the tips I need right here. I have been looking all over the net for a while now and was starting to get irritated. Thankfully, I stumbled onto your site and acquired exactly what I had been browsing for.
Laureen, I’m delighted to hear that. Hopefully now that you’ve found me I can deliver even more tips and insights on thought leadership over the coming months. Cheers Craig
That is teriffic and really well thought out.Usually I do not ever make posts on on the internet, but I have to say that this site really forced me to do so. Really great piece of advice
Hopefully I can help again and thanks for making a comment.
Craig, i am continually amazed at the light you bring to the world. Having been my personal mentor for over 10 years at Rainmaker PR and Citigate SA, i remain in awe of your wisdom and knowledge. Thank you for now parting your wisdom and knowledge to the world. I expected nothing less. You just are the best! Wendy
Flattery will get you everywhere Wendy. I must have done something right in my past life. Thank you.
Craig, i am continually amazed at the light you bring to the world. Having been my personal mentor for over 10 years at Rainmaker PR and Citigate SA, i remain in awe of your wisdom and knowledge. Thank you for now imparting your wisdom and knowledge to the world. I expected nothing less. You just are the best! Wendy
You have always been doing something right in this life. Just keep on doing it! Wendy
Have you ever considered adding more videos to your blog posts to keep the readers more entertained? I mean I just read through the entire article of yours and it was quite good but since I’m more of a visual learner,I found that to be more helpful well let me know how it turns out
Ronny, I have but it’s just a time thing and getting myself organised. You’re right I should give it a go. Thanks for the prompt.
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post
Great post! I am just starting out in community management/marketing media and trying to learn how to do it well – resources like this article are incredibly helpful. As our company is based in the US, it?s all a bit new to us. The example above is something that I worry about as well, how to show your own genuine enthusiasm and share the fact that your product is useful in that case.
I have been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.
You have a great Blog here Mate. Love your content very informative, Please keep up the good work.
Thanks always love positive feedback.
That’s really kind of you, thank you very much
Excellent, I hope some of the thoughts in the blog help you with your thought leadership.
Great to hear, thanks
No chance to go back for the World cup?
Mark would have loved to but too much on at the moment, in fact so much I haven’t got around to blogging for ages. Feeling very guilty.
Cheers Craig
Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.
Hi there could I reference some of the information from this post if I reference you with a link back to your site?
Really informative article.Really thank you! Fantastic.
Hi I have been reading your blog for the past two weeks and it is interesting, do you have a RSS feed?
Great tips! As a relatively new blogger, I don’t get many comments, but it’s so exciting when I do! I will definately try your tips. Thanks!
Thanks, let me know if they help.
Thanks, the RSS feed is top right of the blog.
Thanks for the feedback Jonathan
You’re welcome to do that.
Thanks very much. New post going up today.
Your blog is so informative … keep up the good work!!!!
Just want to say your article is striking. The clarity in your post is simply striking and i can take for granted you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the ac complished work. Excuse my poor English. English is not my mother tongue.
It doesn’t matter that English isn’t your mother tongue, I’m glad you found it informative.
Thanks very much
I had some problems viewing the website in Firefox on Linux, but I still loved the post.
Good, thanks for the feedback.
[...] 1. Craig Badings nicely assembles several definitions of what thought leadership is, and he invites everyone to contribute their own ideas in the comments. I particularly like the one he plucked from RainToday: “You cannot go after a market without something authentic and valuable to offer, without something spun from the passion you hold for your area of expertise…” [...]
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don¡¯t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading.
Thanks Mel
I really like your blog and i really appreciate the excellent quality content you are posting here for free for your online readers. Can you tell us which blog platform you are using?
Thanks Gordon, it’s WordPress